notes

Introduction

1. Major General Philip Schuyler to John Hancock, Nov. 22. 1775, in William Bell Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution 10 vols. to date (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964-), 2:1,100.

2. Carleton had four regiments in Canada in September 1774. They were the 10th, 52nd, 7th, and 26th. At General Gage’s urging, he sent two of them (the 10th and 52nd) in late 1774 to reinforce the British garrison at Boston, leaving him with only two under-strength regiments with which to defend Canada. Carleton believed at the time that he could easily raise additional regiments from among the French Canadians. See George F.G. Stanley, Canada Invaded 1775-1776 (Toronto: A.M. Hakkert, Ltd, 1973), 10. The full story of Carleton’s poor judgment in agreeing to release two of his four regiments to Gage is explained in George Athan Billias, ed., George Washington’s Opponents (New York: William Marrow and Company, Inc., 1969), 108-110.

3. This population estimate is from the Statistics Canada website. It includes the estimated population of Cape Breton, St. John’s Island (now Prince Edward Island), and Newfoundland. It did not include blacks or Indians.

4. Despite the fact that the Indian population east of the Mississippi River had been drastically reduced in the years prior to the American Revolution, these natives still represented a major threat to the rebels. It is estimated that there were still 150,000 Indians living in the area east of the Mississippi in 1775, most of whom sided with the British. While the Indians living in New England had been drastically reduced, mainly by disease, Carleton could still rely on about 2,000 warriors left from the once-formidable Six Nations of the Iroquois living in upper New York. British agents could recruit as many as 12,000 Indian fighters from the tribes living in the Susquehanna and Ohio River Valleys. See Gordon S. Wood, The American Revolution (New York: The Modern Library, 2002), 9-10. This book is recommended reading for anyone interested in a general history of the Revolutionary War.

5. An eloquent commentary about North America’s network of waterways appeared in the Federalist Papers (1787-1788). Using the pen name Publius, Federalist No. 2 (authored by John Jay) argued that America “was not composed of detached and distant territories.” Jay said: “Providence has in a particular manner blessed it [America] with a variety of soils and productions, and watered it with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. A succession of navigable waters forms a kind of chain round its borders, as if to bind it together; while the most noble rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present them with highways for the easy communication of friendly aides, and the mutual transportation and exchange of their various commodities.” See Jacob E. Cooke, ed., The Federalist (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 9.

6. The distance from Albany to Lake George at the time depended on the method of transportation (water or land route) used. The figure of “65 mile land carriage” was used in a report from Gen. Schuyler to Congress dated Albany, July 11, 1775. See Peter Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series), 6 vols. (Washington, D.C.: M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, 1843), 2:1, 645-646.

For those readers unfamiliar with this reference source, Peter Force was a successful printer and collector of historical documents. He lobbied Congress in the 1830s to fund a documentary history of the United States, from the time of its earliest exploration up to the ratification of the Constitution. Congress agreed to finance the project, which Force prodigally titled American Archives: Consisting of A Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers, Debates, and Letters and Other Notices of Publick Affairs, The Whole Forming A Documentary History of The Origins and Progress of The North American Colonies; of the Causes and Accomplishments of The American Revolution; and of The Constitution of Government For the United States, To The Final Retification Thereof. Force divided his massive undertaking into six series that would cover different periods of American history. Luckily for Revolutionary War historians, he started his massive project with his Fourth Series, which dealt with events from 1774-1776. Force completed this series consisting of six large volumes, as well as part of the Fifth Series (three volumes), which deals with events that took place in late 1776. Congress lost interest in the project and cut off funding before Force could publish any additional volumes in his projected series. Congress’ decision was shortsighted—Force’s books proved to be a valuable reference source. Many of the documents available to him were subsequently misplaced, burned, or squirreled away in numerous institutions and private collections. Fortunately, however, anyone working on the early Revolutionary War period has the benefit of Force’s outstanding work.

7. Francis Parkman, Count Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1896), 310.

8. Benson J. Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of The Revolution 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1860), 1:605.

9. James Kirby Martin, Benedict Arnold Revolutionary Hero (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 423.

10. Anyone sympathetic to Arnold does not understand the dismal circumstances of the infant United States at the time of his treason. Arnold planned to carry out his scheme in 1780 when the new nation was bankrupt and its armies had suffered two recent staggering military defeats in South Carolina: the surrender of Charleston and the Battle of Camden. Referring to these American losses, historian John Ferling called Arnold’s scheme to deliver West Point to the British “a treasonous act so monstrous that it may have provoked even more widespread despair than that aroused by the military defeats in the South.” See John Ferling, A Leap in the Dark (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 227. The foundation of the American patriot cause would have assuredly been rocked to its very foundation had Arnold’s plan succeeded.

Historians have speculated for more than 200 years on what would have happened to the American patriotic cause had Arnold been successful. In his 1788 history of the American Revolution, William Gordon considered the issue:

Had the execution of that been completed, the forces under his [Arnold’s] command must probably have either laid down their arms or have been cut to pieces. Their loss and the immediate possession of West Point, and all its neighboring dependencies, must have exposed the remainder of Washington’s army to the joint exertion of the British forces, by land and water, that nothing but final ruin could have been the result with respect to the Americans. Such a stroke could scarcely have been received. Independent of the loss of artillery and stores, such a destruction of their disciplined force, and many of their best officers must have been fatal.

See William Gordon, The History of the Rise, Progress and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America 4 vols. (London: 1788), 3: 485-486.

11. Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, 1: 605.

12. Mrs. Mercy Otis Warren, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution 3 vols. (Boston: Printed by Manning and Loring for E. Larkin, 1805), 1:260.

13. Eric Froner, ed., Thomas Paine Collected Writings (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1995), 251-252.

14. David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution, 2 vols. (Trenton, New Jersey: James J. Wilson, 1811), 2: 252. This is a reprint of the 1789 edition.

15. Hannah Adams, A Summary History of New England, From the First Settlement at Plymouth, to the Acceptance of the Federal Constitution. Comprehending a General Sketch of the American War (Dedham, Massachusetts: H. Mann and J.H. Adams, 1799), 437-438.

Although Mrs. Mercy Otis Warren is frequently credited with being the first American woman to publish a non-fiction book, that distinction belongs to Ms. Adams, who published a one-volume history of New England six years prior to the release of Ms. Warren’s three-volume history of the American Revolution.

Another contemporary historian who used Arnold’s need for money to explain his treason is William Gordon, who wrote in 1788, “General Arnold, who had the command of that post [West Point], was brave but mercenary, fond of parade and extremely desirous of acquiring money to defray the expenses of it. When he entered Philadelphia after the evacuation [the British army quit the city in June 1778], he made Governor Penn’s, the best house in it, his head quarters. This he furnished in a very costly manner, and lived in a style beyond his income. He continued his extravagant course of living; was unsuccessful in trade and privateering; [outfitting warships to capture enemy merchant ships] his funds were exhausted, and his creditors importunate, while his lust for high life was not in the least assuaged. . . . Disgusted at the treatment he had met with, embarrassed in his circumstances, and having a growing expensive family, he turned his thoughts towards bettering his fortune by new means.” See Gordon, The History of the Rise, Progress . . . of the United States, 3: 481.

Mason Locke Weems (1759-1825), in his popular The Life of George Washington, also explained Arnold’s treason as a money issue: “I allude to the affair of Arnold’s treason. That which makes rogues of thousands, I mean Extravagance, was the ruin of this great soldier. Though extremely brave, he was of that vulgar sort, who having no taste for the pleasures of the mind, think of nothing but high living, dress, and show. To rent large houses in Philadelphia— to entertain French Ambassadors—to give balls and concerts, and grand dinners and suppers, required more money than he could honestly command. And, alas! such is the stuff whereof spendthrifts are made, that to fatten his Prodigality Arnold consented to starve his Honesty.” See Mason Locke Weems, The Life of George Washington (Philadelphia: Matthew Carey, 1809), 102. Weems’s fictionalized biography of Washington first appeared in 1800 and went through 25 editions. It was one of the most popular books in eighteenth century America.

Charles Stedman’s 1794 History of the Revolution also explains Arnold’s treason as a way to get money. See Charles Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War 2 vols. (London: 1794), 2: 247-248.

Chapter One

1. John Codman, 2nd, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1901), 17.

2. Lossing, Pictorial Field-Book, I: 605.

3. Charles Coleman Sellers, Benedict Arnold The Proud Warrior (New York: Minton, Balch & Company, 1930), 15.

4. Ibid., 9.

5. Arnold’s first-born son, Benedict, died on the island of Jamaica at age 27; Richard died in 1847 and Henry died on December 8, 1826.

6. This house was included in Arnold’s claim to the British government for compensation of his losses when he joined the British side: “A Large and handsome new House with Store House, Coach House, Stables, Wharfs, large and fine fruit Garden containing between 2 & 3 acres in New Haven, Colony of Connecticut.” See J.G. Taylor, Some New Light on the Later Life and Last Resting Place of Benedict Arnold and of His Wife Margaret Shippen (London: George White, 1931), 54.

7. John Greenwood, A Young Patriot in the American Revolution, 1775-1783 (Westvaco, 1981), 41.

8. The 1st Company Governor’s Foot Guard was established in Hartford (the capital of Connecticut) in 1771 for the purpose of providing an escort for Connecticut’s governor and assembly. The company was known as the Governor’s Guard until 1775 when the second company formed in New Haven, causing the Hartford unit to be renamed the 1st Company Governor’s Guard. An additional change became necessary in 1778 when a mounted detachment organized as the Horse Guard. The original company, composed of infantrymen, became the 1st Company Governor’s Foot Guard. Both the Hartford and New Haven companies exist today as honorary military organizations.

9. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 2:383-384.

10. The story of Arnold’s departure from New Haven appears in E.E. Atwater, History of the City of New Haven (New York: 1887), 42, 650.

11. Extract of a Letter From A Gentleman in Pittsfield to an Officer at Cambridge, Dated May 4, 1775 in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series) 2: 507. According to this source, the Connecticut plan was organized “last Saturday by the Governour and Council.” This corresponds to Saturday, April 29, 1775. See calendar in Mark Boatner, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1976), 156.

12. Michael A. Bellesiles, Revolutionary Outlaws, Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993), 116.

13. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series), 2: 450.

14. Ibid., Fourth Series: 2:751. Arnold’s orders were dated May 3, 1775, and signed by Dr. Benjamin Church Jr., who General Washington later discovered to be a British spy. For information about Dr. Church’s subversive activities see Ralph E. Weber, ed., Masked Dispatches: Cryptograms and Cryptology in American History, 1775-1900 (National Security Agency, 1993), 25-40.

15. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 2:750. The minutes of the May 2, 1775, meeting of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety record its actions concerning its decision to organize a military campaign under Arnold:

Doctor Warren, Colonel Palmer, and Colonel Gardner were appointed a Sub-Committee to confer with General Ward, relative to the proposal made by Colonel Arnold, of Connecticut, for an attempt upon Ticonderoga. . . . Voted, That the Massachusetts Congress be desired to give an order upon the Treasurer for the immediate payment of one hundred Pounds, in cash; and also order two hundred pounds of Gunpowder, two hundred weight of Lead Bass, and one thousand Flints, and also ten Horses, to be delivered unto Captain Benedict Arnold, for the use of this Colony, upon a certain service approved of by the Council of War. . . . Voted, That Colonel Arnold, appointed to a secret service, be desired to appoint two Field-Officers, Captains, &c., . . . .

16. Oswald’s occupation in pre-war New Haven is confusing. He was trained as a printer, a profession he pursued following the war, but he is frequently described as being a distiller during the time he lived in New Haven. For examples of Oswald depiction as a distiller see Martin, Benedict Arnold Revolutionary Hero, 65, and Willard Wallace, Traitorous Hero, The Life and Fortunes of Benedict Arnold (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 43. It was common for men to have two professions at the time, and perhaps Oswald was both a printer and distiller in pre-war New Haven.

17. Joseph Towne Wheeler, The Maryland Press, 1777-1790 (Baltimore: The Maryland Historical Society, 1938), 19. Oswald later became a printer in Baltimore.

18. French, The First Year of the American Revolution (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1934), 148.

19. Allen French, The Taking of Ticonderoga in 1775: the British Story (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928), 79-80. In his book, French presents the various sources regarding the number of men who assembled at Shoreham for the attack on Fort Ticonderoga. The number varies from a low of 150 (according to Benedict Arnold’s count) to a high of 270 (as stated in the History of Shoreham and the Gazetteer of Vermont).

20. Report of Lieutenant Jocelyn Feltham in French, The Taking of Ticonderoga in 1775, 45.

21. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 2:556.

22. Ibid., 558-559.

23. Ibid., 557.

24. Sheldon Cohen, ed., Canada Preserved, The Journal of Captain Thomas Ainslie (Canada: The Copp Clark Publishing Company, 1968), 18. Ainslie said that Arnold robbed the mail at St. Johns.

25. Benedict Arnold to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety dated Crown Point, May 29, 1775, in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 2: 735.

26. Ibid., 1087.

27. Ibid., 1087. This incident appeared in an anonymously written defense of Arnold’s activities in the Lake Champlain region. Calling himself Veritas (Latin for truth), the author likely was Arnold.

28. For Congress’ use of the phrase “to take into consideration the state of America,” see Worthington C. Ford, et. al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress 1774-1789 34 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904-1934), 2: 75.

29. Ibid., 2:73-4.

30. For a description of the election of Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army see Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington—A Biography 7 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951-57), 3: 434-437.

31. Ford, et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 2: 92.

32. Allen mentioned Brown in his May 11, 1775, report to the Massachusetts Congress as “John Brown, Esq., Attorney at Law, who was also an able counsellor, and was personally in the attack.” See Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 2:556.

33. Ibid., 1,088.

34. Ibid., 1,646-1,647.

35. An August 20, 1775, letter from Silas Deane to Philip Schuyler included the comment, “You once wrote to Me in his [Arnold] favor for the Office of Adjutt. [adjutant] Genl. in Your Department. If the post is not filled wish You to remember him as I think he has deserved much & received little. . . .” See Paul H. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress 1774-1789 26 vols. (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1976-2000), 1: 704.

36. Wallace, Traitorous Hero, 55.

37. Robert R. Livingston (1746-1813) was one of the political leaders of the American Revolution. He is frequently identified by historians and genealogists as Chancellor Livingston to avoid confusion with his father, whose name was Robert R. Livingston Jr. (1688-1775), and grandfather Robert R. Livingston (1654-1728). Chancellor Livingston’s career included serving as a New York delegate to the Continental Congress, during which time he was appointed to the committee responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence. He subsequently served as the first United States minister of foreign affairs (today’s secretary of state) and chancellor (the presiding judge) of the state of New York. It was in this office that Livingston had the honor of giving the oath of office to George Washington as first president of the United States. The chancellor concluded his public career as American minister to France (1801-1804) during Thomas Jefferson’s first presidential administration. During his tenure in France, Livingston negotiated the Louisiana Purchase and entered into a partnership with Robert Fulton, an American painter living in Paris at the time, who shared the chancellor’s fascination with steam navigation. Although officially named the North River, Fulton’s first steamboat is best known as the Clermont, which was the name of Chancellor Livingston’s ancestral home on the Hudson River.

38. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1: 15. Arnold’s name is mentioned only once in a long letter, dated August 31-September 5, 1774, that Deane wrote to his wife. The pertinent text reads: “I am well provided for at a Widow Lady’s one Mrs. House [sic.]. Mr. [Christopher] Gadsden, & Son from Charlestown S. Carolina, S. Webb [Samuel B. Webb, Deane’s stepson who later served as an aide-de-camp to General Washington and commanded a regiment in the Revolution], young Mr. Dyer [the son of Colonel Eliphalet Dyer, a Connecticut delegate to Congress], Mr. [Benedict] Arnold & self are the Lodgers. . . .”

Chapter Two

1. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 23.

2. Worthington Chauncey Ford, et. al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress 34 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904-37), 2: 95.

3. Although Schuyler’s separate command was officially called the New York Department, it was more commonly referred to as the Northern Department. See Robert K. Wright Jr., The Continental Army (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1989), 41. There seems to be confusion regarding Schuyler’s military career. He was not a British officer during The French and Indian War, and he was not appointed to his post as commander of the Northern Department by Washington. See, for example, Thomas A. Desjardin’s Through a Howling Wilderness (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2006), 11.

The term Grand Army or main army was used during the Revolutionary War to identify all the troops under Washington’s immediate command, be they Continental regiments, state troops, or militia. Congress used the term Grand Army to identify the main army as early as June 16, 1775, when it resolved, “That there be one quarter master general for the grand army, and a deputy, under him, for the separate army.” See Ford, et. al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 2: 94.

4. Don R. Gerlach, Proud Patriot, Philip Schuyler and the War of Independence 1775-1783 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 18.

5. W.W. Abbot et. al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1:188.

6. Justin H. Smith, Our Struggle For the Fourteenth Colony, Canada and the American Revolution 2 vols. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907), 1:497, and Francis Parkman, A Half-Century of Conflict 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1892), 1: 3-4.

7. Smith, Our Struggle For the Fourteenth Colony, 1:497, and Parkman, A Half-Century of Conflict, 1:3.

8. Justin H. Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1903), 20. Smith’s book is only a partial history of the Arnold Expedition. It ends with the arrival of the detachment to the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.

9. Captain John Montresor (1736-1799) was a fascinating figure in American history. He was born in Gibraltar, the son of James Montresor, who was the chief engineer at that British outpost.

10. Montresor’s Journal in Kenneth Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, Journals of the Members of Arnold’s Expedition including the Lost Journal of John Pierce (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1940), 21.

11. G.D. Scull, ed., “Journals of Capt. John Montresor 1757-1778,” in the Collections of the New York Historical Society for the Year 1881 (New York: The New York Historical Society, 1882), 119.

12. Ibid., 125.

13. For information about the history of shipbuilding in Maine see William Hutchinson Rowe, The Maritime History of Maine (Gardiner, Maine: The Harpswell Press, 1989).

14. Francis Parkman, France and England in North America (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1983), 347.

15. See The Committee of both Houses appointed to confer with the Indian Chief of the Tribe of St. Francois, in Canada, now in this Town [Cambridge]. . ., August 17, 1775, in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3: 339.

16. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 306-7, n. 1. Colburn is referred to in a letter Washington’s military secretary (Joseph Reed) wrote to James Otis Sr., president of the Massachusetts council: “The Bearer is accompanied by an Indian Chief of the Tribe of St. Frances in Canada who has come down upon a friendly Errand. . . . The Person at whose Instance His Visit is made [Colburn] can give a more Circumstantial Account of him and his Business than the Limits of a Letter will admit.”

17. Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 296. The evidence that Colburn made three round-trips from Gardinerston to Cambridge is a bill from him that reads, “To My Self Going on Express from Cannibeck [the Kennebec River region of Maine] to Cambridge 3 times. . . .”

18. Parkman, A Half-Century of Conflict, 1: 32-33.

19. Captain George Smith, An [sic] Universal Military Dictionary (London: Printed for J. Millan, 1779), 86-7. Although published in 1779, Smith’s dictionary was probably stating long-standing practices.

20. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 336-37.

21. Ibid., 1: 206.

22. Ibid., 1: 332.

23. Horatio Gates acknowledged receipt of Arnold’s plan on behalf of Washington in a letter dated August 25, 1775. Gates’ letter reads as follows:

To Col. Arnold at Watertown, Sir, I am confident you told me last night that you did not intent to leave Cambridge until the express sent by your friend [Oswald] returned from General Schuyler. Lest I should be mistaken, I am directed by his Excellency, General Washington, to request you to wait the return of that express. I have laid your plans before the General who will converse with you upon it when you next meet Your answer by the bearer will oblige, sir.

See Historical Magazine Vol. 1., No. 12 (December 1857): 372.

24. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 332-333.

25. Ibid., 1: 368.

26. Ibid., 1: 406. The draft of Washington’s August 20, 1775, letter to General Schuyler mentioned sending “12, or 1500 Men” on the expedition. Washington changed the number to “1000 or 1200 men.” See Ibid., 1:334 footnote. This change is further evidence that the Arnold Expedition left Cambridge with between 1,000 and 1,200 men. Arnold recruited some additional soldiers, guides (river men), and Indians en route, which accounts for the confusion regarding the size of his corps.

27. Ibid., 1: 436.

28. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1: 685.

29. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 436.

30. Gerlach, Proud Patriot, Philip Schuyler and the War of Independence, 37.

31. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1:409 footnote.

32. Ibid., 2: 95.

33. E. James Ferguson, The Power of the Purse (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1961), 8-9.

34. Ibid., 26.

35. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1:446.

36. Ibid., n. 1. This footnote reads, “On 13 Sept. Washington signed warrants of L 1,000, L752.2 shillings and L 2,590.16 shillings for Arnold.”

37. Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 94-5.

38. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 95.

39. Smith, An Universal Military Dictionary, 66.

40. Robert E. Wright, letter to author.

41. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 404-5.

42. Ibid., 1: 405 footnote 1. Reed’s letter to Tracy is dated September 7, 1775. Here is its significant text:

Colo.[John] Glover has just informed the General that there are 5 Vessells at Beverly & two at Newbury which were fitted out for another Purpose, but will answer their Present equally well—as they are completely equipp’d with Platforms, Wood, Water &c.—It will be a saving both in Time & Expence to make Use of these, You will therefore be pleased in your Transaction of this Matter to consider these seven Vessells as a Part of the Transports, & only extend your Care to the Remainder. . . .

Joseph Reed was a talented Philadelphia lawyer recruited by Washington at the start of the war to serve as his military secretary. As commander-in-chief of the army, Congress authorized Washington to select a personal staff consisting of three aides-de-camp and a military secretary. The military secretary’s customary function was to prepare letters and orders for the commander’s review and signature.

43. Ibid., 1: 409, contains an accurate and complete text of Colburn’s contract. The original contract is in the handwriting of General Horatio Gates, who was the adjutant general (chief administrator) of the Continental Army. Titled “Instructions to Reuben Colburn,” the contract contains many important details about the outfitting of the expedition.

44. The term “Indian corn” implied corn that was ground into meal.

45. Smith, An Universal Military Dictionary, 66.

46. The fact that Farnsworth and Colburn left Cambridge shortly after receiving their orders from Washington is evidenced by a revealing letter written by Nathaniel Tracy dated “Newbury Port Sept. 6. 1775,” only three days after Colburn received his contract to build the 200 boats. Tracy addressed his letter to Joseph Trumbull, who was the commissary general of the Continental Army. It read in part, “Inclosed you have a Bill, of what Articles I have deliver’d to Mr. Reuben Colburn—I procured a Vessell to carry his Goods, & she is now ready to embrace the first fair wind—Colburn and Farmsworth [Farnsworth] set out early yesterday Morning.”

Tracy’s letter also shows that some provisions for the expedition were purchased in Massachusetts:

Farmsworth purchased the 160 Bbls Flour at the Eastward. . . . Mr. Colburn forgot to mention before he left head Quarters, that 60 wood Axes, wou’d be necessary to be sent down; if you have not ‘em all at Cambridge, I cam procure a few here—pray advise me by the Bearer, what Quantity of Park &c. will be sent here to go in the Vessells, that I may know what Ballast to procure.

Manuscript Letter, Joseph Trumbull Papers, Connecticut Historical Society.

47. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1:415. The General Orders for September 5, 1775, specified that Arnold was to be assisted by the adjutant general (the chief administrator of the army— Horatio Gates at the time) in the selection of the officers and common soldiers for the expedition. However, I believe that Gates did not participate in the selection of the men but rather was on hand to record their names, issue any necessary orders, and otherwise assist Arnold in the organization of his independent corps.

48. Charles Martyn, The Life of Artemas Ward (New York: privately published, 1921), 169-170. Ward was a popular New England militia officer and second in command of the Continental Army during this early period of the war. The pertinent text reads: “On September 2 there called at Ward’s headquarters a man who later passed through glory into perpetual infamy—Benedict Arnold, then bearing a commission as colonel and about to start on his expedition through the wilderness to Quebec. He came to Roxbury with a letter from Washington’s headquarters requesting the ‘advice and assistance’ of Ward and his brigadiers “in promoting this important service. . . . The men were ‘taken off the roll of duty’ on September 8, and on that date and the ninth were encamped in separate quarters at Cambridge while preparations were completing for their departure the following week.”

49. Henry Childs Merwin, Aaron Burr (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1899), 18.

50. The phrase appears in a May 1776 letter written by a gentleman volunteer named John Howard. See Holly A. Mayer, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During the American Revolution (University of South Carolina Press, 1996).

51. Wright, The Continental Army, 36.

52. Ibid.

53. Samuel Spring, a Congregational clergyman, remained with the Continental Army until the end of 1776. In August 1777 he became pastor of a church in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

54. Although Arnold’s two infantry battalions possessed the correct number of men and organization of a regiment, they were not referred to as such, because Washington had no authority from Congress to create any regiments.

55. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 3: 128 footnote 2. Samuel Ward won election to both the First and Second Continental Congress. He died from smallpox in Philadelphia in March 1776.

56. Richard K. Showman et al., eds., The Papers of General Nathanael Greene 12 vols. to date (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1976-), 8: 305 note.

57. Major Meigs’ first wife, Joanna Winborn, died in 1773. He had five children from this marriage. In 1774 he married his second wife, Grace Starr, who gave birth to their first child, Elizabeth, while Meigs was on the Arnold Expedition.

58. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, American National Biography 24 vols. (New York: 1999, Oxford University Press), 6: 299-300.

59. Lloyd A. Brown and Howard H. Peckham, Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn 1775-1783 (Chicago: The Caxton Club, 1939), 37.

60. Rifled long guns were used at the time all along the American frontier. As an example, in 1775, a newly arrived immigrant from England wrote home from South Carolina with an account of rifles: “I am just returned from the Back parts where I seed eight thousand men in arms [an exaggeration], all with riffled Barrel guns which they can hit the bigness of a Dollar betwixt two and three hundred yards distance…and all their Cry is ‘Liberty or Death.’” See Edward J. Cashin, William Bartram and the American Revolution on the Southern Frontier (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2000), 211.

61. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates, 1: 497.

62. Ford, et. al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 2:89. Congress authorized the raising of riflemen for the Continental service in the following manner:

Resolved, That six companies of expert riflemen, be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia; that each company consist of a captain, three lieutenants, four sergeants, four corporals, a drummer or trumpeter, and sixty-eight privates.

That each company, as soon as compleated, shall march and join the army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry, under the command of the chief Officer in that army. . . .

That the form of the enlistment be in the following words: “I [insert name] have, this day, voluntarily enlisted myself, as a soldier, in the American Continental Army, for one year, unless sooner discharged: And I do bind myself to conform, in all instances, to such rules and regulations, as are, or shall be, established for the government of the said Army.

Hugh Stephenson (died 1776) from Berkeley County (now West Virginia) and Daniel Morgan (1735-1802) from Frederick County commanded the Virginia rifle companies. Michael Cresap (1742-1775) and Thomas Price (1732-1795) raised the two Maryland companies in Frederick County. The rifle company that Morgan raised in 1775 should not be confused with another outfit raised by Morgan in 1777 known as Morgan’s Rifle Corps. The latter was organized on a temporary basis.

63. Don Higginbotham, Daniel Morgan (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 5.

64. James Graham, The Life of General Daniel Morgan (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1859), 54.

65. Don Higginbotham, Daniel Morgan, 25.

66. George Morison, “Journal of the Expedition to Quebec” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 507.

67. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 445-446.

68. Matthew Smith was one of the leaders in the senseless killing of Indians on the Pennsylvania frontier between 1763 and 1765. Calling themselves the Paxton Boys, Smith and his fellow renegades were angry with the Quaker-dominated, pacifist-minded Pennsylvania Assembly that refused to provide troops to defend their frontier settlements against hostile Indians. The Paxton Boys massacred a band of defenseless Indians living near Lancaster before marching to Philadelphia, where they demanded protection for their western settlements.

69. John Jospeh Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account of the Hardships and Sufferings of that Band of Heroes, Who Traversed in the Wilderness In the Campaign Against Quebec in 1775 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: William Greer, 1812), 15. Although considered one of the most important private soldier’s narratives from the Revolutionary War, it is of questionable accuracy because Henry dictated it to his daughter, Anne Mary, 40 years later, shortly before his death in 1811. For a biography of Henry and additional information about his narrative, see the “Memoir of John Joseph Henry, by His Grandson,” in the 1877 reprint published by Joel Munsell Co., Albany, New York.

70. Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, Philadelphia, June 3, 1775, in Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates, 1: 437.

71. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . in the Campaign Against Quebec in 1775, 15.

72. Riflemen generally wore shoes and not boots. Farmers wore heavy boots in colonial America as a practical necessity. Lighter and better quality boots were worn for riding. Everyone else wore shoes.

73. Martin, Benedict Arnold, 463-464 footnote 28. The British spy is identified as Benjamin Thompson, a New Hampshire militia major who was a British sympathizer reporting directly to General Gage. For additional information about Major Thompson’s spy activities, see Sanborn C. Brown, Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1979), 42-46.

74. General Artemas Ward commanded the New England Army of Observation prior to Washington’s arrival. Ward and his fellow New England officers, including Israel Putnam from Connecticut, are frequently ignored by historians, many of whom consider them bumbling incompetents. This is an over-simplification of a complicated and difficult situation. Ward and Putnam had their talents. The fact that apparently more than 1,000 coats and work frocks, which took months to make, were available in early September is an example of Ward’s enterprise and planning.

75. While the terms axe and hatchet were used interchangeably in America during most of the eighteenth century, there were significant differences between them. An axe is a large tool requiring both hands and used to fell trees and cut wood. A hatchet is a smaller version of the axe adopted for one-handed use. The hatchet, also called a belt axe, was used as a personal weapon and was popular among the Americans early in the war. The Americans adopted the more effective bayonet in lieu of the hatchet as their second weapon (the musket being their primary weapon) as the war progressed. However, riflemen continued to carry hatchets because their fragile rifles could not hold a bayonet. Some special military units such as light infantry used the hatchet as a distinctive personal weapon. Tomahawk was another word used to describe an axe or hatchet.

76. Sheldon S. Cohen, ed., Canada Preserved, The Journal of Captain Thomas Ainslie (Canada: The Copp Clark Publishing Company, 1968), 72.

77. No history of the Arnold Expedition would be complete without mentioning the novel Arundel. It is a fictional version of the expedition written by Kenneth Roberts and first published in 1930. Arundel was a town in Maine that was home to several of the principal characters in the story. The modern name of Arundel is Kennebunkport, the popular seaside summer resort community. However, the name Arundel was adopted by a town just north of Kennebunkport.

78. Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 279 footnote 5, and manuscript document, Revolutionary War pension claim of David Hopkins, Continental Maryland Troops, S. 34925.

79. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army (Washington, D.C., The Rare Book Shop Publishing Company, Inc.: 1914), 448.

80. For a list of the home town of Arnold’s officers see Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:709.

Chapter Three

1. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 39.

2. See instructions to Colonel Benedict Arnold in W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1:458. His instructions also stated: “Whatever King’s Stores you shall be so fortunate as to possess. . .are to be secured for the Continental [army] use.” Washington was specific on this point because he believed that Quebec held the largest stock of British ammunition in North America. See Chester G. Hearn, George Washington’s Schooners-The First American Navy (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 27.

3. A number of histories of the Arnold Expedition state that the entire corps paraded at Cambridge prior to its departure for Maine. See, for example, James A. Houston, Logistics of Liberty, American Services of Supply in the Revolutionary War and After (Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware Press, 1991), 44, which states, “the detachment paraded on the common at Cambridge on 11 September under the supervision of Colonel Arnold and the adjutant general” (General Horatio Gates). Such a large assembly of troops would typically have been included in the General Orders of the army. However, there are no such instructions included in the General Orders for September 9 or 10. The General Orders for September 8 mention an interesting reference to the Arnold Expedition: “The Detachment going under the Command of Col. Arnold, to be forthwith taken off the Roll of duty, and to march this evening to Cambridge Common; where Tents, and every thing necessary, is provided for their reception—The rifle Company at Roxbury, and those from Prospect-hill [two places surrounding Boston], to march early to morrow Morning to join the above detachment.” See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 432. This order does not state or imply that Arnold’s complete expedition was to be paraded prior to its departure. It is possible that Arnold assembled his army at Cambridge on September 6, after selecting his officers and common soldiers from among the numerous volunteers. If he did parade his troops on the 6th, after selecting the men who would “go upon Command with Col. Arnold of Connecticut,” it must have attracted the attention of every British spy and sympathizer in town. Ibid., 1: 415.

4. Isaac Senter, ‘The Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, Physician and Surgeon to the Troops Detached From the American Army Encamped at Cambridge, Mass., on a Secret Expedition Against Quebec,” Bulletin of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1, No. 5 (1846): 2. There is an interesting note concerning Senter’s journal that appeared in an 1867 book about the Arnold Expedition: “This Journal was carried to Philadelphia, where it was lost sight of for many years and finally came into the hands of Dr. Lewis Roper, of that city, whose perception of its importance induced him to communicate it to the Pennsylvania Historical Society.” See Edwin Martin Stone, ed., The Invasion of Canada in 1775: Including the Journal of Captain Simeon Thayer, Describing the Perils and Sufferings of the Army Under Colonel Benedict Arnold. . . (Providence, Rhode Island: Knowles, Anthony & Co, 1867), preface v. This accounts for the publication of Senter’s journal by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1846. The journal was reprinted by the New York Times/Arno Press in 1969.

5. Apparently Washington obtained the money to pay the men by signing warrants for various sums on September 13, 1775. See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 446 footnote.

6. George Washington to Joseph Reed, November 28, 1775, in Ibid., 2: 449.

7. “Journal of Abner Stocking As Kept by Himself During His Long and Tedious March Through the Wilderness to Quebec, Until His Return to His Native Place” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 545. According to Roberts, much of Stocking’s journal was copied from others, and although he was in Captain Hanchett’s company (part of Meigs’ third division), much of his journal is written as if he had been with the riflemen in Morgan’s first division. See Ibid., 543.

8. In 1764, part of the town of Newbury broke away and incorporated itself as Newburyport. See John J. Currier, History of Newburyport, Mass. 1764-1905 (Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1906), 387.

9. Major Return J. Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, Under Command of Col. Benedict Arnold (New York: Privately Printed, 1864), 8.

10. Senter, The Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 11-12.

11. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1058. The title of Arnold’s journal is “A Journal of an intended Tour from Cambridge to Quebeck, via Kennebeck with a detachment of two Regiments of Musketeers and three Companies of Riflers, consisting of about eleven hundred effective men, commanded by Benedict Arnold.” The terms regiment and battalion were frequently interchanged at the time. As previously mentioned, Arnold’s musketmen were organized into two provisional battalions. Eleazer Oswald wrote the first part of Arnold’s journal. The first entry made by Oswald was on September 15, 1775. He continued to keep Arnold’s journal until October 13, 1775.

12. For example, John Knox wrote from Quebec City in March 1760, “Ginger being esteemed a most specific corrective in scorbutic cases, a quantity of that spice is issued out to the troops, for which, as is mentioned in the order, ‘they will pay the government price.’” See Brian Connell, ed., The Siege of Quebec and the Campaigns in North America, 1757-1760 (Edinburgh, U.K., 1976), 240. This is a reprint of the 1969 first edition.

13. “A Journal of an intended Tour Commanded by Benedict Arnold” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1058. Oswald signed his name at the end of the journal as “Eleazer Oswald, Sec’y pro tem.” The term “pro tem” is a Latin phrase that best translates to “for the time being.”

14. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 13; Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 12.

15. Justin Winsor, ed., Arnold’s Expedition Against Quebec 1775-1776, The Diary of Ebenezer Wild (Cambridge, Massachusetts: John Wilson and Son, 1886), 5. Another reference to the parade appears in William Humphrey’s diary for the date, which reads in part, “This day we paraded our men. . . .” See Shipton and Swain, eds., “Humphrey Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 12.

16. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec in 1775, 16. Henry studied law following his military service and eventually was appointed a judge and president of the second judicial district in Pennsylvania.

17. Gore Vidal, Burr: A Novel (New York: Random House; First Vintage International Edition, 2000), 43.

18. “Journal of John Pierce” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 698.

19. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., The Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 158.

20. George C. Neumann and Frank J. Kravic, Collector’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (Texarkana, Texas: Scurlock Publishing Company, Inc., 1997), 248; George C. Neumann, Battle Weapons of the American Revolution (Texarkana, Texas: Scurlock Publishing Company, Inc. 1998).

21. Major General Charles Lee wrote a plan for the organization of a regiment in the Continental Army and sent it to Congressman Silas Deane. Lee’s plan was likely prepared after he arrived at Cambridge with recommendations from Washington. His regimental scheme included a standard (flag) for each company in the regiment and “one Regimentary [regimental] or Great Colour, by which the four Standards of the four Companies are to regulate their advances, their retreats, their Conversions and all their Movements. . . . In the Colour and the standards must be embroider’d the word liberty.” See Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., Correspondence and Journals of Samuel Blachley Webb 2 vols. (New York, 1893), 1: 85, and Edward W. Richardson, Standards and Colors of the American Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 75, 90, 95.

