Just a few months into the Revolutionary War , a plan was developed to invade Canada to rally French Canadian support against the British and entice Canada as a possible 14th colony . What events led to the creation of the Canadian campaign ? Who was in charge , and what were the details for the invasion and what happened at the Battle of Montreal ? For answers to these questions and more army history insights , Stay tuned . Welcome to the US Army History and Heritage podcast , the official podcast of the United States Army Center of Military History . The Center of Military History writes and publishes the Army's official history , manages the US Army Museum Enterprise , and provides historical support throughout the US Army . Hello everyone and welcome to the United States Army History and Heritage podcast . I'm Lee Reynolds , the strategic communications officer for the Center of Military History . In this episode we're discussing the Canadian campaign of the Revolutionary War , and we're gonna focus on the strategic setting and the start of General Montgomery's march from Fort Ticonderoga in the summer and fall of 1775 . And joining me for this discussion is Army historian Steve Elliott . Welcome , Steve . Thank you for having me . Oh my pleasure . So Steve has taught history at Rutgers University . He served as editor of the Journal of New Jersey Studies . Worked as a CMH historian since 2020 and he holds a PhD in history from Temple University and is the author of Surviving the Winters Housing Washington's Army during the Revolution , which was awarded the 2023 Harry M . Ward book prize . Well , congratulations on that . Thank you . Yeah , and he's also authored two volumes in CMH's campaigns of the American Revolution War series , a series that's going to be a total of 13 volumes . And so Steve , which , which volumes did you write ? Uh , so I wrote the New Jersey campaign 1776 to 1977 , uh , so that's the Trenton and Princeton battles to most people . And then Northern campaigns which covers the war in New Jersey , New York , New England from 1778 to 1781 , uh , so a lot of actions that tend to get forgotten , but covered in that work . Yeah , well , great , and um , you know , we're going to be doing podcasts on those as well . So we'll have you back to talk about those . But for this podcast and uh and the next one , so it's gonna be like a two part series that we're going to focus on the Canadian campaign . So just just get people to understand the strategic setting and where we are in time . So by July of 1775 , a lot has already happened in the war . We've had the battles of Lexington and Concord in April , the capture of Fort Ticonderoga up upstate New York in May , the establishment of the Continental Army in on June 14th of 171775 , of course the Battle of Bunker Hill and Breeds Hill , which is also in in June . But now the army is looking to Canada . So can you explain why , you know , bring us up to date . What what what's the idea for this ? So I think to start off , we need to know a little bit about Canada itself , this is where this campaign is going to unfold . Uh , so through most of the colonial era , what we now consider Canada , particularly the part that's going to be fought over in these campaigns , was a French colony , uh , up through 1763 when it was taken over by the British at the end of the French and Indian War . But even in 1775 , so about a decade later , uh , the population of Canada , uh , really the , the province of Quebec , uh , which is what we're focusing on here , uh , was about 110,000 people , which was not a whole lot , uh , roughly the same population as New Jersey at the time , it was a much smaller colony , uh , than this massive entity that was Quebec , uh , so it is very sparsely inhabited , 110,000 people , uh , majority of them are French speaking . Uh , what we refer to as hobbitton , uh , so these sort of French almost semi-feudal peasants , uh , living in the , the Saint Lawrence Valley , uh , they're also referred to as quote unquote new subjects , uh , because they are new subjects of the King of England , or King of Great Britain since the conquest in 1763 . And then there's a handful of folks that we are sort of referred to as old subjects , uh , so these are English speaking people , merchants and landowners that kind of come in after the English conquest , uh , imperial administrators , and , uh , a number of farmers and merchants from the English speaking colonies , and people from New England and New York , etc . So that's the population on the ground in Canada at the time , uh . As you alluded to in your intro , when the revolution breaks out , there are folks in the revolutionary government , the the American Continental Congress that envisioned Canada as a potential 14th colony . This idea that we've got our 13 colonies here , why not add the one just north of our borders , uh . And that's kind of where the germ of this idea of of opening a campaign in Canada starts . There's a political element to it . Uh , there's also a more traditional operational military consideration . And that is that throughout the colonial era , Canada had been a center for warfare against the English speaking colonies , so there'd been a series of wars against uh France during the late 17th and 18th centuries , and all of those . Conflicts had a colonial theater and most of those campaigns had witnessed operations between the Saint Lawrence Valley , so Quebec or Canada and New England and upstate New York . Uh , in fact , a good number of the folks