WEBVTT NOTE 9. The Invasion of Canada 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Volume 4, Chapter 9, The Invasion of Canada 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:13.000 While Washington busied himself with crippling the morale of the American Army before Boston, other American forces were not idle. 3 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:19.000 We have seen that promptly upon seizing Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point, 4 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:28.000 Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold both pressed upon Congress the urgency of seizing the northern British base in Canada. 5 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:34.480 in Canada. They realized the necessity of speed. The British commander in Canada, General 6 00:00:34.480 --> 00:00:41.480 Guy Carlton, his troops depleted to aid General Gage in Boston, had only two foot regiments 7 00:00:42.200 --> 00:00:48.660 and two artillery companies to defend the entire region. Speed was also needed to take 8 00:00:48.660 --> 00:00:54.400 advantage of spring and summer weather. There were Americans who supported a prompt strike 9 00:00:54.400 --> 00:01:00.700 at the British base in Canada. For instance, one of the spark plugs of the blow at Ticonderoga 10 00:01:00.700 --> 00:01:06.640 had been John Brown, a lawyer of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who had been sent as early 11 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:13.400 as February as a secret agent to the Canadians by the Boston Committee of Correspondents 12 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:18.720 to whip up support for the colonial cause. But we have seen that the conservatives in 13 00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:25.440 and the Congress timorously scuttled the plan and even tried to get the Americans to withdraw 14 00:01:25.440 --> 00:01:31.120 from Ticonderoga. They even went so far as to drive the bold and brilliant Arnold and 15 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:39.000 Allen from command. The discontented activist officers at Ticonderoga quickly reacted by 16 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:45.640 sending Ethan Allen and Seth Warner of the Green Mountain Boys as emissaries to the Continental 17 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:52.240 Congress. Apparently, Congress found Allen persuasive, for it promptly recommended to 18 00:01:52.240 --> 00:01:58.920 the New York Provincial Congress that it form the Green Mountain Boys into a ranger regiment 19 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:06.640 with officers of their own choosing. Moreover, four days later, on June 27, Congress finally 20 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:14.600 decided to authorize an invasion of Canada. While the Americans essentially adopted Arnold's 21 00:02:14.600 --> 00:02:21.600 Tactical plan of taking Montreal and then moving on to Quebec. Congress, of course, 22 00:02:21.600 --> 00:02:28.220 did not have the imagination or daring to place such brilliant military radicals as 23 00:02:28.220 --> 00:02:35.560 Arnold or Allen in charge of the expedition against Canada. Instead, command was given 24 00:02:35.560 --> 00:02:42.080 to the man already in charge of the Northern Department at New York. The timorous and conservative 25 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:19.980 The British-born Montgomery had had almost as much military experience in Europe as his 26 00:03:19.980 --> 00:03:27.580 friend Charles Lee or Horatio Gates, and had resigned from the British Army in 1772 to 27 00:03:27.580 --> 00:03:35.320 settle in New York and marry into the Livingston branch of the New York-landed aristocracy. 