HOWE SUCCEEDS GAGE.—CLOSING SCENES OF 1775.
As the siege of Boston advanced without decisive result, orders from
England suddenly relieved Gage from command, and assigned General Sir
William Howe as his successor. That officer promulgated a characteristic
order “assuming command over all the Atlantic Colonies from Nova Scotia
to the West Indies.” He made his advent thus public, and equally
notorious. Offensive proclamations, bad in policy, fruitless for good,
and involving the immediate crushing out of all sympathy from those who
were still loyal to the Crown, were the types of his character, both as
governor and soldier. He threatened with military execution any who
might leave the city without his consent, and enjoined upon all
citizens, irrespective of personal opinion, to “arm for the defence of
Boston.”
This action imposed upon Washington the issue of a reciprocal order
against “all who were suffered to stalk at large, doing all the mischief
in their power.” Hence, between the two orders, it happened that the
royalists in the city had no opportunity to visit their friends and see
to their own property outside the British lines, and the royalists of
the country who sought to smuggle themselves between the lines, to
communicate with those in the city, were compelled to remain outside the
American lines, or be shot as “spies.”
Up to this time, the British officers and neutral citizens had not been
interfered with in the prosecution of their business or social
engagements; and the operations of the siege had been mainly those of
silencing British action and wearing out the garrison by constant
surveillance and provocations to a fight.
Supplies became more and more scarce within the British lines. Acting
under the peremptory orders of General Howe, Admiral Graves resolved to
make his small fleet more effective, and under rigid instructions to
“burn all towns and cities that fitted out or sheltered privateers,”
Lieutenant Mowatt began his work of desolation by the destruction of
Falmouth, now Portland, Me.
In contrast with this proceeding was the action of Washington. When an
American privateer, which had been sent by him to the St. Lawrence
river, to cut off two brigantines which had left England with supplies
for Quebec, exceeded instructions, and plundered St. John’s Island, he
promptly sent back the citizen-prisoners, restored their private
effects, and denounced the action of the officer in command and his
crew, as “a violation of the principles of civilized warfare.”
Crowded by these immediate demands upon his resources, and equally
confident that there soon would be neither army, nor supplies, adequate
for the emergency, Washington made an independent appeal to Congress,
covering the entire ground of his complaint, and stating his absolute
requirements. He wanted money. He demanded a thoroughly organized
commissariat, and a permanent artillery establishment. He asked for more
adequate control of all troops, from whatever Colony they might come; a
longer term of enlistment; enlargement of the Rules and Articles of War,
and power to enforce his own will. He also demanded a separate
organization of the navy, in place of scattered, irresponsible
privateers, and that it be placed upon a sound footing, as to both men
and vessels.
Congress acted promptly upon these suggestions. On the fourth of
October, a committee, consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Lynch, and
Benjamin Harrison, started for Washington’s headquarters with three
hundred thousand dollars in Continental money, and after a patient
consideration of his views, advised the adoption of all his
recommendations.
A council of all the New England Governors was also called to meet this
committee. As the result of the conference a new organization of the
army was determined upon, fixing the force to be employed about Boston
at twenty-three thousand three hundred and seventy-two officers and men.
Washington also submitted to this committee his plan for attacking
Boston. It was approved; and soon after, Congress authorized him to burn
the city if he should deem that necessary in the prosecution of his
designs against the British army. In all subsequent military operations
the same principle of strategic action was controlling and absolute with
him.
On the thirteenth day of October, Congress authorized the building of
two small cruisers, and on the thirtieth, two additional vessels, of
small tonnage. A naval committee was also appointed, consisting of Silas
Dean, John Langdon, Joseph Hewes, Richard Henry Lee, and John Adams. On
the twenty-eighth of November, a naval code was adopted; and on the
thirteenth of December, the construction of thirteen frigates was
authorized. Among the officers commissioned, were Nicholas Biddle as
captain and John Paul Jones as lieutenant. Thus the American Navy was
fully established.[1]
Footnote 1:
See Appendix, “American Navy.”
On the twenty-ninth day of November, Captain John Manly, who was the
most prominent officer of this improvised navy, captured a British
store-ship, containing a large mortar, several brass cannon, two
thousand muskets, one hundred thousand flints, eleven mortar-beds,
thirty thousand shot, and all necessary implements for artillery and
intrenching service.
As the year drew to its close, the British levelled all their advanced
works on Charlestown Neck, and concentrated their right wing in a strong
redoubt on Bunker Hill, while their left wing at Boston Neck was more
thoroughly fortified against attack.
Congress now intimated to Washington that it might be well to attack the
city upon the first favorable occasion, before the arrival of
reënforcements from Great Britain. The laconic reply of the
Commander-in-Chief was, that he “must keep his powder for closer work
than cannon distance.”
