Episode 074: Occupied Boston, 1775

Last week I talked about the American lines around Boston during the fall of 1775.  Today I want to discuss the British regulars in Boston during that same time.

Gage Goes Home

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, London recalled General Thomas Gage after receiving word of the battle of Bunker Hill.  They sent the letter in early August, but Gage did not receive it until September 26.  He turned over authority to General William Howe on October 10, and set sail for London, never to return.

Howe Takes Command

As you may recall from earlier episodes, General Howe had arrived shortly after Lexington and spent most of his time criticizing General Gage to superiors in London.  He also led the attack on Bunker Hill.  There were more than 100 generals more senior than Howe who could have taken the command. However, the prospect of crushing British subjects in the colonies did not appeal to many of them.

General Howe himself had promised his constituents during the last Parliamentary elections that he would not serve in the colonies.  Yet when the ministry called for service, General Howe felt he could not refuse. He indicated that he would aggressively suppress the rebellion.  But as we will see, his actions over the next few years suggest otherwise.

British Army Suffers Under the Siege

After taking command, Howe did not seem in any hurry to make any immediate major changes. He had been living over in Charlestown near Bunker Hill since the battle.  On Gage’s departure, Howe moved into Boston and turned over command of Charlestown to the next most senior general in theater, Henry Clinton. He sent back a letter on the same ship that returned Gage to London, informing Lord Dartmouth that the army should not remain in Boston, that they should evacuate by sea and land to Rhode Island where they would have more room to maneuver.

Gen. William Howe
(from Wikimedia)

Howe also locked down Boston even tighter, ordering that no one could leave the city on pain of death and that the remaining Bostonians would have to join in the defense of the city.

As with the Continental army, the real threat to the British army did not come from a potential military assault.  It came from hunger and disease. Over the winter, disease killed 20-30 soldiers per day.  More soldiers died in any one month over that Boston winter than died from bullet or bayonet on the battlefields of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill combined.

Fatal disease was an inevitable part of almost any army, especially one stuck in a city.  It did not help health matters that food and firewood became increasingly scarce.  The patriots did not have any ships that could face a British ship of the line, or even many of the medium sized navy ships.  But British ships for transporting supplies, and even small naval vessels that found themselves separated from the fleet, became targets for New England whaleboats or schooners armed with cannons or swivel guns.  The navy grew increasingly frustrated as local self-appointed privateers harassed British shipping, and prevented the flow of food and firewood to Boston.


Admiral Samuel Graves informed the Admiralty in London that landings had become too dangerous and that the army would have to rely on supplies shipped from Britain rather than obtained locally.  Even British deliveries had their risks. In October, a transport carrying flour to Boston accidentally entered Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  Locals took the ship.  The crew became prisoners and the flour went to the Continental Army.

Meanwhile the regulars and civilians in Boston lived on ever smaller rations, mostly of salted meat.  One officer had his horse stolen, only to find it butchered and sold for meat in the market.

Feeling the pressure to provide more supplies, Graves ordered his ships to get more aggressive in acquiring food from local towns.  He also put his officers on notice to take prisoner any rebel officers, radical leaders, or members of the Continental Congress that they could capture.

Attack on Bristol

Graves had stationed part of his fleet near Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island.  A squad of several ships commanded by Captain James Wallace on the HMS Rose continually demanded locals sell them necessary food.  The local patriots grew more resistant.  Under the guns of the navy, they often insisted they had no food available.  On October 7 during one frustrating search for food, Wallace ordered his fleet to open fire on the town of Bristol, Rhode Island.  After the town sent a local official out to the ship to beg for a ceasefire, Wallace demanded 200 sheep and 30 cattle.  Again the local pleaded that they had no animals.  Finally the parties bargained down to 40 sheep, which the town supplied in order to avoid destruction.

Burning of Falmouth

A few days later, Graves sent a fleet from Boston to the north looking for towns to loot and destroy.  He deployed the fleet under the command of Lt. Henry Mowat, an experienced officer who had confronted patriots before.  Mowat had commanded the deployment that Graves had sent to Portsmouth New Hampshire in December 1774.  This was part of the mission to secure Fort William and Mary.  It also ended up sparking a local militia attack on the fort before Mowat could arrive.

Burning of Falmouth (from: Legacy-America)

In the spring of 1775, Mowat had sailed to Falmouth (modern day Portland, Maine) to protect a loyalist who was trying to repair and launch a ship there in violation of the colonial boycott.  The work took several weeks, during which time Lexington and Concord set off patriots everywhere.  A group of several hundred militia attempted to capture Mowat’s ship, the HMS Canceaux.  The ship was prepared to fight any attempt to take it, but the militia did capture Mowat himself, who had the misfortune to be ashore during the raid.  Mowat’s second in command threatened to level the town unless they militia released Mowat, which they did after a short time.  This event is sometimes called “Thompson’s War” after the militia commander who led the raid.

Months later in October, Mowat was tasked with making examples of some rebel towns along the coast.  He could think of not better target than Falmouth.  On October 17, He brought his fleet back to the town. He sent an officer ashore to announce to the townspeople that they had two hours before he would open fire and destroy the town.  The locals in  town hoped Mowat was bluffing.  They tied to buy their way out of destruction by providing supplies.  Mowat, however, was bent on destruction.  As it was getting late, he agreed to withhold fire until the following morning if the town turned over its arms.  The town came back with less than a dozen muskets, but it was enough to get Mowat to delay until morning.

The following morning, after a short delay to remove some women and children still in the town, the fleet opened fire.  Falmouth consisted of only about 200 buildings, but as they were far apart, burning each building took time.  The fleet spent about nine hours firing on the town and completely destroying 75% of the buildings.

Although Mowat had authority to destroy multiple towns up and down the coast, he decided that Falmouth was a good enough example.  The attack, however, did not inspire fear so much as it angered New Englanders, who supported the patriots even more as a result.

American Navy & Privateers

Congress had recently approved a Continental navy and a few colonies, such as Rhode Island had launched ships to attack and capture British ships.  But in late 1775, the threat to British shipping came primarily from privateers.  These were privately owned ships with private crews.  They essentially acted as pirates.  They would capture a ship, bring it to harbor, and sell the ship and its cargo to the highest bidder.  The ship’s owner, captain, and crew would divide up the profits as they saw fit.

Later in the war Congress would grant Letters of Marque to privateers authorizing them to attack British shipping.  But in 1775, before such letters existed, the only thing separating privateers from pirates was that they chose only to attack British ships, and that they had the support of most New Englanders when they brought their prizes back to port.

American Privateer Vessel (from MassMoments)

Since privateer efforts would have been prosecuted for piracy had the British won, there are not many records, especially early in the war, about the numbers of prizes captured or who exactly was involved.  But we do know that the British knew their ships were always at risk and that many would be lost if left without the protection of a well armed navy schooner or ship of the line.

