Chapter 7

All Regard For Order Lost¹

Arnold reached the Chain of Ponds with his headquarters party during mid-day on October 25 and immediately started across this wondrous six-mile-long string of lakes, marshes, and streams carved by nature through the Appalachian Mountains in northern Maine. Lower Pond was the first pond in the course, followed by a short portage to Bag Pond. In similar fashion Arnold traveled the glimmering chain across Long Pond, Pocket Pond, Little Pocket Pond, Natanis Pond, Round Pond, Lost Pond, Horseshoe Pond, Mud Pond, and Moosehorn Pond (renamed in the twentieth century to Arnold Pond), which Montresor called “the last and most considerable lake” when he traveled through the region in 1761.²

Arnold’s little party was moving fast through the area, and his journal shows that he was making good progress despite the difficulties of the route and the miserable weather. In fact, the course was more challenging than anything the men had experienced to date. Arnold’s journal entry for the day recorded numerous hardships and bad luck, including losing his way several times in the labyrinth of mountain-shrouded waterways that had inundated the adjoining land from the recent heavy rains:

Here we were, a long time at a Loss for the Portage [from Round Pond]—at length we found a small brook [modern Horseshoe Stream] which we entered & rowed up abt 1-1/2 miles with much difficulty being obliged to Clear away the drift Loggs in many places—Snowed and blowed very hard. . . . All this day in the last Lake the Sea ran so high we were obliged to go on shore several times to Bail our Battoes, which was with much difficulty kept above the water—Night coming on & we being much fatigued and chilled with the cold, we were obliged to encamp without being satisfied whether we were right or not as our guides gone forward [Lt. Steele’s party with surveyor Pierce] had made no marks or we have missed them—We made it 11 o clock before we could get comfortable to lie down.

Arnold believed he had traveled a total of 14 miles that day, “but as we rowed agt [against] sea & wind we might possibly be deceived 3 or 4 miles in the distance.”³

Note that Arnold said he was navigating through the Chain of Ponds in “Battoes” (bateaux) and not pirogues or Indian canoes, which he had been using to facilitate rapid movement up and down the river between his advancing divisions. He probably switched from canoes to bateaux before departing Camp Disaster, as there was a dangerous current in the Dead River from the recent rains that was carrying uprooted tress and other debris in its wake. Fragile Indian canoes would never stay afloat in this gauntlet of fast-moving flotsam.

Arnold’s party traveled late into the night of October 25 before making camp in the darkness. They awoke the next morning to discover that a deep snow covered the Appalachian Mountains. The day that followed turned out to be a long and exhausting one for Arnold and his companions. The colonel was traveling with nine men: his aide Oswald, woodsman Nehemiah Getchell, and his seven remaining Indians.⁴ The water levels in the surrounding streams and lakes continued to swell from the recent rains, enlarging and distorting every waterway and making it impossible to follow Montresor’s map or otherwise determine which waterway led to the next lake along the Chain of Ponds.

Arnold sent out a scout (probably one of his Indians) early on the morning of the 26th to survey a promising stream while he and the others prepared a sparse breakfast and packed their baggage. The scout returned with no useful intelligence, nor had he seen any markers or signs from the men ahead of them. There were two detachments ahead of Arnold’s headquarters party. One consisted of the 50 picked men, commanded by Captain Hanchett, who had left Camp Disaster two days earlier. The other group, hopefully somewhere up the trail, was the reconnaissance– surveying party commanded by Lieutenants Church and Steele, which included surveyor Pierce and 20 enlisted men from the expedition. The Steele party left the Great Carry almost two weeks earlier with orders to “clear the Portages & take a survey of the Country.”⁵ Arnold found welcome evidence that Steele’s party had traveled through the area from some markers and direction signs left by Pierce to identify the trail, including one that read, “9 perches on the Left hand the river[.] Gentlemen Please to let these Lines remain where they are that each and every may Discover the Course and Distance and you’ll Greatly oblige your Humble Servt [Servant] Jno. Pierce Sur [Surveyor].”⁶ The best hope the expedition had was that Steele’s advance party had made contact with the French Canadians and was returning with food. But on the morning of October, Arnold’s party could find no trail markers from Pierce or Hanchett. Arnold broke camp and started up a narrow, crooked, and rapidly moving brook that looked promising.²⁶

Arnold’s luck held, and he reached strategic Moosehorn Pond on the upper Chain of Ponds that afternoon. A description of the lake in Monstresor’s journal reinforced Arnold’s judgment that he was in the right place: “a short portage brought us to the last and most considerable lake. . . it is about three fourths of a mile in length and almost five hundred yards wide. Our course over it carried us its full length.”⁷

But the colonel’s party had no time to admire the lake’s beauty. They were in a race against time, fighting off the increasingly cold weather, snow, and starvation. The men quickly launched their boats on Moosehorn Pond and rowed to its northern end, which they reached around 4:00 p.m. The northern shoreline of the pond turned out to be a dense curtain of trees and brush that Arnold and his companions searched in the fading daylight, looking for a brook marked on Montresor’s map that emptied into the lake from the north. The brook was the key to finding the portage that would take them over the last summits of the mountains and into Canada. Although this final portage was called the Great Carrying Place or the Boundary Portage, a more vivid and accurate name given to it was the Terrible Carrying Place.⁸