we're going to be talking about and people that are familiar in the revolutionary story , uh , had served in say the Champlain Valley or the Great Lakes area or the Saint Lawrence Valley during the French and Indian War , just a decade and change beforehand . So , All that means that when the revolution breaks out , uh , a lot of American leaders with good memories , um , can look to the past and say , hey , we were frequently subject of invasions and raids launched out of places like Montreal and Quebec . So , uh , why don't we try to kick the British out of those places before they can use them as a staging ground or base of operations against the colonies and the sort of . Uh , add to that , uh , Canada is fairly weakly held uh at the start of the revolution and I can talk a little bit more about British forces in a little bit , but it's really this sort of target of opportunity idea , right ? It's well for the Americans , yeah , right , we might get attacked uh out of this place that has a history of being used as a base of operations , so maybe we can go and grab it while it's still lightly defended . And then on top of that , it's , oh yeah , it's got this population that might be interested in becoming part of our little project here , which is in 1775 , not even called the United States yet and has not even declared independence yet , but you know those sentiments are rising . Um , how a , a colony that was overwhelmingly French speaking and Catholic and had very little contact with sort of Anglo institutions like the other 13 colonies had , that is a big question and and that's gonna come into play later on . You you mentioned some of these , these leaders who , um , you know , participate in French and Indian War but other . Events in that area . So we know that there's a political interest in going up there , but from the operational standpoint , the military side , who is it that started to come up with these ideas and um who first of all , who were they ? Can you provide some background on them and uh and and the plan . So as you mentioned , early part of the war , American seized Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain , which is . Essentially getting near the Canadian border and and that's where a lot of these ideas are gonna coalesce . Uh , so by the summer of 1775 , Congress has set up a command structure in in the northern part of New York there , uh , so key figure in this campaign is going to be Major General Phillip Skyler . Uh , so Skyler in 1775 was 42 years old , uh , around the same age of Washington . Uh , he's a member of an elite New York family , so there's Skylers going back generations into the 18th century . They'll be prominent Skyler descendants going into the 19th century . Uh , later on , uh , Alexander Hamilton , uh , will become his , his son-in-law , so folks that are familiar with Hamilton for the , the Broadway play and whatnot , there's , there's a connection here . It's that same family , the Skylers . Anyway , so he's very wealthy , very well connected . He had served in the Seven Years' War or the French and Indian War , uh , in the same region in the Lake Champlain Valley in what's now upstate New York , primarily as a supply officer , uh , so he was more involved in logistics than tactics or or anything on the battlefield itself but uh hopefully a lot of our listeners know logistics wins wars , right ? So not something to be dismissed , um . Also experienced in uh what we might call frontier diplomacy so again this is at a time when you've got uh . The colonies , you've got Native American nations , you've got colonists who don't really subscribe to one colony or another and are are kind of just living as independent frontiersmen . So there's a lot of different parties involved in any of these campaigns and Skyler has experience engaging with all those different groups . So , uh , in terms of somebody at a kind of theater command level , he is actually pretty well suited . Uh , unfortunately , his health is very poor , um , and it , it quickly becomes apparent that he's not gonna be the type of person that's going to lead an expedition , uh , at the head of a column into Canada . So that brings our , our second . Major figure into the picture here , uh , and that is Richard Montgomery . Uh , so Montgomery is 37 years old at the time , so a bit younger than than Skyler , but much more robust , uh , as we'll say , much more of a lead from the front kind of commander , uh , Irish born , uh , of Ulster Scots extraction , so the kind of complicated background , uh , but . Had been in New York for a while by 1775 , uh , had served as a delegate to the provincial Congress of New York , uh , so also involved in the local political scene , had served in the British Army , uh , and reached the rank of captain , uh , before leaving the service because advancement was hard in the British Army , um , so actually had uh a good bit of military experience in the Seven Years' War . He had also served in New York on the frontier . Uh , and also gone to the Caribbean , uh , as well , so , uh , pretty well traveled and As we'll see , he's he's going to feature prominently in in the expeditions , the Americans and northward . So overall you've got a good mix of administrative experience , uh , from Skylers . Background and then also combat experience from Montgomery . So between the two of them , are they the ones that really drafted the plan for for the invasion ? Uh , yeah , and , and are going to be executing it , um , you know , once things get going , uh , as with anything during this time period though , it it's something of a Decentralized authority , so you've got congressional committees sending letters back and forth that are again really hung up on this idea of a 14th colony . Uh , General Washington is is . Commander in chief of the army , but he's mostly in Boston area and focused on the blockade of that city and the principal British garrison , so he's involved to an extent , uh , and . Is going to be featuring a little bit more in the second part of the story , uh , but again , it's Skyler and Montgomery are kind of the two main characters . All right , great . And then , and I know Benedict Arnold was involved to some degree and I we're gonna talk about him more . In the second episode , but at this point , what was his role in all of this ? So Arnold had showed up at Fort Ticonderoga right at essentially the start of the war in May 1775 and and was a participant in the capture of that fort . Uh , he was from Connecticut , um , there was a significant Connecticut presence in in the early part of that campaign as well . Uh , but it seems that he essentially got sidelined by the summer of 1775 and and went back to Boston to confer with Washington and , and hatch this idea for a second prong of the invasion uh towards Quebec through Maine , uh , that we can cover in the second podcast there . OK , good . So he's already kind of involved and , and it's it's interesting that you noted that he was sidelined . I think the the first of a few of those that's going to um upset him . Yeah , uh , not , not someone you want to slight but people kept doing it and and foreshadowing future events here but but but the first of of of those , so that's interesting . Alright , so now um we got a good idea and then um . How many forces did Skyler and Montgomery have under them as they're about to launch the invasion ? So during the summer and early fall of '75 , uh there are troops dispatched to upstate New York , uh what's originally referred to as the separate army uh to kind of Separate it from other continental forces operating elsewhere , um , but we'll later kind of just , you know , the northern army and and that tends to be the the phrase that you see most associated with it . Uh , it's a mix of troops from A number of different areas , so you've got 4 New York regiments , uh , 2 Connecticut regiments , troops from Massachusetts , uh , kind of more regular forces from New Hampshire , an artillery company out of New York City , uh , about 1800 troops by August , representing 6 different colonies , uh , plus some Canadian recruits . So you had folks across the border in the province of Quebec in Canada , uh , that . Got wind of what was going on in the colonies with this revolutionary activity and were actually interested in making Canada a 14th colony and did kind of come south to enlist uh in the army as well . Um , out of that force , so again about 1800 , uh , you had Connecticut troops which had more experience , again , some of them might have taken part in in the Ticonderoga expedition , a lot of them were , uh , French and Indian War veterans as well . Uh , the New York troops were a little bit greener , and we have a quote here from General Montgomery that referred to them as quote sweepings of New York streets , again , kind of the the riffraff coming off the streets of New York City is , is how he , uh , viewed it , uh , adding even more color to the story . Uh , he had about 500 troops from what's now Vermont and at the time didn't exist at the time . Right , Vermont was not yet a state . It was in some ways a sort of independent territory . It was disputed territory between New Hampshire and New York . Uh , so it's about 500 troops , uh , of what was known as the Green Mountain Boys , kind of a local military force , uh , that had taken part in the capture of Fort Tie . Uh , Ethan Allen is , is kind of the figure that's most closely associated with him , but , uh , he was actually not as as well looked upon by his contemporaries as as later history would make out . So by this point they're actually under , uh , much more level headed commandder Seth Warner , um , so again , uh , a really mixed force and then because of that mix , um , there were some rivalries going on . There was different levels of training . So how did Montgomery and Skyler approach this ? Yeah , so they're going to be spending a good amount of time in that late summer trying to get this army into some sort of order and shape . Uh , one of the things that really comes out from studying this is the logistical issues again there . Far north of New York , uh , they're pretty far away from a lot of the major population settlements , uh , so getting supplies to that area can be tricky and there's a lot of discussions of shortages of shoes , blankets , kettles , tents , uh , before we even get into things like weapons and gunpowder , so . This is where Skyler's administrative acumen really comes in and his business contacts , so he knows blacksmiths and and cobblers and and you know all the little artisans and craftsmen scattered throughout the Northeast that are going to be the people you contract with to get these supplies um and then . Transportation uh is the other big issue , right ? So , uh , there's not a great road network in upstate New York at the time , so a lot of transportation , uh , as well as operations uh when we get to that are going to be waterborne , uh , so getting boats to bring stuff up the Hudson and then portaging it over to Lake Champlain . Were they making any boats at that time or were they bringing it all in ? Uh , yeah , there there's . Essentially these small shipwrights operating on on the shores of say Lake Champlain or or the Upper Hudson uh making boats out of uh essentially greenwood , uh which is leaky and and and and doesn't necessarily make for the best boat , uh , but they were using whatever they had and and and kind of in a rush to get this all done so by . Late summer early fall you have an American force that's still pretty green , uh but is starting to come into shape uh they've started to build up supplies and equipment enough where they might actually be able to say , hey , we we've got a shot at making this Canadian campaign actually happen . What is their first , um , their first objective in in this we call this the Canadian campaign or the Battle of Quebec , but . They weren't going directly to Quebec , right ? Right , so again , getting back to the Water aspect of this , uh , lines of advance are going to be along major waterways and and in . Uh , so Forie is on Lake Champlain , which have a map in front of you listening at home , uh hopefully can see it's a very long narrow , uh , north south orientation , uh . And that essentially networks with the Hudson River going southward all the way to New York City and the Richelieu River , uh , which flows into the Saint Lawrence right by Montreal , uh , which was one of the major settlements of Canada so it's essentially this this highway of invasion back and forth either marched south from Montreal and head into New York or you can march north up Lake Champlain directly to Montreal so . A controlling the lake , which is going to involve , as we've already talked about a little bit shipping and and essentially a naval campaign uh and then . Proceeding down the river uh to Montreal itself uh is is gonna be the first objective here , uh , just to maybe backtrack a little bit and talk about Canadian geography , uh , so . Most of those 110,000 residents in Quebec are living in the Saint Lawrence Valley , uh , which kind of runs diagonally northeast to southwest , uh , and then west of there is the Great Lakes which are sparsely inhabited by European settlers but uh have a large indigenous population that is networked into this whole story through trade and diplomacy . So essentially if you can capture Montreal , uh , you can cut off trade and supplies going westward to the Great Lakes , uh , and secure that . Cut a highway running from New York uh through the Lake Champlain and up to Montreal . So Montreal is is is a pretty important uh strategic objective and , and that's going to be the Americans first task is to try and seize Montreal , but to do that they need to proceed up Lake Champlain they need to . Overcome any British naval or or ground forces uh and then move on to the city itself . So before we get into the actual invasion , let's let's address that . What were the uh uh the the British forces looking like there ? How , how were they arrayed who were their leaders , uh what did they have in the area ? So if we had 1800 coming up with the Montgomery , um , what were they facing ? Canada is is very lightly defended at this point , um , you know , the , the British were . Moving troops into the 13 colonies proper , uh , with a a sort of expectation that that you know this this revolutionary sentiment was , was gonna boil over at some point . So Canada again , uh , a pretty ripe target , uh , at the time the British commander in Quebec and Canada is Guy Carlton , who's 33 years old , uh , also a veteran of the ven Years of War , pretty much like everyone we're talking about here . Uh , so he'd served Louisburg and Quebec , uh , in , in that conflict and is described by one historian as reserved and level headed , so uh maybe not a a military genius , but somebody who was not going to commit a lot of mistakes or get himself into trouble . Uh , but again , he had not a whole lot to work with at the start of this campaign . Uh , in fact , in 1774 , he had sent two regiments of foot to Boston to help garrison that town . Leaving him with only 3 regiments in all of Canada , uh , and they're scattered in outposts from , uh , Quebec City all the way out to what's now Michigan , uh , so there's only about 700 regular British troops in the Saint Lawrence Valley , uh , split between Montreal , uh , Quebec City , and Trois Riviere , uh , so very lightly defended . Remember we've got 1800 American troops , uh . Again they're facing 700 British regulars , so red coats recruited mostly in Britain or Europe . Uh , they've got 500 provincials , uh , which are locally recruited but but sort of kept under arms for a longer period , so I have a chance of some decent training , uh , and then a militia , uh , so essentially just temporary troops raised locally , uh , which was viewed as almost wholly unreliable , uh , in fact . When they attempted to call out the militia in Quebec City at the start of the war , uh , only 70 people turned out , uh , and those were all what we call the old subjects , so English speaking people , fairly small communities , so weren't a lot of them to go around , uh , the new subjects , the , the French speaking population , uh , almost rebelled when they were called out for malicious service . Uh , there was just this . Uh , view among a lot of the hobbit to that , uh , you know this is not their war . This is a quarrel between English speaking people over strange English legal customs and governance and , and , you know , they just wanted to go