To add to the privateers, Washington launched four ships in November working directly for the army.  The benefit of this first unofficial fleet was that captured prizes would benefit the army rather than get sold at market.  Ship crews, of course, would keep a percentage of any prize, just like the Royal Navy tradition, in order to keep them motivated.

The privateers and Washington’s squadron proved effective in keeping Boston from receiving provisions.  They also helped feed Washington’s army.  The most successful capture came when the Lee, named for Gen. Charles Lee, captured a large incoming supply ship the Nancy.  As the Nancy approached Boston, the captain spotted the Lee and signaled, thinking it was a pilot ship that would guide into the harbor.  The captain of the Lee sent over a crew in a longboat, hiding their muskets until they boarded and took the startled crew without a fight.

The patriots guided the Nancy to a nearby patriot controlled port where they took possession of a huge cache of arms and ammunition: 2,000 muskets, 8,000 fuses, 31 tons of musket balls, 3,000 cannonballs, one 13 inch cannon, 100,000 flints as well as other supplies.  The Continental Army, which was desperately short on muskets and flints, celebrated the capture as one of the most important successes that fall.  Meanwhile the British garrison at Boston suffered a critical loss of arms and ammunition, and received another reminder about how tenuous their position in Boston really was.

Phipp’s Farm

While the army in Boston largely had to rely on the Navy for food and supplies, it occasionally saw an opportunity of its own.  Phipps Farm sat just next to Charlestown Neck inside the patriot lines, but also just along the northern coast of Boston Harbor.

Siege of Boston, 1775
(from Wikimedia, original Marshall's Life of Washington)

The British regularly had transport ships in the harbor, moving soldiers between Boston and Charlestown, or loading men and equipment on and off navy vessels, so it was not unusual to see several longboats milling about.  As a result, the Continental sentries were not on high alert when they saw several boats full of soldiers near shore on November 9.

Then, using a prearranged signal, several boats turned at once and rushed ashore.  They captured one sentry and sent a few others scattering.  The patriots fired a few shots as the Regulars rounded up a field full of cattle and herded them across Charlestown Neck and into the British lines. I’ve seen differing accounts on how many cattle they got, but it ranged from about 10 to 45.  The army certainly ate well for a few days and no one got killed.

After the raid, Washington mounted entrenched artillery on top of Copp’s hill, overlooking both Charlestown and Phipp’s farm.  It served as a deterrent to future raids and also posed another potential threat to the British in Charlestown and Boston, that is if Washington ever got enough gunpowder to use his cannons against them.

Cold and Hungry Winter

As autumn turned to winter, the situation in Boston became worse.  Soldiers were surviving on one-third rations, and full rations were not that generous to begin with. Firewood, necessary both for warmth and cooking, became non-existent.  Early in the siege, Regulars had cut down the liberty tree and other trees in Boston Common.  Now pretty much all the trees were gone.  Howe condemned about 100 wooden buildings, including the North Church, to be used for firewood.

Over the winter, Britain sent a fleet of 36 supply ships to bring food to Boston.  Storms and privateers took out most, so that only 13 made it to Boston.  Of those, some found that up to 90% of the food supplies had spoiled in transit.

More and more, Howe and his generals accepted that their position was untenable.  It only reinforced the decision to abandon Boston.  Although Howe originally considered Rhode Island, he now favored New York City.  The large harbor would accommodate the naval fleet, and most thought the population in New York would be friendlier to the army than anywhere in New England.

British Soldiers riding in Old South Meeting House
(from Boston Tea Party Ship)

London continued to send reinforcements over the winter, but death from disease subtracted almost as many soldiers as the reinforcements added.  In November, Howe kicked out about 300 impoverished and sick civilians to eliminate a few hungry mouths.  Many of those removed had smallpox, which nevertheless continued to spread through the city.  Some of those civilians, however, reached Continental lines and helped spread smallpox to the Continental Army as well.

British officers in Boston attempted to keep up morale.  Soldiers turned the South Church into an indoor riding stable for horses, having already burned all the pews and other furniture.  Gen. John Burgoyne, now third in command behind Howe and Clinton had almost nothing to do.  He took to writing plays for the Army to perform, as he had done in London.  This may have been more offensive to Boston sensibilities than burning churches or turning them into stables.  Since the founding of the colony, live theater had been banned and was considered a grievous sin.  Burgoyne was not content to be morale officer anyway.  By fall, he was petitioning London to return home.  He finally received approval and left Boston on Dec. 5, 1775.

By the end of the year, it was clear to everyone that nothing was going to happen until spring.  The primary occupation of the army was searching for food and fuel.  There was always the chance that the Continentals might spring a surprise winter attack, which I suppose is why Howe did not begin shipping his army and loyalist civilians to another location, such as New York or Halifax, over the winter.

Admiral Graves Recalled

Another reason may have been that the navy had also deteriorated.  Unlike the army, the navy had not received many reinforcements during 1775.  A few ships had arrived, but not with more sailors for ships already there.  Crews had thinned, mostly due to disease and desertion, over the year. This left many ships at a questionable level of readiness.  Since the army had taken control of the marines, they did not have forces to conduct any sizable raids against towns either.  Graves also was the victim of cost cutting in London.  He had little funds to keep his ships in good repair.  Running ships at sea caused harm that required expensive repairs.  He did not have the men, money or material to use his ships aggressively.

Adm. Samuel Graves
(from Wikimedia)

Other than ordering the destruction of Falmouth and a few raids, Graves did rather little to further the cause since his promotion in early 1775.  He must have decided that hanging out and waiting to support the army if it ever decided to do anything was his main goal.  Gen. Gage wanted him to keep a substantial artillery presence in Boston Harbor in order to deter any attacks on the town.  Even so, one would expect an active officer to be running convoys and working more aggressively to find food for the army.  In August, Burgoyne wrote a scathing letter to Lord Germain in London essentially saying that Graves was doing nothing: not supplying the troops, not defending islands in the harbor, not engaged in communication and intelligence, and not inspiring fear among the rebels.  I don’t think anyone would describe Graves as aggressive.

Part of the problem may have been that Graves did not respect, nor even like Gen. Gage.  Graves seemed to consider Gage incompetent.  There was also a social dispute between their wives which did not help.  Graves seemed to care little about assisting the army in any way.  I already mentioned how Graves charged a fee to let starving soldiers fish in the harbor.  Graves also rejected several attempts by Gage to send army authorized vessels in search of food or fuel.  Not only would the navy refuse to find food, Graves made it difficult for the army to get its own food.  When Gage received his recall papers in September, Graves and his officers held a small celebration aboard ship.  Graves, however, did not get along any better with the new commander, General Howe.

