ATTACK ON QUEBEC.--AFFAIRS IN NEW YORK.
From amid surrounding perplexities, Washington still turned a hopeful
eye to Canada. He expected daily to receive tidings that Montgomery
and Arnold were within the walls of Quebec. On the 18th of January
came dispatches to him from General Schuyler, containing withering
tidings. The following is the purport. Montgomery, on the 2d of
December, the day after his arrival at Point aux Trembles, set off in
face of a driving snow-storm for Quebec, and arrived before it on the
5th. The works, from their great extent, appeared to him incapable of
being defended by the actual garrison; made up, as he said, of
"Maclean's banditti," the sailors from the frigates and other vessels,
together with the citizens obliged to take up arms.
On the day of his arrival, he sent a flag with a summons to surrender.
It was fired upon, and obliged to retire. Exasperated at this outrage,
Montgomery wrote an indignant letter to Carleton, reiterating the
demand, magnifying the number of his troops, and warning him against
the consequences of an assault. Finding it was rejected from the
walls, he prepared for an attack. The ground was frozen to a great
depth, and covered with snow. By dint of excessive labor a breastwork
was thrown up, four hundred yards distant from the walls and opposite
to the gate of St. Louis, which is nearly in the centre. It was formed
of gabions, ranged side by side, and filled with snow, over which
water was thrown until thoroughly frozen. Here Captain Lamb mounted
five light pieces and a howitzer. Several mortars were placed in the
suburbs of St. Roque, which extends on the left of the promontory,
below the heights, and nearly on a level with the river.
From the "Ice Battery" Captain Lamb opened a well-sustained and
well-directed fire upon the walls, but his field-pieces were too light
to be effective. With his howitzer he threw shells into the town and
set it on fire in several places.
On the evening of the fifth day, Montgomery paid a visit to the ice
battery. The heavy artillery from the wall had repaid its ineffectual
fire with ample usury. The brittle ramparts had been shivered like
glass; several of the guns had been rendered useless. The general saw
the insufficiency of the battery, and, on retiring, gave Captain Lamb
permission to leave it whenever he thought proper. The veteran waited
until after dark, when, securing all the guns, he abandoned the ruined
redoubt.
Nearly three weeks had been consumed in these futile operations. The
army, ill-clothed, and ill-provided, was becoming impatient of the
rigors of a Canadian winter; the term for which part of the troops had
enlisted would expire with the year, and they already talked of
returning home. Montgomery was sadly conscious of the insufficiency of
his means; still he could not endure the thoughts of retiring from
before the place without striking a blow. He determined, therefore, to
attempt to carry the place by _escalade_. Colonel Livingston was to
make a false attack on the gate of St. Johns and set fire to it; Major
Brown, with another detachment, was to menace the bastion of Cape
Diamond. Arnold with three hundred and fifty of the hardy fellows who
had followed him through the wilderness, strengthened by Captain Lamb
and forty of his company, was to assault the suburbs and batteries of
St. Roque; while Montgomery, with the residue of his forces, was to
pass below the bastion at Cape Diamond, defile along the river, carry
the defences at Drummond's Wharf, and thus enter the lower town on one
side, while Arnold forced his way into it on the other. These
movements were all to be made at the same time, on the discharge of
signal rockets, thus distracting the enemy, and calling their
attention to four several points.
On the 31st of December, at two o'clock in the morning, the troops
repaired to their several destinations, under cover of a violent
snow-storm. By some mistake the signal rockets were let off before the
lower divisions had time to get to their fighting ground. They were
descried by one of Maclean's Highland officers, who gave the alarm.
Livingston also failed to make the false attack on the gate of St.
Johns, which was to have caused a diversion favorable to Arnold's
attack on the suburb below.
The feint by Major Brown, on the bastion of Cape Diamond, was
successful, and concealed the march of General Montgomery. That
gallant commander descended from the heights to Wolfe's Cove, and led
his division along the shore of the St. Lawrence, round the beetling
promontory of Cape Diamond. The narrow approach to the lower town in
that direction was traversed by a picket or stockade, defended by
Canadian militia; beyond which was a second defence, a kind of
block-house. The aim of Montgomery was to come upon these barriers by
surprise. The pass which they defended is formidable at all times,
having a swift river on one side, and overhanging precipices on the
other; but at this time was rendered peculiarly difficult by drifting
snow, and by great masses of ice piled on each other at the foot of
the cliffs.
