The final hours of 1775 witnessed one of the most audacious and ill-fated military operations of the American Revolution. As snow swirled through the narrow streets of Quebec City and temperatures plunged well below freezing, a ragged army of American soldiers launched a desperate assault against the fortified capital of British Canada. The attack would end in catastrophe, claiming the life of one of America's most promising generals and effectively dooming the colonial invasion of Canada.
In the early months of the American Revolution, the Southern colonies experienced violent struggles as Patriots and Loyalists clashed over the future of British rule. One such engagement, the Battle of Great Cane Brake, took place on December 22,1775, in the backcountry of South Carolina.
On December 9, 1775, an engagement at Great Bridge, Virginia, unfolded that effectively ended British royal authority in the oldest American colony. The Battle of Great Bridge, though modest in scale compared to later Revolutionary War clashes, delivered a decisive blow to Governor Lord Dunmore's efforts to maintain Crown control over Virginia and emboldened the patriot cause throughout the Southern colonies.
On a cold December day along the frozen banks of the St. Lawrence River, two weary American commanders finally met at the small village of Point-aux-Trembles, roughly twenty miles southwest of Quebec City. General Richard Montgomery, fresh from his successful capture of Montreal, arrived to find Colonel Benedict Arnold and the ragged survivors of one of the most punishing military expeditions in American history. Their handshake that day marked the beginning of a new chapter in the American invasion of Canada, transforming two struggling operations into a unified force that would soon march on the last major British stronghold in the province.
At the start of December 1775, the Siege of Boston hadalready stretched into its eighth month. What had begun with the thunderous volleys at Lexington and Concord the previous April had devolved into a grinding stalemate, with General George Washington's Continental Army encircling the city while General William Howe's British forces occupied it.Neither side could claim victory, and both were suffering tremendously as the harsh New England winter began to tighten its grip.
In November 1775, while George Washington's Continental Army besieged British forces in Boston and American troops pushed into Canada, a different kind of battle erupted in the South Carolina backcountry. The First Battle of Ninety Six marked the second battle in South Carolina and the first bloodshed in the state during the fight for independence.
In the autumn of 1775, the Continental Army found itself in a frustrating stalemate outside Boston. General George Washington's forces had successfully contained the British within the city following the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, but lacked the heavy artillery necessary to drive them out. The solution to this predicament would come from an unlikely source: a 25-year-old Boston bookseller turned artillery officer named Henry Knox, whose ambitious proposal would launch one of the most remarkable logistical achievements of the Revolutionary War.
On November 13, 1775, Brigadier General Richard Montgomery led Continental Army forces into Montreal, occupying Canada's largest city without firing a shot. This bloodless victory represented the high-water mark of American ambitions to make Canada the fourteenth colony in the rebellion against British rule.
On November 10, 1775, amid the escalating tensions of the American Revolution, the Second Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia to address a critical military need. That day, they passed a resolution that would forge one of America's most enduring military institutions.
On November 3, 1775, after enduring a grueling six-week siege, Major Charles Preston raised the white flag over Fort St. Jean in Quebec. The surrender of this strategic British stronghold to American General Richard Montgomery marked a pivotal moment in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War and opened the gateway to Montreal. The capitulation represented not merely the fall of a fortification, but the crumbling of Britain's defensive line protecting the heart of its Canadian colony.
On October 30, 1775, Governor Guy Carleton's relief expedition to break the American siege of Fort St. Johns met with disaster near Longueuil, a critical crossing point on the Saint Lawrence River opposite Montreal.
In the early morning hours of October 26, 1775, the coastal town of Hampton, Virginia, became an unlikely battleground in America's struggle for independence. The Battle of Hampton, though modest in scale compared to the epic confrontations that would follow, holds a significant place in Revolutionary War history as the first engagement fought south of New England. This two-day conflict would test the resolve of Virginia's colonial militia and demonstrate the growing tensions between Crown and colonists in the Southern colonies.
On October 18, 1775, the coastal town of Falmouth, Massachusetts (present-day Portland, Maine) became the site of one of the most devastating British attacks during the early stages of the American Revolution. The bombardment and subsequent burning of this prosperous seaport marked a turning point in colonial sentiment, transforming reluctant revolutionaries into committed patriots and demonstrating the British government's willingness to wage total war against its own subjects.
On October 20, 1775, Fort Chambly, a strategic French-built fortification on the Richelieu River in Quebec, fell into American hands after a brief siege. This victory represented a crucial milestone in the Continental Army's audacious campaign to bring the northern colonies into the revolutionary fold and secure the invasion route into British-held Canada.
In July 1775, one of the Continental Army's most trusted leaders committed an act of treachery that would shock George Washington and the fledgling American cause. Dr. Benjamin Church, the first Surgeon General of the United States, sent an encoded letter to British forces that exposed him as a spy. The discovery of his betrayal would establish America's first major treason case and reveal how even the inner circle of Revolutionary leadership had been compromised from the beginning.
The morning mist hung heavy over the Richelieu River as American forces moved into position around Fort St. Jean on September 17, 1775. This date marked the formal beginning of what would become a grueling 45-day siege, a pivotal engagement in the ambitious American campaign to bring Canada into the revolutionary cause against British rule. The siege of Fort St. Jean would test the resolve of untested American forces and ultimately determine whether the Continental Army could successfully prosecute its first major offensive operation beyond the thirteen colonies.
On a crisp September morning in 1775, Colonel Benedict Arnold stood before approximately 1,100 Continental soldiers gathered at Newburyport, Massachusetts. The ambitious expedition he was about to lead would become one of the most daring military operations of the Revolutionary War, a grueling march through the Maine wilderness to attack Quebec City. As the men preparedto board ships that would carry them to the Kennebec River, few could imagine the trials that lay ahead.
In the late summer of 1775, as revolutionary fervor swept through the thirteen colonies, American military leaders conceived an audacious plan that would shape the early course of the Revolutionary War. The invasion of Quebec, often called America's first foreign military expedition, began in earnest when Continental forces established their forward operating base at Île aux Noix on September 4, 1775. This strategic move up the Lake Champlain-Richelieu River corridor represented both the promise and peril of the revolutionary cause.
On August 26, 1775, American forces made the critical decision to fortify Ploughed Hill, a strategic elevation northwest of Boston that would prove instrumental in tightening the Continental Army's grip on the besieged city. This bold move, coming just two months after the costly victory at Bunker Hill, demonstrated the evolving tactical sophistication of the American forces and their determination to maintain pressure on General Thomas Gage's British garrison.
In late August 1775, General Richard Montgomery faced one of those moments that define military careers and shape the course of wars. Standing at Fort Ticonderoga, the formidable stone fortress commanding the southern approaches to Lake Champlain, Montgomery received intelligence that would force him to choose between military protocol and strategic necessity. The news was alarming: British forces at Saint-Jean were nearly finished constructing two warships that would give them undisputed control of Lake Champlain. With his commanding officer Philip Schuyler away at an Indian conference in Albany, Montgomery had to decide whether to wait for orders or act on his own initiative.