Montresor’s map showed that the entrance to the Terrible Carrying Place was near the brook. Arnold’s men found the stream, probably aided by Pierce’s markers, and despite the fading daylight, they decided to push on. Arnold knew that they faced a long portage over the mountains, and he told his men to hide their bateaux in the brush along the shoreline of Moosehorn Pond and follow him inland on foot. After following the stream for about two miles they turned and began to ascend a mountain. The route had been marked for them by Pierce. Unknown to Arnold at the time, Captain Hanchett’s men were ahead of him carrying bateaux on their shoulders, a staggering feat of physical strength and endurance, especially for cold and hungry men.

The Terrible Carrying Place portage turned out to be a dense carpet of foliage and underbrush that ascended a mountain (later named Louise Mountain) whose peak was 1,800 feet above sea level. Other mountains paralleled it, and Montresor named this section of Maine’s Appalachian range the Height of Land in his journal: “July 19, 1761, . . . Bidding adieu to the southern waters [Moosehorn Pond] we entered on the portage of the height of land.” Missing from the copies that the British had made of Montresor’s journal were key mileage and direction data, such as how far to travel along the brook in the Terrible Carrying Place portage before turning, and in which direction. The entry describing the Terrible Carrying Place portage in Arnold’s pilfered copy of Montresor’s journal read, “Our course was nearly [distance and direction missing] the ascent very considerable. After walking two miles we gained the greatest height and began to descend.”⁹ The boundary separating these two British possessions, though unmarked at the time, was easily determined by observing the flow of any mountain stream or river in the area. Any water that flowed north toward the St. Lawrence River was thought part of Canada and, conversely, water that flowed south toward the Atlantic Ocean was deemed part of New England. The same principle applied in establishing this section of the modern border between the United States and Canada.

Unbeknownst to the members of the Arnold Expedition, there was a second pass through the mountains at a lower elevation. It had no name then, but would ultimately come to be called Coburn Gore. The Indians explored Coburn Gore before Montresor or Arnold arrived on the scene and found it virtually impassable because of rough terrain and dense vegetation. Despite its higher elevation, the Terrible Carrying Place was the easier and shorter of the two routes.

Surveyor Pierce had come to the expedition’s rescue by figuring out the distances and directions of the Terrible Carrying Place portage. He marked the difficult route, which followed the brook from Moosehorn Pond north for two miles to the summit of Louise Mountain—one of the mountains comprising the Height of Land—before turning west for another two miles to Seven Mile Stream. While ascending Louise Mountain, Arnold stumbled onto Pierce and the 20 men from Lieutenant Steele’s advance party, who were working to improve the trail when Arnold came upon them. After exchanging warm greetings, Pierce told the colonel that Lieutenants Steele and Church were ahead, probably scouting the Chaudière River in an Indian canoe that they had taken with them. Meanwhile, Pierce said he had already been over the entire portage from Moosehorn Pond to Seven Mile Stream (today’s Arnold River), which he calculated to be four-and-a-half miles. When asked about Seven Mile Stream, he explained that it was a short, narrow waterway that flowed into Lake Magentic. Pierce added that the distance from Seven Mile Stream to Lake Magentic was only a half-mile on a straight line, but three times that distance following the course of the meandering stream.

Darkness prevented Arnold’s party from advancing any farther along the trail, and they camped for the night with Pierce and his party on the Height of Land. There was little to eat that night, and everyone went to sleep hungry, dirty, wet, and cold. They had traveled 152 miles since leaving Fort Western, but were still 118 miles from Quebec City. During the night they became apprehensive when they spotted fires in the distance on the Canadian side of the portage. Fearing that it might be a British patrol, Arnold ordered sentries to guard the camp against a possible enemy attack. Adding to their problems was that there was no sign of Captain Hanchett’s 50-man detachment.

Arnold had other things to worry about. He was troubled by the severity of the route he had traveled in recent days and, after making camp on the Height of Land with Pierce’s party, he instructed Getchell to go back down the trail in the morning to help guide the army over the difficult and dangerous route. Arnold ordered Getchell to tell the division commanders that, because they faced numerous debris-clogged portages in the Chain of Ponds, plus a long and hazardous trek up and over the Height of Land, they should abandon their boats and proceed on foot. To ensure that there would be no confusion in this matter, Arnold gave Getchell a note for his senior officers that read, “The Carrying-places from lake to lake [a reference to the Chain of Ponds] are so many and difficult, that I think the whole will get forward much sooner by leaving all the batteaux.”¹⁰ The bulk of the army had been marching on land since the start of the expedition anyway, and there were few provisions and equipment left to transport by water, making the bateaux useless. The new plan was for everyone to carry whatever they could and to walk the rest of the way to Quebec.