In fact, Graves did not seem to get along with much of anyone.  His subordinate officers obeyed his orders, but seemed to quietly object to the fact that he favored his nephews for good assignments and promotion.  In August, Graves got into a fist fight in the streets of Boston with Customs Commission Benjamin Hallowell after Graves refused to give Hallowell a permit to harvest his own hay on an island in the harbor for the benefit of the army.

In September, just about the time Gen. Gage was receiving his orders to return to London, the Admiralty decided to recall Graves.  They ordered Rear Admiral Molyneux Shuldham to take over for him.  Shuldham did not arrive until late December, when he had the uncomfortable task of informing his superior officer that he was taking charge.  Graves, who apparently thought he was doing a wonderful job was surprised by the recall.

He left for London in January 1776, arriving a few months later.  The Admiralty offered him the command of the fleet in Plymouth, England, which he refused.  He remained in active service but without a command, receiving two more promotions in later years.  He would never return to America.

Meanwhile the British army in Boston shivered through the rest of the winter winter, cold hungry and dying of disease.

- - -

Next Episode 75 Continental Congress, Autumn 1775

Previous Episode 73 Siege of Boston, Autumn Edition

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Further Reading

Websites

Thompson's War and the Buring of Falmouth https://mainefirstmedia.com/2018/07/remembering-thompsons-war-and-the-burning-of-falmouth

Liberty Threatened: Maine in 1775: https://www.mainememory.net/bin/Features?fn=111&fmt=list&n=1&supst=Exhibits&mr=all

Privateers of the Revolution: http://www.massar.org/privateers-of-the-revolution

The Lee Captures the Nancy: http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/uss-lee-captures-brigantine-nancy.html

Lee Captures the Nancy: http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2007/11/lee-captures-nancy.html

The Hallowell-Graves Fisticuffs, 1775, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Third Series, Vol. 63 (Oct., 1929 - Jun., 1930), pp. 22-51, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25080240 (free to read online, requires registration).

Food, Fuel, and the New England Environment in the War for Independence, 1775-1776, by David C. Hsiung, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 4 (2007), pp. 614-654: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20474582 (free to read online, requires registration).  Draft copy available without registration at http://colonialseminar.uga.edu/Hsiung%20Essay.pdf

Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)

Clark, William Naval Documents Of The American Revolution, Vol 1, Washington: US GPO, 1964.

Dana, Elizabeth Elery (ed) John Barker diary - The British in Boston, 1774-1776, Cambridge: Harvard Univ Press, 1924.

French, Allen The Siege of Boston, New York: Macmillan, 1911.

Frothingham, Richard History of the Siege of Boston, Boston: CC Little & J. Brown, 1851.

Neeser, Robert (ed) The despatches of Molyneux Shuldham, vice-admiral of the Blue and commander-in-chief of His Britannic Majesty's ships in North America, January-July, 1776, New York: Naval Historical Society, 1913.

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)

Beck, Derek The War Before Independence: 1775-1776, Naperville, Ill: Sourcebooks, 2016.

Gratwick, Harry The Maritime Marauder of Revolutionary Maine: Captain Henry Mowat, Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2015.

Lockhart, Paul The Whites of Their Eyes, New York: Harper Collins, 2011.

Nelson, James L. George Washington’s Secret Navy How the American Revolution Went to Sea, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008 (book recommendation of the week).

Philbrick, Nathaniel Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution, New York: Penguin Books, 2013.

Phillips, Kevin 1775: A Good Year for Revolution,  New York: Penguin Books, 2012.

Smith, David Whispers Across the Atlantick: General William Howe and the American Revolution, Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2017.

Wahll, Andrew J. Voyage of the Canceaux 1764-1776. Abridged Logs of H. M. Armed Ship Canceaux, Heritage Books, 2003

Episode 073: Siege of Boston, Autumn Edition

When I last focused on Boston more than a month ago, we left Washington during the summer of 1775, trying to get his officers to stop bickering with one another, creating the filthy mob he found in Cambridge into an army, and dealing with a shocking lack of ammunition.

Rejected Plan of Attack

In hindsight, the lack of ammunition may have saved the patriot cause.  Washington, by nature, was one to rush into an attack and expected all of his men to behave as bravely as he did.  That tendency led to his defeat in the Ohio Valley twenty years earlier.  But even the daring Washington would not presume to attack Boston without sufficient ammunition to arm his soldiers.  This forced the General to spend more time training and organizing his army.

Washington really wanted to invade the city of Boston right away and finish this war as quickly as possible.  By autumn he had acquired a little more gunpowder and was ready for a real fight. At a council of war, he proposed using a fleet of small whaleboats to cross into Boston, and storm the regulars in street fighting. His council of war unanimously rejected the proposal.  Getting men to defend an entrenched position was one thing.  Getting them to row across open water, while being attacked by navy cannon and regular musket fire, then make an amphibious landing and assault an entrenched army, was really too much to ask.  Even if the men did not retreat in the face of withering fire, most of them would be mowed down before they reached shore.

Siege of Boston, 1775 (from Wikimedia, original Marshall's Life of Washington)

It was a crazy plan.  His subordinate officers were more tactful in their comments.  Gen. Charles Lee said he was not well acquainted enough with the army to judge if the soldiers could do it, and therefore felt it was too great a risk.  Gen. John Sullivan argued that it might be better to wait for winter, when Boston Harbor froze solid and the soldiers could walk across the ice.  Gen.  Artemas Ward still argued that they should just occupy Dorchester Heights with artillery.  From there, they could blast the city or the navy in the harbor, and force the British into another Bunker Hill style assault.  Washington brought up his water invasion proposal several times over the next few months, only to be frustrated that no one else wanted to go along.

When a committee headed by Benjamin Franklin visited the camp in September, Washington discussed his proposal with them. Franklin, who had no first hand military experience, diplomatically suggested that he was not qualified to make any recommendation on the proposal, but would refer the question back to the Continental Congress for more discussion.

Although Washington’s attack plans were, at best risky, there was more behind his thinking than simple impatience.  The Continental Army was plagued with disease.  Smallpox, dysentery, and other illnesses would kill hundreds of soldiers over the course of the winter.  Also, the men had little food, shelter or clothing to get through the winter.  Congress’ ability to provide such necessities was dubious.  Finally, most of the army had signed up for duty through the end of the year.  If nothing happened by December, most of the soldiers might return home rather than sit for more months in a disease infested camp where they starved and froze.

Despite these concerns, all of Washington’s officers thought a suicide march into British guns did not make any more sense.  With Washington’s attack plans frustrated, the two armies continued their siege with only minor skirmishes to break up the monotony of camp life.

Rifleman Mutiny

One of the biggest problems of having a standing army with little to do, is that the soldiers get bored and then get into trouble.  Some of the biggest troublemakers turned out to be the riflemen.