28 00:03:35.320 --> 00:03:41.520 In vain did he press Schuller to march north. Finally, taking advantage of Schuller's absence 29 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:48.080 at a parley to secure the neutrality of the Iroquois, Montgomery took it upon himself 30 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:54.120 to make the move against Canada at the end of August, a decision in which Schuller, taken 31 00:03:54.120 --> 00:04:01.400 off the hook, readily concurred. General Carlton decided to make his main stand at Fort St. 32 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:07.940 John's on the Richelieu River, north of Lake Champlain, but Schuller lingered defensively 33 00:04:07.940 --> 00:04:27.600 The Great Bulk of the American Expeditionary Force came from Connecticut, the conservative 34 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:34.460 province of New York, as Connecticut's Colonel Hinman said sourly, abounds with officers, 35 00:04:34.460 --> 00:04:41.460 I have not had my curiosity gratified by the sight of one private. While this proved to 36 00:04:41.460 --> 00:04:48.480 be a slight exaggeration, the New Englanders were understandably aggrieved at seeing the 37 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:55.020 New Yorkers fill the major posts and gain lucrative commissary contracts while they 38 00:04:55.020 --> 00:05:00.420 furnished the fighting men. The New Hampshire grant contribution in the meanwhile had been 39 00:05:30.420 --> 00:05:46.420 The Brutal Cashiering of the Magnificent Alan had been accomplished not by his devoted Green 40 00:05:46.420 --> 00:05:53.620 Mountain boys, but by the timorous town elders of the Grant lands, who hated the radical, 41 00:06:23.620 --> 00:06:29.620 of the Revolutionary Cause, and went back to Ticonderoga in hope of a commission. But 42 00:06:29.620 --> 00:06:36.620 Schuler scornfully allowed the hero of Ticonderoga to sign on only as a private. At the siege 43 00:06:37.740 --> 00:06:43.960 of St. John's, General Montgomery put Allen in charge of 30 Connecticut militiamen and 44 00:06:43.960 --> 00:06:50.140 sent him off through the countryside between the Richelieu and Montreal to try to raise 45 00:06:50.140 --> 00:06:57.060 These Canadian volunteers for the cause. John Brown, now a major, and Warner were also sent 46 00:06:57.060 --> 00:07:02.620 around the countryside on similar errands. Repeatedly urging Montgomery to seize St. 47 00:07:02.620 --> 00:07:10.180 John's without delay, Allen managed to raise about 80 Canadians. On September 24, Allen 48 00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:17.260 encountered Brown near Longville, across the St. Lawrence from Montreal. Brown's bold 49 00:07:17.260 --> 00:07:31.260 The third proposal to strike at Montreal with his force of two hundred had been vetoed by Montgomery, so he joined with Allen in a daring plan for a joint surprise strike at that great Canadian port. 50 00:07:31.260 --> 00:07:46.260 They agreed upon an immediate coordinated attack, Brown to cross the river and approach the city from the north, and Allen, his force now grown to a hundred and fifty, to attack simultaneously from the south. 51 00:07:46.260 --> 00:07:55.260 The plan was brilliantly conceived and rested on the mobility and surprise inherent in a guerrilla-style operation. 52 00:07:55.260 --> 00:08:00.260 But Brown unaccountably failed to cross the river as agreed. 53 00:08:00.260 --> 00:08:12.260 The abandoned Allen was left to face an open battle with a superior force of over 30 British regulars and 200 Canadian volunteers. 54 00:08:12.260 --> 00:08:18.980 Furthermore, Alan's men were not trained and loyal Green Mountain boys, and the Canadians 55 00:08:18.980 --> 00:08:26.060 on Alan's flanks fled as soon as the British force surged out of Montreal to do battle. 56 00:08:26.060 --> 00:08:31.700 Alan and the tiny remainder of his force were taken prisoner, with Alan placed in chains 57 00:08:31.700 --> 00:08:38.500 and transported to England. The American's greatest and most daring guerrilla fighter 58 00:08:38.500 --> 00:08:45.500 was removed from the scene. Washington, who was wont to defend in wet nurse his fellow 59 00:08:45.540 --> 00:08:52.540 oligarch Schuller, could only react with near satisfaction to the loss of Allen. Colonel 60 00:08:52.780 --> 00:08:59.780 Allen's misfortune will, I hope, teach a lesson of prudence and subordination to others. 61 00:08:59.780 --> 00:09:09.840 The population of Canada in 1775 numbered approximately 60,000, almost all of them French peasants 62 00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:18.060 or habitants, oppressed alike by the British state-privileged seniors and by the state-privileged 63 00:09:18.060 --> 00:09:20.380 church. 