The next morning, Getchell headed back down the trail to find the remainder of the army while Arnold’s enlarged party descended through the blow downs and dense underbrush of the Height of Land onto a lovely meadow of tall grass. During their descent they stumbled into Hanchett’s detachment, whose campfires, it turned out, they had seen from the Height of Land during the night. After comparing their routes, it was decided that Hanchett had cut his own trail, at a lower elevation, across the Height of Land that he had crossed with four bateaux. Everyone traveled together, following the trail across the meadow to Seven Mile Stream.

It would seem that Arnold had achieved a major victory as he descended from the Height of Land into Canada. He was on the Canadian frontier with a force consisting of over 80 men with their weapons, ammunition, and four bateaux. On closer examination, Arnold had little to celebrate, as his men had abandoned or lost all of their other equipment. Worse still was that the men traveling with Arnold—and the hundreds of others coming up the trail behind them—had no food or warm clothing, and at least 60 miles to travel on foot through an increasingly cold and inhospitable wilderness to reach the nearest settlement. Many of Arnold’s men were sick and frightened at the grim prospect of dying from illness or slowly starving to death in this dreadful wilderness. Arnold’s determination and leadership had brought them to Canada, but at a terrible cost in human suffering. There was no turning back now, and Arnold decided to get the men with him to Lake Magentic before deciding his next move. He also wanted to find Captains Steele and Church, who may already have made contact with the French-Canadians.

Anxious to reach Lake Magentic, Arnold commandeered the four bateaux that Captain Hanchett’s detachment had laboriously carried over the Height of Land and loaded them with as many men as possible. He instructed Hanchettt, who was the senior officer present next to Arnold, to proceed on foot with the rest of the men along the banks of Seven Mile Stream and rendezvous with him at Lake Magentic. With that, Arnold started for the lake. He floated past the meadow and through a bleak, half-frozen bog that extended from the edge of the meadow to the south shore of Lake Magentic. Arnold was maneuvering his bateaux through this morass when he saw Lieutenants Church and Steele coming the other way in an Indian canoe. There was a third man with them, a French-speaking Huguenot who Arnold recognized as Jaquin, the river guide he had recruited back at Fort Western. Jaquin told Arnold that he was returning alone from Sartigan when he ran across Arnold’s two lieutenants and decided to continue his trip back to the main army with them.

We can picture the little flotilla of American boats bobbing in Seven Mile Stream, surrounded by an ice-coated morass, as Jaquin told Arnold the first good news that the colonel had heard in weeks. “the French Inhabitants,” Jaquin said, “appear very friendly & were rejoiced to hear of our approach, [and] that there are very few Troops at Quebec. . . .”¹¹ Jaquin had more good news: General Schuyler had captured St. Johns after killing or wounding nearly 500 of the enemy’s troops.¹² Jaquin’s report was exciting, but based on rumors from a remote village. Arnold needed confirmation of the story, which he would get when his couriers returned from Quebec. Meanwhile, he wrote an inspiring message to his field officers with Jaquin’s news, which he sent back to the army the following morning.

A little farther down Seven Mile Stream lay Lake Magentic, a considerable body of water in a beautiful setting of rolling hills and trees. Seven Mile Stream flowed into Lake Magentic near its southern end, and the colonel’s party glided their boats into this extraordinary lake guided by Lieutenants Steele and Church, who took them to a deserted Indian camp they had found along the eastern shoreline of the lake. Arnold’s detachment came ashore here and established headquarters in what was described as a large Indian wigwam or bark house, where they lit a fire as a signal to Hanchett and settled in to await the arrival of his detachment. The distance from where the colonel left Hanchett on Seven Mile Stream to the wigwam camp was only two-and-a-half miles on a straight line. However, the short trip quickly turned into a catastrophe for Captain Hanchett and his detachment.

Hanchett’s plan was to march his detachment along the shoreline of Seven Mile Stream to Lake Magentic. Following that route, however, led them into the miserable bog that bordered the southern end of the lake. Hanchett and his men grew disoriented as daylight faded and the river split into several branches, as well as a small lake (Lake Rush). They did not know that Lake Rush actually was a flooded section of Seven Mile Stream whose main channel passed through the lake before resuming the guise of a short river (the Rush River) that emptied into Lake Magentic. Hanchett had a copy of Montresor’s map, but it did not show any of these details.

Arnold became alarmed when Hanchett’s party failed to arrive at the bark house. Darkness already had fallen when the colonel dispatched his bateaux into the night to look for the missing men. They were discovered hopelessly lost, but still floundering onward in some marshy ground almost three miles from Arnold’s camp, and had to be ferried in small groups to the wigwam shelter. It was midnight before all of Hanchett’s exhausted men reached the safety of the bark house, where they learned that Arnold planned to make the final dash to Sartigan in the bateaux that they had laboriously carried over the Height of Land. Hanchett, who had been one of Arnold’s most loyal officers, resented the colonel’s presumptuous decision. Arnold’s brash and indelicate behavior had added another enemy to his growing list, which included Ethan Allen, James Easton, and John Brown, who were now Continental Army officers serving under General Montgomery.