Congress had authorized riflemen from Virginia and Pennsylvania to join the Continental Army.  By fall, the army had over 1400 of them.  The great benefit of rifles, as I have mentioned before, is that they can hit a man at 200 yards, while a musket is only good at around 50 yards at best.  Most soldiers still used muskets, because rifles took too long to load, and quickly became fouled after multiple shots left a crusty buildup inside the barrel.

Virginia Rifleman (form Johannfactotum)

Despite these battlefield limitations, riflemen proved highly valuable for picking off sentries across the harbor, and could be used to take out officers during a battle.  These were also the first soldiers to join the army from outside New England, meaning the grateful New Englanders wanted to show how happy they were to have them.  The Virginia, Pennsylvnaia, and Maryland riflemen serving under officers like Daniel Morgan, William Thompson, and Michael Cresap became heroes around camp, impressing soldiers with their marksmanship.  The men stood apart from the rest of the army, with their frontier style hunting shirts.  They received preferential treatment with their own separate encampments and an exemption from fatigue duty.

Of course, the special treatment went to their heads, and riflemen began to think they could get away with anything.  They spent most of their days and nights sitting around drinking and telling each other about exploits from their lives on the frontier.  They also developed an attitude that they did not need to take orders from anyone.

On September 10, one of the officers in Thompson’s Rifle Brigade had a sergeant arrested for neglect of duty and threw him in the stock-house.  Several of his buddies discussed breaking him out, as they had done for other comrades a couple of times before.  After the officer heard about the discussions, he also ordered the arrest of the ringleader.  A few hours later, the men broke out of the shack where they were being held and went back to their company.  At this point. Col. Thompson and his officers recaptured the prisoners and ordered them taken to the main guardhouse in Cambridge.

About 20 minutes later, 32 riflemen took up their weapons and started marching to Cambridge with the intent of freeing their comrades.  Thompson then sent an express rider to Washington, explaining what was about to happen.

Washington, who was all about military discipline, was not going to allow soldiers to engage in jailbreak without consequences.  Upon receiving the message, he quickly assembled 500 soldiers with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets.  They surrounded the guardhouse where the prisoners were being held.

Washington then rode out personally to intercept the riflemen still marching toward headquarters.  Seeing the large guard assembled, the riflemen decided this was not such a good idea after all.  They took cover behind some trees.  Washington rode out and ordered them to ground their rifles.  He had six of the ringleaders arrested and marched the rest back to camp for local punishment.

Now in the regular army, a mutiny like this would likely result in some executions.  But Continental officers realized that lax discipline up until this time was probably partially responsible.  The men would likely become good soldiers under proper discipline. The following day, a court martial sentenced all of the mutineers to a mere fine of twenty shillings each.  One mutineer served an additional six days in jail, but no one even got flogged.

The incident seemed to bring the riflemen into line.  Washington also saw to it that the riflemen started to work on fatigue duty to help keep them busy.

Benedict Arnold's Independent Command

As Washington waited in Cambridge mostly trying to keep his bored army in line, he followed events in New York as Gen. Schuyler and Montgomery began their assault across Lake Champlain toward St. Jean.

Washington's Cambridge Headquarters (from Wikimedia)

In late summer, Col. Benedict Arnold had come to Cambridge to fight with the Provincial Congress about paying his expenses for taking Fort Ticonderoga.  During his time in Cambridge, Arnold met Washington and discussed a whole range of military and political issues with him.  Despite Arnold’s abrasive personality, Washington seemed to respect his initiative and ability.  Arnold was a fighter, not some politician/officer who had only talked a good game so far.

After further discussion, Washington gave Arnold an independent command.  Arnold would take a force by sea up to what is today Maine.  From there, his army would march overland toward Quebec.  There, they would meet up with General Schuyler and work together to take the city.  Given Arnold’s previous history in defying orders of superior officers, Washington made very clear to him that once he met up with Schuyler’s force, his independent command came to an end, and he would follow orders from Generals Schuyler or Montgomery.

Arnold, who had been a Col. in the Massachusetts militia, received a commission as a Colonel in the Continental Army.  Washington gave him a command of about 1100 soldiers, including a few companies of highly prized riflemen.  Arnold’s brigade set off for the Kennebec River in Maine some time in September.  We will take up that mission in a future episode.

Arrest of Benjamin Church

With Arnold off to Quebec, Washington soon found he had a much more serious issue to deal with: treason.  As I mentioned in earlier episodes, Benjamin Church, head of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, and now chief medical officer for the Continental Army, had been sending messages to General Gage in Boston since well before Lexington and Concord.

With military lines now preventing anyone from entering or leaving the Boston, messages had become increasingly difficult.  The Royal Navy still maintained a presence at Newport, Rhode Island where it was easier to interact with British officers.  Church wrote a letter  addressed to a Major Cane Cane in Boston.  He wrote the letter in cypher to avoid detection.  The letter called for more attempts to reach a peaceful settlement, but also gave the British intelligence about the troop numbers of the Continental Army and their munitions.  It discussed the planned attack on Canada as well as events at the Continental Congress.

Benjamin Church (from Wikimedia)

Church could not deliver this letter personally, even in Newport.  His visit to Boston on the day after Lexington and Concord still left many leading patriots suspicious of him.  Instead he used a woman as a courier.  Some accounts say she was one of his mistresses, others that she was a prostitute, although those characterizations may be a way of lowering Church’s reputation after the scandal broke.

The woman hid the letter and attempted to reach Captain James Wallace of the HMS Rose at Newport.  Since she did not know Wallace, she asked an old friend named Godfrey Wenwood to introduce them.  She let slip to Wenwood that she had a letter she needed to get to Boston.  Wenwood, a patriot, grew suspicious.  He told her that she might be in danger if she delivered the letter.  He got her to give him the letter and said he would take care of it.

Wenwood opened the letter and saw that it was in cipher, making him even more suspicious.  After a few weeks, Church somehow found out his letter had not yet arrived.  He wrote the woman to ask, and she again turned to Wenwood.  Now convinced that this message was no good, Wenwood delivered it to patriot leader Henry Ward in Providence.  Ward sent it to Gen. Nathanael Greene who then informed Gen. Washington of the letter.

Washington had the woman arrested and interrogated.  They agreed to keep the woman’s identity a secret if she identified who gave it to her.  Eventually, she gave up Church’s name.  Washington then had Church arrested and his papers searched.

Either Church was extremely careful, or got an advance notice of the search, but nothing in his papers turned up anything improper.  Washington had the letter deciphered.  Church admitted it was his and that the translation was correct.  However, he argued that his intent was not espionage.  He had deliberately overstated patriot strength in an attempt to get Gen. Gage to negotiate a peaceful solution to the siege.