22. Nancy Druckman, American Flags, Designs for a Young Nation (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003), 12.

23. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 546.

24. Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North-America, In The Years 1780, 1781, and 1782 2 vols. (London: Printed for G.G.J. And J. Robinson, 1787), 2: 241, 249.

25. Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 24; Martin, Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero, 119. Martin points out that none of Arnold’s officers mention the visit to Whitefield’s tomb, and the validity of this story is suspect.

26. “Fobes Narrative” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 581.

27. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1:457.

28. Nathaniel Tracy to Joseph Trumbull dated Newbury Port, Sept 6. 1775. Manuscript letter, Joseph Trumbull Papers, Connecticut Historical Society.

29. Bray & Bushnell, eds., Diary of a Common Soldier in the American Revolution, 1775-1783—An Annotated Edition of the Military Journal of Jeremiah Greenman (DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1978), 13. Greenman’s diary is difficult to read because of its poor spelling and grammar. The subject entry reads, “T [Tuesday, September] 19. Early this morn. waid anchor with the wind at: SE[.] A [fresh?] gale[,] our Colours fliing [flying] Drums beating[,] fifes a plaing [playing.] the hils [hills] and warfs a Cover [with people?] bidding their friends fair well.” Greenman hailed from Rhode Island and served as a private in Captain Samuel Ward’s company.

30. On September 8, 1775, while the British were working to destroy the Arnold Expedition, General Washington was still organizing it per his General Orders for that date, which read in part: “The Detachment going under the Command of Col. Arnold to be forthwith taken off the Roll of duty, and to march this evening to Cambridge Common; where Tents, and every thing necessary, is provided for their reception. . . . Such Officers & men as are taken from Genl Green’s brigade, for the above detachment, are to attend the Muster of their respective regiments to morrow morning at seven ‘Oclock, upon Prospect hill, when the Muster is finished, they are forthwith to rejoin the Detachment at Cambridge.” See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1:432.

31. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 47. In 1775 Nova Scotia included the modern Canadian province of New Brunswick. The French called this area Acadia. The British government established the new colony of New Brunswick as a refuge for loyalists at the end of the American Revolution.

32. Weber, ed., Masked Dispatches, 25-40.

33. Brown, Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, 41-46. Using lemon juice in place of ink is the easiest way to write invisibly. The secret writing becomes visible when the piece of paper is held up to a light source (candle) or bright daylight. However, writing in lemon juice is also easy to detect. Any good spy in the Revolutionary War would have used more complex liquids, and a 1761 military text book provides the formula for such an ink:

Secret Correspondence is carried on either by Cyphers, or certain Compositions used in Place of Ink. One of the best of these compositions is made of distilled Vinegar, in which is boiled Silver Litharge,[lead monoxide also called massicot] about an Ounce of Litharge to an English Pint of Vinegar. When settled, decant off the Vinegar and the Grounds, and it is clear as Rock Water. This may be made Use of to write between the Lines of a Letter on any different Subject, on Paper which serves to wrap up any thing, on the blank Leaves which are commonly at the Beginning or End of Books, or on the Margins of the Leaves of a Book. When dry, it is not possible to perceive the least Impression on the Characters traced with this Liquor. In order to make them appear, you must make use of Water, in which has been dissolved quick Lime mixed with Orpiment [a mineral also called yellow arsenic sulfide or king’s yellow]. This Water, when decanted, is as clear as the other. They Way to use it, is to rub it gently on a Leaf of clean Paper which you apply to what has been wrote with the first Composition. This second Composition is so penetrating, that when applied to the Writing, if you fix several Leaves of Paper above it, the Writing will immediately distinctly appear through the Whole.

See Essay on the Art of War In Which The General Principles of All the Operations of War in the Field Are Fully Explained (London: Printed for A. Millar, 1761), 207-208.

34. Scull, ed., “Journals of Capt. John Montresor,” 135.

35. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 220. In a September 20, 1775, intelligence report to London, General Gage reported that the Arnold Expedition was marching to Quebec but was more concerned about defending the Royal Naval base at Halifax, Nova Scotia, which he believed might still be their objective:

A body of about 1200 Men was detached some Days ago from the Rebel Army as we learn towards Canada, by way of the Chaudiere. They marched to Newbury where they embarked in Sloops and Schooners and as they gave out [told] were to proceed up the Kennebec as high as Fort Halifax. It is impossible without a Defection of the Canadians that they can succeed in any attempt against that Province; and Admiral Graves assures me, that there is a Frigate with two armed Schooners besides some armed Transports in the Bay of Fundy, and the Somerset of Sixty Guns at Halifax, should they attempt Nova-Scotia.

See Ibid., 2: 161.

36. Ibid., 2: 487.

37. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1680.

38. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 417. Despite the opinion of his officers, Graves could have attempted to reinforce Quebec because ships were known to have docked safety there as late as the end of November. See Robert McConnell Hatch, Thrust For Canada, The American Attempt on Quebec in 1775-1776 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979), 61; Smith, Our Struggle For the Fourteenth Colony, 2:15.

39. For a detailed list of Grave’s fleet see Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 373-374.

40. Captain W.M. James, R.N., The British Navy in Adversity, A Study of the War of American Independence (London: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd, 1926), 27. For a biography of Graves see Richard L. Blanco, ed., The American Revolution 1775-1783, An Encyclopedia, 2 vols. (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993), 1: 675-77.

There are two encyclopedia sources for the American Revolution. Besides the above-mentioned reference work there is Mark M. Boatner III, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1974). Boatner’s work, first published in 1966, is considered by many Revolutionary War enthusiasts to be a primer on the subject. Apparently working alone, Boatner created a seemly impressive reference work on the Revolutionary War. However, his encyclopedia is flawed, and Blanco’s later two-volume series (written by a team of historians) is more reliable. A pertinent example in Boatner’s Encyclopedia is his information concerning the early military careers of General James Wilkinson (commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army during Jefferson’s administration and believed to be a spy for the Spanish government): “9 Sept. ‘75- March ‘76, he and Aaron Burr took part in Arnold’s March to Quebec (An interesting collection of scoundrels, but their performance in this expedition was creditable). Wilkinson remained with Arnold until Dec. ’76.” This is incorrect. Wilkinson was not on the 1775 Arnold Expedition and did not even arrive in Canada until 1776.

41. James, The British Navy in Adversity, 28.

42. Ibid., 32.

43. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 38.

44. Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 8.

45. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 6.

46. Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 9-10.

47. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 21-22.

48. Ibid., 1: 91.

49. Ibid., 2: 27-28. The delegates to Congress had some informal news of the existence of the Arnold Expedition prior to Washington’s September 21, 1775, letter on the subject. Delegate Richard Smith, for example, wrote in his diary on September 20: “An Expedition is on Foot against the Kings Forces in Canada via Kennebec under Col. Arnold from Washingtons Camp at Cambridge.” See Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 2: 38. On the same date (September 20) delegate Thomas Lynch wrote General Schuyler: “Colo. Arnold is on his Way to Canada by way the Genl [Washington] mentioned to you and will I hope make a powerful diversion in Your Favour.” See Ibid., 2: 36.

50. Dale Potter Clark, “How Our Old Homes Began” Readfield [Maine] Historical Society Newsletter (Fall/Winter 2000-2001): 3.

51. Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 9.

52. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 654.

53. Each company on the Arnold Expedition contained about 90 officers and enlisted men. McCobb’s company seemed to be the exception. It had the usual compliment of officers but only 44 common soldiers. See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 338 footnote, and Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 70, 279 footnote.

54. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 654.

55. Ibid., Mr. Lewis Flagg from the Maine Department of Marine Resources explained that 11 species of migratory fish can be found today in the Kennebec River: Atlantic salmon, striped bass, rainbow smelt, sea-run brook trout, sea lamprey, Atlantic sturgeon, shortnose sturgeon, alewife, blueback herring, American shad, and American ell. Mr. Flagg believes that all of these species, at various life stages, were in the river when the Arnold Expedition passed through in the fall of 1775.

The construction of the dam at Augusta in 1837 dealt a harsh blow to the migratory fish in the Kennebec, especially Atlantic salmon and alewives, since virtually all their spawning habitat lay above the Augusta dam. Some of the other types of fish continued to be plentiful (although there was a significant reduction in numbers overall) because much of their spawning habitat existed in the estuaries below the dam. The increasing industrial pollution of the lower river between 1900 and 1976 further diminished the stocks due to water quality deterioration. Since the removal of the Augusta dam in 1999 and water pollution abatement since 1976, alewives, shad, blueback herring, rainbow smelt, striped bass, Atlantic sturgeon, and shortnose sturgeon have made an impressive recovery and migrate upriver as far as Waterville. E-mail to the author.

56. “A Journal of an intended Tour by Benedict Arnold” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1059.

57. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 39.

58. “Pierce Journal,” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 655.

59. Ibid. When Dr. Gardiner sided with the British in the Revolutionary War, the local American patriots changed the name of the region to Pittston. The modern towns of Pittston, Farmingdale, Chelsea, Gardiner, West Gardiner, and Randolph were subsequently created from this large parcel of land.

60 “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Que bec, 655.

61. Ibid.

62. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 409. Arnold may have been angry with Colburn to find that his fleet of newly constructed bateaux were lying on shore instead of floating in the river. The boats were made from newly cut “green” wood that would shrink as the moisture in the wood evaporated. This natural shrinking process would open the seams between the caulked beams of the bateaux, causing them to leak. It would have been better to leave the freshly made bateaux in the water to retard the shrinking process. Perhaps Colburn was proud of his achievement and wanted to display his finished boats lined up on shore.

63. Ibid., 1:409-410 footnote.

64. Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 297; The Debates and Proceedings of the Congress of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1856), year 1824, vol. 2: 353. The record for March 15, 1824, reads in part: “The report of the Committee on Claims, unfavorable to the petition of Reuben Colburn, was taken up for consideration. This petition prays compensation for 220 bateaux, built in 1775, for the use of the troops of Colonel Arnold, then about to march into Canada; and for sundry other services rendered. He states that he delivered over his accounts and vouchers for said disbursement and services. . . .”

65. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1:409-410.

66. Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 80-81.

67. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 182. There is no known copy of Goodwin’s map. Stephen Moylan, who was one of Washington’s aides-de-camp, responded to Goodwin’s letter on November 4, 1775, “I am Commanded by his Excellency to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 17th Ulto—he is pleased that you had Supplied Colonel Arnold with the plans for his Route to Quebec. If it shou’d hereafter be found necessary to Lay out the road you mention, His Excellency wont be unmindful of your Offers of Service for that purpose.” See Ibid., 183, footnote.

68. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 7.

69. This is also the origin of the Italian word biscotti. Bis means twice and cotto is the word for baked or cooked. Biscotti is made in this manner; it is twice-cooked bread.

70. “Letters written while on an Expedition across the State of Maine with a journal of a tour from the St. Lawrence to the Kennebec suppose to have been made by Col. Montresor,” Collections of the Maine Historical Society, 1831, reprint (Portland: Bailey & Noyes, 1865), 451.

71. Schuyler to Washington dated Ticonderoga, August 31, 1775, in W.W. Abbot, et al. eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 393-94.

72. Ibid., 436-437.

73. Smith, Our Struggle For the Fourteenth Colony, 1: 426. Jacques de Chambly built the first wooden fort on the site in 1665 to fend off Iroquois war parties on their way to raid Montreal. Two additional wooden forts were built on this location before a stone fort was raised in 1709 in response to fears of a British attack against Montreal. The French surrendered the fort to the British in 1760 during the French and Indian War. Fort Chambly was restored by Parks Canada according to a 1750 French plan.

74. W.W. Abbot, et al. eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 393-4.

75. Unsigned manuscript letter, The Philip J. Schuyler Papers, New York Public Library, Box 41.

76. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 511.

77. This calculation is based on a study made by Mr. Duluth E. Wing from Eustis, Maine. All additional references to distances are based on Mr. Wing’s measurements. The confusion over the distance that the Arnold Expedition traveled is because a large man-made lake, Lake Flagstaff, was created when the Dead River was dammed in 1950. This large lake flooded a portion of Arnold’s route along the meandering Dead River. Another man-made lake, called Lake Wyman, covers a portion of Arnold’s route along the upper Kennebec River. In addition, the expedition made detours and got lost when the upper Dead River and the Chain of Ponds regions were flooded following a severe storm.

Another consideration in trying to determine the exact distance the Arnold Expedition traveled is that they had to make numerous round trips to portage their boats and baggage around obstacles. For example, diarist Caleb Haskell estimated that he traveled 320 miles from Fort Western to Quebec City. See “Haskell’s Diary” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 499. Historian Christopher Ward states that the expedition traveled 350 miles from Fort Western to Quebec. See Christopher Ward, The War of the Revolution 2 vols (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1952), 1:180. Commenting further on the distance actually traveled, Mr. Wing said: “My calculations of the distances that the Arnold Expedition traveled are based on measuring water routes which include the meandering Dead River. However I think the poor soldiers who walked traveled at least 25% further than the men on the bateaux.” Letter to the author, March 6, 2004.

Chapter Four

1. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 54.

2. There is no known evidence that men with artillery experience were selected to go on the Arnold Expedition. Such men would have been useful if Arnold had succeeded in capturing any British artillery when he got to Canada.

3. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 448.

4. Ibid., 1: 221-222.

5. The origin of the term guerilla warfare is the Spanish word for war, which is guerra. The Spanish used hit-and-run tactics, ambushes, and raids into enemy territory to fight the French army that invaded their country during the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century. Partisan warfare by the colonists in the Revolutionary War was regional, and developed out of necessity when the British defeated regular American armies. As an example, the Americans turned to partisan warfare in the south following the capture of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1780. Partisan techniques were also employed by necessity in New Jersey in late 1776 when the British invaded that state, forcing Washington’s main army to retreat to Pennsylvania.

In a deep attack, a force penetrates far into enemy territory to seize a transportation hub or some other key position. The move is meant to throw the enemy into disarray and disrupt his freedom of action. In modern warfare, airborne (parachute or helicopter) forces are frequently used to hold the objective until stronger ground forces can link up with them. Modern examples of deep attacks include the allies’ attempt in World War II to get across the Rhine River by seizing Arnhem and airborne drops behind the beaches in Normandy on D-Day. In the 1775 Canadian campaign, Arnold’s column was the deep attack, and Montgomery’s army was the link up.

6. J. A. Houlding, Fit For Service; The Training of the British Army 1715-1795 (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1981), 183.

7. W. W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 346-347. Washington wrote his letter of advice, which included his recommended reading list to the newly appointed Colonel William Woodford. His letter is dated November 10, 1775.

8. Roger Stevenson, Esq., Military Instructions for Officers Detached in the Field (R. Aitken, Philadelphia, 1775), 160-161. This textbook was originally published in London in 1770.

9. Ibid., 173.

10. The number of men on this surveying party is from the “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 656.

11. Stevenson, Military Instructions for Officers Detached in the Field, 80-81.

12. There is a great story about how Rufus Putnam became an engineer in the Continental Army. Putnam served as a colonial auxiliary during the French and Indian War, during which he learned some rudiments of engineering from the British engineers. He joined the American army at the start of the Revolutionary War and served as a line officer in the Massachusetts regiment. The Americans were desperate for engineers following the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775) and Putnam explained in his memoirs what happened next:

Some of my acquaintence [sic] mentioned me as having ben [sic] imployed in that line [engineering]in the Late war against Canada. I informed the General that I had never read a word on the Subject of Fortification, that it was true that I had been imployed on Some under British Engineers, but pretended to no knowledge of Laying works. But there was no excuse that would do, undertake I must—Oh! What a Sittuation were we in. No Lines to cover us, better then a board fence in case the enemy advanced upon us & this we had reason to expect—Necessity therefore was upon me, undertake I must.

See Rowena Buell, The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903), 54-55. In April 1776, Washington and Congress sent Silas Deane to France. Part of his assignment was to recruit skilled engineers, who began arriving in America the following year.

13. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 666.

14. Ibid., 665.

15. Washington read about Morgan’s demand for an independent command in Arnold’s report dated Fort Western, September 25, 1775. The general wrote Morgan a scathing reply on October 4, 1775, which reads in part:

I write you in Consequence of Information I have received that you & the Captains of the Rifle Companies on the Detachment agt [against] Quebeck claim an Exemption from the Command of all the Field Officers e[x]cept Col. Arnold. I understand this Claim is founded upon some Expression [of] mine, but if you understood me in this Way, you are much mistaken in my meaning. My Intention is and ever was that every Officer should Command according to his Rank—to do otherwise would Subvert all military Order & Authority which I am Sure you could not wish or expect—Now the Mistake is rectified I trust you will exert yourself to Support my Intentions, every remembering that by the Same Rule that You claim an independent Command & break in upon military Authority others will do the same by you: And of Consequence the Expedition must terminate in Shame & Disgrace to yourselves and the Reproach and Detriment of your Country.

See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 93. Morgan’s conduct probably did not surprise Washington, who found the riflemen unmanageable while they were in Cambridge. As previously noted, Washington used the Quebec expedition as a means of getting rid of some of the riflemen who defied military discipline.

16. Manuscript letter. Aaron Burr to Sally Burr Reeve, September 24, 1775, The Papers of Aaron Burr, The New-York Historical Society, microfilm Correspondence, reel 1.

17. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:339, reports a conference with Chief Swashan at Cambridge on August 17, 1775.

18. Writing to Washington on September 25, 1775, from Fort Western, Arnold said: “The Indians with Higgins set out by Land, and are not yet arrived.” See W.W. Abbot, et al. eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 41. In another apparent reference to these Indians, Arnold wrote to Lieutenant Colonel Enos on September 29, just before he departed from Fort Western: “When the Indians arrive, hurry them on as fast as possible.” See “Arnold’s Letters” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 69.

19. Nineteenth century historian Francis Parkman eloquently described the Abenakis’ lifestyle:

Inland Acadia was all forest, and vast tracts of it are a primeval forest still. Here roamed the Abenakis with their kindred tribes, a race wild as their haunts. In habits there were all much alike. Their villages were on the waters of the Androscoggin, the Saco, the Kennebec, the Penobscot, the St. Croix, and the St. John; here in spring they planted their corn, beams, and pumpkins, and then, leaving them to grow, went down to the sea in their birch canoes. They returned towards the end of summer, gathered their harvest, and went again to the sea, where they lived in abundance on ducks, geese, and other water-fowl. During winter, most of the women, children, and old men remained in the villages; while the hunters ranged the forest in chase of moose, deer, caribou, beavers, and bears.

