British Repel Americans: Quebec Defends Against Revolutionaries

Continental Army forces under General Richard Montgomery and Colonel Benedict Arnold attacked Quebec City in a blinding snowstorm on New Year's Eve 1775, hoping to seize Canada before British reinforcements arrived in spring. The assault was the climax of a two-pronged American invasion that had begun in the fall. Montgomery advanced from Montreal along the St. Lawrence River after capturing the city in November, while Arnold led a separate force of over a thousand men through the Maine wilderness in an epic march that nearly destroyed his command through starvation, disease, and desertion. Arnold's column arrived at Quebec in November with barely six hundred men fit for duty. Montgomery joined him in December, and together they commanded approximately 1,200 soldiers against a garrison of roughly 1,800 defenders under Governor Guy Carleton. The attack was launched during a blizzard in the predawn hours, relying on surprise and simultaneous assaults from two directions. Montgomery was killed in the first minutes of the assault when grapeshot hit him as he led a charge against a barricade in the lower town. Arnold was shot through the leg early in the fighting and was carried to the rear. Without their commanders, the assault lost cohesion. Over four hundred Americans were killed, wounded, or captured, while British casualties were minimal. The defeat ended American hopes of making Canada the fourteenth colony. Arnold maintained a loose siege through the winter, but the arrival of British reinforcements in May 1776 forced a retreat that ended the Canadian campaign permanently.