Washington ordered a court martial, but that only raised a whole host of legal questions.  First, the Continental Congress had not passed any laws against treason.  Massachusetts defined treason as defying the King.  If anything, Church was working for the King, at least more so than any of his accusers.  Even if there had been a treason law, many were divided on whether Church was a traitor or just an idiot.

For the moment, the court martial simply ordered Church confined until the Continental Congress could decide what to do with him.  Next, the Massachusetts House of Representatives, which had recently replaced the Provincial Congress, began proceedings against Church.  Again, he argued he was passing along misinformation in an attempt to force Gage into peace negotiations.  The House did not buy his story.  It ruled that, although he was in military custody, if ever released, he should be held for trial by Massachusetts.  In October 1775, the Continental Congress formally removed Church as Physician-in-Chief of the Army.

Church would linger in a Connecticut prison for over two years.  At one point in 1777, the British tried to return him to England as part of a prisoner exchange, but the plan fell through.  In January 1778 Massachusetts ordered him expelled and placed him on a ship headed for Martinique.  That ship, disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, never to be seen again.  So with that, Church was gone forever.  His family made it to London where the government gave his wife a pension for her husband’s services.

The patriots were never entirely sure if Church was a full blown traitor or not.  It was not until more than a century later, when historians got ahold of Gen. Gage’s personal papers, that they found Church had been passing intelligence to the British for months.

Church’s arrest also ferreted out another spy.  Benjamin Thompson was prominent New Hampshire colonist.  Although strongly loyalist, he had pretended to be a patriot for years to protect his property from destruction or confiscation.  He had apparently assisted Church in delivering some messages to Gage.

After Church’s arrest, Thompson made his way to Newport and caught a ship into Boston.  From there, he traveled to London where he eventually received a commission in the British Army.  He returned to fight with the regulars in New York later in the war.

Henry Knox: New Commander of Artillery

In November, Washington appointed a new artillery commander for the army.  The current artillery chief, Richard Gridley had given a rather mediocre performance at Bunker Hill.  While not court martialed like his son, his battlefield performance was not exactly inspiring.  Washington still valued his services as the army’s chief engineer, but turned over command of the artillery to Henry Knox.

Like many appointments, Knox seems like a questionable choice to command all artillery for the Continental Army.  The 25 year old had owned a bookstore in Boston before the war.  On the day of Lexington, he fled the city with little more than a sword and his wife.  The British later looted and trashed his bookstore.

Henry Knox (from Wikimedia)

Knox’s military experience was limited mostly to reading military books in his store.  He had volunteered with the colonial militia and had some simple artillery training there.  In 1773, he managed to blow off two of his own fingers while firing a fowling musket at wild birds.

Knox had also been an active member of the Sons of Liberty, but he never saw any combat.  He did some reconnaissance during the battle of Bunker Hill, but never fired a weapon in battle, nor did he receive a commission or enlist in the provincial army.  He did work on military matters as a civilian volunteer, what we today might call a consultant.

When Washington came to Cambridge, Knox, along with his apparently very attractive wife, Lucy, dined with the new commander on several occasions.  Washington was apparently impressed with the young man’s ideas for the new army’s artillery.  On November 17, Washington agreed to make him commander of artillery in the Continental Army.

A few weeks later, Washington dispatched Col. Knox to Fort Ticonderoga to retrieve the captured artillery for use against Boston.  Knox set out on his first mission, which will be the subject of an upcoming episode.

Maintaining the Army

By September, it had become clear to Washington that there would be no break in the siege by the end of the year.  He wrote a series of letters to the Continental Congress explaining why things would continue and requesting that Congress prepare for winter quarters and clothing for the army.  He also expressed concerns over expiration of enlistments in December and the lack of funding to supply the soldiers with what they needed to continue.

At a council of war on October 8, Washington and his Generals agreed they would need over 20,000 soldiers for the 1776 fighting season.  Washington hoped to form 28 regiments of Continental regulars who would serve until the end of 1776.  He also attempted to mix together men from different states, so that regiments would not be exclusively Massachusetts men or Connecticut men.  The command changes upset many soldiers who now wanted to leave even more.

Congress, which still had no money or much of anything else to help Washington, gave authority to impress wagons, horses, ships, and anything else he needed to supply his army. By the beginning of September, less than 5000 men had enlisted for 1776, less than a quarter of Washington’s goal.

Even if Washington had enough food, clothing, and shelter for a 20,000 man army, the men were not eager to reenlist.  Most were looking forward to returning home in December.  Washington tried to encourage re-enlistments.  He promised soldiers an opportunity to return home for a visit over the winter.  He also began rationing supplies to those units that agreed to reenlist.  Even so, most men would not budge.  He even required that any man leaving the army could not take his musket.  Even though most men had brought their personal weapons, they would be forced to give them to the army and receive a promissory note for the value.

At the beginning of December, the enlistments of several Connecticut regiments expired.  Several units even picked up and headed home a few days before their December 10 expiration.  The officers tried everything to get the men to remain.  An exasperated Gen. Lee threatened to order the men to charge Bunker Hill (where they would almost certainly be mowed down by British defenses).  The men would not be moved.  On December 10, most of them returned home.

That was not the end though, on their trip home, locals treated them like deserters and refused any assistance or accommodation.  When they got home, they found the sentiments of their townspeople similarly cold.  Many of the men would eventually return to duty.

By the end of the year, Washington had succeeded in enlisting almost 10,000 men for the following year, about half his goal.  Several more regiments, though refusing to commit to another year, agreed to remain until more reinforcements arrived.  Local militia also fielded about 5000 men for temporary duty.  As a result, Washington’s total force remained over 15,000, or more than double the British garrison in Boston.

- - -

Next Episode 74 Occupation of Boston Autumn 1775

Previous Episode 72 The Siege of St. Jean

Click here to donate

American Revolution Podcast is distributed 100% free of charge. If you can chip in to help defray my costs, I'd appreciate whatever you can give.  Make a one time donation through my PayPal account.
Thanks,
Mike Troy

Click here to see my Patreon Page

You can support the American Revolution Podcast as a Patreon subscriber.  This is an option for people who want to make monthly pledges.  Patreon support will give you access to Podcast extras and help make the podcast a sustainable project.  Thanks again!



Visit http://www.amrevpodcast.com for a list of all episodes.

Visit https://pod.amrevpodcast.com for free downloads of all podcast episodes.