Their summer stay at the seashore was perhaps the most pleasant, and certainly the most picturesque, part of their lives. Bivouacked by some of the innumerable coves and inlets that indent these coasts, they passed their days in that alternation of indolence and action which is a second nature to the Indian. Here in wet weather, while the torpid water was dimpled with rain-drops, and the upturned canoes lay idle in the pebbles, the listless warrior smoked his pipe under his roof of bark, or launched his slender craft at the dawn of the July day, when shores and islands were painted in shadow against the rosy east, and forests dusky and cool, lay waiting for the sunrise.

The woman gathered raspberries or whortleberries in the open places of the woods, or clams and oysters in the sands and shallows, adding their shells as contribution to the shell-heaps that have accumulated for ages along these shores. The men fished, speared porpoises, or shot seals.

See Parkman, Count Frontenac and New France, 338-339.

20. “Maine Indians in the Revolution” in Sprague’s Journal of Maine History, vol. 6, no. 3 (Jan. 1919): 108; African American and American Indian Patriots of the Revolutionary War (Washington, D.C.: National Society Daughters of the American Revolution), 3.

21. See Ibid. for the names and information about the five Penobscot Indians on the expedition. Also see James Phinney Baxter, ed., Documentary History of the State of Maine (Portland: Lefavor-Tower Company, 1910), 2nd series, vol. 14: 362-363. This source is a letter written by James Bowdoin, dated Boston, July 30, 1776, which reads in part: “With regard to the Penobscots, They appear well disposed. They said that when Gen. Washington sent his Army to Canada, five of their People went with them & were at ye Siege of Quebec . . . that they had been promised, an allowance should be made to those who went with Col. Arnold; the Support of whose families in their absence had been a great burthen to them: and that they had no recompense for these services.”

22. Arnold to Washington, Fort Western, September 25, 1775, Manuscript document, Benedict Arnold’s Letter Book (1775) and Journal of Lt. John Montresor, Maine Historical Society Collection, reference Coll. 1765. (Hereafter cited as Arnold’s Letter Book, Maine Historical Society.) Aaron Burr presented this relic of the Arnold Expedition to the Maine Historical Society in 1831 as evidenced by a hand-written note enclosed with the letter book signed W.W. (apparently Williams Willis, the recording secretary of the Maine Historical Society at the time): “Original letters of Col. Benedict Arnold written on his expedition to Quebec in 1775. Together with a Journal of Col. [sic] Montresor containing a narrative of an exploring expedition by him about the year 1759. Procured and presented to the Historical Society by Col. Aaron Burr. 1831.”

All of Arnold’s possessions, including his real estate, personal letters, and library, were confiscated by the Americans following his treason and sold at auction. I believe his letter book from the Arnold Expedition was among his possessions and that Burr purchased it and gave it to the Maine Historical Society in 1831.

23. Ibid.

24. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 40.

25. Meigs, Journal of an Expedition Against Quebec, 12.

26. Ibid.

27. Arnold to Enos, September 29, 1775, in Arnold’s Letter Book, Maine Historical Society.

28. “Col. Arnold’s Journal of His Expedition to Canada” (hereafter cited as Arnold’s Journal) in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 45.

Historian Willard Sterne Randall gives a fantastic account of Arnold’s almost-naked departure from Fort Western:

After the last troops had pulled out of sight, Arnold and his aide, Oswald went down to the river’s edge and stepped into a long birchbark canoe crammed with bearskin-covered bundles of supplies and paddled by hired Abenaki guides. Waiting for them in the bow of a second canoe was Aaron Burr in his new ranger’s uniform with the rabbit-trimmed hat. Steadying the boat, her long black hair spreading down the back of her hunting shirt, crouched the beautiful princess of the Swan Island Abenakis, Jacatacqua, part Indian, part French, wholly in love with Burr. Between them sat her hound dog. As two Abenakis steadied the lead canoe, Arnold, clad only in a breechclout [also spelled breechcloth], climbed in and knelt down. Quickly, silently, the canoes nosed out into the main channel. . . .

Randall, Benedict Arnold Patriot and Traitor, 166. There is an interesting account of the Jacatacqua legend in Desjardin’s Through a Howling Wilderness, 200-202. He attributes the story to an aged Henry Dearborn, who related the tale to a newspaper reporter.

29. Arnold’s Letter Book, Maine Historical Society.

30. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 511.

31. “Montresor Journal,” Ibid., 17-18.

32. Ibid., 18-23. According to Montresor’s journal, he left Fort Halifax on the evening of July 9, 1761, and reached Lake Megantic in Canada on July 20.

33. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:961-962.

34. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 518.

35. Ibid., 37.

36. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 42.

37. Nathaniel N. Shipton and David Swain, eds., Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution: The Journals of William Humphrey and Zuriel Waterman (Providence: Rhode Island Publications Society, 1984), 14 (hereafter “Humphrey Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution).

38. Shipton and Swain, eds., “Humphrey Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 14.

39. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 511-12.

40. Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 79.

41. James A. Huston, Logistics of Liberty, American Services of Supply in the Revolutionary War and After (Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware Press, 1991), 49.

42. James A. Huston, “The Logistics of Arnold’s March to Quebec” in Military Affairs, vol. 32, issue 3 (Dec., 1968): 123.

43. An article in the Wall Street Journal about the resurgence of the lost art of building birch bark canoes in the traditional Indian manner began, “Even for a skilled craftsman, building a bark canoe can involve more than 400 hours of meticulous labor. Harvesting the canoe’s outer skin means searching the backwoods for a birch roughly 18 inches in diameter and with a long expense of clear bark. After soaking, the bark is sewn into the rough shape of a canoe and its interior is lined with thin planks made from cedar logs that are hand-split and planed to the proper thickness.” The article went on to describe the time-consuming and tedious process of building a birch bark canoe. Indian canoes were impractical for use by the Arnold Expedition just based on the time it took to build them. See “Maine Indian Tribe Dips Back In to Craft of Birch-Bark Canoes,” The Wall Street Journal, Vol. CCLII, No. 43 (August 29, 2003): 1 (front page), 5.

44. Manuscript letter, Aaron Burr to Timothy Edwards, November 22, 1775, Burr Papers, New York Historical Society, reference CtFaiHi: 2,876.

45. Samuel H. Wandell and Meade Minnigerode, Aaron Burr, A Biography Compiled from Rare, and in Many Cases Unpublished, Sources 2 vols. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925), 1: 46.

46. Parkman, A Half Century of Conflict, 1: 34.

47. Justin Smith says that Morgan’s division left Norridgewock Falls on October 3, 1775. See Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 347 footnote 20.

48. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 43.

49. “Ephraim Squier Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 621.

50. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 10.

51. Shipton and Swain, eds., “Humphrey Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 16.

52. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 549.

53. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 10.

54. Common soldiers’ tents are described in an eighteenth century military dictionary as follows: “The tents of private men are 6-1/2 feet square and 5 feet high, and hold 5 soldiers each.” See Smith, An Universal Military Dictionary, 243.

55. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755) defines a waiter as “an attendant; one who attends to the attention of others.” The Oxford English Dictionary denotes the word as “A man (rarely a woman) of lower rank employed as a household servant.” It also describes the word waiter as “a soldier, etc. employed as a domestic servant to an officer.” See James A. H. Murray et al., eds, Oxford English Dictionary, 19: 823.

56. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 697; “Stocking Journal” in Ibid., 555.

57. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 48.

58. Ibid., 67.

59. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 559.

60. It is estimated that about one-fifth of the population of the 13 colonies were slaves at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. The usual numbers cite a total population in America of 2.5 million, out of whom 500,000 were slaves. Daniel Morgan’s home colony of Virginia had the most slaves, estimated at 200,000, or 40 percent of the colony’s population. Although slavery is most associated with the South, there were also large numbers of slaves in the northern colonies. The statistics are 14 percent for New York, eight percent for New Jersey, and six percent for Rhode Island. See Wood, The American Revolution, A History, 56-57.

61. Shipton and Swain, eds., “Humphrey Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 14.

62. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 220.

Chapter Five

1. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 58.

2. For the arrival times of the army at the Great Carry, see Smith, Arnold’s March, 338, footnote 16. As the lead division, the riflemen were ordered by Arnold to start clearing a trail when they reached the Great Carry. Captain Dearborn states this in his September 25 journal entry written at Fort Western. He wrote that the riflemen left the outpost “with orders to proceed up the River as far as the great Carrying place, there to Clear a Road a Cross the Carrying place, while the other divisions were getting up.” See Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 40-41. Oswald’s journal confirms the rifleman’s mission. See “Col. Arnold’s Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 44b (addendum).

The person in charge of the pioneers on the Arnold Expedition is identified by Dearborn as “Capt. Ayres.” He was probably a civilian who was given a temporary commission (brevetted) as a captain and put in charge of soldiers who acted under his command. Meigs mentions that he furnished a number of soldiers from his division to act as pioneers “under command of Mr. Ayres.” See Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 16. Dearborn said that Ayres accompanied him as far as Lake Magentic, after which there is nothing further mentioned about him in any of the known journals, orders, or correspondence.

3. “Col Arnold Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 49.

4. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 513.

5. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 95-96n. Washington mentioned Captain Gamble’s letter in a report he sent to General Schuyler dated October 4, 1775, at Cambridge. Washington’s report included an update on the known progress of the Arnold Expedition. The commander-in-chief said he was anxious to keep Schuyler informed of Arnold’s situation because “Col. Arnold’s Expedition is so connected with your operation.”

6. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 513-514.

7. Private Greenman from Ward’s Rhode Island company (part of Meigs’ third division) reported finding an Indian sugar-making camp near the Great Carry. Surprisingly, none of the other diarists mention this discovery, suggesting that Ward’s company traveled cross-country to reach the entrance to the Great Carry. Greenman’s diary entry recording this event reads, “T [Tuesday] 10 [October 10, 1775] this mor found a place ware thare was troves [troughs] made of burch bark and two old wigwams and a Number of small bowls wich we supposed thay cuked [cooked] thair mapel juse in to make Sugar of [.] we brought a number of ye bowls a[way] with us: this day got forw[ard] 12 miles up to the great carring place & got sum of our provision part way a crost.” See Bray & Bushnell, eds., Military Journal of Jeremiah Greenman, 15.

8. Lieutenant Gray is mentioned arriving at Fort Western on September 25 with a letter from Colonel Reed and copies of a printed proclamation, prepared in Cambridge, with instructions for Arnold to circulate it among the Canadians when he got there. See Oswald’s addendum to “Col. Arnold’s Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 44b. The entry reads, “about three o’clock, P.M., Lieutenant Gray arrived, with a number of manifestoes and a letter from Colonel Reed.” Apparently Gray was sent from headquarters with Reed’s letter and copies of the proclamation. He returned to Cambridge with Arnold’s letter dated September 25 with a postscript added on the 27th. For the date of Arnold’s letter see W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 42.

9. Schuyler to Washington, September 20, 1775, in Ibid., 2: 17-21. Washington replied to Schuyler’s letter on October 4, which implies that Schuyler’s letter arrived at headquarters sometime in early October. Schuyler’s September 20 letter was probably the latest reliable information available to Reed when he wrote to Arnold on October 4.

10. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:947.

11. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 657. The term “running tea” was probably a soldier’s slang for alcohol, perhaps mixed with tea. For example, one usage of the word “running” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary is “the flow of liquor during the process of wine-making, brewing, or distillation; the liquor obtained at a specified stage of the process.”

12. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, general editors, American National Biography (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), vol. 7: 785.

13. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 45. Dearborn identified the surgeon’s mate left at the hospital as “Dr. Erving.” However, his correct name was Matthew Irvine.

14. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 11.

15. “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

16. Arnold wrote Colonel Farnsworth on October 14 from the portage between East Carry and Middle Carry Pond, “We have now about twenty five day’s allowance. Hope before that is gone, to be in Quebec.” See Roberts, ed., “Arnold’s Letters,” March to Quebec, 73. On the following day, Arnold wrote Lieutenant Colonel Enos, “The three first divisions have twenty five days provision, which will carry them to Chaudiere Pond and back. . . .” See Ibid., 74.

17. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 13.

18. In his journal entry for October 11, Arnold said that his men caught a type of fish called salmon trout. The passage reads, “Over the first Pond [East Carry Pond] . . . here our People caught of prodigious number of fine Salmon Trout, nothing being more common than a man’s taking 8 or 10 Doz. in one hours time.” See “Col. Arnold’s Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 49. Arnold was probably referring to brook trout, which abounded in this pond.

19. Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 15.

20. “Col. Arnold’s Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 50.

21. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 46.

22. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 13.

23. “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

24. Showman et al., eds., Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 1: 147. In a letter dated November 5, 1775, at Prospect Hill, Massachusetts, to Governor Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island, General Greene said that a letter from Colonel Arnold, dated October 13, had arrived that day. Greene’s optimistic comments read:

By letters from Colo Arnold this Day Dated the 13th of last month we expect he is in Possession of Quebec for he expected to be there in Ten Days from the Date of his Letter. We are informed by a Gentleman who left Canada about Six Weeks ago that there was not 20 soldiers in Quebec and that Governor Charlton [Carleton] was at Moreal [Montreal]. The City of Quebeck quite defenseless, there being only two Guns mounted on Carriages in the City. Colo Arnold writes his party are in high spirits and have gone through incredible fatigue with out a murmur. In all probability Canada is wholely reduced by this, as Carltons party are small and the French noblesse Lukewarm, but on the other hand Our Army is large and strongly reinforc’d by Canadians, who are rising in the Cause of Liberty.

Chapter Six

1. Senter, Journal of Isaac Senter, 26. The quote is from Senter’s diary entry for October 24, 1775, when he was traveling on the Dead River.

2. “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society. Arnold’s letter is dated October 13, 1775, at “Second Portage from Kennebec to the Dead River.”

3. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 155.

4. “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

5. “Maine Indians in the Revolution,” in Sprague’s Journal, vol. six, no. 3 (Jan. 1919): 108.

6. Hall is listed as a member of Hubbard’s company in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 36.

7. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 17.

8. Ibid., 2: 19.

9. Hal T. Shelton, General Richard Montgomery and the American Revolution (New York: New York University Press, 1994), 106.

10. George Washington to Joseph Reed, November 28, 1775, in W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 449-50.

11. Fort Chamby lay on the Richelieu River between St. Johns and Montreal. It was commanded by Major Joseph Stopford of the 7th Regiment with 81 officers and men from his own regiment and a handful of artillerists. Montgomery launched his attack on the fort on the night of October 13, when 300 Canadians led by James Livingston and Jeremiah Duggan slipped past St. Johns through the woods and advanced farther north on the Richelieu to the fort. They were accompanied by two bateaux, each carrying a nine-pound piece of artillery. Fifty Americans led by John Brown joined the detachment. Although Fort Chamby was well supplied with three mortars and 124 barrels of gunpowder, Stopford surrendered his post after two days, and only minor damage from the two small-caliber American field pieces. The rebels, almost out of ammunition, were elated to find that Stopford failed to destroy the gunpowder in the fort prior to surrendering his post.

12. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 120.

13. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 590.

14. The Bigelow Mountain range is about seventeen miles long and parallels the course of the Dead River. The easternmost peak in the range is named Little Bigelow Mountain. One of the mountains in the Bigelows, West Peak, is the sixth tallest mountain in Maine, standing 4,150 feet above sea level. By comparison, Mount Katadin, at 5,268 feet, is the tallest mountain in Maine. A twelve-foot cairn was built on top of Mount Katadin to make it 5,280 feet—exactly one mile above sea level.

15. Stocking Journal in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 551.

16. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 46.

17. Shipton and Swain, eds., “Humphrey Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 18.

18. Arnold to Farnsworth, October 14, 1775, at “Second Carrying-Place,” in “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

19. For Arnold’s weakness as an administrator see, for example, Allen MacLean, “Arnold’s Strength At Quebec” in Military Collector & Historian Vol. XXIX, No. 3 (fall 1977): 139.

20. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 552.

21. “Montresor Journal” in Ibid., 20.

22. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 55.

23. The Arnold Expedition followed the Chain of Ponds on a northwesterly route for about 12 miles, as far as Moosehorn Pond (known today as Arnold Pond—see Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 486, footnote), where they started overland across the mountains. The Chain of Ponds takes a sudden change in direction beyond Moosehorn Pond and continues in a southerly direction for another 10 miles. The farthest or uppermost pond is a small pond near the Canadian border called Little Northwest Pond.

24. Arnold to Enos, October 24, 1775, at “Dead River, 30 miles fron Chaudiere Pond,” in “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

25. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 517.

26. Ward, The War of the Revolution, 1: 373.

27. “Humphrey Journal” in Shipton and Swain, eds., Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 20.

28. Senter, Journal of Isaac Senter, 26-27.

29. Mary C. McAuliffe, “Timothy Bigelow the Patriot of Worcester,” Master of Education Thesis, State Teacher’s College at Hyannis, 1941, no page number shown. A copy of this thesis is in the library of Bridgewater State College, Massachusetts. Bigelow married Anna Andrews on July 1, 1762. By 1775, when Bigelow left for the Arnold Expedition, they had five children. A sixth child named Clarissa was born in 1781.

30. Shipton and Swain, eds., “Humphrey Journal,” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 20-21.

31. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 27.

32. Ibid., 17.

33. Ibid., 16.

34. Ibid., 16-17.

35. Edwin Martin Stone, ed., The Invasion of Canada in 1775: Including the Journal of Captain Simeon Thayer Describing the Perils and Sufferings of the Army Under Colonel Benedict Arnold, In its March Through the Wilderness to Quebec (Providence: Knowles, Anthony & Co., 1867), 10-11.

36. Simpton and Swain, eds., “Humphrey Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 20; Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 389.

37. Stone, ed., “Thayer Journal,” 11.

38. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 50.

39. Frank Squier, ed., “Diary of Ephraim Squier,” Magazine of American History, No. 2, part 2 (1878): 687.

40. Ibid., 688. The General Orders for the army for November 25, 1775, included the following, “The Commissioned, Non Commission’d Officers & Soldiers, lately arrived in Camp from Kenebeck river, are to join their respective Corps.” See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 425.

41. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1709.

42. W.W. Abbot, et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 338.

43. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1709-1710.

44. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 552.

45. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1710. Washington mentioned Enos’ court martial verdict in a December 5, 1775, letter to Arnold. The general said: “You could not be more Surprised than I was, at Enos return with the Division under his Command [.] I immediately put him under Arrest & had him tried for Qui [quitting] the Detachmt [sic] without your Orders—He is acquitted on the Scor [score] of provision [having no food to continue into Canada].” See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 494.

46. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 399.

47. Ibid., 2: 409.

48. Ibid., 2: 452.

Chapter Seven

1. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 104.

2. “Montresor Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 22.

3. “Arnold’s Journal” in Ibid., 56-7.

4. Nehemiah Getchell was hired as a guide for the expedition at Fort Western, along with his three brothers: John, Dennis, and Jeremiah.

5. “Arnold’s Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 50.

6. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 665.

7. “Monstresor Journal” in Ibid., 21.

8. “Morison Journal” in Ibid., 522. Private Morison wrote that after crossing several lakes (the Chain of Ponds): “to what we denominated the Terrible Carrying Place; a dismal portage indeed . . . intersected with a considerable ridge covered with fallen trees; stones and brush.”

9. “Montresor Journal” in Ibid., 22.

10. Arnold to Colonels Green and Enos and the captains in the rear of the detachment, October 27, 1775, at “2-1/2 miles on the Great Carrying-Place,” in “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

11. “Arnold’s Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 58.

12. Arnold to Washington, October 27, 1775, at Chaudiere Pond, in “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

13. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 244-45. The complete passage in Arnold’s letter reads:

Chaudier Pond 27th Oct. 1775, . . . Our March has been attended with am amazing Deal of Fatigue, which the Officers & Men have borne with Cheerfulness. I have been much deceived in every Account of our route, which is longer, and his been attended with a Thousand Difficulties I never apprehended, but if crowned with Success, and conductive to the Public Good, I shall think it but trifling.

14. “Monstresor Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 23.

15. This is the route followed by today’s Quebec road 161, the major roadway through the area.

16. “Arnold’s Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 59.

17. “Morison Journal” in Ibid., 522-523.

18. Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 213.

19. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 522.

20. Ibid., 523.

21. Shipton and Swain, eds., “Humphrey Journal,” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 22.

22. “Arnold to the Field Officers & captains in the Detachment viz to be sent on, that the whole may see it,” October 27, 1775, in “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

23. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 553.

24. McAuliffe, “Timothy Bigelow,” Masters Thesis, no page number shown.

25. Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 19.

26. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . .In the Campaign Against Quebec, 63.

27. Brown and Peckham, eds., Journals of Henry Dearborn, 51.

28. Andrew A. Melvin, ed., The Journal of James Melvin Private Soldier in Arnold’s Expedition Against Quebec in the Year 1775 (Portland, Maine: Hubbard W. Bryant, 1902), 50.

29. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 65.

30. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 554-555.

31. Shipton & Swain, eds., Humphrey Journal in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 22.

32. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 554.

33. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 21.

34. Ibid.

35. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 553.

36. Senter, Journal of Isaac Senter, 32.

37. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 555.

38. Rev. Horace E. Hayden, “A Lost Chapter of Arnold’s Expedition to Canada, 1775,” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 635; Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 53.

39. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 70-71.

40. Allen, “Account of Arnold’s Expedition,” in Maine Historical Society Collections, 514.

41. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 20.

42. Ibid., 22.

43. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 556.

44. Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967), ix.

45. Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 6.

46. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 2: 285.

47. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., The Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 326-327.

48. Pierce Journal in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 688.

Chapter Eight

1. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 119.

2. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 22-23.

3. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 526.

4. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 53.

5. Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 241.

6. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, March to Quebec, 531.

7. Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 20.

8. McClellan is identified in Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army, 365. Heitman says he enlisted on June 25, 1775, and died November 3, 1775, on the march to Quebec.

9. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . in the Campaign Against Quebec, 69.

10. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 556.

11. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . in the Campaign Against Quebec, 72-73.

12. Milton Lomask, Aaron Burr, The Years From Princeton to Vice President 1756-1805 (New York: Farrar-Straus-Giroux, 1979), 22.

13. Ward, The War of the Revolution, 1: 166.

14. Martin, Benedict Arnold Revolutionary Hero, 139. There are two other creditable estimates of the number of men who died from various causes during the march from Fort Western to Quebec. Both are similar to Martin’s calculation. They are historian Don Higginbotham, who says that 60 men died en route (see Higginbotham, Daniel Morgan, 36 footnotes), and diarist George Morison, who claimed, “[W]e. . .lost in the wilds between 70 and 80.” See “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 534.

15. “Forbes Narrative” in Roberts, March to Quebec, 608.

16. “Arnold’s Letters” in Ibid., 81.

17. Shipton and Swain, eds., “William Humphrey’s Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 23.

18. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 531.

19. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 55.

20. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 670.

21. Ibid.

22. Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 241.

23. Isaac N. Arnold, The Life of Benedict Arnold (Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Company, 1880), 48.

24. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:947.

25. Ibid., 1327; “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society. Arnold’s courier is identified only as Robbisho. See Smith, Arnold’s March From Cambridge to Quebec, 245. The name could have been a misspelling of the French Canadian surname Robichaux. According to Dr. Senter’s journal entry for November 5, he was captured by the British. Senter’s entry reads, “The colonel had an express arrived this day, informing of Mr. Robbisho’s being taken prisoner, an express sent by colonel [sic] from Sartigan.” See Senter, Journal of Isaac Senter, 39. Roberts published Arnold’s letter identifying a Captain Gregory as its probable recipient. See Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 80. However, I believe this letter from Arnold was intended for John Mercier, who was the colonel’s most important contact in Quebec. Arnold also said to his anonymous recipient, “I have several times on my march wrote you by the Indians,” which is further evidence that this letter was intended for Mercier.

26. Arnold described John Mercier’s apprehension and imprisonment in a letter dated June 12, 1778, at Camp Valley Forge. Arnold wrote the letter to Major General Schuyler “or in his absence” to William Duer, both of whom were members of the Continental Congress at the time:

The Bearer Mr. John Mercier, was a Merchant in Quebec when I went into Canada knowing him to be a friend of the United States, I wrote him requesting he would send some person of my acquaintance, to meet me on the Chaudiere, to give me particular information of the Strength of the Enemy &c. Unfortunately my letter was intercepted, and covey’d to the Governor of Quebec who ordered Mr. Mercier confin’d on board a Man of War where he remained some weeks, and when Quebec was invested, was set on shore opposite the City and joined our army, but which meant he has lost for the present not only a considerable place under government, but a very large property in w’houses, stores & merchandise left in Quebec part of which will be finally lost, if not the whole: I beg you will be so kind, to make use of my name in recommending him to Congress, as a Gentlemen who has suffered greatly in the Cause of his Country, and who wishes to be employed in some Office in which he can be of Service to his Country, as in Some measure retrieve his Losses; he has been bred a Merchant, and has a knowledge of the French Tongue.

Any Service you are good enough to render him will be gratefully acknowledged by

Your most Obedient

Humble Servant

B. Arnold.

Manuscript letter, John Reed Collection, Valley Forge National Historical Park Archives.

27. William Smith, ed., “Journal Kept in Quebec in 1775 by James Jeffery,” The Essex Institute Historical Collection, number 50 (April 1914): 97-150. Cramahé arrived in Quebec with General Wolfe. Because he spoke fluent French and was a good administrator, he was invited to remain in the city as secretary to Governor Murray.

28. Writing in 1907, historian Justin Smith identified one of Arnold’s Indian couriers as the informer. Smith wrote, “Arnold’s Indian messenger had placed his letters from the Great Carrying-Place to Mercier and Schuyler in the hands of the British authorities, and they knew that a force was on the move against them.” See Smith, Our Struggle For the Fourteenth Colony, 2: 9. Smith’s simple explanation of how the British first learned about the Arnold Expedition has been perpetuated by later historians who, in my opinion, did not consider or underestimated the sophistication of the British in planting double agents, interrogating deserters and prisoners, and intercepting enemy dispatches.

29. The evidence against Hall consists of a letter that Arnold wrote to Lieutenant Steele in which he mentioned Hall by name. As background, Arnold dispatched Steele with 20 ax men and a surveyor on October 12, from the Great Carry, to clear the portages and take a survey of the country as far as Lake Magentic. Private John Hall was one of the men in Steele’s party. On the following day, October 13, Arnold wrote Steele, telling him to have Hall accompany the two Indians to Quebec. Hall was selected for this mission because he spoke French. The text of Arnold’s October 13 message to Steele reads:

Sir—I have sent the bearer and another Indian to Quebec with letters, and must have John Hall, as he speaks French, to go to Sartigan with them, and get all the intelligence he possibly can in regard to the number of troops there, the disposition of the Canadians, and advice from Gen. Schuyler. When he arrives at Sartigan he must employ some Frenchmen, that can be depended on, to go to Quebec with the Indians, to deliver their letter and get an answer; for which purpose I have sent twenty dollars for him to take. Desire him to caution the Indians not to let any one know of our march, but to sound the inhabitants and find out how they stand affected, and whether our coming would be agreeable to them. If he does not choose to go alone, you must send a man with him, and both must return to us at Chaudiere pond as soon as possible; taking particular notice of the river, whether our batteaux can pass down.

This letter is in “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society. Also see Smith, Arnold’s March from Cambridge to Quebec, 356.

30. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1418-1419.

31. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 70. For the armament and crew of the Hunter see ibid., 2: 743. Although the Hunter was a small warship, she could easily have sunk or scattered the unarmed ships that transported the Arnold Expedition from Newburyport to Fort Western and saved the British a lot of trouble.

32. The Royal Navy classified its frigates into various categories based on the number of cannons each carried. The Lizard was called a “Sixth Rate,” the smallest type of frigate in use at the time.

33. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 705.

34. W.W. Abott et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 106-107; Miller, Sea of Glory—The Continental Navy Fights for Independence (New York: David KcKay Company, Inc., 1974), 66.

35. W.W. Abott et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 106-107.

36. Miller, Sea of Glory, 66.

37. Hearn, George Washington’s Schooners, 31-32. This book is recommended (pages 26-36) for anyone interested in the complete story of American efforts to capture the two British store ships bound for Quebec. St. John Island was renamed Prince Edward Island in 1798.

38. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2:1,018. The Marines were a seaborne military police whose function included maintaining discipline aboard Royal Navy ships.

Note that the log refers to the “Marines” and not the Royal Marines. The name change took place in 1802, and any reference to the Royal Marines in the American Revolution is incorrect. At the time of the American Revolution, British Marines wore red regimental coats with white facings. Their facing color was changed to (royal) blue in 1802. Among the ways that British Marines could be distinguished from regular British troops was their distinctive uniform buttons, which bore the image of an anchor.

39. General Schuyler informed headquarters of Allen’s severe treatment in a letter dated November 28, 1775. Angered by the news, Washington wrote his counterpart in the British army, Major General William Howe, whose headquarters were in the besieged city of Boston, complaining about Allen’s rough handling. Washington’s letter is dated December 18, 1775, and Howe responded a few days later. Washington wrote:

We have just been informed of a Circumstance, which were it not so well Authenticated, I should scarcely think creditable; It is that Col. Allen who with his small party was defeated & taken prisoner near Montreal., has been treated without regard to decency, humanity, or the rules of War—That he has been thrown into Irons & Suffers all the hardships inflicted upon common Felons. I think it my duty Sir to demand & do expect from you, an ecclaircisment [sic] on this Subject; At the same time I flatter myself from the Character which Mr. Howe bears, as a man of Honour, Gentleman & Soldier, that my demand will meet with his approbation: I must take the liberty also of Informing you that I shall consider your silence as a confirmation of the truth of the report & further assuring you, that whatever Treatment Colonel Allen receives—whatever fate he undergoes— such exactly shall be the treatment & Fate of Brigadier Prescot, [General Richard Prescott, captured in Canada] now in our hands.

Permit me to add Sir that we have all here the highest regard & reverence for your great and personal Qualities & Attainments, and that the Americans in general esteem it not as the least of their misfortunes, that the name of Howe—a name so dear to them [a reference to General Howe’s older brother, Lord George Augustus, who was killed during the French and Indian War]—should appear at the head of the Catalogue of the Instruments, employed by a wicked ministry for their destruction.

With due respect, I have the honour to be Sir, Yr Most Obedt & Hble sert [servant]

Howe responded without once referring to Washington as a general. In his letter, Howe pointed out that Governor Carleton commanded in Canada:

In answer to your letter of the 18th inst. I am to acquaint you that my command does not Extend to Canada, nor having received any Accounts wherein the name of Allen is mentioned, I cannot give you the Smallest Satisfaction upon the Subject of your letter; But trusting Major General Carleton’s conduct will never incur censure upon any occasion, I am to conclude in the instance of your Enquiry that he has not forfeited his past pretensions to decency & humanity . . . that I find cause to resent a sentence in the conclusion of your letter big with Invective against my Superiors, and insulting to myself, which Should obstruct any further intercourse between us.

See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 575-576, 586.

Ethan Allen was transported in chains to England, where he arrived in late December 1775. The British, however, decided not to put Allen on trial and returned him to America. They shipped him home aboard a warship that sailed from England on January 8, 1776. After a circuitous voyage Allen arrived in British-held New York City in October 1776, where he remained until being released in May 1778.

40. Writing from Boston on December 3, 1775, Genera; William Howe wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth that Cramahé felt Quebec would fall to the rebels: “By a letter received last night from Lieutenant-Governour Cramahé . . . there is too much reason to fear that, by a general defection of the Canadians, the whole Province of Quebeck will fall into the hands of the Rebels.” See Froce, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:170.

41. Lieutenant Governor Cramahé to Major General William Howe, November 8, 1775, in Kenneth G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, 1770-1783 21 vols. (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972-1981), 11: 175.

42. Brown and Peckham, eds., Journals of Henry Dearborn, 54. Contrary to commonly held beliefs, Indians coveted money as much as whites, and they hired themselves out as scouts and auxiliary soldiers in exchange for payment in hard currency.

43. Shipton and Swain, eds., “William Humphrey’s Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 18.

44. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 74-75.

45. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 462-463 footnotes.

46. Ibid., 2: 42, 2: 44 footnote 10.

47. Ibid., 1: 461-462.

48. Ibid., 1: 459.

49. Ibid., 1: 458.

50. Washington to Schuyler, October 4, 1775, Camp at Cambridge, in Ibid., 2: 95-96. Washington included a copy of the September 13, 1775, report from scouts Dennis Getchell and Samuel Berry, who had traveled the expedition’s intended route as far as the Dead River.

51. Arnold to Montgomery, November 8, 1775, from “St. Marie, 2 1-2 leagues from Point Levi,” in “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

52. Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony, 2: 21.

53. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 458.

54. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 25.

55. Brown and Peckham, eds., Journals of Henry Dearborn, 54.

56. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 558.

57. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,018.

58. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 25.

59. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,018. For a description of the Charlotte see ibid., 2: 1,038.

60. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 26.

61. Fred C. Würtele, ed., Blockage of Quebec in 1775-1776 by the American Revolutionists (Quebec, Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: 1906), 6.

62. Arnold mentioned Halstead in a letter to Congress dated January 24, 1776, “General Montgomery, on his arrival in this country, was pleased to appoint Mr. John Halstead Commissary; he is a gentleman, has been very active and zealous in our cause, is a merchant, and capable in his department, in which I beg to leave to recommend his being continued.” See Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 118.

63. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 56. Dearborn was not with the army at this time. He was sick in bed, probably in a wayside tavern from November 6-28. His journal entries for the dates of his confinement are based on accurate information provided to him by other members of the expedition.

64. “Morrison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 531.

65. For references to Arnold being compared to Hannibal, see Smith, Our Struggle For the Fourteenth Colony, 2: 3.

66. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 498.

67. Force, ed., American Archives, Fourth Series: 3, 1,420.

68. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of The American Revolution, 2: 944; Stone, ed., “Thayer Journal,” 18; Cohen, ed., The Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 21-22.

69. Telescope is a nineteenth century word. This instrument was called a spy glass, glasses, or a glass at the time of the American Revolution. Early spy glasses were heavy with a narrow field of view. However, they were relatively light, short, and effective, especially at night, by the time of the Revolutionary War due in great measure to the invention of the achromatic lens by John Dollard in 1758. The type of spy glass used during the American Revolution was usually a three-inch-long round wooden tube with a single brass pull (extension) used to focus the instrument. Larger, heavier, and higher quality spy glasses were made at the time for use aboard ships. Spy glasses were also made for scientific applications during the eighteenth century. These glasses were usually made entirely of brass and mounted on a tripod.

70. The map Plan de la ville de Quebec was created and published in Paris in 1755 by George-Louis Le Rouge. There were numerous later maps of Quebec available, especially versions printed in England celebrating Britain’s capture of the city from the French in 1759, but they tended to feature the positions of the opposing French and British forces during the decisive Battle of the Plains of Abraham (September 13, 1759) instead of the details of the city.

71. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 964. In this letter Captain Hamilton referred to the Magdalen as a schooner, but this ship appears on a list titled “Return of Men For Defense of Quebec, November 16, 1775” as a sloop. As an experienced Royal Navy captain, Hamilton knew the difference between a sloop (one mast) and a schooner (a fore and aft rigged ship with at least two masts), and I trust his description of the Magdalen over any other source.

72. Ibid., 1,038-1,039. Here is the complete Return of Men For Defense of Quebec, November 16, 1775:

Note that the above return states that the Fusileers (fusiliers) were on board the Fell & Providence on November 16. There are frequent references in British documents to the inclusion of a party of fusiliers at Quebec during the 1775-76 siege. See, for example, Edmund Burke, An Impartial History of the War in America (London: R. Faulder, 1780), 241. Their commander is identified as “Captain Owen” in Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 37.

The term fusilier comes from the word fusil, which means a short flintlock musket. Fusiliers were originally armed with these special weapons as part of their elite status in the British army. An Universal Military Dictionary identifies the fusilier regiments in the British army at the time of the American Revolution: “There are three [fusilier] regiments in the English service: the royal regiment of Scotch Fuziliers [sic], raised in 1678; the royal regiment of English Fuziliers, raised in 1685; and the royal regiment of Welsh Fuziliers, raised in 1688-1689.” See Smith, An Universal Military Dictionary, 110.

The Royal Regiment of English Fusiliers was officially designated the 7th Regiment of Foot in 1751. However, it was sometimes identified as the 7th Royal Fusiliers as a kind of military shorthand. It was also referred to as the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers or the Royal Fusiliers. The regiment arrived at Quebec in July 1773 and was one of three British regiments stationed in Canada at the start of the American Revolution. The 7th (Royal Fusilier) regiment was divided by Governor Carleton between St. Johns, Chambly, and Quebec City. The bulk of the regiment was at the siege of St. Johns and eventually surrendered to General Montgomery’s army. See Philip R.N. Katcher, Encyclopedia of British, Provincial, and German Army Units 1775-1783 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1973), 31-32.