The troops made their way painfully, in extended and straggling files,
along the narrow footway, and over the slippery piles of ice. Among
the foremost, were some of the first New York regiment, led on by
Captain Cheeseman. Montgomery, in his eagerness, threw himself far in
the advance with his pioneers and a few officers, and made a dash at
the first barrier. The Canadians stationed there, taken by surprise,
made a few random shots, then threw down their muskets and fled.
Montgomery sprang forward, aided with his own hand to pluck down the
pickets, which the pioneers were sawing, and having made a breach
sufficiently wide to admit three or four men abreast, entered sword in
hand. The Canadians had fled from the picket to the battery or
block-house. Montgomery again dashed forward, but when within forty
paces of the battery, a discharge of grape-shot from a single cannon
made deadly havoc. Montgomery, and McPherson, one of his aides, were
killed on the spot. Captain Cheeseman received a canister shot through
the body; with him fell his orderly sergeant and several of his men.
This fearful slaughter, and the death of their general, threw
everything in confusion. Colonel Campbell, quarter-master general,
took the command and ordered a retreat.
While all this was occurring on the side of Cape Diamond, Arnold led
his division against the opposite side of the lower town along the
suburb and street of St. Roque. Like Montgomery, he took the advance
at the head of a forlorn hope of twenty-five men. Captain Lamb and his
artillery company came next, with a field-piece mounted on a sledge.
Then came a company with ladders and scaling implements, followed by
Morgan and his riflemen. In the rear of all these came the main body.
A battery on a wharf commanded the narrow pass by which they had to
advance. This was to be attacked with the field-piece, and then scaled
with ladders by the forlorn hope; while Captain Morgan, with his
riflemen, was to pass round the wharf on the ice.
The false attack which was to have been made by Livingston on the gate
of St. Johns, by way of diversion, had not taken place; there was
nothing, therefore, to call off the attention of the enemy in this
quarter from the detachment. The troops, as they straggled along in
lengthened file through the drifting snow were sadly galled by a
flanking fire on the right, from walls and pickets. The field-piece at
length became so deeply embedded in a snow-drift that it could not be
moved. Lamb sent word to Arnold of the impediment; in the meantime, he
and his artillery company were brought to a halt. The company with the
scaling ladders would have halted also, having been told to keep in
the rear of the artillery; but they were urged on by Morgan with a
thundering oath, who pushed on after them with his riflemen, the
artillery company opening to the right and left to let them pass.
They arrived in the advance, just as Arnold was leading on his forlorn
hope to attack the barrier. Before he reached it a severe wound in the
right leg with a musket ball completely disabled him, and he had to be
borne from the field. Morgan instantly took the command. Just then
Lamb came up with his company, armed with muskets and bayonets, having
received orders to abandon the field-piece, and support the advance.
Oswald joined him with the forlorn hope. The battery which commanded
the defile mounted two pieces of cannon. There was a discharge of
grape-shot when the assailants were close under the muzzles of the
guns, yet but one man was killed. Before there could be a second
discharge, the battery was carried by assault, some firing in to the
embrasures; others scaling the walls. The captain and thirty of his
men were taken prisoners.
The day was just dawning as Morgan led on to attack the second
barrier, and his men had to advance under a fire from the town walls
on their right, which incessantly thinned their ranks. The second
barrier was reached; they applied their scaling ladders to storm it.
The defence was brave and obstinate, but the defenders were at length
driven from their guns, and the battery was gained. At the last moment
one of the gunners ran back, linstock in hand, to give one more shot.
Captain Lamb snapped a fusee at him. It missed fire. The cannon was
discharged, and a grape-shot wounded Lamb in the head, carrying away
part of the cheek-bone. He was borne off senseless to a neighboring
shed.