64 00:09:20.380 --> 00:09:28.120 There were only several hundred English Canadians, old subjects, most of them bureaucrats, soldiers, 65 00:09:28.120 --> 00:09:34.640 Merchants engaged in the Montreal fur trade. Naturally, as the Revolutionary War began, 66 00:09:34.640 --> 00:09:40.640 both the British and the Americans tried to woo the Canadians. Equally naturally, the 67 00:09:40.640 --> 00:09:46.960 French Canadians, certain of English and American contempt for their religion and their ethnic 68 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:54.440 origins, had little interest in either party and remained neutral and aloof. 69 00:09:54.440 --> 00:10:00.120 If the Anglo-American record of racial and religious bigotry not prevented the French 70 00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:08.800 Canadians from joining the revolutionary cause, Canada, Quebec, would undoubtedly have become 71 00:10:08.800 --> 00:10:13.240 a fourteenth original state of the United States. 72 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:19.060 The capture of Ethan Allen had considerable influence in swaying the cautious Canadians 73 00:10:19.060 --> 00:10:24.120 and Canadian Indians toward what looked like the winning side. 74 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:30.740 Carlton quickly dissipated any goodwill among the habitants by trying to conscript them 75 00:10:30.740 --> 00:10:37.740 en masse into the army, a draft that the sturdy French refused to obey. Nine hundred new men 76 00:10:38.520 --> 00:10:44.540 thus conscripted swiftly, deserted at a rate of nearly forty a day. 77 00:10:44.540 --> 00:10:50.020 The weather was now turning cold. The many months of American delay were already beginning 78 00:10:50.020 --> 00:11:00.340 The Heavy New England Force was also irrepressibly asserting its individuality and was in a state 79 00:11:00.340 --> 00:11:08.660 near to total mutiny. Montgomery's orders were being blithely disregarded, and he perceptively 80 00:11:08.660 --> 00:11:14.180 testified to the libertarian spirit of his troops, complaining to Shuler that it was 81 00:11:14.180 --> 00:11:20.040 was impossible to command men who carried the spirit of freedom into the field and think 82 00:11:20.040 --> 00:11:26.160 for themselves. In short, the privates are all generals. 83 00:11:26.160 --> 00:11:31.220 Things had begun to look up for the American forces, however. Montgomery's kinsmen, Colonel 84 00:11:31.220 --> 00:11:38.340 James Livingston, managed to maneuver past St. John's and capture Fort Chambley, some 85 00:12:08.340 --> 00:12:38.340 The great victory at St. John's threw Montreal wide open to the American forces, and General Montgomery swiftly pressed his advantage. Carlton escaped with his 150 regulars downriver toward Quebec, the last British stronghold in Canada. On November 13, a citizens' committee surrendered Montreal to the American force. At this time, Montreal was under siege. 86 00:12:38.340 --> 00:12:45.460 At this point, there occurred another of the near-Mises-at-Victory that were to stud this campaign. 87 00:12:45.460 --> 00:12:52.460 Carlton's fleet, sailing down the St. Lawrence, reached American positions at Sorrell, at 88 00:12:52.460 --> 00:12:57.180 the junction of the Richelieu and St. Lawrence Rivers. 89 00:12:57.180 --> 00:13:03.260 Major John Brown managed to dupe the British into believing that Great Cannon was stationed 90 00:13:03.260 --> 00:13:10.260 at Sorel, thus convincing the British fleet to surrender on November 19. Canada could 91 00:13:10.300 --> 00:13:16.540 have been conquered then and there. But the redoubtable Carlton slipped past the American 92 00:13:16.540 --> 00:13:23.540 lines, disguised in peasant costume, and managed to reach Quebec. He reached Quebec just in 93 00:13:23.740 --> 00:13:29.780 time for the British cause. The Americans had decided to strike on two fronts. While 94 00:13:29.780 --> 00:13:35.060 While Schuler and Montgomery were to make for Montreal, another force was to march overland 95 00:13:35.060 --> 00:13:42.180 across an extremely rugged route through Maine following the Kennebec, Dead and Chaudière 96 00:13:42.180 --> 00:13:45.180 Rivers to assault Quebec. 97 00:13:45.180 --> 00:13:51.340 The daring plan for the expedition had been drawn up by the restless Benedict Arnold, who, 98 00:13:51.340 --> 00:13:56.820 having won the support of General Gates, was selected by Washington to lead the expedition 99 00:13:56.820 --> 00:13:58.920 with the rank of Colonel. 