The American Takeover of Quebec
By the Summer of 1775, the American War of Independence, known colloquially as the American Revolution, was in full swing. In April, the British had been defeated at the combined battles of Lexington and Concord before being besieged in Boston, where a breakout was attempted, and failed, at Bunker Hill in June. Following two letters to the inhabitants of Canada that were left without any substantive response. Both Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allan, who had captured Fort Ticonderoga and advocated for holding it to prevent it from being used by the British to militarily divide the colonies, noted that Quebec was poorly defended and open to invasion. At the suggestion that a small force would be enough to seize the province from the British, the Second Continental Congress would order the captured forts to be abandoned to push New York and Connecticut to provide troops and materials for the purposes of defense.
On June 27th, following confirmation that Quebec’s governor Guy Carleton was fortifying Fort St. John’s and trying to gain the allegiance of the native Haudenosaunee [1] in upstate New York to support the British, Congress would authorize General Philip Schuyler to investigate and, if it was deemed possible, invade Quebec. Arnold, who had been passed over for command, traveled to Boston to convince the commander of the Continental Army, George Washington, to give him command of a force to assault Quebec City. On the side of the British, defensive preparations were being made following the raid on Fort St. Johns that coincided with the capture of Fort Ticonderoga as in the raid’s aftermath, Carleton became aware the danger his southern flank was in and requested from Boston reinforcements from Thomas Gage while raising local militias to support the defenses of Montreal and Quebec City and then sent seven hundred troops to Fort St. Johns along the Richelieu River that was just south of Montreal, constructed various vessels for use in Lake Champlain, and recruited around one hundred Kanien'kehá:ka [2] native allies to assist the defense of the fort while Carleton himself oversaw Montreal’s defense with around one hundred and fifty British regulars due to the fact that he relied on Fort St. Johns to be the main point of defense for Montreal. For the defense of Quebec City, he left his Lieutenant Governor Hector Theophilus de Cramahé.
There was also the struggle to have Native intervention in the planned invasion. For the British, a loyalist and British Indian agent who resided within New York’s Mohawk Valley, Guy Johnson, was on friendly terms with the native tribes of the region and had become concerned for his and his family’s safety after it became clear that New York would join the patriot cause. Convinced that he would no longer be able to conduct business for the Crown, Johnson would leave his estate with two hundred Loyalist and Kanien'kehá:ka supporters before going to Fort Ontario where, on June 17th, he was able to get promises by local Haudenosaunee and Wyandot [3] tribal leaders to assist in keeping both supply and communication lines open and aid in being a nuisance for the patriots. Following that, he would move on to Montreal where he met with General Carleton and over 1500 indigenous people and made a similar agreement to the one he made in Ontario and delivered warbelts to be readied for service. However, these agreements for the most part were with the Kanien'kehá:ka as the other tribes that were among the Haudenosaunee avoided these conferences and instead opted to stay neutral, with many Kanien'kehá:ka remaining in the Montreal area until the middle of August by which point it was uncertain if the Americans would actually invade and so they went home.
On the part of the patriots, the second Continental Congress sought to keep the Haudenosaunee out of the war with missionary Samuel Kirkland, who was influential with the Onyota'a:ka [4] people, arriving with a statement from Congress for them in July stating “we desire you to remain at home, and not join either side, but to keep the hatchet buried deep.” While the tribes of the Onyota'a:ka and the Skarù:rę [5] largely remained neutral, many Onyota'a:ka expressed sympathy with the American cause. News of Johnson’s Montreal meeting would prompt General Schuyler, who himself had influence with the Onyota'a:ka,to call for a mid-August conference in Albany. With nearly four hundred natives in attendance, primarily Onyota'a:ka and Skarù:rę alongside a few Kanien'kehá:ka, Schuyler and other indian commissioners explained what had caused the conflict from the Patriot perspective, emphasizing that the colonies were fighting to preserve their rights and were not looking to conquer the native tribes. Due to the conference, the assembled chiefs would agree to remain neutral, with one Kanien'kehá:ka chief stating that the war was a family affair which they would sit and let the Americans and British settle. However, concessions were extracted, such as promises to address the ongoing grievance of white settlers encroaching on their lands.