Although it was late at night, Colonel Arnold turned his attention to writing a letter to General Washington. In it he informed the commander-in-chief that he had arrived safely at Lake Magentic with 70 men. He also related the story of Jaquin’s visit to Sartigan, including his being told by the local farmers that there were only a handful of British troops guarding Quebec who were unaware that a rebel army was approaching the city. The colonel closed his letter with a sobering appraisal of his mission to date. “Our march has been attended with an amazing Deal of Fatique,” he wrote. “I have been much deceived in every Accout of our Rout [route], which is longer, and has been attended with a Thousand Difficulties I never apprehended. . . .”¹³ Among the “thousand difficulties” was the lack of contact with his army that Arnold had experienced over the last three days.

Arnold awoke early on Saturday morning, October 28, and immediately went to work to save his men. The experiences of the previous day, including Hanchett’s miserable time in the swamp, were proof that Montresor’s map of the region was inaccurate and incomplete. The explanation for these deletions can be found in the British engineer’s own journal, which stated that the Indians took him down Seven Mile Stream in the dark. His journal entry for July 19, 1761, mentions this point: “We had gone down the river [Seven Mile Stream] . . . when night overtook us, but being resolved to reach the lake [Lake Magentic], we still pushed on.”¹⁴ Montresor was unable to see the features of the land at night, which explains why several critical landmarks were missing from his otherwise superb map. Montresor’s major omission was his failure to realize that he was being taken through a bog that bordered the southern shore of Lake Magentic and that Seven Mile Stream splits into several branches as it approaches the lake, similar to the way the Mississippi River divides and re-divides as it approaches the sea. The branches of Seven Mile Stream are known today, from west to east, as the Black Arnold, the Dead Arnold (collectively called the False Arnolds), and the Rush River. The False Arnolds are choked with wood debris and terminate in a bog that cannot be navigated by boat. The main channel of Seven Mile Stream flows into Lake Rush before it resumes the appearance of a river (the Rush River), which empties into Lake Magentic.

Montresor also failed to see a large lake northeast of Lake Magentic, which the Indians called Nepiss Lake (today’s Spider Lake). Arnold knew that the four divisions coming up behind him were all following Montresor’s map, which did not show the False Arnolds, Lake Nepiss, and Lake Rush. Montresor, who had made the chart in 1761, was ignorant of these defects in his map and probably would have been thunderstruck to learn in 1775 that over 600 of Washington’s military amateurs were crossing into Canada and secretly advancing on Quebec.

Arnold took action to make sure that his main army did not walk into the bog as Hanchettt’s detachment had done the previous day. He instructed a lieutenant named Isaac Hull, a young officer in Hanchett’s detachment, to turn back and guide the army across the narrow split of dry land that traversed the swamp.¹⁵ How this dry land route was discovered is unrecorded. Arnold also entrusted Hull with two important letters. One he addressed to his four division commanders, with a warning to keep to the east side of Lake Magentic, along with the great news of Jaquin’s warm reception at Sartigan. The other was his report to General Washington, which Arnold instructed Hull to deliver to his most dependable officer, Lieutenant Colonel Enos, who would arrange for someone to deliver it to Cambridge. Arnold still had no idea that Enos had deserted with a quarter of the army.

Arnold next took Hanchett’s four bateaux and Lieutenant Steele’s Indian canoe to race down the Chaudière River to the French settlements. His relief party consisted of Lieutenants Steele and Church, Oswald, Jaquin and some men from Hanchett’s detachment. Before leaving the wigwam camp, Arnold instructed Hanchett to proceed on foot with his remaining men and follow the eastern shore of Lake Magentic to the headwaters of the Chaudière River. Hanchett then was to march along the banks of the river until succor arrived from Arnold’s relief party. After seeing Hanchett’s detachment off, Arnold’s contingent left “to proceed on to the french Inhabitants, & at all events send back provisions to meet the rear.”¹⁶

The “hands on” manner in which Arnold took personal charge of getting food for his starving men is typical of his aggressive, assertive character. Arnold was a leader, not a follower, with a genuine concern for the welfare of the troops under his command. Other members of the expedition, notably Aaron Burr, interpreted Arnold’s action differently, and believed that he took charge of the relief party as a selfish act to ensure that he would be among the first to reach food at the French settlements.

It was now time for the rest of the army to make the difficult trek over the Terrible Carrying Place into Canada. Arnold did not record the details of his crossing of the portage but others did, including Private Morison, who wrote that after Moosehorn Pond his detachment came to:

the Terrible Carrying Place; a dismal portage indeed. . . . The ground adjacent to this ridge is swampy, plentifully strewed with old dead logs, and with every thing that could render it impassable. Over this we forced a passage, the most distressing of any we had yet performed.¹⁷

To this point, the men of the Arnold Expedition had experienced great suffering and displayed tremendous courage in the face of almost certain death. The sick and faint of heart already had turned back, leaving about 600 men, divided into ten understrength companies and accompanied by two female camp followers. A review of the companies and their division assignments will help in tracing their march, as they became separated and reached Lake Magentic from different directions.