Further Reading:

Websites

Harrington, Hugh Patriot Riflemen During the Ammunition Crisis at the Siege of Boston in 1775,  (2000): http://www.americanrevolution.org/riflemen.php

Hannum, Patrick "Americas First Combat Casualty" Journal of the Am. Rev., Feb. 2017:  https://allthingsliberty.com/2017/02/americas-first-continental-army-combat-casualty

Was Church a Traitor? http://common-place.org/book/was-dr-benjamin-church-a-traitor

Spy letter from Benjamin Church:  http://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/volume3/january05/primsource.cfm

Transcript of Church Hearings before Massachusetts House: http://amarch.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-amarch%3A98857

Baule, Steven M. "Richard Gridley: a Nearly Forgotten Patriot" Journal of the American Revolution, 2013: https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/09/richard-gridley-nearly-forgotten-patriot

Henry Knox: http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/served/knox.html

Hsiung, David C. "Food, Fuel, and the New England Environment in the War for Independence, 1775-1776" The New England Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 4 (2007), pp. 614-654: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20474582 (free to read online, requires registration).

Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)

Brooks, Noah Henry Knox, a Soldier of the Revolution, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900.

Dana, Elizabeth Elery (ed) John Barker diary - The British in Boston, 1774-1776, Cambridge: Harvard Univ Press, 1924.

French, Allen The Siege of Boston, New York: Macmillan, 1911.

Frothingham, Richard History of the Siege of Boston, Boston: CC Little & J. Brown, 1851.

Martyn, Charles The life of Artemas Ward, the first commander-in-chief of the American Revolution, New York: Artemas Ward, 1921.

Parsons, Theophilus Summary of the proceedings against Dr. Benjamin Church in court-martial for treason, October, 1775, General Washington presiding [manuscript] 1775.

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)

Beck, Derek The War Before Independence: 1775-1776, Naperville, Ill: Sourcebooks, 2016.

Chernow, Ron Washington: A Life, New York: Penguin Press, 2010.

Lockhart, Paul The Whites of Their Eyes, New York: Harper Collins, 2011.

Nagy, John Dr. Benjamin Church, Spy: A Case of Espionage on the Eve of the American Revolution, Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2013 (book recommendation of the week)

Philbrick, Nathaniel Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution, New York: Penguin Books, 2013.

Phillips, Kevin 1775: A Good Year for Revolution,  New York: Penguin Books, 2012.

Puls, Mark Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2010.

Episode 072 The Siege of St. Jean

When we last looked at Fort Ticonderoga Col. Benedict Arnold and Col. Ethan Allen captured the fort in May, 1775.  They then occupied all of Lake Champlain, as far north as St. Jean at the northern end of the lake, in Canada.  There, Arnold captured the British dockyard and commandeered the largest ship on the lake.  He sailed it back to New York before British General Guy Carleton could get his regulars to recapture St. Jean.

Guy Carleton
(from Wikimedia)

Following that success, the politicians and armchair generals in Philadelphia, Cambridge and New Haven, sent a series of confusing and contradictory orders on what to do next.  At one point, they ordered the patriots to retreat return the fort to the British, and abandon Lake Champlain.  They also sent bureaucrats to audit Arnold’s expenses and a more junior Colonel, Benjamin Hinman to take command of the area with 1000 Connecticut Militia.  Arnold ended up leaving in disgust and returning east to see about getting reimbursed for the personal money he spent to finance the campaign.

Col. Hinman held command of the region for most of the summer.  Unlike Arnold or Allen, Hinman was content to sit around and simply occupy the region.  He made little effort to improve defenses, use the ships Arnold had captured, or do much of anything else.  He spent most of his time complaining that he did not have enough money, food, supplies, or other resources to do anything.  Unlike Arnold, Hinman was not inclined to spend his own money or use his own credit to get things done and then hope to be reimbursed later.  If Hinman did not have the resources, nothing happened.

In June, Congress appointed Philip Schuyler of New York to command the region as a major general in the new Continental Army.  Brigadier General Richard Montgomery served as his second in command.  They would be tasked with organizing the military in New York.

Philip Schuyler

Schuyler came from a Dutch family that had lived in New York since before the colony was called New York.  He was not an obvious choice for major general.  He had no combat or command experience to speak of.  During the French and Indian War, he has served as a quartermaster in the New York militia.

At the outbreak of the Revolution, he held a colonelcy in the New York militia, but was mostly a politician.  Schuyler had served for years in the New York Assembly while living a comfortable life as a wealthy gentleman farmer in upstate New York.  He was also a committed patriot and was a NY Delegate to the Continental Congress at the time of his commission.  His appointment may have had more to do with the fact that Congress wanted to include a New Yorker among the military leadership and Schuyler was the best they had at hand.

Taking Command

After getting his commission in June, Major-General Schuyler headed out to Albany to take stock of things out there.  He finally arrived at Fort Ticonderoga on July 18.  What he found did not impress him.  His first impression of the Fort was finding a single guard who did not properly confront him, and then left him alone while wandering off to find some other sleeping guards.  Schuyler later commented that he could have taken down the guard and destroyed the Block House with a pen knife had he been so inclined.  The fort commander, Col. Hinman who had by this time received a commission in the Continental Army, had done nothing to train his soldiers, improve fort defenses, or even keep the camp clean.

Philip Schuyler
(from NY State Museum)

At the same time, Schuyler learned that the British under General Carleton were hard at work improving defenses at St. Jean and also building two new sloops with which to conduct raids or possibly an invasion.

Schuyler immediately set about whipping the army into shape and engaged the men in a ship building effort.  The continentals built ten small gunboats, each capable of mounting one cannon and carrying about 30 men.  These, along with the Enterprise and the Liberty which Arnold had left him, would constitute his invasion fleet for an assault on St. Jean.

Schuyler did not hang around all summer to oversee the project.  He sent Gen. Montgomery to Ticonderoga so he could return to Albany.  There, Schuyler would negotiate to keep the Iroquois from joining with the British in the upcoming fight.  He also to deal with a host of other military matters since he was responsible for all of New York.

Richard Montgomery

While Schuyler was not much of a combat officer, his pairing with Richard Montgomery helped to overcome that deficit.  Montgomery came from a prominent family in Northern Ireland.  His father, brother, and cousin had all served as officers on the British army and in the Irish Parliament.  When the Seven Years War began, Montgomery’s father bought him a commission as an ensign.

Richard Montgomery
(from Wikimedia)

In 1758, Ensign Montgomery led an assault force at Louisburg, landing his men in ships under fire from the French.  Impressed with his action in battle, his commander gave him a field promotion to Lieutenant.  Montgomery participated in the successful British assault against the French at Ticonderoga a month later.  He then participated in a series of combat missions resulting in the capture of Montreal.  After the fall of French Canada, Montgomery deployed the Caribbean where he saw more combat.  He return to New York after the war in time to play a role in Pontiac’s Rebellion.

Promoted to captain, Montgomery returned to London after the war, to recruit for his regiment.  There, he hung out with radical whigs like Isaac Barre and Edmund Burke.  He also got engaged to a girl from a prominent British family.