On the nineteenth of November, Henry Knox was commissioned as Colonel,
_vice_ Gridley, too old for active service. Two lieutenant-colonels, two
majors, and twelve companies of artillery were authorized, and thus the
American regular Artillery, as well as the navy, was put upon a
substantial basis, with Knox as Chief of Artillery.
The closing months of 1775 also developed the progress of the
expeditions for the conquest of Canada. The reënforcements required for
the actual rescue of the detached forces from destruction, increased the
burdens of the Commander-in-Chief. This period of Washington’s military
responsibility cannot be rightly judged from the general opinion that
Montgomery’s nominal force of three thousand men represented an
effective army of that strength: in fact, it was less than half that
number.
Montgomery reached Ticonderoga on the seventeenth of August. Schuyler,
then negotiating a treaty with the Six Nations, at Albany, received a
despatch from Washington, “Not a moment of time is to be lost,” and at
once joined Montgomery. They pushed for the capture of St. John’s, under
the spur of Washington’s warning; but on the sixth of September and
again on the tenth, were compelled to suspend operations for want of
artillery, having at the time a force of but one thousand men present,
instead of the three thousand promised. Schuyler’s ill-health compelled
him to return to Ticonderoga; but with infinite industry, system, and
courage he was able to forward additional troops, increasing
Montgomery’s force to two thousand men.
Ethan Allen, who had been succeeded in command of the “Green Mountain
Boys” by Seth Warner, was across the line, endeavoring to recruit a
regiment of Canadians. After partial success, regardless of order, he
dashed forward, hoping to capture Montreal, as he had captured
Ticonderoga. He was captured, and sent to England to be tried on the
charge of treason. In a letter to Schuyler, Washington thus notices the
event:
“Colonel Allen’s misfortune will, I hope, teach a lesson of prudence and
subordination in others who may be too ambitious to outshine their
general officer, and regardless of order and duty, rush into enterprises
which have unfavorable effects on the public, and are destructive to
themselves.”
On the third of November, after a siege of fifty days, St. John’s was
captured, with one hundred Canadians and nearly five hundred British
regulars, more than half the force in Canada. John André was among the
number. General Carleton, who attempted to cross the St. Lawrence river,
and come to the aid of St. John’s, was thrust back by the “Green
Mountain Boys” and a part of the 2d New York Regiment.
The treatment of prisoners illustrates the condition of this army. It
was not a part of the Cambridge army, as was Arnold’s, but the
contributions promised largely by New York, and directly forwarded by
Congress. One regiment mutinied because Montgomery allowed the prisoners
to retain their extra suit of clothing, instead of treating it as
plunder. Schuyler’s and Montgomery’s Orderly Books and letters show that
even officers refused to take clothing and food to suffering prisoners
until peremptorily forced to do it. Washington was constantly advised of
the existing conditions; and when both Schuyler and Montgomery regarded
the prosecution of their expeditions as hopeless, with such troops, and
proposed to resign, the Commander-in-Chief thus feelingly, almost
tenderly, wrote: “God knows there is not a difficulty you both complain
of which I have not in an eminent degree experienced; that I am not,
every day, experiencing; but we must bear up against them, and make the
best of mankind as they are, since we cannot have them as we wish. Let
me therefore conjure you both, to lay aside such thoughts; thoughts
injurious to yourselves, and extremely so to your country, which calls
aloud for gentlemen of your abilities.”
On the twelfth of November, Montgomery reached the open city of
Montreal; and the larger of the two Canadian expeditions reached its
proposed destination. But before the month of November closed, the
American force “wasted away,” until only about eight hundred men
remained. Expiration of enlistments was at hand. Men refused to
re-enlist. Even the “Green Mountain Boys” returned home. This was not
the total loss to Montgomery. Officers and men were all alike fractious,
dictatorial, and self-willed. They claimed the right to do just as they
pleased, and to obey such orders only as their judgment approved.
General Carleton escaped from the city in disguise, and reached Quebec
on the nineteenth. There was no possibility of following him; and the
work laid but for Montgomery, had been done, although at great cost and
delay.
Prof. Charles G. D. Roberts, of King’s College, Nova Scotia, in his
“History of Canada” (1897),[2] uses this language: “General Carleton
fled in disguise to Quebec, narrowly escaping capture, and there made
ready for his last stand. In Quebec he weeded out all those citizens who
sympathized with the rebels, expelling them from the city. With sixteen
hundred men at his back, a small force indeed, but to be trusted, he
awaited the struggle.”
Footnote 2:
Lamson, Wolfe & Co., Publishers, Boston.