The two barriers being now taken, the way on this side into the lower
town seemed open. Morgan prepared to enter it with the victorious
vanguard; first stationing Captain Dearborn and some provincials at
Palace Gate, which opened down into the defile from the upper town. By
this time, however, the death of Montgomery and retreat of Campbell
had enabled the enemy to turn all their attention in this direction. A
large detachment sent by General Carleton, sallied out of Palace Gate
after Morgan had passed it, surprised and captured Dearborn and the
guard, and completely cut off the advanced party. The main body,
informed of the death of Montgomery, and giving up the game as lost,
retreated to the camp, leaving behind the field-piece which Lamb's
company had abandoned, and the mortars in the battery of St. Roque.
Morgan and his men were now hemmed in on all sides, and obliged to
take refuge in a stone house from the inveterate fire which assailed
them. From the windows of this house they kept up a desperate defence,
until cannon were brought to bear upon it. Then, hearing of the death
of Montgomery, and seeing that there was no prospect of relief, Morgan
and his gallant handful of followers were compelled to surrender
themselves prisoners of war.
Thus foiled at every point, the wrecks of the little army abandoned
their camp, and retreated about three miles from the town; where they
hastily fortified themselves, apprehending a pursuit by the garrison.
General Carleton, however, contented himself with having secured the
safety of the place, and remained cautiously passive until he should
be properly reinforced.
The remains of the gallant Montgomery received a soldier's grave
within the fortifications of Quebec, by the care of Cramahé, the
lieutenant-governor, who had formerly known him.
Arnold took temporary command of the shattered army, until General
Wooster should arrive from Montreal, to whom he sent an express,
urging him to bring on succor. "On this occasion," says a contemporary
writer, "he discovered the utmost vigor of a determined mind, and a
genius full of resources. Defeated and wounded as he was, he put his
troops into such a situation as to keep them still formidable." With a
mere handful of men, at one time not exceeding five hundred, he
maintained a blockade of the strong fortress from which he had just
been repulsed.
General Schuyler, who was now in Albany, urged the necessity of an
immediate reinforcement of three thousand men for the army in Canada.
Washington had not a man to spare from the army before Boston. He
applied, therefore, on his own responsibility, to Massachusetts, New
Hampshire and Connecticut, for three regiments which were granted. His
prompt measure received the approbation of Congress, and further
reinforcements were ordered from the same quarters.
Solicitude was awakened about the interior of the province of New
York. Arms and ammunition were said to be concealed in Tryon County,
and numbers of the tories in that neighborhood preparing for
hostilities. Sir John Johnson had fortified Johnson Hall, gathered
about him his Scotch Highland tenants and Indian allies, and it was
rumored he intended to carry fire and sword along the valley of the
Mohawk.
Schuyler, in consequence, received orders from Congress to take
measures for securing the military stores, disarming the disaffected,
and apprehending their chiefs. He forthwith hastened from Albany, at
the head of a body of soldiers; was joined by Colonel Herkimer, with
the militia of Tryon County marshalled forth on the frozen bosom of
the Mohawk River, and appeared before Sir John's stronghold, near
Johnstown, on the 19th of January. Thus beleaguered, Sir John, after
much negotiation, capitulated. He was to surrender all weapons of war
and military stores in his possession, and to give his parole not to
take arms against America.
The recent reverses in Canada had heightened the solicitude of
Washington about the province of New York. That province was the
central and all-important link in the confederacy; but he feared it
might prove a brittle one. We have already mentioned the adverse
influences in operation there. A large number of friends to the crown,
among the official and commercial classes; rank tories, (as they were
called,) in the city and about the neighboring country; particularly
on Long and Staten Islands; king's ships at anchor in the bay and
harbor, keeping up a suspicious intercourse with the citizens; while
Governor Tryon, castled, as it were, on board one of these ships,
carried on intrigues with those disaffected to the popular cause, in
all parts of the neighborhood.
Lee arrived at New York on the 4th of February, his caustic humors
sharpened by a severe attack of the gout, which had rendered it
necessary, while on the march, to carry him for a considerable part of
the way in a litter. By a singular coincidence, on the very day of his
arrival, Sir Henry Clinton, with the squadron which had sailed so
mysteriously from Boston, looked into the harbor. "Though it was
Sabbath," says a letter-writer of the day, "it threw the whole city
into such a convulsion as it never knew before. Many of the
inhabitants hastened to move their effects into the country, expecting
an immediate conflict."