and farm their wheat and go to church and and and that sort of thing . So a lot of them kept aloof of this . uh , last but not least we have the indigenous population , uh , so . Throughout 17th and 18th centuries , uh , the , when the French controlled Canada , they made alliances with a lot of the indigenous tribes in the area either to keep them neutral or to use them as allies in wars against the British . And once the British took over Canada , that relationship persists . So during the Revolutionary War , it's going to be the British operating out of Canada . That are trying to cultivate uh indigenous support because now they're kind of on the defensive , uh , so . And these were mainly Iroquois . Uh , yeah , so what we call the Ho and Sony or or Six Nations of the Iroquois , uh , there's also a seven nations of Canada is another one of these sort of indigenous leagues and peoples , uh , but in the early part of the war , uh , both sides . Meaning the the Americans and the British crown really sought to keep these groups neutral . Uh , there was a sense that again this is a quarrel between crown and colonies and it it's more trouble than it's worth to get uh indigenous peoples involved on on one side or another uh again the British were afraid that . Sort of launching attacks by say the Iroquois or other groups would uh lead to atrocities and then sort of escalate the conflict beyond uh where they wanted it to go and for the Americans uh who usually didn't have great relations with indigenous people to begin with it was just again if we can keep them neutral that that's good enough for us uh so there'll be some . Indian guides and occasional Indian raids uh in the early part of the campaigns but uh not as prominently featured here as they will be in in later frontier conflicts . So we had a good idea of what what they had on both sides um but the the the British . They were anticipating this invasion , I would imagine so were they able to Carlton did did he try to get more reinforcements ? So there's going to be a massive British reinforcement expedition that's going to be sent to relieve Canada , but gathering that back in Britain and selling it across the Atlantic , it's gonna take a lot of time remember it can take , you know . 6 weeks to 3 months to get messages back and forth uh to Europe uh and then . Specifically with the Canadian context , uh , you know , it gets cold in Canada in the winter . Saint Lawrence essentially freezes up and shuts down all maritime communication throughout the winter . So one of the real strategic imperatives for the Americans is this sort of race against the clock where they're going to need to try and take Canada but before the ice melts at the end of winter . Uh , because then , you know , massive fleet of British ships and reinforcements is gonna show up and that's pretty much going to shut down any realistic chance of them actually taking Canada . So , uh , that's , that's kind of the big strategic picture . So that will come into play more later on . Yeah , uh , but you know , it's just important to keep in mind that , you know , the time is not necessarily on the American side . um , in the near term , uh , The British are going to be using their experience and skill with ship construction to try and build up their naval forces on Lake Champlain because essentially if you can build a fleet on the lake , uh , Canada is invulnerable to attack any force trying to move up the lake , uh , is gonna be vulnerable to , uh , you know , having their supplies interdicted by whoever controls , uh , the water , so . Essentially a lot of this campaign , even though it's fought upstate New York , the place we usually think of as a a arena of land warfare , there's a surprising amount of of essentially naval combat and sort of a naval mindset coming into these campaigns . So let's talk about the uh the actual invasion , you know , um , Skyler , I guess isn't going to join the uh the invasion , it's gonna be led by Montgomery . Um , well , one of the things that comes to mind is what about canon for the American side ? I know the British had a lot of cannon , but um how did the Americans stand with cannon ? Yeah , so they have one company of New York artillery , um , so essentially people that had drilled with cannons pre-war like a militia company and then come into . The continental service , uh , but it's going to be an issue throughout not only for , uh , the naval side of things again not having enough guns to to essentially outfit these warships they're trying to build , but later on when they get into Canada proper , uh , not having adequate artillery to to batter down the walls of of fortified towns , uh . So yeah , that that's going to be something that inhibits the Americans uh later uh also makes it more imperative to to essentially win in the field if they can because a prolonged siege for any of these towns is not necessarily going to be viable . Uh , they do have the benefit of of having captured artillery at Fort Ty , uh , but a lot of that is gonna get sent to Boston , uh , to help with the blockade slash siege of that town . The noble train of artillery that would go from Fort Ty down to Boston . Right , so again . Uh , I , I think that helps illustrate too that , you know , these are multiple campaigns being waged in a very expansive conflict . So you know , Congress can't send all of its resources the Canadian campaign because they're worrying about the Boston campaign fortifying . Uh , the coast in case the British land at Charleston like they