31 December 1775
Quebec: the barricades of the Lower Town
At Près-de-Ville Montgomery’s carpenters saw through two palisades, and he leads about 50 men towards a blockhouse held by 39 Quebec militiamen and nine sailors with cannon. A blast of grapeshot kills him and most of the men around him. The next senior officers are also killed, and Colonel Donald Campbell leads the column back to the Plains of Abraham.
Daniel Morgan, who led Arnold’s column after Arnold was wounded, portrait by Charles Willson Peale, about 1794Wikimedia Commons, Charles Willson Peale, Public domain (DanielMorgan.jpeg)
Arnold’s column loses its cannon in a snowdrift under fire from the walls by the Palace Gate. At the first barricade Arnold is wounded in the leg and hands over to Morgan, who climbs the barricade, and its 30 Canadien militiamen surrender. The Americans wait half an hour for the rest of the column and to dry their powder, and Carleton, seeing that the attacks on the walls are feints, sends his men into the Lower Town.
At the second barricade Henry Caldwell’s militia, Royal Highland Emigrants and men of the 7th Foot stop every assault from the houses and behind the barricade. Captain George Laws leads 500 men out of the Palace Gate, retakes the first barricade and captures Henry Dearborn’s company coming up behind. Trapped and out of ammunition, Morgan surrenders by 10 a.m. with more than 400 men.
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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