Clinton sent for the mayor, and expressed much surprise and concern at
the distress caused by his arrival; which was merely, he said, on a
short visit to his friend Tryon, and to see how matters stood. He
professed a juvenile love for the place, and desired that the
inhabitants might be informed of the purport of his visit, and that he
would go away as soon as possible. For this time, the inhabitants of
New York were let off for their fears. Clinton, after a brief visit,
continued his mysterious cruise, openly avowing his destination to be
North Carolina--which nobody believed, simply because he avowed it.
The necessity of conferring with committees at every step was a hard
restraint upon a man of Lee's ardent and impatient temper, who had a
soldierlike contempt for the men of peace around him; yet at the
outset he bore it better than might have been expected. "The Congress
committees, a certain number of the committees of safety, and your
humble servant," writes he to Washington, "have had two conferences.
The result is such as will agreeably surprise you. It is in the first
place agreed, and justly, that to fortify the town against shipping is
impracticable; but we are to fortify lodgements on some commanding
part of the city for two thousand men. We are to erect enclosed
batteries on both sides of the water, near Hell Gate, which will
answer the double purpose of securing the town against piracies
through the Sound, and secure our communication with Long Island, now
become a more important point than ever; as it is determined to form a
strong fortified camp of three thousand men, on the Island,
immediately opposite to New York. The pass in the Highlands is to be
made as respectable as possible, and guarded by a battalion. In short,
I think the plan judicious and complete."
The pass in the Highlands above alluded to, is that grand defile of
the Hudson where, for upwards of fifteen miles, it wends its deep
channel between stern, forest-clad mountains and rocky promontories.
Two forts, about six miles distant from each other, and commanding
narrow parts of the river at its bends through these Highlands, had
been commenced in the preceding autumn, by order of the Continental
Congress; but they were said to be insufficient for the security of
that important pass, and were to be extended and strengthened.
Washington had charged Lee, in his instructions, to keep a stern eye
upon the tories, who were active in New York. "You can seize upon the
persons of the principals," said he; "they must be so notoriously
known, that there will be little danger of committing mistakes." Lee
acted up to the letter of these instructions, and weeded out with a
vigorous hand some of the rankest of the growth.
In the exercise of his military functions, Lee set Governor Tryon and
the captain of the Asia at defiance. "They had threatened perdition to
the town," writes he to Washington, "if the cannon were removed from
the batteries and wharves, but I ever considered their threats as a
_brutum fulmen_, and even persuaded the town to be of the same way of
thinking. We accordingly conveyed them to a place of safety in the
middle of the day, and no cannonade ensued."
Lee now proceeded with his plan of defences. A strong redoubt, capable
of holding three hundred men, was commenced at Horen's Hook,
commanding the pass at Hell Gate, so as to block up from the enemy's
ships the passage between the mainland and Long Island. A regiment was
stationed on the island, making fascines, and preparing other
materials for constructing the works for an intrenched camp, which Lee
hoped would render it impossible for the enemy to get a footing there.
"What to do with this city," writes he, "I own, puzzles me. It is so
encircled with deep navigable water, that whoever commands the sea
must command the town. To-morrow I shall begin to dismantle that part
of the fort next to the town, to prevent its being converted into a
citadel. I shall barrier the principal streets, and, at least, if I
cannot make it a continental garrison, it shall be a disputable field
of battle." Batteries were to be erected on an eminence behind Trinity
Church, to keep the enemy's ships at so great a distance as not to
injure the town.
King's Bridge, at the upper end of Manhattan or New York Island,
linking it with the mainland, was pronounced by Lee "a most important
pass, without which the city could have no communication with
Connecticut." It was, therefore, to be made as strong as possible.
Heavy cannon were to be sent up to the forts in the Highlands; which
were to be enlarged and strengthened.
In the midst of his schemes, Lee received orders from Congress to the
command in Canada, vacant by the death of Montgomery. He bewailed the
defenceless condition of the city; the Continental Congress, as he
said, not having, as yet, taken the least step for its security. "The
instant I leave it," said he, "I conclude the Provincial Congress, and
inhabitants in general, will relapse into their former hysterics. The
men-of-war and Mr. Tryon will return to their old station at the
wharves, and the first regiments who arrive from England will take
quiet possession of the town and Long Island."