100 00:13:58.920 --> 00:14:04.760 The plan was a brilliant one, and Arnold was happily given a free hand, but time was growing 101 00:14:04.760 --> 00:14:05.760 short. 102 00:14:05.760 --> 00:14:12.240 The decision to go forward with the invasion was made in mid-August, and General Winter 103 00:14:12.240 --> 00:14:14.640 was near at hand. 104 00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:19.360 There was no dearth of volunteers for the Arnold expedition from the board and fretting 105 00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:22.040 troops in the army around Boston. 106 00:14:22.040 --> 00:14:28.120 The assembled force of over a thousand men consisted of ten companies of musketeers from 107 00:14:28.120 --> 00:14:35.120 from New England and Three Companies of Backwoods Riflemen from Virginia and Pennsylvania. Working 108 00:14:35.160 --> 00:14:42.160 at breakneck speed, Arnold was able to assemble the troops at Cambridge on September 11. 109 00:14:42.840 --> 00:14:48.340 They set sail for the Kennebec from Newbury Port, Massachusetts on the 19th, reaching 110 00:14:48.340 --> 00:14:55.340 Gardiner on the 22nd. Arnold now organized his army into four divisions, the lead division 111 00:14:55.340 --> 00:15:02.340 The Lead Division of Riflemen under the command of Captain Daniel Morgan, head of the Virginia Rifle Company. 112 00:15:02.340 --> 00:15:10.340 It was Morgan's task to clear a path for the Army through the wilderness over the numerous carrying places. 113 00:15:10.340 --> 00:15:21.340 This giant, burly frontiersman, teamster, and veteran Indian fighter was to prove to be the great guerrilla fighter of the Revolutionary War. 114 00:15:21.340 --> 00:15:29.580 Overcoming incredible difficulties and hardships, Arnold and Morgan led their men to Quebec 115 00:15:29.580 --> 00:15:35.900 in one of the most famous marches in history, ranked by many with xenophones. 116 00:15:35.900 --> 00:15:42.780 But tragically, Lieutenant Colonel Roger Ennis, in charge of the rearguard division, decided 117 00:15:42.780 --> 00:15:49.860 to betray his post at the end of October and took his force back home, absconding also 118 00:15:49.860 --> 00:15:58.660 with the bulk of the scarce remaining food. Ennis's defection subtracted 300 crucial men 119 00:15:58.660 --> 00:16:03.380 from the expedition, a loss that might well have spelled the difference between victory 120 00:16:03.380 --> 00:16:10.500 and defeat. Still, Arnold and his gallant 700 might have taken Quebec. They arrived 121 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:16.620 at Point Lévis across the St. Lawrence from Quebec on November 9. The city was weakly 122 00:17:16.620 --> 00:17:23.620 in Montreal, he could join Arnold with only 300, making a total American force of 1,000 123 00:17:24.620 --> 00:17:31.620 before Quebec. Montgomery and Arnold now found themselves besieging a city where 1,800 men 124 00:17:32.620 --> 00:17:38.660 had been mobilized, and with soldiers whose terms of service expired at the end of the 125 00:17:38.660 --> 00:17:45.140 year. The Americans were therefore forced to strike quickly, but the number of men was 126 00:17:45.140 --> 00:18:15.140 Two columns struck at Quebec on the night of December 30. Trying desperately to rally his column, the gallant Montgomery was cut down. The rest of the force promptly retreated in a rout, despite efforts of the brilliant young volunteer, Captain Aaron Burr, son of the president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton, and the president of the University of New Jersey at Princeton. 127 00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:45.140 to Rally the Troops. The collapse of the Montgomery Column left the British free to concentrate on Colonel Arnold's force. Arnold was wounded in the attack. But Morgan, taking command, braved countless bullets and crashed the barrier. Morgan's every instinct was to strike while the iron was hot and the British were in panic. But unfortunately, he complied with the advice of his officers against any further advance. 