Then, in 1771, his life took an interesting turn.  His fiance had cheated on him and they broke off the marriage plans.  He also got passed over for a promotion.  Montgomery sold his commission, and moved back to New York.  There, he would become a gentleman farmer.  He bought a farm a few miles north of New York City.  He also got reacquainted with a young girl named Janet Livingston, from the wealthy New York patriot Livingston family.  The two soon married and settled down.

Montgomery became a moderate patriot, serving in the New York Provincial Congress.  Based on his military experience, the Continental Congress commissioned him a brigadier general, though it appears he accepted reluctantly.  Once he accepted though, he threw his full effort into the job and began working with Gen. Schuyler on plans to invade Canada from New York.

Attacking St. Jean, Again

In late August, Montgomery grew concerned that the British would soon launch the two ships they were building at St. Jean and use them to attack Ticonderoga.  Rather than wait for an attack, Montgomery took about 1000 men up Lake Champlain in his small makeshift fleet to attack the enemy.

Map of Lake Champlain region (from Wikimedia)

Schuyler returned to Fort Ticonderoga a few days after Montgomery left, with 800 reinforcements and some field artillery.  Schuyler rushed up the lake to catch up with Montgomery, leaving his reinforcements to make their way a few days later.  They established a base of operations at Île aux Noix, an island near the mouth of the Richelieu River, about 12 miles south of St. Jean.

On September 6, 1000 Continentals landed on shore just below St. Jean.  Schuyler had been in command, but a fever and bout of rheumatism forced him to turn over command to Montgomery.  Although they had hoped to surprise the British at St. Jean, Montgomery led his men into an ambush of about 100 Indians led by British officers.  After a short firefight that left over a dozen dead or wounded on each side, the Indians withdrew back to St. Jean.

Realizing that he had lost the element of surprise, Montgomery also withdrew back to his landing point.  There, the patriots received intelligence from a local that the British would be ready to launch one of their new ships, named the Royal Savage, within days, and that the British had also spent the last couple of months building up defenses at the Fort.  After a council of war, Schuyler and Montgomery fall back to Île aux Noix and awaited the 800 reinforcements and artillery before assaulting the fort.  There, they built a blockade across the river to prevent the British from running their new ship past the patriot forces and onto Lake Champlain.

By September 10, the reinforcements had arrived and Montgomery prepared to lead a combined force of about 1700 men against Fort St. Jean.  Montgomery divided his force into two columns, and launched a night raid.  He hoped to hit the British defenders at night from two different directions.  Unfortunately, his inexperienced officers and men were not capable of such a maneuver.  The two columns ran into each other in the dark and began firing on one another.  This alerted the British who also began firing with grapeshot from entrenched positions at the two columns. The confused and frightened Continentals fell back almost immediately and fled the field.

Montreal Campaign Map, 1775 (from revolutionarywar.net)

Montgomery hoped to attempt another assault the following day, but his troops refused.  They feared the Royal Savage would launch and get down river before they could stop it.  Montgomery thought this was simply an excuse to retreat out of fear.  He attempted to rally the men.  They would have none of it though.  Montgomery finally accepted they would not attack.  He later attempted to court martial some of the soldiers for refusing to obey orders, but they refused to testify against one another and the charges never stuck.

After a few days at Île aux Noix and no sign of the Royal Savage, Montgomery finally convinced his army to make another attempt on the fort.  The British sent a scouting ship down river and ran into the patriot base camp.  A lucky cannon shot sank the small British boat with all aboard.  This helped raise spirits for another attack.  Terrible thunderstorms delayed the third attempt until September 16.  When the weather cleared, Schuyler was still too sick.  He returned to Fort Ticonderoga and left Montgomery to lead the attack.

The delay gave the British time to reinforce their position as well.  Gen. Carleton only had about 600 regulars in all of Canada.  During the first two assaults, he had only about 200 regulars at Fort. St. Jean, along with 100 Indians and a few artillery.   After the first attacks, Carleton went all in to defend the fort.  He sent almost all his regulars, along with nearly 200 local militia, bringing the total number of defenders to about 750.  He deployed another 83 regulars just north at Fort Chambly to cover a possible retreat.  The commanding officer at Fort St. Jean was Major Charles Preston, who had once been Montgomery’s commanding officer in the Regular army.

Schuyler continued to send reinforcements for Montgomery, but illness had reduced his fit for duty force to about 1400.  Both sides had hoped to recruit more Canadians to their side, but the locals were reluctant to commit to either side.

The Siege Begins

On September 18th Montgomery deployed his main forces on the south side of the Fort, while sending a smaller force of 134 men under Maj. Jean Brown to the north to block any retreat or prevent any supplies from reaching the Fort.  Brown almost immediately discovered a supply train of eight wagons about to enter the Fort and attacked.  Inside the fort, Preston saw his supply train come under attack and deployed 200 regulars from the Fort to attack the attackers.

Fort St. Jean (from Wikimedia)

Brown’s men began to flee, only to run into Montgomery.  He was leading 500 soldiers toward the sound of gunfire.  Montgomery’s force now took the offensive against the 200 regulars who had to retreat back to the fort.  The British had to give up their wagons, but mostly escaped back to the safety of the Fort.  When Montgomery’s men came within range the fort opened up on them with its artillery, forcing them to take cover.

Montgomery’s forces entrenched all around the fort.  They had a larger force, but did not have enough artillery to take down the fort walls.  Both sides settled into a waiting game.  Preston hoped that Gen. Carleton could raise more Canadians to form a relief force.  Montgomery waited for Schuyler to find more cannons to send to him to take down the fort walls.

Return of the Green Mountain Boys

As the two sides settled into their siege, Montgomery made use of the Green Mountain Boys, whom Schuyler had sent to the field to be of assistance.  The Boys were now under the command of Lt. Col. Seth Warner, who had been Ethan Allen’s second in command during the assault on Fort Ticonderoga.  The Boys had decided to ditch Allen for Warner after Allen’s reckless assault on Fort St. Jean back in May almost got them all killed or captured.  Allen, however, remained with the group as a volunteer scout.

On September 21, three days into the Siege, Montgomery deployed Warner and his men to move north and capture two outposts near Montreal: La Prairie and Longueuil, about 25 miles north of St. Jean.  From there, the Patriots could monitor any attempts to send reinforcements to St. Jean.

Capture of Ethan Allen

Allen tagged along with the Green Mountain Boys, but decided to act on his own.  He somehow got it into his head that he could almost single handedly capture Montreal and make himself, once again, the conquering hero.  Allen collected about 110 volunteers.  He appears to have felt confident that the local Canadians in Montreal would rise up and join him as soon as he began his assault.  Allen also later claimed he expected part of Warner’s force under Major Brown to join in on the assault, though Brown stated later that he never had any idea of what Allen was planning.