Sixty members of Royal Fusiliers were stationed at Quebec. They accompanied Colonel Maclean’s Royal Highland Emigrant regiment in September to reinforce St. Johns but turned back when that fort surrendered to the Americans. It appears that these 60 British soldiers remained behind when Colonel Maclean made his dash by land to get back in Quebec. They apparently returned to Quebec on November 19 aboard the Fell with Carleton and aided in the defense of the city.

73. Hatch, Thrust For Canada, 37.

74. Martin, Benedict Arnold Revolutionary Hero, 144-145.

75. Arnold to Montgomery in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1635. Montgomery wrote Schuyler on November 3, 1775, “I have the pleasure to acquaint you the garrison surrendered last night. This morning we take possession. . . .” See Ibid., 1392.

76. Arnold stated that his corps affected the crossing of the St. Lawrence between 9:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. See Arnold to Montgomery in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1684. The time of Arnold’s departure is confusing; there is a copy of a letter he wrote to Montgomery dated November 14, 1775, from Point Levi in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 85. Since Arnold was in the first wave of boats to cross the river, it would have been impossible for him to have written a letter from Pointe de Lévy on November 14 and cross the St. Lawrence at 9:00 p.m. on the 13th. However, the same letter appears in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1635, dated “Point Levi, November 13, 1775.” I believe that the date in Force is correct because the text of Arnold’s letter includes the following line: “I have near forty canoes ready; and as the wind has moderated, I design crossing this evening.” It is certain that the Arnold Expedition crossed the river on the night of November 13-14. There is no explanation why Roberts dated this letter November 14.

77. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 559.

78. Arnold to Washington, November 20, 1775, in W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 403.

79. “Arnold Letters” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 88.

80. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 128.

81. “Fobes Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 587.

82. [Excerpts from] John Stake, “The case of Lieutenant John Strake of His Majesty’s Navy, together with a Short Sketch of the Operations of the War in Canada, in which he was employed during the Years 1775, 1776 and 1777. . .” in Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,075.

83. Manuscript note of an interview between Aaron Burr and W.W. (probably William Willis, the recording secretary of the Maine Historical Society) in 1831 upon the occasion of the presentation of Arnold’s letter book to the society by Aaron Burr. See “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

84. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1724.

85. Major Henry Caldwell served under General Wolfe and settled in Quebec at the end of the French and Indian War. Caldwell commanded the British militia in the city. The mansion that Arnold occupied for his headquarters was not owned by Caldwell. He leased it from General James Murray, who was a former governor of Canada. The house was surrounded by several outbuildings and the entire estate was called “Sans Bruit.”

86. Bray & Bushnell, eds., Military Journal of Jeremiah Greenman, 44 footnote 58.

87. Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 22.

88. The sentry’s name was George Merchant, a member of Morgan’s Virginia rifle company. Merchant was part of the scouting party commanded by Lieutenant Archibald Steele that Arnold dispatched from Fort Western to explore the Dead River and find Natanis.

The British took a keen interest in Merchant, who was one of the first of the fearsome American riflemen to be captured. Young Merchant fit the profile; he was sent to Britain as a provincial curiosity. An English magazine mentioned his appearance in London: “The Rifleman who was brought here from Quebec. . .is a Virginian, above six feet high, stout and well-proportioned. . . . He can strike a mark with the greatest certainty, at two hundred yards distance. He has a heavy provincial pronunciation, but otherwise speaks good English. The account he gives, is, that the troops in general are such kind of men as himself, tall and well-proportioned.” See Don Higginbotham, Daniel Morgan, 39.

89. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,017.

9090. “Journal of Major Matthias Ogden, 1775 In Arnold’s Campaign Against Quebec.” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, New Series Vol. XIII (1928): 29.

91. For details of this incident see “Arnold’s Letters” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 88; Arnold to Cramahé (letter dated Nov. 15, 1775) in Ibid., 88-9. According to Arnold, the British fired a total of 15 cannon shots toward his corps, all of which fell short of their mark and bounced harmlessly on the ground.

92. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 22.

93. For the comment about Maclean see Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War, 1: 134.

94. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 565 note.

95. Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony, 1: 450.

96. Hatch, Thrust for Canada, 61.

97. Some of Maclean’s men must have reached Quebec by boat because the journal of the Lizard for November 12, 1775, states, “Arrived here a Shooner & a Sloop from above with part of Col. McChains Regiment.” See Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,018.

The Fell is often referred to as a “snow,” and is described as such in the literature of the 1775 American invasion of Canada. Snow is a correct term to describe a type of two-masted ship very similar in appearance to a brig (in the eighteenth century a brig was a two-masted ship “shipped rigged,” meaning its sails were perpendicular to the masts). Calling a ship a snow probably derived from the French word senau or senaut, which means a barge. The Fell is also referred to as a brigantine (a brig with slightly different rigging). For example, in a letter written from Quebec at the end of November 1775, Carleton is described as arriving in the city aboard a brigantine (the Fell). See An Account of the State of Quebeck in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:1723.

Some other contemporary sources identify the Fell as a schooner (a two-masted ship with sails rigged “fore and aft,” meaning the sails were in line with the masts). However, this probably was a mistake made by landlubbers who called any two-masted ship a schooner or did not know the difference between a schooner and a brig (or brigantine or snow). For an excellent glossary of eighteenth century nautical terms see Jack Coggins, Ships and Seamen of the American Revolution (Promontory Press, 1969), 212-216.

The October 5, 1775, issue of the Quebec Gazette provides additional information about the Fell: “equipp’d with 16 nine-pounders [sixteen cannons which fired a nine pound cannon ball], besides Swivels [small cannons often mounted on the railing of a ship], etc,. And 100 true tars, on board of which Commodore Napier hoisted his flag. . . .” See Stanley, Canada Invaded, 82.

98. Arnold to Montgomery, November 8, 1775, from “St. Marie, 2 1-2 leagues from Point Levi,” in “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

99. For information about the number of men with Maclean when he arrived in Quebec see the letter written by Lieutenant John Starke from Quebec, dated November 20, which includes the line: “At this time, Lieut Col. Maclean who had crossed the country arrived in the Town with about 100 Men.” See Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,075.

Apparently Fraser reached Quebec on November 5, 1775, with recruits for the Royal Highland Emigrants. The journal of the HMS Hunter recorded their arrival: “Anchored here a Schooner from Newfoundland and a Sloop from the Isle of St John [today’s Prince Edward Island] both with recruits.” See Ibid., 2: 943. Additional information about these recruits appears in an historical journal article titled “When Newfoundland Helped to Save Canada,” which describes most of the men who enlisted in Maclean’s regiment as young Irishmen who had come to the Avalon peninsula section of Newfoundland to work in the “fishery [fishing business], but who were young, brave and foolish enough to try their hand at war.” The article also explains most of these Irish recruits were artisans and carpenters who helped repair Quebec’s crumbling defenses. See Robert Saunders, “When Newfoundland Helped to Save Canada,” Newfoundland Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 3 (1949): 19.

The fact that the Newfoundland recruits were used primarily as artificers helps explain the following:

An Account of the State of Quebeck, Etc., At the End of November, 1775. . . . The expectations from Colonel Maclean are entirely vanished. He was deserted by his people at the River Sorel, and obliged to fly, with eighty men, to Quebeck, with great expedition. The Highlanders he enlisted were so few as not to be worth mentioning. There were about one hundred came from the Island of St. John’s, [most of them were recruited in Newfoundland] trading to Quebeck, but who have not entered as soldiers; and from thence, on the expectation that they would enlist, I suppose the report arose of his having raised a Regiment of them. . . .

See Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1725.

At the time, Newfoundland (and portions of modern Labrador) was classified by the British government as a fishing station rather than a colony.

100. An example of Maclean’s influence on the military situation at Quebec appeared in the minutes of a British council of war held in the city on November 16, just a couple of days following his arrival in the city. Attending the meeting were Maclean, Cramahé, Captains Hamilton and McKenzie from the Royal Navy, Major Henry Caldwell, who commanded the British militia, and several other lower-ranking officers and government officials. With Maclean in charge, the council unanimously agreed “to defend the Town to the last extremity.” See Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,038.

101. Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony, 2: 20.

102. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,075.

103. Gordon, D.D., The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States, 2: 132. Here is a longer excerpt from his description in his history of the war of Enos’ return to Cambridge and subsequent court-martial:

Let us attend to colonel Enos. His return to camp excited both astonishment and indignation. A court martial was ordered to sit upon him; when it appeared, that he had but three days provision, and was about one hundred miles from the English settlements. . . . It was the unanimous opinion of the court, that colonel Enos was under a necessity of returning; and he has been acquitted with honor. A number of officers of the best character are fully satisfied, and persuaded that his conduct deserves applause rather than censure. Had he not returned, his whole division must have been starved.

104. For the total number of men with Arnold see W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 403. For the times of Arnold’s departure from Ste. Foye and arrival at Point aux Trembles, as well as number of effectives, see Arnold to Montgomery, November 20, 1775, in Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,079.

105. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account. . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 94-95.

106. Manuscript letter, Aaron Burr to Timothy Edwards, November 22, 1775, from “Point aux Tremble,” in “Burr Papers,” New York Historical Society, reference CtFaiHi: 2876.

107. John Marshall, Life of George Washington, Commander in Chief of the American Forces 5 vols. (Philadelphia: C.P. Wayne, 1804-1807), 2: 309.

108. Thomas Walker, a Montreal merchant and American sympathizer, gave a sworn statement, dated April 24, 1776, at Philadelphia. Walker was arrested as an American agent by the British at Montreal and put on board one of the ships bound for Quebec. His affidavit includes information about the ships and military equipment captured at Sorel. Walker said that 135 Americans captured 11 enemy ships at Sorel. His information is interesting because all of the ships and hardware captured at Sorel was used during the American siege of Quebec:

The vessels given up were, viz: His Majesty’s Brigantine Gaspee, commanded by Lieutenant Royal: Also . . . Captain Lisote, [commanding] a large schooner, two nine-pounders in the waist, besides quarter-deck guns and swivels, twenty-four seamen, each armed with a musket, bayonet, and broad-sword. Captain Bouchet, [commanding] another large schooner, armed like the other before mentioned, compliment twenty sailors, besides several other large schooners, fitted with swivels, &c. All the vessels towed after them a batteau, with one or more canoes or small boats, in order to make a descent, or escape by flight, as occasion should offer.

See Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:1178.

109. Schuyler to Washington, November 28, 1775, from Tyonderoga, in W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 453.

110. Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 2: 1,073. Some historians claim that Carleton arrived in Quebec with a detachment of Redcoats belonging to the 7th Regiment. Supporting this idea is the anonymously written The History of the Civil War in America (London, 1780), 130, which states: “on the 20th [November 1775] General Carleton got into Quebec, bringing with him a Captain and fifty men [most sources state 60 men] of the 7th regiment, who were on board the armed ship [the brig Fell] with him.” This information is correct, as evidenced by the “Return of Men For Defense of Quebec, November 16, 1775” (this list appears in footnote 72 in this chapter), which lists 60 fusiliers onboard the Fell. While Carleton escaped the American trap at Sorel alone or with one or two of his aides in a small boat, he was later picked up by the Fell, which had the 60 British regulars on board. They were returning to Quebec following Colonel Maclean’s failed attempt to raise the siege of St. Johns.

111. Shipton and Swain, ed., “Humphrey Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 29. There is some controversy regarding the time and date of Montgomery’s arrival. For example, Arnold wrote Washington that Montgomery arrived on December 3. See W.W. Abbot, et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 495. After examining the various sources available to him at the time, Justin Smith concluded that Montgomery arrived at Point aux Trembles on the night of December 2. See Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony, 2: 577.

112. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 98.

113. Shipton and Swain, ed., “William Humphrey Journal” in Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 29-30.

114. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 534.

115. Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, The Spirit of Seventy-Six 2 vols. (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1958), 1: 203.

116. Sheldon, General Richard Montgomery, 128.

117. Washington’s Instructions to Arnold, September 14, 1775, included the following: “In Case of an Union with General Schuyler, or if he should be in Canada upon your Arrival there, you are by no means to consider yourself upon a Separate & Independant Command but are to put yourself under him & follow his Directors. Upon this Occasion & all others I recommend most earnestly to avoid all Contention about Rank—In such a Cause every Post is honourable in which a Man can serve his Country.” See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 458. Washington probably included this order based on Arnold’s combative behavior toward Benjamin Hinman, who arrived at Fort Ticonderoga in June 1775 to replace him. For details of the dispute between Arnold and Hinman see Ibid, 1: 121 note 2.

118. Arnold to Washington, November 20, 1775, Point aux Trembles, in “Arnold’s Letter Book,” Maine Historical Society.

119. Arnold to Schuyler, November 27, 1775, Point Aux Trembles, “Arnold’s Letters” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 98-99.

120. For Montgomery’s remark about Arnold see Shelton, General Richard Montgomery, 128. Arnold’s appraisal of Montgomery can be found in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:589.

121. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 30.

122. In a report to Washington dated December 5, 1775, and captioned “Before Quebec,” Arnold wrote, “Inclosed is a Return of my Detachment amounting to 675 Men. . . .” See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 495. The return mentioned in Arnold’s letter is dated November 29, 1775, and is in The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress. It shows a total strength of 675, including 59 sick men. The return does not include about 50 Indians who were recruited by Arnold following his arrival in Canada.

123. Arnold wrote Washington on December 5, 1775: “I continued at Pt. Aux Trembles until the 3rd instant, when to my great joy Gen. Montgomery joined us, with artillery and about 300 men. Yesterday [December 4] we arrived here and are making all possible preparations to attack the city. . . .” See “Arnold’s Letters” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 101. For weather on December 3 see Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 25.

124. The fact that Livingston joined Montgomery at Quebec is confirmed in a letter Montgomery wrote to General Schuyler on December 5 from Quebec. Montgomery wrote, “Colonel Livingston is on his way, with some part of his regiment of Canadians.” See Commager and Morris, eds., The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 1: 202.

125. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:309-310.

Chapter Nine

1. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 134.

2. All weather conditions in Quebec during December 1775 are from Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie., 25-32.

3. Ibid., 26.

4. For the rumor of Russian troops coming to help the Americans conquer Quebec see Ibid., 25.

5. Ibid.

6. Henry, An Interesting and Accurate Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 88. The relevant passage in Henry’s remembrance says that Arnold “was well known in Quebec. Formerly he had traded from this port to the West Indies, most particularly in the article of horses.—Hence he was despised by the principal people. The epithet of ‘Horse-jockey,’ was freely and universally bestowed upon him by the British.” The earliest known reference to Arnold being called a “horse jockey” appeared in a letter that Governor Carleton wrote to The Earl of Darmouth on June 7, 1775. Referring to Arnold’s raid on St. Johns, Carleton said, “Captain Hazen arrived express at Quebec and brought me an account that one Benedict Arnold, said to be a native of Connecticut and a horse-jockey, landed a considerable number of armed men at St John’s. . . .” See K.G. Davies, ed Documents of the American Revolution 1770-1783, (Dubin: Irish University Press, 1975) vol. IX, 157. The Americans used this epithet to describe Arnold following his treason.

7. Richard M. Lederer Jr., Colonial American English (Essex, Connecticut: A Verbatim Book, 1985), 125.

8. Extract of a Letter From a Gentleman in the Continental Service, dated “Before Quebeck, December 16, 1775,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:290.

9. Artillery at the time of the American Revolution was either made of brass (actually bronze) or iron. Brass cannons were lighter in weight and less prone to burst than iron. However, iron cannons had a longer range than brass. Brass was also a more costly material than iron and required greater manufacturing skills to forge into a cannon barrel. As a result the bulk of the cannons used during the American Revolution, especially those manufactured in America by the rebels, were made of iron. A 12-pound iron cannon weighed from 2,900 to 3,400 pounds and could be fired up to 1,800 yards. In comparison, a brass 12-pounder weighed from 1,200 to 1800 pounds with a maximum range of 1,400 yards. As a further comparison, a brass 32-pounder (the British had them at Quebec) could weigh up to 5,500 pounds and had an effective range of 1,900 yards. Note the 500-yard advantage in range between a brass 12-pounder and 32-pounder; 1,400 yards for the12-pounder vs. 1,900 yards for the 32-pounder.

10. Montgomery to Robert R. Livingston, November 1775, Montreal, in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1638-1639.

11. Ibid.

12. Montgomery to Schuyler, December 18, 1775, in Ibid., 4: 309-310.

13. Lieutenant Colonel Rudolphus Ritzema, second in command of the 1st New York regiment, wrote in his journal on November 28, “The six months for which the men of our Regiment were enlisted being nearly expired, agreeable to general orders they were enlisted anew to the 15th of April next.” See T.W. Egly Jr., History of the First New York Regiment (Hampton, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall, 1981), 12.

14. Montgomery to Robert R. Livingston, November 1775, Montreal, in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 3:1638-1639.

15. Ibid.

16. Ainslie may have played a larger role in Quebec’s defense than he is given credit for, as evidenced by a letter written by an officer in Montgomery’s army who said, “Was it not for Carleton, Cramahe, Colonel Maclean. . .and Hanslic [Ainslie], Collector of the Customs, we should have been in Quebeck before now.” See Extract of a Letter From a Gentleman in the Continental Service, December 16, 1775, “Before Quebeck,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:290.

17. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 27.

18. Ibid., 21.

19. Ibid., 22-23.

20. Andrew Melvin, ed., Journal of James Melvin, 24.

21. Commager and Morris, eds., The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 203. For information about Antill, see Paul R. Reynolds, Guy Carleton (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1980), 78. For information about the duties of a military engineer, see Smith, An Universal Military Dictionary, 81-2.

22. William Nelson, Edward Antill, A New York Merchant of the Seventeenth Century, and His Descendants (Paterson, New Jersey: The Press Printing and Publishing Co., 1899), 19-20. Antill was later appointed a lieutenant colonel and second in command of the 2nd Canadian regiment (also designated Congress’ Own and commanded by Colonel Moses Hazen) and served in that capacity until he retired on May 1, 1782. He was taken prisoner during a raid on Staten Island, New York, on August 22, 1777, and exchanged on November 2, 1780. He died in 1789.

23. For the organization of Carleton’s defenders see Stanley, Canada Invaded, 87. For the number of men in each of Carleton’s brigades see Ward, The War of the Revolution, 1: 188.

24. “Journal of the Most Remarkable Occurrences in Quebec, From the 14th of November, 1775 to the 7th of May, 1776, By an Officer of the Garrison,” Collections of the New York Historical Society For the Year 1880 (New York: Printed for the Society, 1881), 178.

