The Father of British Canada: a Chronicle of CarletonWood, William
History
The Father of British Canada: a Chronicle of Carleton
Wood, William
Canada -- History -- 1763-1867; Canada -- History -- 1775-1783; Dorchester, Guy Carleton, Baron, 1724-1808
Schuyler reached Ticonderoga in mid-July and assumed his
position as Congressional commander-in-chief. Unfortunately
for the good of the service he had only a few hundred
men with him; so Wooster, who had a thousand, thought
himself the bigger general of the two. The Connecticut
men followed Wooster's lead by jeering at Schuyler's men
from New York; while the Vermonters added to the confusion
by electing Seth Warner instead of Ethan Allen. In
mid-August a second Congressional general arrived, making
three generals and half a dozen colonels for less than
fifteen hundred troops. This third general was Richard
Montgomery, an ardent rebel of thirty-eight, who had been
a captain in the British Army. He had sold his commission,
bought an estate on the Hudson, and married a daughter
of the Livingstons. The Livingstons headed the
Anglo-American revolutionists in the colony of New York
as the Schuylers headed the Knickerbocker Dutch. One of
them was very active on the rebel side in Montreal and
was soon to take the field at the head of the American
'patriots' in Canada. Montgomery was brother to the
Captain Montgomery of the 43rd who was the only British
officer to disgrace himself during Wolfe's Quebec campaign,
which he did by murdering his French-Canadian prisoners
at Chateau Richer because they had fought disguised as
Indians. [Footnote: See _The Passing of New France_, p.
118.] Richard Montgomery was a much better man than his
savage brother; though, as the sequel proves, he was by
no means the perfect hero his American admirers would
have the world believe. His great value at Ticonderoga
was his professional knowledge and his ardour in the
cause he had espoused. His presence 'changed the spirit
of the camp.' It sadly needed change. 'Such a set of
pusillanimous wretches never were collected' is his own
description in a despairing letter to his wife. The
'army,' in fact, was all parts and no whole, and all the
parts were mere untrained militia. Moreover, the spirit
of the 'town meeting' ruled the camp. Even a battery
could not be moved without consulting a council of war.
Schuyler, though far more phlegmatic than Montgomery,
agreed with him heartily about this and many other
exasperating points. 'If Job had been a general in my
situation, his memory had not been so famous for patience.'
Worn out by his worries, Schuyler fell ill and was sent
to command the base at Albany. Montgomery then succeeded
to the command of the force destined for the front. The
plan of invasion approved by Washington was, first, to
sweep the line of the Richelieu by taking St Johns and
Chambly, then to take Montreal, next to secure the line
of the St Lawrence, and finally to besiege Quebec.
Montgomery's forces were to carry out all the preliminary
parts alone. But Arnold was to join him at Quebec after
advancing across country from the Kennebec to the Chaudiere
with a flying column of Virginians and New Englanders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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