try to do later on as well . Alright , so let's talk about the actual invasion . Um , when does Montgomery set out ? What are some of the biggest challenges in getting to Montreal ? Uh , so the invasion , we call it that , uh . Actually has its preliminary in August of 1775 , uh , when the Americans get word that the British are beginning to construct warships , um , kind of on the far northern shore of Lake Champlain . Uh , so as we've talked about without ship or , you know , without naval control of the lake , you're not going to have a successful campaign . So the real impetus for the campaign starting when it does , is essentially the Americans trying to use their land power , at least their 1800 troops across the border and get at this British base , uh , the town of Saint Jean , uh , where they're building these ships and , and , uh , kind of basing their defense on . So Montgomery builds up a a small fleet of gunboats , uh , so not very large vessels , but the the best Americans can manage with their Uh , limited supply of good timber and ship rights , uh , move up to the northern end of the lake and then essentially try to besiege this town of Saint John where the British are are and to build up their fleet . uh , they declared themselves liberators as they cross the border . Uh , so again this idea that , uh , this invasion is , is has a political dimension to it , uh , is thinking about adding Canada as a 14th colony , giving support to a a . Likely minority of Canadians that are in favor of joining with the colonies , but uh if they can if the Americans can gain military success , if they can sort of defeat the British and and prove that they have the military prowess to to make this independence project work , uh , there's a better chance that more Canadians might come on their side , so . Uh , it's it's sort of this two sided coin , right ? The more military successful you are , the more Canadians support you , the more Canadians support you , the more success you're gonna have on the battlefield . Uh , so there's a lot riding on the early part of the campaign here . Unfortunately they get to Saint John and not a whole lot of the local population turns out to support the Americans , uh , not only by enlisting but even just sort of . Coming forward with support in the form of food and shelter and that sort of thing , uh , so . The first foray against Saint John essentially ends as soon as it starts , uh , you know , they're not really welcomed by cheering crowds and and that sort of thing , so that they turned back , um , then sort of one problem after another crops up is bad weather in the form of rain . Uh , contrary winds on , on Lake Champlain , which delays supplies , uh , morale kind of goes downhill pretty quickly . Again , you got a lot of soldiers serving in their first campaigns far away from home , uh , instead of the , you know , imagined glory of a battlefield victory , they're just kind of digging ditches in the mud in in upstate New York . So , uh , you know , a lot of soldiers like this is not really what I signed up for , um . So The initial campaign does not really go very successfully . Uh , Ethan Allen shows up again and , and essentially tries to go and and attack Montreal , so penetrates deeper into enemy lines and is quickly repulsed and is is kind of reveals that is not a very successful idea . um , so it's uh essentially a learning process the Americans discovered that , you know , we need to be a bit more . Systematic about how we go about this . So this is again where Skyler's skill as an administrator comes in and more supplies are built up , uh , they sort of redouble their training efforts they make . More extensive uh reconnaissance of Saint John and get a better picture of the defenses tactics yeah yeah so again this is the first couple of months of a long war for a country that's in the process of of being born uh so they they don't get everything right on the first try , but there is a a pretty rapid figuring it out period here , uh , so . After that , uh , Montgomery gets reinforcements , they move back into Canada to attack Saint John . This is now like the 3rd or 4th attempt , depending on on how you're keeping track . And this goes more successfully uh American cannons succeed in sinking a British warship . Uh , they grab supplies from the surrounding area , they occupy enemy outposts , uh , and close in on Saint John , which has now been defended for , for several months and and has been now cut off from supplies and whatnot . Uh , so Saint John falls on the 3rd of November 1775 . Uh , so it was essentially 48 days from the start of the campaign until the Americans captured Saint John . Uh , so in some ways this is one of the first big American victories since the very early days of the war . Uh , they take 600 British prisoners , um , not in substantial amount . And they wrecked the under construction warships and and captured the hulls and whatnot . So a a clear success , uh , at least at the tactical level for the Americans . Uh , some scholars though might argue that in an operational or strategic sense , uh , it was a British victory . Uh , well , uh , 48 days lost in terms of the campaign season , so that that sets the American timetable back quite a ways . Uh , we talked a little bit earlier about how time is not necessarily on the American side , not only in the long term , uh , because we know that British relief force is going to be coming in the spring , but in the near term , a lot of those 1800 soldiers that Montgomery has with him