Five months after taking command outside Boston, Washington authorized a second front: a march on Quebec, intended to bring Canada into the rebellion and deny the British a base from which to strike the colonies from the north. Benedict Arnold led roughly 1,100 men through the Maine wilderness, a route so poorly understood that the maps Washington's officers worked from badly underestimated its distance and difficulty. A second force under Brigadier General Richard Montgomery approached from the south after capturing Montreal. The two columns joined outside Quebec's walls in December, and on the last night of the year, in a blinding snowstorm, they attacked a fortified city neither of them had the strength to actually take. Washington's full exchange with Arnold survives at Founders Online, including letters written in genuine ignorance of what had already happened by the time they were sent.
Washington gave Arnold his written orders on September 14, instructing him to move with "all possible Expedition as the Winter Season is now Advancing." The plan depended on speed and on the cooperation of French Canadian settlers along the route, cooperation Washington explicitly told Arnold not to force.
You are immediately on their March from Cambridge to take the Command of the Detachment from the Continental Army against Quebeck, and use all possible Expedition as the Winter Season is now Advancing, and the Success of this Enterprize, under God, depends wholly upon the Spirit with which it is pushed.
Arnold's force set out from the Kennebec River into terrain that proved far harder than anyone had anticipated. By late October he was writing to Washington from deep in the wilderness, his letters arriving weeks after they were written, describing the rains, the lost boats, and the supplies destroyed along the way, while still pressing forward with the men he had left.
I then expected to have reached this place by the 24th Instant, but the excessive heavy Rains and bad Weather have much retarded our March. I have this minute arrived here with seventy Men, and met a person, on his return, whom I sent down some Time since to the French Inhabitants. He informs me they appear very friendly.
By the time this letter reached Washington, Arnold had already pressed on with only two boats and six men after losing three more to the rapids of the Chaudiere River, surviving on what the French settlements ahead could supply. Of roughly 1,100 men who set out from Cambridge, a substantial portion turned back partway through the march, including an entire division under Lieutenant Colonel Roger Enos. Arnold reached the Saint Lawrence River in early November with perhaps 600 men still able to fight.
I am just informed by a Friend from Quebec, that a Frigate of 26 Guns and two Transports with 150 Recruits arrived there last Sunday, which with another small Frigate and four or five small armed Vessels up the River, is all the Force they have. I shall endeavour to cut off their Communication with the Country, and bring them to Terms, or at least keep them in close Quarters until the Arrival of General Montgomery, which I wait with Impatience.
News traveled slowly between Cambridge and Quebec, and by early December Washington believed, based on Arnold's last reports, that the city's fall was only a matter of time. He wrote Arnold a letter of congratulation on December 5, more than three weeks before the actual assault on the city had even taken place.
It is not in the power of any man to command success, but you have done more, you have deserved it, and before this I hope, have met with the Laurels which are due to your Toils, in the possession of Quebec. My thanks are due, and sincerely offered to you, for your Enterprizing and persevering spirit. To your brave followers I likewise present them.
Montgomery and Arnold attacked Quebec's lower town from opposite directions in the early hours of December 31, under cover of a snowstorm and racing an approaching deadline: many of their men's enlistments expired with the new year. Montgomery was killed almost immediately, struck by grapeshot at the head of his column. Arnold was shot through the leg early in his own assault and carried from the field, command passing to Daniel Morgan, who fought on into the city's narrow streets before being surrounded and forced to surrender. Roughly 400 Americans were taken prisoner. The attack had failed completely.
Washington did not learn what had happened until January 17, more than two weeks later. His reply to Arnold, once the news finally reached him, reads nothing like the letter he had sent in December.
I received the melancholy account of the unfortunate attack on the City of Quebec, attended with the fall of General Montgomery, and Other Brave Officers and men, and your being wounded. This unhappy affair affects me in a very sensible manner, and I sincerely condole with you upon the occasion. But in the midst of distress, I am happy to find that suitable Honors were paid to the remains of Mr Montgomery, and our Officers and Soldiers who have fallen into their hands, treated with kindness and humanity.
Arnold, promoted to brigadier general for his conduct during the march and the attack, refused to abandon the position. He maintained a loose siege of Quebec through the winter with what remained of his force, reporting his slow recovery to Washington as the weeks passed.
I have the pleasure to inform you my wound is Intirely healed, and I am able to hobble about my Room, tho my leg is a little Contracted and weak. I hope soon to be fit for Action.
The siege held through the winter but collapsed once British reinforcements arrived by sea in the spring. American forces retreated from Canada entirely by the summer of 1776, ending any realistic hope of bringing a fourteenth colony into the rebellion. Arnold's reputation, built in this campaign on a march and a wound rather than a victory, would carry him through Valcour Island and Saratoga before its catastrophic reversal four years later. The same leg wounded outside Quebec's walls would be shattered again at Saratoga in 1777, fighting for the cause he had not yet betrayed.
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