250 and Counting

Category: Canadian History

  • Taking Canada’s Temperature–March 5, 1776

    Cover art for March 5, 1776: Charles Carroll by Michael Laty. Created 1846, making this a posthumous portrait.

    So here’s a fun story about Charles Carroll. As I’ve mentioned many times before, lots and lots of place names in Baltimore have strong historical connections and Charles Carroll is no exception.

    There is, of course, a Carroll Street, which starts in the southeast neighborhood of Morrell Park. It doesn’t go quite through that neighborhood though; it gets broken up by a couple of blocks’ worth of houses and resumes again. There’s another break as a railroad right-of-way comes through—but there’s no train crossing; the road just terminates. Carroll Street resumes (we’re still in Morrell Park) on the other side, however, before it’s interrupted yet again.

    Now as I understand it, this particular part of the neighborhood was wiped out completely by Hurricane Agnes in the early 1970s, so the rebuild was kind of haphazard. Plus, I-95 was first constructed through this part of Baltimore City around this time, so you have to jump almost 3500 feet before Carroll Street resumes again.

    But now you’re not in a residential neighborhood; it’s series of warehouses and industrial buildings for a stretch until it gets back into a residential neighborhood known as Pigtown, so called because on Market days, pigs would be led through the streets to the market for sale and eventual slaughter. Carroll Street meets with Cross Street in that neighborhood, and that’s the northern terminus.

    However.

    There’s an elementary school in the area that’s also named after Charles Carroll. It’s not on Carroll Street (of course) but is about two blocks away, in Pigtown. Now, remember, Charles Carroll was a lawyer, or a “barrister” as the old-timey types like to say. So Elementary School #34 is officially “Charles Carroll, Barrister Elementary School”. Except everybody forgets the comma is there and says it like one long name. And chances are, they think there was a guy actually named Charles Carroll Barrister somewhere in history.

    And wasn’t that a long walk for a short drink of water.

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  • Our First Memorial–January 25, 1776

    Cover art for January 25, 1776: the monument erected to honor Richard Montgomery outside St. Paul's Chapel at Trinity Church. via Wikimedia Commons.
    The monument erected to honor Richard Montgomery outside St. Paul’s Chapel at Trinity Church.
    The inscription reads: This Monument is erected by the order of Congress, 25th, Janry, 1776, to transmit to Posterity a grateful remembrance of the patriotism conduct enterprise & perseverance of Major General Richard Montgomery
    Who after a series of successes amidst the most discouraging Difficulties Fell in the attack on Quebec. 31st, Decbr, 1775. Aged 37 Years.

    We weren’t even a nation yet and Congress had already commissioned the Richard Montgomery Memorial. And while the memorial itself was completed rather quickly by the commissioned artist, the war interfered with its transport and it took nearly ten years to find all the pieces.

    (Dirty Secret: they never found all of them; the urn at top center was a reproduction.)

    Montgomery was generally known to be a good general even if his death was practically inevitable, given the circumstances. But that didn’t stop people from turning him into a martyr for the cause of Independence.

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    PS. Trinity Church’s website has a page dedicated to the monument, which aided my research for this episode. There’s a huge, fascinating segment dedicated to the 2011 restoration process for this memorial.

  • Busy Day In Congress–January 19, 1776

    Cover art for January 19, 1776: painting of the Continental Congress by John Trumbull, created around 1819. This painting depicts a date several months after today.
    Painting of the Continental Congress by John Trumbull, created around 1819. This painting depicts a date several months after today. Trumbull was especially insistent on painting subjects from life whenever he could.

    The Second Continental Congress Committees, several of them anyway, reported out on this day in 1776 and it was starting to become clear that the individual colonies had some needs when it came to defense.

    There were issues with prisoners possibly being mistreated, word had gotten back regarding what had happened in Quebec on New Year’s Day, South Carolina had some need for sailors to defend the Charleston Bay…there was a lot going on, and while we view the large number of committees, with names that are either too obvious or a little silly, to be a bit much, we’re also viewing it through a modern-day lens.

    Not that life was simpler—though it was, in a sense—but that the Congress was quite pragmatic and direct in the way they operated.

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  • The Battle of Quebec–December 31, 1775

    Cover art for December 31, 1775: The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec (detail), by John Trumbull, 1786.
    The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec (detail), by John Trumbull, 1786. Montgomery was struck in the head by grapeshot, so it probably wasn’t nearly as tidy as this.

    While hindsight is very much a 20/20 vision, it’s still worth exploring why the Battle of Quebec went so poorly for the American side:

    • While General Montgomery was clever enough to attack during a storm, he didn’t necessarily expect Nor’easter blizzard conditions, which made it tough for his men to see where they were going without lanterns…
    • …which meant that there were likely sentries who probably got curious about a bunch of lanterns coming their way.
    • Many of the men on the American side were literally on their last day of enlistment, so they probably weren’t motivated to give it their all.
    • In fact, only about 50 Americans (including General Montgomery) were killed, and 34 wounded (including Benedict Arnold), but over 400 men were missing or captured. “Missing” could easily mean “went home.”
    • Many of the Americans were probably unprepared for the relatively close quarters of fighting in a city, which meant that they were unprepared for attacks from above.