have short term enlistments , uh , and a lot of those expire at the new year , so . Yeah , you know , Saint John falls on 3 November , uh , that's only leaves about 2 months until a lot of that army has it in their rights to go home , uh , and as we'll see there's attempts made to get some men to stay on , but . Uh , that's no guarantee . So essentially you have an army with only a 2 month life span left by the time Saint John falls , that doesn't leave a whole lot of time to conclude the campaign . So long story short , it's an impressive kind of tactical victory for the Americans . It's operational and strategic consequences are a little bit more debatable . Yeah . Um , so after Saint John's , um , when do they move on towards Montreal ? Basically , immediately , because again there's there's not no time to be wasted here . So it is of the essence here exactly . Uh , so Montgomery knows that these impending enlist and expirations are coming up . Uh , he promises to his soldiers , and this is , I think , where Montgomery's reputation as somebody that was , uh , get a very hands on commander , very active commander , and , and one who is sensitive to how to motivate his men . Uh , he essentially tells the soldiers that he's willing to discharge them early if Montreal falls . So he's like , Well , this is , I need to capture Montreal . We can do that in the next week or two . I don't need you all through the end of the year , so you can go home early . So let's , let's kind of get it together and , and yeah , very , very much so . Uh , so again , you know , Montreal is in some ways the key to . This part of the campaign you hold Montreal it's a major settlement so there's a political dimension to it again , uh , you know , you , you sort of prove that you're capable of holding it uh important part of Canada it cuts off the flow of supplies to British garrisons and potential indigenous allies to the west , uh , secures upstate New York and will be a springboard for the next stage of the campaign , which is , uh , Quebec City , uh , which we'll we'll talk about next time . So , uh , all that being said , uh , Americans advanced despite bad weather , despite kind of choppy waters on the Richelieu River , uh , they make it to the Saint Lawrence River on 11 November , uh , it's really just a week after the fall of Saint John , uh , they cross the river and Essentially surround Montreal , uh , they promised the civilian population no harm will come to them again sieges can occasionally get out of hand and , and , uh , turn ugly for the civilians and and the Americans are very keen on on the hearts and minds aspect of this campaign . Uh , the British meanwhile realized that they are in a pretty hopeless position at Montreal itself . Yeah , I was gonna say how , how well defended was Montreal ? Yeah , at this point , uh , Carlton has very few troops left again , a lot of them were at Saint John has surrendered , and he's . Again realizes that from his perspective it's more important to hold Quebec City , which is further downriver closer to the coast so closer to where that relief fleet is going to show up , uh , and you know history had shown that if if you could hold out at at one you could always go and capture the other later , uh , that being Montreal and Quebec so he essentially abandons the town , uh , sails down the Saint Lawrence River , uh , and heads to , uh , Quebec itself . Uh , the Americans were able to impede that evacuation , uh , to an extent , so they set up shore batteries on either side of the Saint Lawrence fire on British ships as they , they moved down the river . Uh , so the Americans win a not unsubstantial victory at Montreal . Uh , the British are forced to dump 900 barrels of gunpowder into the Saint Lawrence River , uh , rather than bring it with them , and 11 ships are captured , uh , either in Montreal or or along the river , and 150 prisoners were taken , uh , so , uh , not a , a glorious victory , but again seizing a major town and in the heart of an enemy held province is is no small matter , uh , so and I'm guessing those ships are gonna come into play later on . Uh , yeah , uh , uh , to an extent , um , you know . The Saint Lawrence is is the highway of of Quebec or of Canada so the more ships you control the more uh resources you have for moving supplies and troops around , uh , so that essentially brings this part of the campaign to an end , uh , Americans are in control of Montreal by late November , uh . Some of the American troops will stay on , uh , some will get their , their early dismissals from from Montgomery , uh , supplies are coming up from The South due to Skyler's administrative acumen and reinforcements also is it or ? Yeah , so again you've got some soldiers going home because they expiring enlistments , but then you've got new recruits coming in , um . And you know , maybe that's a good opportunity to to talk about what's going on in Canada now that you have the Americans there in divorce uh so with Montreal taken , uh , there's kind of a question of what do you do with the civilian governance side of things , uh , so in the winter , Congress will actually send uh delegates up to Canada to try and negotiate with the locals there and uh . Especially see what they want to do uh in terms of of becoming part of this larger American project , uh , Canadians , even the ones that are , are maybe a little bit more pro revolutionary still hold off on creating a 14th colony government or or sending delegates of their own to a continental Congress , so that's