128 00:18:45.140 --> 00:18:51.500 If not for this timorousness, which Arnold would certainly have overridden, Morgan might 129 00:18:51.500 --> 00:18:58.500 well have seized all of Lower Quebec. The delay proved fatal. Now surrounded by the 130 00:18:58.500 --> 00:19:04.620 British, the undauntable Morgan offered to personally cut a swath through the British 131 00:19:04.620 --> 00:19:11.620 troops to gain an escape route, but the other officers refused. Instead, they decided to 132 00:19:11.620 --> 00:19:18.620 Morgan, completely alone and personally surrounded, steadfastly refused to surrender until the 133 00:19:19.820 --> 00:19:22.780 very end. 134 00:19:22.780 --> 00:19:28.980 The Battle of Quebec had been absolutely disastrous for the Americans, and most of the finest 135 00:19:28.980 --> 00:19:35.020 leaders in the American Army were put out of commission. Alan had been captured, the 136 00:19:35.020 --> 00:19:41.800 The Great Montgomery was dead, Morgan was captured, and Arnold was gravely wounded. 137 00:19:41.800 --> 00:19:47.780 The brave Kennebec marchers were wiped out with one hundred casualties and four hundred 138 00:19:47.780 --> 00:19:49.700 taken prisoner. 139 00:19:49.700 --> 00:19:55.820 Even so, Arnold, now a brigadier general, issuing orders from a hospital bed, refused 140 00:19:55.820 --> 00:20:03.060 to give up, and his few hundred half-starved men lay feudal siege to Quebec for the rest 141 00:20:03.060 --> 00:20:05.660 of the Winter. 142 00:20:05.660 --> 00:20:11.820 For his noble efforts, Arnold once again received mainly humiliation. 143 00:20:11.820 --> 00:20:16.940 He had asked for Charles Lee or someone like him to take command and lead the assault, 144 00:20:16.940 --> 00:20:24.220 but when reinforcements came in early April 1776, he was replaced by craven commanders 145 00:20:24.220 --> 00:20:26.740 who abandoned the siege. 146 00:20:26.740 --> 00:20:33.780 Now he moved disconsolately behind the lines to take charge of the occupation of Montreal. 147 00:20:33.780 --> 00:20:41.340 At this strategic moment, in early May 1776, Carlton surged forth from Quebec with nine 148 00:20:41.340 --> 00:20:46.100 hundred men to rout the American forces. 149 00:20:46.100 --> 00:20:51.700 In early June, New Hampshire's General John Sullivan was appointed commander of the forces 150 00:20:51.700 --> 00:20:53.740 in Canada. 151 00:20:53.740 --> 00:20:59.780 Sullivan was as bold as Arnold in Montgomery, but lacked their brains. Now that strategic 152 00:20:59.780 --> 00:21:06.260 retreat was called for, Sullivan, on June 7, rashly launched an attack against the town 153 00:21:06.260 --> 00:21:13.260 of Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence. The result was collapse. Two hundred Americans, including 154 00:21:13.260 --> 00:21:19.300 the leader of the actual attack, General William Thompson, commander of one of the Pennsylvania 155 00:21:19.300 --> 00:21:42.980 The American forces returned to Ticonderoga in early July, 1776. 156 00:21:42.980 --> 00:21:52.000 Thus ended the American push against Canada, a tragic and disastrous failure. Yet few campaigns 157 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:58.780 in military history have been so marked by so many hairline turning points, the delays 158 00:21:58.780 --> 00:22:05.060 of Congress and of Schuler bringing on winter weather and the end of American enlistment 159 00:22:05.060 --> 00:22:11.860 terms. The failure of Brown to meet Allen, the melodramatic escape of the formidable General 160 00:22:11.860 --> 00:22:17.680 General Carlton from capture by the Americans, the decimation of Montgomery's army by the 161 00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:24.740 end of enlistment terms, the desertion by Colonel Enos, the high winds delaying Arnold's 162 00:22:24.740 --> 00:22:31.580 crossing of the St. Lawrence, the accidental discovery by Maclean of Arnold's advance, 163 00:22:31.580 --> 00:22:37.420 the hasty attack on Quebec impelled by the end of enlistment terms, the killing of General 164 00:22:37.420 --> 00:22:49.420 and the subsequent route of his column, the wounding of Arnold and subsequent hobbling of Morgan's advance, and the replacement of Arnold the following spring. 165 00:22:49.420 --> 00:22:57.420 Some of the most daring and progressive leaders, those most sensitive to guerilla-type warfare, had been lost. 166 00:22:57.420 --> 00:23:04.420 and Lost, Allen, Morgan, Montgomery, Thompson. The inordinately expensive campaign had succeeded 167 00:23:06.820 --> 00:23:13.820 in losing 5,000 American troops to death and capture. And Canada was lost forever.