Invasion of Canada (1775)
The Invasion of Canada 1775–1776 was the first and perhaps the only major US initiative during the American Revolutionary War .
After some early successes by the Revolutionary Forces , British forces completely crushed the invasion. The United States made several more attempts to invade Canada during the War of 1812 , but they also failed.
background
The conflicting phase of the American Revolution began with the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. After British troops were included in the siege of Boston , the royal governors were ordered to leave the other British colonies and the American Continental Congress created the Continental Army . Congress was now looking for a way to take the initiative. In May 1775 Colonels Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold from Connecticut took the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point south of Lake Champlain in a surprise attack .
Several times during the French and Indian Wars , the British colonies had either fought in Canada or were attacked from the north and west by Indians who had been incited and equipped by the French. In June, Congress authorized General Philip Schuyler , Commander of the Northern Department of the Continental Army , to begin the invasion to drive British forces out of Canada. A second division under Benedict Arnold was to march simultaneously across Maine and the Chaudière River to the city of Québec .
The invasion
On August 28, Schuyler and Montgomery marched north with around 1,000 militiamen from Fort Ticonderoga, heading for Montréal . After an unsuccessful attack on Fort St. Johns held by 600 British under Colonel Charles Preston in early September, Schuyler relinquished command to Montgomery. Montgomery began a siege that ended on November 2nd with the surrender of the fort. Meanwhile, Colonel Allen had begun recruiting Canadian volunteers and attacked Montréal with a small force of 100 in late September, leading to his capture. Another company against Chambly in mid-October was successful.
After the surrender of St. Johns, Montgomery was able to take over Montréal almost without a fight on November 13. Almost at the same time Arnold had reached the city of Québec, but had to retreat to Pointe-aux-Trembles after a first attack on the city defended by Guy Carleton , where he waited for Montgomery to arrive. He arrived there at the beginning of December with only 350 men.
In a last-ditch effort to take Québec, they began the Battle of Québec on the night of December 31st in the middle of a snow storm . Montgomery was killed in an attempt to investigate the situation. The confusion and division of the troops led to defeat. The injured Arnold withdrew with the remaining troops, Daniel Morgan and over 400 Americans were captured.
When General John Thomas arrived with a brigade in early May to take command and replace Montgomery, he found an army seriously weakened by the Arnold Expedition's march north, smallpox, and the harsh Canadian winter. At the same time, the first units of British reinforcements of 4,000 men under the command of John Burgoyne arrived in Québec, leaving the Americans, who could only muster around 2,000 men, only to retreat.
American withdrawal
From May to June 1776 the British troops in Canada were reinforced by the troops of General John Burgoynes and Brunswick auxiliary troops under the command of General Friedrich Adolf Riedesel . The new American commander, General Thomas, died of smallpox on June 2nd. John Sullivan , who replaced him, tried unsuccessfully on June 8, at Trois-Rivières at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence River and Saint-Maurice , halfway between Québec and Montréal, to repel the British and withdrew with the rest of his troops to Sorel and from there by boat back over the Richelieu to Lake Champlain, where he met Arnold, who had meanwhile been transferred to Montréal.
Both sides began building ships to control Lake Champlain, the British in St. Johns and the Americans in Skenesboro . The aim of the British was to retake the forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point, which controlled access to the Hudson River. On October 11th, the American fleet was destroyed in the Battle of Valcour , but the British had to break off an attack on the forts because of the onset of winter at the beginning of November and moved into winter quarters in Canada.
consequences
Although the invasion ended in disaster for the Americans, the worst was prevented for the time being. The British attack on the forts on Lake Champlain in the summer of the next year and their capture led to General Burgoynes' Saratoga campaign , which ended in his surrender in October 1777.
literature
- Thomas A. Desjardin: Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 , St. Martin's Press, 2006. ISBN 0-312-33904-6
- Brendan Morrissey: Quebec 1775: The American invasion of Canada , Osprey Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1-84176-681-X
- Robert McConnell Hatch: Thrust for Canada: The American Attempt on Quebec in 1775-1776 , Houghton Mifflin, 1979. ISBN 0-395-27612-8 .
- Rumilly, Robert, Histoire de Montréal , Volume 2, Fides Montreal, 1970
- Harrison Bird: Attack on Quebec , Oxford University Press, 1968