As previously noted, each company was identified by the name of its captain, a system widely used by the American Army during the Revolutionary War. Morgan’s, Smith’s, and Hendricks’ rifle companies comprised the first division of the army. Morgan was the division’s senior captain and commander. Lieutenant Colonel Greene commanded the second division, with Major Bigelow his second in command. This division consisted of three infantry companies under the command of Captains Thayer, Topham, and Hubbard. Major Meigs commanded the third and biggest division, comprised of four infantry companies commanded by Captains Dearborn, Ward, Goodrich, and Hanchett. Since Hanchett was on detached duty as commander of the picked men, his company fell under Meigs’ personal command.¹⁸ Following Enos’ defection, Lieutenant Colonel Greene was second in command of the expedition under Colonel Arnold. As usual, the companies operated independently of each other, with responsibility for their own bateaux, tents, and provisions.

Not surprisingly, Morgan’s rifle company led the way over the Terrible Carrying Place portage. They arrived at its entrance on Friday morning, October 27, about a day’s march behind Arnold’s headquarters party. Ignoring Arnold’s recommendation, and still engaged in a rivalry with the New Englanders, Morgan’s Virginian’s lifted their serviceable bateaux on their shoulders and crossed the Terrible Carry in one horrendous day’s march. Smith’s and Hendrick’s rifle companies were next in line, and Morison’s diary provides a graphic account of the difficulties they faced on October 26 as they trekked through the Chain of Ponds toward the Height of Land: “The day was very cold, and the ground covered with a pretty deep snow which had fell in the night of the 25th; in consequence, our progress was much impeded by reason that we could not distinguish ground sufficiently solid to march upon with our burdens; some of us frequently slipped into bogs.”¹⁹

Upon reaching the Terrible Carry, Smith’s and Hendricks’ companies were more realistic—or perhaps more tired—than Morgan’s, and they abandoned their bateaux and tents before attempting the portage, as confirmed by Morison, who said, “[We] took out our guns, with everything that was portable, from the bateaux, and got ready our packs.”²⁰ Their decision to forsake their heavy bateaux made the trek easier, but it meant they were committed to sleep in the open and carry everything all the way to Quebec. The companies commanded by Dearborn and Ward from Meigs’ third division were the next to cross the divide, and they also left their bateaux and tents, but not before cutting up some of the canvas tents to sew bags with which to carry their remaining provisions.

Many of the farmers and laborers on the Arnold Expedition knew how to sew and could make simple duffel-type bags quickly by folding a piece of fabric and sewing two sides closed. They tied the open side with a piece of cord after they loaded “provisions” (the term meant either food or supplies) into the bag. The men carried the bags by slinging them over their shoulders. Canvas does not make a good blanket; however, it is probable that many of these resourceful men created simple canvas capes to cover their shoulders and wrapped a piece of canvas around each leg, from knee to ankle, to protect their legs from being bruised by the thorny underbrush. Called country boots, these primitive leggings were held in place with rope or strips of leather tied just below the knees, as well as around the ankles.

Dearborn’s and Ward’s companies camped on the Height of Land on the night of the 27th and completed their passage over the divide and down to the meadow the following day. The scene was spectacular, with the meadows framed by the Appalachian Mountains in the background. Greene’s division occupied the rear, with each company moving at its own pace. Goodrich’s company from Meigs’ division was the last party to cross the Height of Land. Lieutenant Colonel Greene accompanied them, and they camped on the night of October 27 in the Chain of Ponds. Goodrich’s band started across the Terrible Carry early the following morning, and arrived at the beautiful meadow in mid-afternoon to find the rest of the army waiting for them. They soon learned that everyone else knew that Enos deserted with his three companies, along with what they believed was the army’s reserve supply of food. The divisions gathered in the meadow were destitute, with no hope of being furnished with food from the rear.

The army assembled in the meadow and enacted the ancient ritual of dividing the remaining food. Every company put whatever provisions they had into a common pool, the contents shared equally among all present. There was so little meat to divide that the officers decided not to take any. Humphrey recorded in his diary that each man received “5 pints of flour and 2 oz. of meat.”²¹ It is frightening to realize that this small amount of food would have to sustain each weak and starving soldier until succor arrived from the French settlements. Four of the companies—Goodrich’s, Dearborn’s, and Ward’s companies from Meigs’ division and Smith’s Pennsylvania rifle company—elected to keep moving while there was still some daylight, and they took off immediately following the food distribution. With no information about their route other than copies of Monstresor’s map, these men left the meadow and started following the Seven Mile Stream in the direction of Lake Magentic. Their hastiness would cost them dearly, when Lieutenant Hull arrived at the meadow a few hours later with the written warning from Arnold to avoid following Seven Mile Stream. Arnold instructed his corps to return to the edge of the high ground at the end of the Terrible Carry and “strike off to the right hand . . . which will escape the low swampy land and save a very great distance.” Arnold also reported that he expected to send back food from Sartigan in three days. His letter included the story of Jaquins’ warm reception at Sartigan by the French-Canadians, who “rejoiced to hear we are coming and that they will gladly supply us with provisions. He says there are few or no regulars at Quebec.”²² The men raised a cheer and, according to one account, the whole valley rang with their exaltations at these good tidings.²³