    Now, I am by no means a military expert, but these are the things that stood out for me just based on a quick read of the situation. It was hubris, and a brand of short-sightedness that this particular city got deep into the heads of Montgomery and Arnold, and they refused to let it go.

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  • The Siege of Quebec–December 8, 1775

    Cover art for December 8, 1775: Benedict Arnold's forces moving in on Quebec. from a painting by F. C. Yohn, date unknown.

    The siege of Quebec was an event that was months in the making, and it was still just the penultimate act of the play.

    Benedict Arnold and his troops thought they could get to the American side of the St. Lawrence River within 21 days; instead it took several weeks. Along the way they lost about a third of their troop strength. Some of the men died of illness en route, but most of them finally gave up altogether and headed home.

    When they finally arrived they realized they didn’t have nearly what they needed to effect a decent attack on the city, so they had to hunker down and wait for supports to arrive. They were able to institute a couple of blockades, but that wasn’t nearly enough.

    Finally General Montgomery showed up, and after an attempt at getting the city to surrender, they began the shooting. Unfortunately that didn’t do a lot of good, so the Continental Army had to settle for placing the city under siege. At this point, however, the clock was ticking because a big chunk of the Colonial soldiers were due to have their enlistments end on December 31. Something had to give, and soon.

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  • The Raid On Yarmouth–December 5, 1775

    Cover art for December 5, 1775: Map of Nova Scotia. That big honkin' arrow we added points to Yarmouth.

    Yarmouth, Nova Scotia was a frequent target of raids throughout the Revolution. Indeed, most of Nova Scotia was harassed from both land and sea by Americans. This had a huge impact on the maritime economy there. But all those attacks—mostly by American (and probably some French) privateers—inflicted lots of disruption on British supply lines the entire time.

    On the downside, all these attacks pretty much put an end to any trade between America and Nova Scotia.

    But the Raid on Yarmouth, as the event came to be known, was especially egregious both for its intensity and the lasting effect it had on its inhabitants.

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  • Montgomery Arrives at Quebec–December 1, 1775

    Cover art for December 1, 1775: "Gen. Richard Montgomery." via the New York Public Library Digital Collections.

    The events at Lexington and Concord were only about a month in the rear-view mirror when it occurred to both the Americans and the British that the Canadian provinces were colonies, too, and that they might have some kind of interest in the activities going on further south.

    Quebec, being perhaps the largest city close to the border, was the natural target for everyone involved. So it was always in the back of minds in the Thirteen Colonies, and in England. And slowly, each side began to think about either converting Canada to the American side, or defending Canada from American invasion.

    And on this day in history, everyone moved a giant step closer to what eventually became the Battle of Quebec.

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  • The 1st Canadian Regiment–November 20, 2025

    Cover art for November 20, 1775: Portrait of James Livingston by Archibald Robertson, c. 1795.

    Robert Livingston now enters the picture in the broad tapestry of the American Revolution.

    Given that the cover art today comes from an image from twenty years after the war; we can assume that he was quite young during the war, plus he held up pretty well in the interim.

    At any rate, this isn’t the last we’ll hear from Robert Livingston; we’ll be back to visit him next month.

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  • Arnold’s March to Canada Ends–November 9, 1775

    Cover art for November 9, 1775: "Quebec from the Pointe Lévis Side" by James Pattison Cockburn, Watercolor and pencils, 1827

    We gotta give Benedict Arnold this: he set a goal and he stuck to it.

    Given the opportunity to take men and help invade Quebec through a kind of pincer move with General Montgomery, Benedict Arnold took 1100 men through the wilds of Maine to the St. Lawrence River, a trip that he thought would take 20 days over 180 miles.

    But they ran into problems almost immediately involving weather, leaky boats, bad maps, bad terrain, illness and almost half the men turning back.

    But make it he did, still with 600 men in tow, and with the help of the locals he got the sick ones healthy, the hungry ones fed, and established a base of operations for the next step, which we’ll talk about in just a few days.

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  • Reinforcements Arrive Too Late–November 4, 1775

    Cover art for November 4, 1775: A 1790 watercolor showing Fort Saint-Jean in the background, and HMS Royal Savage in the foreground. Watercolor, pen & ink by James Peachey.

    As we told you yesterday, Major Preston was hoping that reinforcements were coming in time to rescue him and his men from Fort St. Jean, so he tried to stall for time with General Montgomery. General Montgomery wasn’t biting, though, and the siege finally ended when Preston’s men surrendered.

    Today, only a day later, a few hundred men arrive in Quebec from Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island, but it’s too late for the fort. On the other hand, when the Americans try to take out Quebec City, they’ll have a much tougher time than they thought (and they lost anyway).

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