31 December 1775, before dawn
Quebec: the attack in the snowstorm
Enlistments in the American army run out on 31 December, and Montgomery decides to attack in a snowstorm at night, when his men can reach the defences unseen. A deserter has carried the first plan into the city, so the new plan sends two feints against the western walls, Jacob Brown at the Cape Diamond redoubt and James Livingston at the Saint-Jean gate, and two real attacks on the Lower Town.
The siege and attack of Quebec in 1775 and 1776 on a French map by Georges Louis Le Rouge, 1777Wikimedia Commons, Georges Louis Le Rouge, Public domain (Quebec1775FrenchMap.jpg)
Between 4 and 5 a.m. Brown fires rockets as the signal. Montgomery leads about 300 men from Wolfe’s Cove along the foot of the cliffs beside the St Lawrence, through a blizzard, towards the Près-de-Ville defences. Arnold leads the main body, about 600 men with Daniel Morgan’s riflemen in front and a cannon on a sled, from Saint-Roch along the St Charles towards the Sault-au-Matelot barricade, where the two columns are to meet.
Sources
- Justin H. Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony (1907).
- Mark R. Anderson, The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony (2013).
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