A joyous Major Bigelow penned a hurried letter to his wife with the glorious news:

Dear Anna,

I very much regret my writing the last letter to you, the contents were so gloomy. It is true our provisions are short (only five pints of flour to a man, and no meat), but we have this minute received news that the inhabitants of Canada are all friendly, and very much rejoiced at our coming, and a very small number of troops in Quebec. We have had a very fatiguing march of it, but I hope it will soon be over. The express [the courier carrying Arnold’s report to Washington] is waiting, there fore must conclude.²⁴

Another distribution took place in the meadow, where Major Meigs parceled out some of the gold and silver coins he was carrying, which he split with Lieutenant Colonel Greene and Major Bigelow. They would need this hard currency to make purchases, especially food, when they reached the French settlements. Major Meigs reported giving 500 dollars to Greene and a similar amount to Bigelow. The major also said he gave “Mr. Gatchel” (Nehemiah Getchell) 44 dollars and “Mr. Berry” (Samuel Berry) £4.5 “lawful money.”²⁵ The term “lawful money” meant that Berry was paid in Massachusetts currency. We cannot rule out that civilians like Getchell and Berry—who were hired by the army—may have received what was called country pay, which meant that they received goods for their services instead of money. However, this form of barter was unlikely at this point in the campaign, because desirable commodities such as gunpowder and lead were in short supply and needed by the army.

The officers and men in Morgan’s Virginia rifle company were exhausted when they finally reached the meadows. They were the only company to carry all of their bateaux into Canada, but paid a terrible price for their feat, as evidenced by John Joseph Henry, who saw them and wrote, “It would have made your heart ache to view the intolerable labors of his fine fellows.” Henry said that the flesh had worn from their shoulders, even to the bone, from hauling their bateaux over the Terrible Carry.²⁶ The Virginians, who carried seven bateaux over the pass, rested for a while before proceeding down Seven Mile Stream toward Lake Magentic. This left five companies at the meadows—Thayer’s, Topham’s, and Hubbard’s (comprising Lieutenant Colonel Greene’s entire division), Hanchett’s company from Meigs’ division, and Hendrick’s Pennsylvania rifle company. These five companies followed Arnold’s advice and headed, under the direction of Lieutenant Hull, back to the high ground near the Terrible Carry, where they camped for the night.

A few miles to the northwest, the impulsive companies commanded by Dearborn, Ward, Goodrich, and Smith were also resting for the night before resuming their uncharted trek to Lake Magentic by following the course of Seven Mile Stream. All four companies eventually marched straight into the bog that bordered the southern end of Lake Magentic. They had a few bateaux and Indian canoes with them, which were used to transport their remaining provisions to the birch bark hut for safekeeping before returning to help the men across the uncharted rivers (the false Arnolds) and bogs that blocked their passage to the dry land on the southeast side of Lake Magentic, the site of the wigwam camp.

Captain Dearborn described how he used his canoe to help the trapped men reach dry land: “Capt Goodrich was almost perished with the Cold, having Waded Several Miles Backwards, and forwards, Sometimes to his Arm-pits in Water & Ice, endeavouring to find some place to Cross this River [the Dead Arnold],” he wrote. “I took him into my Canoe, and Carryed him over. . . .”²⁷ It was dark before Dearborn got Goodrich to safety, and they decided to spend the night at the wigwam camp before rounding up other boats in the morning and going to the relief of their stranded men, who had managed to find a bit of dry land and make a fire by dragging some wood from the surrounding swampland. A small flotilla of bateaux and canoes worked all the next day to get the men to the wigwam camp, where everyone rested for the night. They arrived at the site to find that their unguarded larder had been raided by Captain Morgan’s Virginians, who had come down Seven Mile Stream, stopped briefly at the wigwam camp, and stolen some of the New Englanders’ food.²⁸

John Joseph Henry was among the men struggling through the bog. His narrative includes an account of one of the women who made the crossing with Captain Goodrich’s company. She is identified as the wife of Sergeant Grier, a member of that company. Henry said that he saw Grier’s wife, whom he described as “a large, virtuous and respectable woman.” Henry continued, “My mind was humbled, yet astonished, at the exertions of this good woman. Her clothes more than waist high, she waded before me to firm ground. No one, so long as she was known to us, dared to intimate a disrespectful idea of her.”²⁹ Mrs. Grier was soon reunited with her husband, who was helping to handle the boats.