Sheldon Cohen attributes this diary to Jacob Danford, who was a civilian employee of the Board of Ordnance in Quebec. See Cohen, ed., The Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 13. However, subsequent research has produced a new and different diary kept by Danford. See John F. Roche, ed., “Quebec Under Seige, 1775-1776: The ‘Memorandums’ of Jacob Danford,” The Canadian Historical Review, vol. L, no. 1 (March 1969): 68-81. Hereafter cited as Roche, ed., Memorandums of Jacob Danford.

Danford arrived in Quebec from England in 1766. In 1774 he became a civilian employee of the Board of Ordnance in Quebec and was in charge of the preparation, inspection, and distribution of ammunition for the artillery defending the city during the American siege. Because of his expert knowledge, his journal is cited in matters concerning artillery.

25. See French, The First Year of the American Revolution, 602.

26. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:289.

27. Reynolds, Guy Carleton, 80. Carleton had established a policy of no negotiations with the rebels months before when he said, “I shall return no answer, nor enter into any Correspondance with Rebels, not thinking myself at liberty to treat otherwise those who are Traytors [sic.] to the King, without His Majesty’s express Commands.” See Smith, Our Struggle For the Fourteenth Colony, 2: 103.

28. Details of this story appear in a letter that Carleton wrote to General Howe dated January 12, 1776, from “Quebeck.” Carleton said, “The 7th [December 7], a woman stole into town, with letters addressed to the principal merchants, advising them to an immediate submission, and promising a great indulgency in case of their compliance.” See Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4: 656. The quote from Montgomery’s letter to the merchants of Quebec is from Shelton, General Richard Montgomery, 131.

29. Reynolds, Guy Carleton, 81.

30. Andrew Melvin, ed., James Melvin’s Journal, 21. The British offer to American soldiers who deserted was signed by Maclean and read:

Conditions to be given to such soldiers as shall engage in the Royal Highland Emigrants. They are to engage during the present troubles in North America only. Each soldier is to have 200 acres of land in any province in North America he may think proper, the king to pay the patent fees and surveyor-general., besides twenty years free of quit rent. Each married men gets fifty acres for his wife and fifty for each child on the same terms, and as a gratuity besides the above great terms, one guinea levy money.

31. Extract of a Letter From the Gentlemen in the Continental Service, dated “Before Quebeck, December 16, 1775,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:290.

32. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 30-31; Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army, 606. According to Heitman, Wool, a New Yorker, was appointed a lieutenant in Lamb’s Artillery Company on August 2, 1775. His subsequent military career included an appointment as a captain in the 2nd Continental Artillery in 1777. He resigned from the army three years later and died in 1794. The December 9, 1775, date for the opening of the mortar battery is from Shelton, General Richard Montgomery, 133.

33. Smith, An Universal Military Dictionary, 186.

34. Reynolds, Guy Carleton, 82.

35. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 28.

36. Henry, An Interesting and Accurate Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 109.

37. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 47.

38. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 29.

39. Ibid.

40. Roche, ed, The Memorandums of Jacob Danford, 71.

41. Extract of a Letter To a Gentlemen in New-York, dated “Montreal, December 17, 1775,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:296.

42. “Fobes Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 589.

43. This episode appears in a report that Carleton wrote to General Howe in Boston. See Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:656.

44. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 29.

45. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:290.

46. Montgomery to Carleton, December 16, 1775, “Quebeck,” in Ibid., 289.

47. Ibid.

48. Montgomery to Wooster in Ibid., 288-289.

49. Fred G. Würtele, ed., “Journal of the Siege From 1st Dec, 1775” [author unknown, believed to be a artillery officer] in Blockade of Quebec in 1775-1776 by the American Revolutionists (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1970), 14-15. This diary was originally published in 1906 by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec.

50. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 692.

51. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 31.

52. “Haskell Diary” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 483. The only other woman known to have accompanied the Arnold Expedition as far as Quebec was identified as the wife of Sergeant Grier of the Pennsylvania troops. Private Haskell mentioned her death in his diary entry for April 18, 1776: “a woman belonging to the Pennsylvania troops was killed to-day by accident—a soldier carelessly snapped his musket which proved to be loaded.” See Ibid., 495.

53. Montgomery to Wooster, December 16, 1775, “Head-Quarters before Quebec,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:288-289. Montgomery made it clear in this revealing communiqué that his initial plan was to feint an attack on the lower town while the real assault took place against the upper town. Montgomery said, “I propose the first strong northwester to make two attacks by night: one, with about a third of the troops, on the lower town, having first set fire to some houses, which will, in all probability, communicate their flames to the stockade lately erected on the rock [heights] near St. Roque [St. Roch—the suburb closest to the lower town]; the other upon Cape Diamond bastion, by escalade.”

54. Montgomery to Schuyler, December 18, 1775, in Ibid., 309-310.

55. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 561.

56. Würtele, ed., “Journal of the Siege From 1st Dec., 1775”, 28. The quote reads, “All the Guns in the flanks were scaled & new load wt. grape & cannister shott.” Although the use of canister shot is associated with the American Civil War, it existed at the time of the American Revolution. See Harold L. Peterson, Round Shot and Rammers (New York: Bonanza Books, 1969), 27.

57. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 28.

58. Cohen, ed., Ibid., 30-31.

59. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 109.

60. Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana, The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 63.

61. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 694. Surprisingly, Pierce did not mention smallpox in his list of maladies that, according to other diarists, was present in the American camp at the time.

62. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 31.

63. “Haskell Diary” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 482.

64. Bray & Bushnell, eds., Military Journal of Jeremiah Greenman, 23.

65. Smallpox is spread through direct contact with an infected person or through fairly prolonged close (within about six feet) contact. The disease also is spread through contact with infected bodily fluids or contaminated objects such as bedding or clothing.

Since smallpox has been eradicated (the last known case in the world was in 1977) there is little current information available about the disease. However, there was an outbreak of smallpox in October 1945 in a U.S. Army hospital in Nagoya, Japan, which showed the ease with which the disease could spread. Twenty-two American service personnel contracted the disease during this brief episode.

Army medical personnel present during the outbreak later reported that the disease began with a high fever that subsequently dropped, although never to normal, before spiking again. Although some patients had pustular lesions, those who died had confluent subcutaneous hemorrhages (from bleeding into the pustules) that rapidly involved the entire body, with a similar enanthema (eruption on a mucous membrane) involving the enanthema of the oral cavity, respiratory mucosa, and entire gastrointestinal tract. The pain was intense, and morphine relieved it only marginally. Commenting on the ease with which smallpox spread, the American doctors noted that every soldier who contracted smallpox had been in the hospital for some other medical problem two weeks prior to the onset of the disease. They recalled that a messenger who stopped in the hospital’s laboratory for a cup of coffee returned two weeks later with smallpox. See Murray Dworetzky, M.D., “Smallpox, October 1945,” The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 346, No. 17 (April 2002): 1,329.

66. Private Melvin mentioned in his journal the commandeering of the nunnery for use as a hospital: “We were quartered in a nunnery near the town, but it was wanted for a hospital.” See Andrew A. Melvin, ed., James Melvin’s Journal, 59.

67. See Louis C. Duncan, Medical Men in the American Revolution (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1970), map of Quebec opposite page 90 shows the location of the smallpox hospital.

68. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 698.

69. “Haskell Diary” in Ibid., 485. Haskell’s diary entry for December 28, 1775, reads, “All the houses in the neighborhood are full of our soldiers with the small-pox. It goes favorably with the most of them.”

70. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 27.

71. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 3: 84, footnote.

72. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 699.

73. Rifleman Henry said that all officers in the army with the rank of captain and above were invited to this council. See Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 111.

74. The primary sources for information about this meeting are the “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 699, and a letter from Montgomery to Schuyler, dated December 26, 1775, in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:464-465. Some historians erroneously refer to this meeting as a briefing for Arnold’s officers. See, for example, Stanley, Canada Invaded, 93, which says, “The original plan of attack was a simple one. It was discussed at a meeting of company officers at an operations group at Arnold’s headquarters on December 23rd.”

75. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 699.

76. French, The First Year of the American Revolution, 612.

77. Montgomery to Schuyler, December 26, 1775, in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:464.

78. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 701.

79. Montgomery to Schulyer, December 5, 1775, at “Holland-House [Montgomery’s Headquarters], near the Heights of Abraham” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:190.

80. Ibid. Meigs, who attended the meeting, said that the “matters. . .were happily settled.” See Meigs, Journal of the Expedition Against Quebec, 32. However, Montgomery said that the problem with Arnold’s three dispirited companies were not resolved at the meeting. Montgomery wrote, “This dangerous party threatens the ruin of our affairs. I shall, at any rate, be obliged to change my plan of attack, being too weak to put that in execution I had formerly determined on.” See letter from Montgomery to Schuyler, December 26, 1775, “Head-Quarters before Quebec,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:464.

81. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 32.

82. Brown and Peckham, eds. Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 65.

83. Bray & Bushnell, eds., Military Journal of Jeremiah Greenman, 23.

84. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 32.

85. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 100.

86. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 33. There is an additional interesting reference to clothing for Arnold’s corps in Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, 7: 81, which concerns the reimbursement of expenses to Captain Dearborn: “For a suit of clothes allowed him [Dearborn] by Gen. Montgomery, and for his expenses from camp to this place in order to settle his accounts, 294 dollars (The value of the suit, 33-1/3 dollars) was deducted.” While this interesting reference does not indicate the type of clothing that Montgomery gave to Dearborn (a uniform or civilian clothing?) it reflects the fact that officers had to pay for their own clothing and equipment.

87. Ward, The War of the Revolution, 1: 185, 451 footnote 19. Rifleman Henry said that he had “a fine white blanket coat,” and “a bonnet rogue [red hat]” with a white lining during the siege of Quebec. He also remarked that his “gloves being good and well lined with fur.” See Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 109.

88. See, for example, Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 111.

89. Trousers resemble modern pants. Overalls at the time were loose-fitting above the knee, tight-fitting below the knee, and spread out at the bottom to cover the shoes.

90. Charles Botta, History of the War of the Independence of the United States of America 2 vols. (New Haven: Nathan Whiting, 1836), 1:288. This popular early history of the Revolution went through many editions. The first American edition was published in 1820.

91. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 561.

92. Brown & Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 65.

93. “Morison Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 535.

94. “Stocking Journal” in Ibid., 562.

95. W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 403-404.

96. Stone, ed., “Thayer Journal,” 27.

97. Ibid.

98. The phrase forlorn hope is derived from the Dutch verloren hoop, which means lost troop.

99. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 31.

100. Ibid., 32.

101. Ibid; Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 111.

102. Shelton, General Richard Montgomery, 139.

103. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 112.

104. There are several creditable sources that state Captain Lamb was accompanied by only a part of his artillery company. One American officer, who survived the attack, identifying himself only as “A Solider,” wrote an undated but convincing account of the event in the New York Gazette. He stated: “About four o’clock in the morning, the detachment being assembled in St. Roque’s [a reference to Arnold’s segment of the attack, launched from the suburb of St. Roch] together with Captain Lamb, and part of his company of Artillery, with a field piece, mounted on a particular carriage, for the conveniency for carrying it through the snow.” See Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:707. For the number of Canadians and Indians with Arnold see Shelton, General Richard Montgomery, 140. For the number of artillerymen accompanying Lamb in the attack see Isaac Q. Leake, Memoir of the Life and Times of Gen. John Lamb (Albany: Joel Munsell, 1850), 127.

105. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 692. Pierce said, “300 more Yorkers [troops belonging to the 1st New York regiment] and Canadians arrived this day from moreal [Montreal].” For Brown’s command of 160 men see Martin, Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero, 164.

106. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 32-33. For details of Livingston’s preparations for his attack on St. John’s Gate see Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:482.

107. “Stocking Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 562.

108. Commager and Morris, eds., The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 1: 254.

109. John Ferling, A Leap in the Dark, 155.

110. There is no known reference to a street or path in colonial Quebec called Dog Lane. While this narrow shoreline path is described in detail in many of the journals, none of the diarists mention it by name. The name Dog Lane apparently was adopted by later historians.

111. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 33; Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 38.

112. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 33.

113. For the correct date of the American attack see Reynolds, Carleton, 83. This author comments on the confusion regarding the date of the American attack and confirms that it took place on the night of December 30-31. The date of the attack is confusing because some accounts, including those by John Joseph Henry and Abner Stocking, say it took place on the night of December 31-January 1. However, more credible sources—including Carleton, Arnold, and Ainslie—stated that it occurred during the night of December 30-31.

114. Extract of a Letter From Canada, Dated February 9, 1776, in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:706-707. For information about the Portuguese coin called a johannes, which is a slang expression and so named because the coin had the portrait of John V on its face, see Lederer, Colonial American English, 110, 125.

115. Shelton, General Richard Montgomery, 141.

116. “Pierce Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 703.

117. Stanley, Canada Invaded, 95.

118. The location of Carleton’s headquarters is mentioned in Billias, ed., George Washington’s Opponents, 119.

119. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 33-34.

120. The relative positions of the various companies and officers during the attack are from Stone, ed., Thayer Journal, 28.

121. Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony, 2: 131.

122. Roche, ed., Memorandums of Jacob Danford, 72.

123. Leake, Life of John Lamb, 130.

124. James Graham, The Life of General Daniel Morgan, of the Virginia Line of the Army of the United States (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1859), 96.

125. Ibid. This story is one of the most controversial aspects of the American attack on Quebec. The source is creditable: it is claimed to be included in a letter Morgan wrote after the war describing his participation in the conflict at the request of General Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee who was writing a history of the Revolutionary War in the South. Lee’s book, Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1812), contains a biographical sketch of Morgan (vol. 1:388-391) that includes his participation in the Arnold Expedition and attack on Quebec. However, it does not give any details of the action at the second barricade. The assertion that Morgan reached the second barricade and found it abandoned first appears in James Graham’s The Life of Daniel Morgan, published in 1859. Graham states (p.96) that his source for the story is “a short sketch written by himself [Morgan], of his early military career.” I believe that Graham is referring to the above-mentioned letter Morgan wrote to Henry Lee.

A portion of the illusive Morgan letter to Lee appeared in “General Daniel Morgan, An Autobiography,” Historical Magazine, vol. IX, No. 6, Second Series (June, 1871): 379-380. The pertinent text reads:

[W]e arrived at the barrier-gate [second barricade], where I was ordered to wait for General Montgomery, and a fatal order it was, as it prevented me from taking the garrison, having already made half the town prisoners. The sally-port through the barrier was standing open; the guard left it; and the people came running, in seeming platoon [sic], and gave themselves up, in order to get out of the way of the confusion that was likely to ensue. I went up to the edge of the upper town, with an interpreter, to observe what was going on, as the firing had ceased. I found no person in arms at all. I returned and called a Council of War of what officers I had . . . Here I was overruled by hard reasoning. . . . To these arguments I sacrificed my own opinion and lost the town.

This story also appears in the modern literature of the Revolutionary War, including Higginbotham’s Daniel Morgan and Martin’s Benedict Arnold Revolutionary Hero. These excellent historians have accepted Morgan’s letter as accurate. I believe that Morgan’s letter is genuine but, after an exhaustive study of the Arnold Expedition, I feel that it was the boastful reminiscences of an old veteran. First, there is no corroborating evidence to support Morgan’s story. In fact, the opposite is true. Jacob Danford said that the second barrier was “vigorously defended” (see Roche, ed., Memorandums of Jacob Danford, 72). Second, Morgan’s letter includes several other statements that unquestionably are incorrect and meant to inflate his participation in the campaign. For example, Morgan boasted that after retreating with Arnold to Point aux Trembles, “I marched back, with my three Companies, and renewed the siege.” Morgan further brags, “I kept up the siege, till the arrival of General Montgomery.” This story is absurd. Third, Morgan said that he assumed command following Arnold being wounded: “I sent him [Arnold] off, with two of my men, and took his place, for although there were three field officers present [Greene, Meigs, and Bigelow], they would not take the command, alleging that I had seen service, and they had not.” While Captain Morgan probably had more combat experience than the other officers on the scene, they were courageous men who were unlikely to have relinquished overall command of the assault to Morgan.

126. The time of Montgomery’s approach to the fortified house is from a report by Colonel Campbell to General Wooster dated December 31, 1775, from the “Holland-House,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:480.

127. Wandell and Minnigerode, Aaron Burr, 1: 54.

128. Stanely, Canada Invaded, 98.

129. French, The First Year of the American Revolution, 615.

130. Smith identified Barnsfare (he spelled the name as Barnsfair) as the master of the brig Fell. See Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony, 2: 142. There are several important accounts praising the leadership and courage of Barnsfair and Coffin. Captain Ainslie, for example, said about the action at Fraser’s house: “Much has been said in commendation of Mr. Coffin’s cool behaviour; his example at Pres de Ville had a noble effect on his follow soldiers, they behav’d with the greatest spirit.” See Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 36.

131. Leake, Memoir of the Life and Times of John Lamb, 128; “Extract of a Letter From Canada, Dated February 9, 1776,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:706-707.

132. “Extract of a Letter From Canada, Dated February 9, 1776,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:706. Joseph Ware was a common soldier on the Arnold Expedition. He was captured in the attack on Quebec and subsequently wrote out a list of everyone taken. His list confirms that there were 13 men killed from the “York forces” (Montgomery’s column). Ware also says that one of Montgomery’s men was wounded and captured in the battle. See “Joseph Ware’s Journal” in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 40.

Montgomery’s civilian guide is identified as (Mr.) Desmarais in Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 232. This guide was among those killed in the initial cannon blast and small arms fire from the blockhouse. Arnold’s column was also accompanied by a guide but there is no known record of his (or her) name. While the Americans may have had information about the layout of the lower town, guides were important to help them find their way in the blizzard through Quebec’s streets.

133. Manuscript notes of 1831 interview with Aaron Burr found in Arnold’s Letter Book, Maine Historical Society.

134. Donald Campbell served as a lieutenant and quartermaster in the Royal American Regiment during the French and Indian War and was placed on half-pay (reserve status) at the end of that conflict. He was a patriot sympathizer with a long-standing grudge against the royal government of New York stemming a 1738 claim his father (Captain Lauchlin Campbell) made for 100,000 acres of land in the Lake Champlain Valley. Young Campbell gave up his half-pay in the British army in July 1775 to accept an appointment by the Continental Congress as deputy quartermaster general for the Northern army with the rank of colonel. Following his appointment, he wrote General Washington a flattering letter July 26, 1775, in which he asked the commander-in-chief for an appointment to brigadier general and quartermaster general of the Continental Army. See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1: 173-174. Washington appointed Thomas Mifflin to the post of quartermaster general, leaving Campbell to accompany Montgomery’s army to Canada in the capacity of deputy quartermaster general for the Northern army. A detailed biography of Campbell, including his father’s New York land claim, are in Ibid., 1: 174-175 notes.