Capture of Allen
(from Revolutionary War and Beyond)

On the night of September 24, Allen crossed the St. Lawrence River, landing just north of Montreal.  Even though he only had 110 men, he only had a few canoes to make the crossing meaning multiple crossing took most of the night.  Early the next morning, a force of about 40 British Regulars, more than 400 Canadian militia, and a few Indians, came after Allen’s men.  His volunteers almost immediately broke and ran, but with only a few canoes, only a small number escaped.

Allen and about two dozen volunteers stood and fought against the nearly 500 attackers, who quickly overwhelmed them.  Allen finally turned over his sword and surrendered.  As soon as he handed his sword to a British officer, an Indian attacked him.  Allen grabbed the officer and used him as a human shield to fend off the Indian attack until some Canadians got the attacker under control.

As a prominent prisoner of war, the British shipped Allen back to Britain, presumably for trial as a traitor.  He spent most of the next year aboard prison ships.  Fortunately, for Allen, the Patriots had captured several prominent British officers by this time.  They threatened that if the British executed Allen, the Americans would execute an officer of equal rank in retaliation.  King George decreed that rather than try him for treason, he should be held as a prisoner of war.  The British shipped him back to British controlled America, where he spent another two years in captivity.  Finally, in 1778 Allen would be traded for a British Colonel.

Capture of Fort Chambly

Although Allen was captured, Warner successfully held the outposts just outside Montreal.  By October, 1775 Gen. Schuyler also succeeded in getting several cannons to Montgomery so that he could begin lobing larger shells into Fort St. Jean.  They were also able to sink the Royal Savage before it ever left port.  Still, there were not enough continentals to break the siege.

While waiting out the siege at St. Jean, Montgomery deployed another force under James Livingston, a local farmer who also happened to be a relative of Montgomery’s wife, and who was able to raise several hundred militia in favor of the patriots.

Livingston acquired two cannons from the patriots and floated them downriver to attack the 83 man British outpost at Fort Chambly.  After a two day bombardment, the British commander surrendered, most importantly without destroying his munitions or supplies.  The patriots captured about 120 barrels of gunpowder, as well as a large supply of arms and food.

British Relief Force Fails

By the end of November, Gen. Carleton had assembled a force of nearly 1000 men, mostly militia from throughout Canada.  He planned to crush Warner’s outpost just outside Montreal, then move upriver to relieve the Regulars at St. Jean.  It did not go as planned though.  When the 1000 militia attacked Warner’s outpost of less than 200 men on October 30, they were met with cannon fire, from artillery Warner had taken from the captured Fort Chambly.  Most of the militia broke and ran, leaving frustrated British officers to retreat from the field.  There would be no relief force for St. Jean.

Surrender of St. Jean

In late October, the patriots received another 500 reinforcements under Gen. David Wooster.  Although battle casualties were light during the siege, the Patriots had lost hundreds of men to illness over the two month siege.

On Nov. 1, Montgomery sent a British soldier under a flag of truce into speak with Major Preston and ask for surrender.  The soldier had been part of the relief force meant to relieve St. Jean.  Suspecting a trick, Preston sent his Captain and several other officers to meet with Montgomery.  Montgomery allowed the British officers, who included a young Lieutenant named John André, to speak with several other prisoners from the relief force and convinced him that this was no trick.  St. Jean would not be relieved.  Finally convinced, on November 3, Preston surrendered Fort St. Jean.  Over 500 Regulars and another 100 Militia became prisoners of war.

Fall of Montreal

With St. Jean captured, Carleton pull back with his few remaining soldiers, abandoning Montreal and retreating to Quebec.  Montgomery marched into Montreal unopposed on November 13.  The patriots captured his fleet along the river.  Carleton was forced to don civilian clothes and pretend to be a French Canadian in order to make his way through enemy lines and return to Quebec.

Aftermath

The Patriots celebrated the fall of St. Jean and Montreal as an important victory.  Congress promoted Montgomery to major general, though (spoiler alert) he would die before he received news of the promotion.  The Capture of Montreal opened up the path for an assault on Quebec, which would mean the fall of British Canada.

- - -

Next Episode 73 Siege of Boston, Autumn Edition

Previous Episode 71 Britain Prepares to Crush a Rebellion

Click here to donate

American Revolution Podcast is distributed 100% free of charge. If you can chip in to help defray my costs, I'd appreciate whatever you can give.  Make a one time donation through my PayPal account.
Thanks,
Mike Troy

Click here to see my Patreon Page

You can support the American Revolution Podcast as a Patreon subscriber.  This is an option for people who want to make monthly pledges.  Patreon support will give you access to Podcast extras and help make the podcast a sustainable project.  Thanks again!



Visit http://www.amrevpodcast.com for a list of all episodes.

Visit https://pod.amrevpodcast.com for free downloads of all podcast episodes.

Further Reading:

Websites:

Philip Schuyler: http://www.nndb.com/people/005/000049855

Richard Montgomery: http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/montgomery.html

Battle of Fort St. Jean: http://www.myrevolutionarywar.com/battles/750918-st-jean.html

Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)

Allen, Ethan A narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity, Washington: H. Johnson & Co. 1838 (First written in 1779).

Caldwell, Henry The Invasion of Canada in 1775, Quebec: Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, 1887.

Chipman, Daniel Memoir of Seth Warner, Middlebury: L.W. Clarke, 1848 (Also in the same volume is The Life of Ethan Allen by Jared Sparks).

Cullum, George Biographical sketch of Major-General Richard Montgomery, [Publisher unknown], 1876.

Force, Peter American Archives, Series 4, Vol 2, Washington: M. St. Clair Clarke & Peter Force, 1837.

Kingsford, William The History of Canada, Toronto: Rowsell & Hutchison, 1887.

Lossing, Benson The Life and Times of Philip Schuyler Vol 1,  and Vol 2, New York: Sheldon & Co. 1872-73.

Smith, Justin Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony: Canada, and the American Revolution, Vol. 1, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907.

Sparks, Jared American Biography, Vol. 2, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1902 (Includes Life of Richard Montgomery, by Richard Armstrong).

Tuckerman, Bayard Life of General Philip Schuyler, 1733-1804, New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1903.

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)

Beck, Derek The War Before Independence: 1775-1776, Naperville, Ill: Sourcebooks, 2016.

Hatch, Robert Thrust for Canada, New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1979.

Phillips, Kevin 1775: A Good Year for Revolution, New York: Viking Penguin, 2012.

Randall, Willard Ethan Allen: His Life and Times, New York: W.W. Norton & Co.1992.

Shelton, Richard General Richard Montgomery and the American Revolution: From Redcoat to Rebel, New York: NYU Press, 1994.