The companies commanded by Dearborn, Goodrich, Ward, and Smith somehow arrived in the wigwam camp by the evening of October 30 and continued their march the following day, reaching the place where the Chaudière River flows from Lake Magentic. They passed the shattered remnants of Morgan’s shipwrecked company sprawled out along the riverbank. The Virginians said that they had started down the Chaudière with the fast-moving current, and were making good progress until their bateaux catapulted into fierce rapids. Working frantically, the riflemen hopelessly tried to keep control of their boats, and their bateaux smashed on the rocks. One man was killed, and they lost all of their bateaux and most of their provisions. A soldier who saw them said, “Their condition was truly deplorable, they had not when we came up with them a mouthful of provisions of any kind, and we were not able to relieve them, as hunger stared us in the face.”³⁰

Morgan and his men learned the hard way how this river got its name. The word Chaudière is French for caldron, and the title aptly describes this virtually unnavigable river of boiling rapids and foaming waterfalls. The Chaudière races north from Lake Magentic to the St. Lawrence River, dropping 1,100 feet during its 100 mile course, the northern portion of which consists of treacherous rapids littered with huge rocks that can smash a boat to bits.

The five companies being guided cross country by Lieutenant Hull were in no better shape than the others. The young lieutenant managed to get lost and march the men following him into another section of the bog. Lieutenant Humphrey was with them and recorded what happened in his diary:

October 29, 1775, This day we proceeded in front on our way to Sartigan; the traveling is very bad so that almost every step we sink in half leg high, but we have encouragement by our pilot [Lieutenant Hull] that it is better ahead. Lost one man belonging to Capt. Topham’s company, viz. Samuel Nichols, who must inevitably perish; we now find the pilot knows the way no better than we do; we traveled about 5 miles and encamped.³¹

Private Stocking, of Hanchett’s company, was another member of the detachment who followed Hull into the bog, and he wrote a graphic account of this life-threatening experience:

We began descending towards an ocean of swamp that lay before us. We soon entered it and found it covered with a low shrubbery of cedar and hackmetack, the roots of which were so excessively slippery, that we could hardly keep upon our feet The top of the ground was covered with a soft moss, filled with water and ice. After walking a few hours in the swamp we seemed to have lost all sense of feeling in our feet and ankles. As we were constantly slipping, we walked in great fear of breaking our bones or dislocating our joints. But to be disenabled from walking in this situation was sure death. We traveled all day and not being able to get through this dismal swamp, we encamped. I thought we were probably the first human beings that ever took up their residence for a night in this wilderness—not howling wilderness, for I believe no wild animals would inhabit it.³²

Hull compounded his error by leading his wards toward Nepiss Lake, thinking it was Lake Magentic. Dr. Senter was with them, and called their wanderings “a state of uncertainty. . . with the conjoint addition of cold, wet and hunger, not to mention our fatigue—with the terrible apprehension of famishing in this desert.”³³ Lieutenant Hull, now referred to as the “pretended pilot,” was as frightened as the rest, in addition to suffering “the severe execrations he received from the front of the army to the rear,” which Senter said “made his office not a little disagreeable.”³⁴ They headed way off course and all around Nepiss Lake before finding some footprints in the snow that they decided to follow. The footprints led them to Lake Magentic, whose shoreline they traced to the Chaudière. Somehow, by November 1, everyone who was left on the expedition was walking along the shore of the Chaudière River.

It is possible that the expedition’s diarists exaggerated the food shortage up to this point in their journey. Private Stocking, for example, wrote on October 27 that he caught “plenty of trout” in Moosehorn Pond.³⁵ Some of the men had eaten their portion of the food dolled out in the meadow in one meal and counted on luck and providence to see them through. Dr. Senter mentioned this ongoing problem in his diary: “That several of the men devoured the whole of their flour the last evening, determined (as they expressed it) to have a full meal., letting the morrow look out for itself. . . .”³⁶

But even the men who conserved their small rations were soon wanting, and it is clear from all the diaries that the soldiers on the Arnold Expedition were starving and near death as they struggled along the snow-covered, uncharted banks of the Chaudière River. With the big game having been frightened away, men were reduced to eating soap, lip salve, shoe leather, and cartridge boxes—all of which went into their pots to make soup—along with some small forest creatures and at least two pet dogs. Abner Stocking described their perilous situation in his diary entry for November 1: “Our fatigue and anxiety were so great that we were but little refreshed the last night by sleep. We started however very early, hungry and wet.”³⁷

Private Stocking said he marched all day before encamping in a fine grove of trees, where he found some men from Captain Goodrich’s company feasting on a dog. The animal belonged to Captain Dearborn, who had given up his pet labrador to feed the starving men. “My dog was very large and a great favourite,” Dearborn noted. “I gave him up to several men of Capt Goodrich’s company, who killed him and divided him among those who were suffering most severely with hunger. They ate every part of him, not excepting his entrails; and after finishing their meal, they collected the bones and carried them to be pounded up and to make broth for another meal.”³⁸