135. Leake, Memoir of the Life and Times of John Lamb, 128.

136. Randall, Benedict Arnold, Patriot and Traitor, 220.

137. Henry, who claimed to have walked the battlefield after the event took place, was one of the first to tell the story of the drunken sailor firing the fatal cannon shot that killed Montgomery. While Henry’s account is one of the most important eye-witness records from the American Revolution, as previously noted, he actually dictated his war experiences to his daughter years later (1811) from his deathbed. Since so many years had elapsed, the accuracy of Henry’s narrative is questionable: It is virtually impossible for a single round of grapeshot to kill 13 men located at various locations and distances from the cannon. However, according to Henry:

The hero Montgomery came. The drowsy or drunken guard did not hear the sawing of the posts of the first palisade. . . . The column [Montgomery’s troops] entered with manly fortitude. [Then Montgomery cut through the second wooden fence.] Even now there had been but an imperfect discovery of the advancing of an enemy, and that only by the intoxicated guard. The guard fled; the general advanced a few paces. A drunken sailor returned to his gun, swearing he would not forsake it while undischarged. This fact is related from the testimony of the guard on the morning of our capture, some of those sailors being our guard. Applying the match, this single discharge deprived us of our excellent commander.

See Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In The Campaign Against Quebec, 129-130. Modern historians have repeated Henry’s story as historic fact. See, for example, Milton Lomak, Aaron Burr, The Years From Princeton to Vice President, 41.

Henry must have walked the ground where Montgomery was killed sometime late in the spring of 1776 while he was a British prisoner in Quebec, because he mentioned “that all danger from without had vanished [an American attack].” Henry then tells a lovely anecdote: “the government [Governor Carleton] had not only permitted the mutilated palisades [fence] to remain without renewing the enclosure, but the very sticks sawed by the hand of our commander still lay strewed about the spot.” See Henry, An Interesting and Accurate Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 140.

The story of the drunken sailor firing the cannon that killed Montgomery was recently retold in Desjardin’s Through a Howling Wilderness, 176-177. His source for the story is Francis Nichols, a lieutenant in Hendricks’ Rifle Company. However, Nichols’ unit was fighting at the other end of the lower town at the time, so he could not have witnessed this event. His account can only be based upon hearsay among the Americans, likely intended to discredit the bravery of the enemy.

138. Würtele, ed.,“Lt. Colonel Macleans Letter” in Blockade of Quebec, 103-104. Here are the highlights of Maclean’s letter to John Coffin, which confirms the determination of the officers and men defending the blockhouse against Montgomery’s attack:

Quebec, 28 July, 1776.

Sir. —As I am, in a few days, going to England with despatches [sic] from the Commander-in-Chief, I should be glad to know if I could be of any service to you. . . . To your resolution and watchfulness on the morning of Dec. 31st, 1775, in keeping the guard at the Pres-de-Ville under arms, waiting for the attack which you expected; the great coolness with which you allowed the rebels to approach; the spirit which your example kept up among the men, and the very critical instant in which you directed Capt. Barnsfare’s fire against Montgomery and his troops—to those circumstances alone do I ascribe the repulsing the rebels from that important post where, with their leader, they lost all heart.

139. Stanley, Canada Invaded, 98.

140. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 67.

141. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 52.

142. Thomas Jones, History of New York During the Revolutionary War 2 vols. (New York: Printed for the New York Historical Society, 1879), 1: 310.

143. “Letter attributed to Major Henry Caldwell of the British Army to General James Murray” in Commager and Morris, ed., The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 1: 205.

144. W.H. Whiteley, “The British Navy and the Siege of Quebec, 1775-6,” in The Canadian Historical Review, Vol. LXI, Number 1 (March 1980): 9.

145. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 117-118.

146. Writing in 1788, historian William Gordon said that a half an hour elapsed from the time that the rebels overran the first barricade to their attack, led by Morgan, against the second barricade. See Gordon, The History of the Rise, Progress and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States, 2: 186.

147. Ward, The War of the Revolution, 1: 193. This story is probably true because Captain Ainslie wrote in his journal on December 31, 1775: “We had kill’d Capt. Anderson formerly a Lt in the Navy. . ..” See Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 38.

148. Isaac Q. Leake, Lamb’s biographer, related a family tradition concerning the artilleryman’s participation in the attack. The story is that Lamb received orders to abandon his cannon, which was stuck in the snow, and lead his artillerymen, armed with muskets, in the attack. Lamb was assaulting the second barrier when he spied an enemy gunner with a linstock (a pole with a burning piece of cord) about to fire off a cannon loaded with grapeshot. Captain Lamb tried to fire his fusee (a carbine—a short musket favored by officers) twice but the gun did not fire because the gunpowder was wet: “and in the act of priming for the third effort, the cannon was discharged. A grape shot hit Lamb on the left cheek, near the eye, and carried away part of the bone; the force of the blow and the concussion of the shot, stunned him, and threw him senseless upon the snow. Some of his faithful fellows carried him into a cooper’s shop [barrel maker] near at hand, and laid him upon a pile of shavings, still insensible.” See Leake, Memoir of the Life and Times of Gen. John Lamb, 131. Lieutenant William Heth, who saw Lamb months later, confirmed the head wound: “The Enemy discharged a field piece with grape shot, one of which struck him below the left eye, taking away part of his cheek & cheek Bone—Just missing his Ear. . . .” See “The Diary of Lt. William Heth,” Winchester, Virginia Historical Society Annual Papers vol. 1 (Winchester, Virginia, 1931), 50.

149. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 37. Captain George Law, or Lawes, joined the British army in 1756 as a second lieutenant in the 61st Regiment of Foot. He saw considerable combat during the French and Indian War in the Caribbean and retired as a half-pay first lieutenant at the end of the war (1763). Laws immigrated to Canada sometime prior to the start of the American Revolution. He is sometimes incorrectly identified as an officer in the Royal Engineers and/or a captain in the Royal Highland Emigrants during Montgomery’s attack. He was appointed a captain in the Emigrants in 1777 and participated with his new regiment in Burgoyne’s 1777 campaign. See Horatio Rogers, ed., A Journal Kept in Canada and Upon Burgoyne’s Campaign in 1776 and 1777 by Lieut. James M. Hadden (Albany, New York: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1884), 137.

150. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 69. British Major Henry Caldwell had a similar experience during the fighting in Quebec’s lower town. Caldwell said he got separated from his troops while reconnoitering in the vicinity of Lymeburner’s wharf, which was under fire from the rebels positioned in the back rooms of one of the houses facing the wharf. While trying to locate the exact position of the enemy fire, a rebel called out to him in the storm, “Who is there.” Caldwell replied, “A friend—who are you?” The answer came back, “Captain Morgan’s company.” Caldwell told them to have good heart for they would soon be in the town and immediately got behind a pile of nearby lumber from which he was able to make his escape. See Commager and Morris, eds., The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 1: 205-206.

151. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account . . . In the Campaign Against Quebec, 119; W.T.P. Short, ed., “Journal of the Principal Occurrences during the Siege of Quebec by the American Revolutionists under Generals Mont- gomery and Arnold in 1775-76” in Würtele, ed., Blockade of Quebec, 69. This diary is attributed to Captain John Hamilton, commander of the HMS Lizard. It was originally published in London by Simpkin and Co. in 1824.

152. Ibid., 75. Natanis was quickly released as part of Governor Carleton’s efforts to get the Indians to help him.

153. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 243. A similar and earlier published account of Morgan’s surrender appears in Graham, The Life of General Daniel Morgan, 103. My reference to the fighting ending at 8:00 a.m. is from Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 38. Ainslie said: “The whole affair was over by eight in the morning & all the Prisoners were securely lodged.”

Daniel Morgan seems to be a favorite subject for Revolutionary War storytellers. In another tall tale, after being taken prisoner, the British tried to bribe Morgan to join them. The story appears in Alexander Garden, Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America (Charleston, South Carolina, 1822), 58. Here is the story about Morgan as it appears in Garden’s book: “His bravery well known, and his activity justly appreciated, an attempt was made by an officer of rank in the British service to induce him, by the tender of wealth and promotion, to join the royal standard; but, with the true spirit of Republican virtue, he rejected the proposition, requesting the tempter—- ‘Never again to insult him by an offer, which plainly implied that he thought him a villain.’”

154. Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 34.

155. Ibid., 34-35.

156. Arnold to Wooster, December 31, 1775, from “General Hospital,” in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:481-482.

157. Dr. Senter mentioned this incident in his journal: “January 1, 1776. All in obscurity; no intelligence from the troops in the lower town. Some suggesting they were all prisoners, &c., while others imagined they were in possession of the lower town, and waiting for assistance to enter the upper town. While in this suspense, Mr. [Mathew] Duncan, a young gentleman volunteer, desired the Colonel [Arnold] would give him liberty to attempt passing into the lower town in quest of the little detachment; received orders, went, but no return.” See Senter, Journal of Dr. Isaac Senter, 35.

Mathew Duncan was from Philadelphia, and following his capture and exchange at Quebec, he was appointed a captain in the 5th Pennsylvania Battalion (January 5, 1776). He was captured again when Fort Washington (an American fort on upper Manhattan Island) surrendered to the British on November 16, 1776. See Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army, 206-7.

Lieutenant William Heth provided some additional details of Duncan’s capture in his diary:

Mr. Matthew Ducan [sic], a Young Gent Volunteer from Philadelphia who crossed St Charles River from Beaux Port to the Lower Town—At a Considerable distance from the Picketts [guards] he observ’d a man whom he believed to be Maj. Bigelow—& who upon Becoming convincd—Mr. Duncan it was the major & that we were in possession of the Lower Town—But upon his Advancing closer he saw his mistake—when too late as the Centinel presented [raised his musket] & ordered him to halt. Tho’ he was made a prisoner so simply—it cannot be denyd but he shew’d himself a young Gent of Spirit & from he being a very sensible, sober steady young man—he will, I hope, be taken proper notice of.

See Diary of Lieutenant William Heth, 39.

158. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 36. Writing to General Wooster on January 2, 1776, Arnold said that Meigs brought him the first accurate information concerning the fate of his Kennebec corps: “We have been in suspense, with regard to my detachment, until this afternoon, when Major Meigs was sent out, with a flag, for the officers’ baggage, who, he says are all taken prisoners, except Captain Hendricks, Lieutenant Humphreys, of the Riflemen, and Lieutenant Cooper, who were killed in the action.” See Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 104.

Chapter Ten

1. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 247.

2. There are several references to Meigs’ visit to the American camp, the most interesting being the journal of Lieutenant William Humphrey, who was captured during the battle. His entry for January 2, 1776, reads in part: “This day, the third of my imprisonment, Major Meigs was allowed by Genl. Carleton to go out and get in our baggage and to return on Friday [January 4].” See Shipton and Swain, ed., Rhode Islanders Record the Revolution, 35.

3. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 37. Although Ainslie said that 426 were “taken,” a careful reading of his diary entry shows that he used the term to include killed and captured rebels. This number included 40 men from Lamb’s artillery company. Their commander, Captain Lamb, was among the prisoners. He was found badly wounded in a cooper’s (barrel maker) shop on the Sault-au-Matelot. His fine clothing had been stripped from his body by looters and he was barely alive. A British army surgeon managed to save his life, but Lamb lost his left eye and his face was permanently disfigured.

Ainslie’s figure is close to two other creditable sources. One is the journal kept by Joseph Ware, a common soldier on the Arnold Expedition captured in the attack. Ware said that the Kennebec corps losses in the attack were 440 officers and enlisted men, including 35 killed and 33 wounded. He gives a separate figure for the York forces (Montgomery’s column), which was 13 killed and one wounded. Ware puts the total American losses at 454. See Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 40.

The other important source for American losses was Captain Dearborn’s journal. He was also captured by the British and his lengthy journal entry for December 31, 1775, included: “Kill’d & wounded according to the best accounts I could obtain, Amounted to about one Hundred men, the number kill’d on the Spot, about 40.” Dearborn also listed the names of 34 officers from the Arnold Expedition taken prisoner, to which he added: “The Number of Serg. [Sergeants] and Corpor. & Privates Taken, but not wounded, are about 300.” Dearborn’s total is 474. See Brown & Peckham, ed., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 74-77. A detailed list of American officers captured at Quebec appears in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series:): 4:708-709. This list is particularly interesting because it includes the names of all junior officers and volunteers who surrendered.

I believe that Private Ware’s figure of 454 total American losses (killed or captured) in the attack on Quebec is the most accurate, based on his detailed list and the number of men involved in the assault.

4. Captain Jonas Hubbard (sometimes spelled Hurlbert) was from Worcester, Massachusetts. He was among the first militiamen to take up arms against the British and was appointed a captain in (Artemas) Ward’s Massachusetts regiment shortly after the war began. See Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army, 305. According to Thayer’s journal, Hubbard was wounded at the outset of the attack as Arnold’s column was passing along what later historians called Dog Lane. See Thayer Journal, 28. His death is confirmed by Ebenezer Wild, whose diary entry for January 1776 included the following: “Captain Hubbard died with the wound he received in coming in.” See Windsor, ed., The Diary of Ebenezer Wild, 10. On June 17, 1776, the Massachusetts General Assembly passed a resolve: “That Mary Hubbard be paid the wages of her late husband, Captain Jonas Hubbard, who went on the expedition against Quebec and after his arrival there, Died.” See Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 573.

5. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 38.

6. Meigs Journal in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 193.

7. Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:589-590.

8. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account…In the Campaign Against Quebec, 114. Kenneth Roberts said that no one knows what subsequently happened to Smith and speculated that he died later in 1776 from smallpox. (See Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 360-61 footnote). However, Francis Heitman, that tireless researcher into the lives of Continental army officers, gives a detailed biography of Smith’s subsequent military career, and states that he retired from the army in February 1778 as a colonel and died in 1794. See Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army, 505-506. Another creditable source also acknowledges Smith’s later military service, stating he resigned his commission in November 1776, returned to the army as a major of the 9th Pennsylvania Regiment the following January, and resigned again in February 1778. See W.W. Abbot et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2: 43 footnote.

9. Burr worked for Arnold until the end of May 1776, when he left Canada on public business (probably carrying dispatches) and never returned. See Kline, ed., Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr, 2 vols. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983), 1: lxii.

10. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 3: 18. The complete reference to the Arnold Expedition in Hooper’s letter reads, “We impatiently wait to know the fate of Quebec. Montgomery and Arnold are now before Quebec & if Courage and Perseverance can give success, I know of None who have better pretensions to it than these brave Officers. Arnold’s Expedition has been marked with such scenes of misery, that it requires a stretch of faith to believe that human nature was equal to them. Subsisting upon dead dogs, devouring their Shoes & leather of their Cartouch [cartridge] Boxes are but part of that Catalogue of woe which attended the expedition. Heaven seems to have interposed in preserving almost miraculously what still remains of the brave little Army, & placing them in health & spirits to compleat the grand work of the subduction [sic] of Canada.”

11. Ibid, 58. Howes was not the first person to compare Hannibal to Arnold. Writing to Samuel Adams on December 5, 1775, James Warren (president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress) compared Arnold’s achievement “with Hannibal’s over the Alps.” See Martin, Benedict Arnold Revolutionary Hero, 184.

12. Samuel Ward to Deborah Ward (his daughter), December 24, 1775, in Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 2: 518.

13. For information about Thomas’ appointment see Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, IV: 186. Congress’ resolution, dated March 6, 1776, read: “That Brigadier General Thomas be appointed to command the forces in Canada….” On the same date Congress promoted him from a brigadier to a major general. Thomas replaced Montgomery while Schuyler, who remained too ill to leave his Albany mansion, continued as the senior major general and commanding officer of the Northern Department.

14. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 288.

15. Cohen, ed., Journal of Capt. Thomas Ainslie, 50-51.

16. Stocking Journal in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 567.

17. Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account…In the Campaign Against Quebec, 160-161.

18. Ibid, 170.

19. Brown and Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 82.

20. Codman, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, 301.

21. Parole was a system in use at the time that offered prisoners of war limited freedom on their word of honor that they would remain within a specified area as a non-combatant until such time as they were exchanged or otherwise absolved from their parole. Parole was usually reserved for officers who were considered gentlemen and whose word of honor could be trusted. General Schuyler paroled the British officers captured at St. Johns, Chambly and Sorel. Governor Carleton, however, did not return the compliment, because Quebec was under siege and he could not risk having paroled American officers roaming around the city or surrounding rebel held countryside.

Prisoner exchanges had to be negotiated informally between the Americans and the British during the Revolutionary War because the British government refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Continental Congress or its armed forces. The royal government’s policy concerning exchanges was stated in February 1, 1776, instructions from Lord Germaine to General Howe. The British had captured several rebel naval officers who were being sent to Howe in Boston:

It is hoped that the possession of these prisoners will enable you to procure the release of such of His Majesty’s officers and loyal subjects as are in the disgraceful situation of being prisoners to the Rebels; for although it cannot be that you should enter into any treaty or agreement with Rebels for a regular cartel or exchange of prisoners, yet I doubt not by your own discretion will suggest to you the means of effecting such exchange, without the King’s dignity and honour being committed, or His Majesty’s name used in any negotiation for that purpose.

See Lord George Germaine to Major General Howe, dated Whitehall, February 1, 1776, in Force, ed., American Archives (Fourth Series): 4:903.

As a result of this policy, prisoner exchanges had to be negotiated on an informal basis according to the sentiment of the British commanding officer on the scene. Carleton was disinterested at first in negotiating prisoner exchanges with the Americans, whom he considered to be traitors.

22. See, for example, Mark Boatner, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1976), 1205-1206: “As a volunteer in Thompson’s Pa. Bn, 9 Sept.’75-March ’76, he and Aaron Burr took part in Arnold’s march to Quebec (An interesting collection of scoundrels, but their performance in this expedition was creditable).”

A recently published reference to Wilkinson being on the Arnold Expedition is Brendan Morrissey, Quebec 1775 (Oxford, United Kingdom: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 2003), 56: “As villains of the Revolution, Wilkinson and Burr barely rank below Arnold (post-betrayal) and are remarkable only for their ability to survive some highly dubious acts. Yet strangely both showed considerable fortitude and bravery during Arnold’s expedition and the attack on Quebec. Wilkinson was born in Maryland, studied medicine and joined Thompson’s Pennsylvania rifle battalion at the outbreak of war. He befriends Burr the march through Maine and, after being promoted to captain, replaced Burr as Arnold’s aide-de-camp.”

23. W.W. Abbot et. al., eds., Papers of Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 6:389.