On September 4th, Schuyler’s invasion of Quebec began after the general received word that the British ships at the fort were nearing completion with him and a force of about 1500 men arrived at the undefended Île-aux-Noix in the Richelieu River. The general, who was catching ill, would be able to send a letter to James Livingston, a cousin of the wife of Brigadier General Richard Montgomery Janet and a Canadian who was prepared to raise local militia forces in support of the Americans. The next day, the forces marched on the Fort but would fall back upon seeing its defenses and after engaging in a brief skirmish that saw both sides get casualties. This skirmish, which saw mostly natives fighting alongside the British, was not supported by the fort, causing the natives to withdraw from the invasion. Any potential further aid from the natives was halted when the timely arrival of the Onyota'a:ka intercepted a Kanien'kehá:ka war party moving to St. Johns from Caughnawaga, with the Onyota'a:ka convincing the party to return to their village where Guy Johnson and fellow British Indian Agent and loyalist Daniel Claus and Kanien'kehá:ka military and political leader Thayendanegea [6] had arrived to attempt to get the Kanien'kehá:ka’s assistance. The Onyota'a:ka would refuse to meet with the British agents, however, and explained to Thayendanegea and the Kanien'kehá:ka the terms of the agreement they had made in Albany with Schuyler, causing Thayendanegea and the British to leave with no promises of support and uneven more formal snub happened when the belt that Johnson had given to the Haudenosaunee was given to the Americans in December.
On September 10th, Montgomery, a war hero with a promising career ahead of him in the eyes of many Americans and a well respected man by the British, with even the Prime Minister Frederick North believing him to be one of the greatest man of the era [7], led 1000 men out again, returning to the first landing by boat in relatively short and well conducted order with little to no panic or struggle and were able to make a gentle approach on the fort. [8] On the 16th, Montgomery took full command of the army from Schuyler, who was too ill to be an effective leader, causing him to head towards Ticonderoga, though the terrain caused many Americans to fall ill as well, though good news would arrive when the Green Mountain Boys led by Seth Warner and a New Hampshire company led by Timothy Bedel arrived to reinforce the American lines.
On September 17th, Montgomery disembarked his makeshift fleet just south of the Fort and sent John Brown of Pittsfield out with a detachment to block the road that went north towards Montreal and had a small flotillas of armed gunboats to defend against the HMS Royal Savage in case it moved against the landing army. During the night, Brown would capture British goods and, with the help of Bedel, repulse a sortie that attempted to regain the supplies and Brown would capture both Moses Hazen and British Indian Agent Claude de Lorimier, a former French officer. After some brief questioning, they would be handed over to Montgomery, where the general made the offer that if Lorimier betrayed the British and declared loyalty to the American cause, Montgomery would appoint him as military governor of Quebec. [9] Lorimier accepted the offer while British soldiers who had been in the skirmish would alert Carleton of the situation. As Montgomery entrenched himself and prepared for a proper siege against Fort St. Johns, he would order Brown to take point at La Prairie and Ethan Allen to take point at Longueuil, the two main crossing points, and send reports back to him on any movements. Livingston would take point near Fort Chamby and repress attempts by the Loyalists in the region to stop support for the Americans with Carleton unwilling to assist them. Despite Initially considering an assault on Montreal, Allen would ultimately decide against it upon receiving reports of how well situated and large the garrison of the city was. [10] Thus, for all intents and purposes, a stalemate erupted in the region as the American siege position was difficult due to the swampy ground and trenches filled with knee deep water, with general Montgomery describing his force as “half-drowned rats crawling through a swamp.” and even worse, food and ammunition was drying up and the British showed no signs of surrendering despite the bombardment and disease had worked its way into the American camp with more than nine hundred man being sent back to Ticonderoga by Mid-October and in the siege’s early days, the defenders of the fort had cleared the land around the fort to make life as difficult as possible with Sir Charles Preston, 5th Baronet, a major in the British Army, writing in his journal on the 23rd “a deserter [tells us where] the enemy are erecting their battery and we distress them as much as we can with shells.” while the defenders also enjoyed firepower superiority. However, Montgomery would attempt to keep morale up as much as possible, being in the trenches with the men, interacting with them, learning their names, and helping build their resolves by promising that a victory here would make them heroes while using captured supplies to properly drill and train his men to be prepared for a proper battle and conflict. [11]
On October 6th, ”Old Sow”, a large cannon from Ticonderoga, arrived and was placed on October 7th to start lobbing shells at the fort. Soon, a second battery was placed on the Richelieu’s eastern shore after Montgomery was convinced to put it there and not at the fort’s northwest, allowing the Patriots to hold command over the shipyard and challenge the Royal Savage should it try to oppose the rebel army. The battery was completed on the 13th and by the 14th, the Royal Savage had been sunk. On the 18th, Fort Chambly had surrendered to Livingston, granting the patriots six tons of powder, 6500 musket cartridges, 125 muskets, 80 barrels of flour, and 272 barrels of foodstuffs had been captured and following the surrender, a third and final battery was constructed at the northwest of St. Johns with Montgomery’s staff, sensing no threat from Chambly and the shipyard anymore, agreeing with him. Thus, by mid-October, St. Johns was surrounded by all sides and was now facing heavy bombardment.
