Quaint and Historic Forts of North AmericaHammond, John Martin
History
Quaint and Historic Forts of North America
Hammond, John Martin
Fortification -- North America; Fortification -- United States; Historic buildings -- United States
Yet the persistence of the English was at length to have its way.
In 1720 the walls of Quebec were enlarged and made mightier,
and the citadel, largely in the form in which it exists to-day,
was erected. Vaudreuil, the last governor of New France, loudly
proclaimed that the city was impregnable. In 1759 came the
expedition of Wolfe against Quebec, the final outcome of which and
the method of attack, with Wolfe’s heroic death on the Plains of
Abraham, is a story that every schoolboy knows.
This conflict was the first in which the citadel took part.
The mighty works in which Vaudreuil trusted so loudly had
been overcome on their first trial, while the high-perched,
precariously-placed little “Castle,” which Champlain had first
built and which his successors had altered to suit their times, had
withstood innumerable Indian attacks and had seen three assaults
by Europeans fail against it. The spirit of the men who manned the
forts had changed with their times.
There is another tale of siege and Quebec which is not widely
familiar and yet which all Americans should know. It is the story
of Montgomery’s expedition during the Revolution--an expedition
in which he lost his life and in which Benedict Arnold played a
conspicuous part.
Richard Montgomery was a lieutenant in Wolfe’s army and was
thoroughly familiar with Quebec. At the outbreak of the War of
Independence he was deputized to lead an army up the Hudson and
by the familiar approach along the Richelieu River and the St.
Lawrence to Quebec. Benedict Arnold led another force through the
tangled forests of northern Maine and New Hampshire, reaching
Quebec ahead, even, of Montgomery. The combined forces laid
siege to the city through the winter, and in the most desperate
assault of all, one in which Wolfe’s feat of scaling the cliff was
attempted, Montgomery lost his life. After six months the United
States troops departed, confessing failure.
From that time to this the military history of Quebec has been
uneventful. In the early part of the nineteenth century old Castle
St. Louis, which had stood so many storms and assaults, succumbed
to fire. The site is now an open square with some relics and a fine
view over the river.
The great citadel of Quebec rises three hundred and fifty feet
above the river and covers nearly forty acres. The portion of the
works overlooking the St. Lawrence is called the Grand Battery,
while the surmounting pinnacle of the citadel is known as the
King’s Bastion. From the King’s Bastion a most glorious panorama
is spread out before one, embracing the city, the great river,
hundreds of miles of forest and farm land, the Laurentian mountains
in the distance in one direction and the green hills of Vermont far
away in another.
All of the old works of Quebec have been retired from active
service in a military sense. The city is protected by modern
fortifications in other quarters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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