Montreal falls to Montgomery without a fight; Carleton slips away by river
The Continental Army's first major campaign had already taken Fort St. Johns, and the British garrison's militia was melting away. On November 13, 1775, General Richard Montgomery's troops occupied Montreal without significant fighting after General Guy Carleton decided the city could not be held and withdrew. Carleton barely escaped: some Americans had crossed the river downstream, and winds kept his fleet from leaving right away. Montgomery now held a foothold in the Province of Quebec.
The invasion of Quebec was the Continental Army's first major initiative, aimed at taking the province and persuading French-speaking Canadiens to join the revolution. Montreal was its first real prize. Seven weeks later, the attack on Quebec City ended in American defeat, and the northern campaign ended there.
QHow did the Americans try to bluff Carleton's fleet into surrendering near Sorel?
A boat carrying a truce flag approached Carleton's fleet near Sorel with a demand that he surrender. The message carried a threat: gun batteries downstream, it claimed, would otherwise destroy the convoy. The batteries were real, but they were not nearly as powerful as the Americans claimed. It was a bluff made with a white flag, aimed at a commander who had just lost a city, a garrison's worth of militia, and the wind. The capture of Montreal was less a battle than a squeeze: desertion behind Carleton, water and weather around him, and an adversary who needed him to believe the worst about the river ahead.
QWho was James Livingston, and why did his regiment march with Montgomery toward Quebec City?
James Livingston led the 1st Canadian Regiment, a unit that joined Montgomery's column on its way to Quebec City after Montreal fell. The regiment mattered beyond its numbers. The whole invasion rested on the hope that people already living in the province would take the American side, and a regiment under that name was the campaign's thesis in uniform. Montgomery's own force was shrinking as enlistments expired, so any recruit who arrived on the road north was a gain. Livingston's men were part of the force that left Montreal behind, while about 200 troops stayed on under General David Wooster to hold the city.
QWhat did Montgomery say to the people of Quebec once he held Montreal?
Montgomery did not stop at occupying the city. He published messages addressed to the inhabitants of Quebec, the written half of a campaign that was supposed to win the province as well as invade it. He also held discussions with American sympathizers about calling a provincial convention, a body that could have given local support an organized, political form. The conversations point to what the Americans thought they had bought on November 13: not just a garrison town on the Saint Lawrence, but a chance to build a revolutionary movement there. The convention talks are as far as the surviving account goes, and the military situation left little time to pursue them.