Meanwhile Arnold, after unexampled sufferings and equal heroism, had
reached Point Levi, opposite Quebec, on the ninth of November, only to
find that the garrison had been strengthened, and that he was stranded,
in the midst of a severe winter, upon an inhospitable, barren bluff. The
strongest fortress in America, defended by two hundred heavy cannon, and
the capture of which had been the inspiration of his adventurous
campaign, was in full sight. Every condition which Washington had
declared to be essential to success had failed of realization. On the
fifth of October Washington wrote to Schuyler: “If Carleton is not
driven from St. John’s, so as to be obliged to throw himself into
Quebec, it must fall into our hands, as it is left without a regular
soldier, as the captain of a brig from Quebec to Boston says. Many of
the inhabitants are most favorably disposed to the American cause, and
that there is there the largest stock of ammunition ever collected in
America.” On the same day he also writes “Arnold expected to reach
Quebec in twenty days from September twenty-sixth, and that Montgomery
must keep up such appearances as _to fix Carleton_, and prevent the
force in Canada from being turned on Arnold; but if penetration into
Canada be given up, Arnold must also know it, in time for retreat.” And
again: “This detachment (Arnold’s) was to take possession of Quebec, if
possible; but at any rate, to make a diversion in favor of Schuyler.”
But Arnold, on the sixteenth day of October, when, as he advised
Washington, he expected to advance upon Quebec, was struggling with
quagmires, swamps, fallen trees, rain and mud, snow and ice, about Deer
river, and had not even reached Lake Megantic. Men waded in icy water to
their armpits; some froze to death: others deserted. Enos, short of
provisions, as he claimed, marched three hundred men back to Cambridge.
And Arnold, himself, twenty-five days too late, stood upon Point Levi,
in the midst of a furious tempest of wind, rain, and sleet, only to
realize the substantial failure of his vaunted expedition. Most of his
muskets were ruined, and but five rounds of ammunition remained for the
few men that were with him in this hour of starvation and distress. Two
vessels-of-war lay at anchor in the stream. And yet, such was his
indomitable energy, with thirty birch-bark canoes he crossed the river,
gained a position on the Heights of Abraham, and sent to the fortress an
unnoticed demand for surrender. Then, retiring to Point Aux Trembles, he
sent a messenger to Montgomery asking for artillery and two thousand
men, for prosecution of a siege. Montgomery, leaving in command General
Wooster, who arrived at Montreal late in November, started down the
river with about three hundred men and a few pieces of artillery, and
clothing for Arnold’s men; landing at Point Aux Trembles about December
first, making the total American force only one thousand men. On the
sixth day of December, a demand for surrender having been again
unanswered, the little army advanced to its fate. Four assaulting
columns were organized. All failed, and Montgomery fell in a gallant but
desperate attempt to storm the citadel itself. Morgan and four hundred
and twenty-six men, nearly half of the entire command, were taken
prisoners. Only the grand nerve of Montgomery brought the army to the
assault in this forlorn-hope affair,—for such it was. Three of Arnold’s
captains refused to serve under him any longer; and mutiny, or the
entire ruin of the army, was the alternative to the risks of ruin in
battle. Arnold had a knee shattered by a bullet, and the remnants of the
army fell back, harmless, to the garrison, and amid snow, ice, and
proximate starvation, awaited future events.
The treatment of the prisoners by General Carleton, and the burial, with
honors of war, of his old comrade under Wolfe, the brave Montgomery,
savors of the knightly chivalry of mediæval times. When his officers
protested at such treatment of rebels, his response, lofty in tone and
magnanimous in action, was simply this: “Since we have in vain tried to
make them acknowledge us as brothers, let us at least send them away
disposed to regard us as cousins.”
Almost at the same hour of the day when Carleton passed through Point
Aux Trembles, on his escape to Quebec, Washington having heard of
Montgomery’s arrival at Montreal, was writing to Congress, as follows:
“It is likely that General Carleton will, with what force he can collect
after the surrender of the rest of Canada, throw himself into Quebec,
and there make his last effort.”
With Arnold three miles from Quebec, intrenched as well as he was able
to intrench, confining his operations to cutting off supplies to the
city and keeping his five hundred survivors from starving or freezing,
and Carleton preparing for reënforcements as soon as the ice might break
up in the spring, the invasion of Canada for conquest came to a dead
halt. The invasion of the American Colonies was to follow its final
failure.
There were heroes who bore part in those expeditions, and their
experience was to crown many of Washington’s later campaigns with the
honors of victory. Meanwhile, about Boston, enlistments were rapidly
expiring, to be again replaced with fresh material for the master’s
handling into army shape and use; and the American Commander-in-Chief
was beginning to illustrate his qualities as Soldier.