all going to be up in the air . From a military perspective , uh , you start to see a larger number of Canadians volunteering , uh , for service in what's now the Continental Army . In fact , uh , Canadian named James Livingston actually recruits what will become the first Canadian regiment of the Continental Army , uh , so . Essentially hundreds of Canadians turning out for for service in in the American army , uh , civilians start coming forward with more supplies , uh , so in that idea of of capturing an important strategic objective like Montreal , uh , starts to convince the civilian population of the viability of the campaign . Uh , the sort of third city of Quebec , uh , which is Trois Riviere , so downriver from Montreal but not quite all the way to Quebec City , actually recognizes American control , uh , of them , so . So they were in , um , they were under American control , not British control at that point . Yeah , again , the British essentially pull everybody back to Quebec uh essentially the the rest of the province as as nominal American control but uh it's a big place there's very few boots on the ground , so how much that . Actually comes into play in a lot of places is is unclear , uh . Montgomery gets about 800 veterans of his force to re-enlist . Uh , they don't all go home and get another benefit of a successful campaign is , is that morale boost . Uh , some he kind of guilts and he says like , hey , you made it this far , don't you want to see it through to the end ? Uh , others they bribe with cash bonuses and offers of new clothes and and equipment . Uh , and , and that seals the deal . So 800 veterans is , is not an insubstantial force , uh , in terms of diplomacy , Montgomery promises to respect Catholicism , uh , something that's very important to the , the French , uh , population . Uh , he sends some envoys out to engage with the indigenous population as well , um , so we see kind of a diplomatic offensive there though again , what fruit that's actually gonna bear remains unclear . Uh , and as I said earlier , he promises Canadians delegates to Congress if they want them , but Canadians are still gonna wait and see how the rest of this campaign unfolds . And that essentially is is the close there of of the uh Montreal campaign . Yeah and then just to finish it off and and and set up for the next episode at somewhere around this time we start seeing uh the Arnold expedition arriving in the area as well . Right , uh , so as as maybe a teaser for for part two , this is prong one of a two prong operation and that second prong was launched from New England through now it's what's now Maine . Uh , and targeting Quebec City , uh , which is really the strategic key to all of this , and , and those troops started arriving outside of Quebec , uh , around the same time that Montgomery has captured Montreal and now it's on for Montgomery to bring his veteran troops down the Saint Lawrence , link up with the second . American force and try and capture Quebec and and seal the deal with conquering Canada . It's a perfect place to to to leave off and and as you said tease our next episode . So , um , well , well , great . Well thank you so much Steve , this has been uh terrific uh but before we close , it's time for our segment called Hua Trivia . So is there some piece of trivia that you can share about the beginning of this Canadian campaign ? Uh , yeah , so I mentioned the uh Canadian troops that this guy James Livingston was was recruiting and by the end of the army's time in Canada , they'd actually recruited two regiments , so a 1 and 2nd Canadian , which would stay with the Continental Army throughout the whole war , long after the army had departed Canada . uh so . They eventually get consolidated into just the Canadian regiment , but because it wasn't associated with any one state , uh , the way virtually the rest of the continental Army was , whereas you know first New York regiment , first Massachusetts regiment , the Canadian regiments were after the army leaves Canada , obviously harder to get Canadian recruits to replenish their forces , they were allowed to recruit from any of the colonies and because of that . In a way they become the first real American regiment in the army because they had troops drawn from wherever and were sort of Directly provisioned and paid and supplied by Congress . In fact , their nickname was Congress's own again , so if we think about the army as an institution reflective of America , uh , the first and 2nd Canadian regiments were sort of the most reflective of the country as a whole . Oh , that's fascinating . Well , thank you so much , Steve . I appreciate your insights today about the beginning of the Canadian campaign . And all the initial movements as we approached the Battle of Quebec . And uh if you'd like to learn more about the American Revolution , the Battle of Quebec , or learn more about army history in general , then I encourage you to explore our website at history.army.mil and if you want to experience army history every day then visit us on social media at Facebook X and Instagram . So thanks for joining us today on the United States Army History and Heritage podcast for the Center of Military history , I'm Lee Reynolds , and until next time , we're history . The views expressed in this podcast reflect those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views , policies , or opinions of the US Army or Department of Defense . For more information about the Army's proud history and heritage , go to history.army.mil .