Several diarists also told of butchering and eating a Newfoundland dog belonging to Captain Thayer. Private Henry mentioned Thayer’s dog in his journal, claiming that he came across some men sitting around a fire and sat down to join them, “absolutely fainting from hunger and fatigue. . . . Death would have been a welcome visitor.” The men had a kettle of broth cooking over their fire and offered Henry a cup full of the simmering brew. Though they told him it was made from the flesh of a bear, one taste of the smelly greenish broth convinced young Henry that it was dog. Henry claims he only had one taste before continuing his march. He camped that evening with his messmates, with whom he shared a good fire, but no food.³⁹

By November 2, the army was crawling along the banks of the Chaudière. All pretensions of military order were now gone, the army scattered up and down the river for miles. Some of them stopped to search with their fingers for edible plant roots along low, sandy stretches of the river.⁴⁰ There was no trail to follow and everyone stayed close to the river bank, their progress slowed by the low, swampy land, steep river banks, and cold streams that flowed into the Chaudière from all directions. The men had been advised to save themselves and not try to help a starving or fallen comrade. Companies attempted to stay together, but had to leave their weakest comrades behind, allowing the strongest men to reach Sartigan and send back help. “Cooking being very much out of fashion,” penned Dr. Senter, the men had little else to do than stagger as quickly as they could toward relief.⁴¹ The doctor said that the army had arrived at the zenith of its distress.⁴²

Somewhere in this frigid wilderness, a woman camp follower named Jemima Warner watched her husband die. He was a member of Goodrich’s company, and diarist Abner Stocking told how Warner and his wife loved each other and were inseparable. Jemima lagged behind with her soldier husband when he became too sick to continue walking and comforted him, as best as she could, until he died. “Having no implements with which she could bury him,” Stocking said, “she covered him with leaves, and then took his gun. . . and left him with a heavy heart.”⁴³

Captain Samuel Ward was among the famished, dirty, and cold young men staggering through the snow toward Quebec. Only 19 years old, he was the son of the wealthy merchant and high rebel Samuel Ward Sr. His father had arranged for his son to receive a commission in the newly organized 1st Rhode Island Regiment when the Revolution started. Young Ward volunteered for the Arnold Expedition and received command of a company. How different circumstances had been just 45 days earlier, when this proud teenager paraded with the rest of the army to the cheers of the people of Newburyport. Did this young man, facing death from starvation and frigid temperatures, regret his decision to march to Quebec with Arnold? Assuredly not, because Ward believed—as did the other officers and common soldiers on the expedition—that the British government was conspiring to take away his liberties.⁴⁴ Ward felt he had to draw the line against the increasing intrusion by the king and his henchmen into his life, and that his offspring would be enslaved by arbitrary taxes, alien armies and officials, false religion, distant trials, and pervasive corruption if he did not take a stand now with Colonel Arnold, his respected and beloved commander.⁴⁵ Ward would survive the Arnold Expedition, rise to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and eventually become a prosperous New York City merchant. He was among the first Americans to open trade with China, and arrived in Canton in 1788 aboard his merchant ship George Washington.

In a twist of irony, on the same date (November 1, 1775) that young Ward was staggering through the Canadian woods, Congressman Samuel Ward, Sr., his obviously much misinformed father, wrote home from Philadelphia, “[B]y the best Accts. from Colo. Arnold He had got near Quebec without any Opposition, the Canadians were very friendly, there were no Soldiers in Quebec & few or no Guns mounted on the Walls, the Troops were in good Health & high Spirits & expected to take the Place easily.”⁴⁶

Where was Arnold during these critical days in early November? His location can be traced from the diary entries and letters written during this period: he was at the wigwam camp on Saturday, October 28, with 15 men in four bateaux and one Indian canoe. His party reached the source of the Chaudière River that same day, and started down it with their baggage lashed to their boats. The first seven miles were easy, but the river became progressively rougher and they soon found themselves fighting for their lives in the rapids. Arnold and his crew bravely committed themselves to run the raging waters in their clumsy bateaux, but courage was not enough, as their boats were tossed against the rocks. Two of the bateaux and the canoe smashed to pieces and capsized, the other two damaged.⁴⁷ Provisions and weapons were lost in this watery deathtrap, and six men pitched into the frigid waters only to be saved by the greatest exertions. This place would later be known as the Devil’s Rapids. Somehow everyone got to shore safely and salvaged what they could. They built campfires to warm themselves and divided the remaining food. Arnold took stock of their situation and decided that he would continue with the two serviceable bateaux. He could only take six men with him and the others, including surveyor Pierce, he left behind to walk to the French settlements.

Arnold portaged his remaining boats around the Great Falls and resumed his drive toward the settlements. Pierce and the others, who were left behind, watched the bateaux until they disappeared from sight before picking up their packs and weapons and walking along the river bank. Pierce wrote in his journal that they estimated it would take four days for the men left behind to reach the French settlements, “and each man had not more Provision for the 4 Days than he Could Comfortable eat at one meal[. I]n this miserable Condition we Comforted our Selves as well as we Could Resolving to go through or Die in the Attempt.”⁴⁸