By the 1st of December, Montgomery, with three armed schooners and only 300 men, reached Arnold at Point-aux-Trembles. The united forces now turned their faces towards Quebec, less than a thousand in all, with a body of two hundred Canadians, under Colonel James Livingston, acting in conjunction; and on the 5th were before the town. Carleton haughtily scorned all advances of Montgomery to communicate with him, and devoted himself to overawing the town, quite content that the rigors of winter should alone attack the invaders. While the Americans were making some show of planting siege-batteries, plans for assault were in reality maturing, and a stormy night was awaited to carry them out. It came on the night before the last day of the year. While two feints were to be made on the upper plain, the main assaults were to be along the banks of the St. Charles and the St. Lawrence, from opposite sides, with a view to joining and gaining the upper town from the lower. Montgomery led the attack beneath Cape Diamond on the St. Lawrence side, and while in advance with a small vanguard, and unsuspecting that his approach was discovered, he was opened upon with grape, and fell, with others about him.[486] His death was the end of the assault on that side. Arnold was at first successful in carrying the barriers opposed to him, but was soon severely wounded and taken to the rear. Morgan, who succeeded to the command, was pressing their advantage, when Carleton, relieved by Montgomery's failure, and by the discovery that the other attacks meant nothing, sent out a force, which so hemmed Morgan in, that, having already learned of Montgomery's failure, he found it prudent to surrender with the few hundred men still clinging to him. The Americans elsewhere in the field hastily withdrew to their camp, and Carleton was too suspicious of the townspeople to dare to take any further advantage of his success. The command of the Americans now devolved on Lieutenant-Colonel Donald Campbell, who sent an express to Wooster at Montreal, urging him to come and take the control. That general thought it more prudent to hold Montreal as a base,[487] and remained where he was, while he forwarded the dismal news to his superior, Schuyler, at Albany, who had quite enough on his hands to overawe Sir John Johnson and the Tories up the Mohawk. The succession of Wooster to the command in Canada boded no good to the New York general, and led to such crimination and recrimination between the two that Congress, towards spring (1776), took steps to relieve Schuyler of the general charge of the campaign. Thomas, who had rendered himself conspicuous in driving the British from Boston, was made a major-general (March 6), and was ordered to take the active command in Canada. A New England general for troops in the main from those colonies seemed desirable, and Thomas was certainly the best of those furnished by Massachusetts during the early days of the war.