Back in Montreal, unaware of the presence of Allen at Longueuil, General Carleton was finally prodded into moving after being under near constant criticism for months of inaction. He would send word to Colonel Allen MacLean in Quebec to bring his Royal Highland Emigrants and smoke militia forces to Sorel while Carleton would move towards Longueli. Thomas Walker, a pro-American merchant who was in Montreal, would discover these plans and report them to Montgomery, who would order Brown to march on Sorel and engage and halt MacLean and Allen to halt Carleton at Longueuil with the hopes being that the news of the defeat of both relief forces would finally convince the fort's defenders to surrender and Quebec would be wide open for conquest.
On October 9th, Brown had arrived at Sorel with Carleton and MacLean none the wiser and on October 15th, an engagement began that saw MacLean’s capture along with the vast majority of his force. [12] Fifteen days later, Carleton would attempt a landing at Longueuil, ignoring reports of MacLean’s capture as Rebel propaganda, only to encounter Allen and after a five hour engagement, would be forced to surrender himself, becoming yet another Prisoner of War alongside MacLean. [13] Following the two key victories at Sorel and Longueuil, Montgomery would order Brown and Allen’s men to return to him to finish the siege on St. Johns while relying on Walker to continue to bring him reports about potential British movements. Around the same time as Longueuil, the American force surged a final time as five hundred New York and Connecticut men, under the command of David Wooster, arrived. With the situation in the force growing bleaker by the moment, montgomery would send a prisoner with a truce flag to the fort on November 1st with news of the capture of Carleton and MacLean and after some brief back and forth, during which time Wooster would grow ill and be forced back to Ticonderoga [14], Preston would finally surrender on the 3rd with 536 officers and soldiers, 79 Canadiens, and eight English volunteers while the Americans raised the Royal Savage. On November 13th, Montgomery would occupy the city of Montreal and on New Year’s Eve, with little threat, Quebec City would fall with Montgomery appointing Lorimier as Military Governor of Quebec and offering any and all Canadiens to come forward to develop their own terms to enter the thirteen colonies, promising to argue on their behalf for it. [15]
Claude-Nicolas-Guillaume de Lorimier, A former British Agent and French Officer who joined the American cause after Montgomery offered to appoint him as Military Governor of Quebec, a role he would serve in until the war's end.
News of the capture of both the Fort and Montreal and Quebec City would soon arrive in Philadelphia, with the Continental Congress promoting General Montgomery from the rank of Brigadier General to Major General on December 9th, which he would find out on January 5th, 1776. President of the Continental Congress, John Hancock of Massachusetts, would say upon hearing the news of the capture of Quebec “Quite the gift for the New Year and quite the loss for our brethren across the sea.”, Washington would reportedly say, “General Montgomery won a campaign with minimal men, supplies, and knowledge of the terrain. I believe, if we keep the pressure up, the war shall end by Christmas next year with a suitable compromise for both us and the Crown.”, and Arnold stated “Montgomery ran into Quebec brave and heroic, he arrived and saw an army in a mess but by the end of the campaign, morale was high, approval was extreme, and every man felt like they were indeed on the path to something greater.” Celebrations rang out across the colonies and several officers and members of Congress pushed to have Montgomery replace Washington as commander of the Continental Army, as enlistments surged thanks to the victory in Quebec along with support for the rebels while support for the Crown and the Loyalist cause decreased. However, Montgomery would refuse and would instead begin planning a 1776 campaign targeting Halifax, stating “Nova Scotia has two fortresses, two points that the British can use to assault our position at any time. By taking them both, we force them to use their sole fortress in Newfoundland, which will be far more difficult to use than anything in Nova Scotia.” While there was some reluctance, Hancock would ultimately authorize such an offensive with Montgomery, Arnold, and John Stark recruiting up to 15,000 men and using the early Winter and Spring months of 1776 to train them and prepare them to move on Halifax, Louisburg, and St. John’s Island [16] in that year’s summer, autumn, and late winter months.
The situation for the British,however, had been an embarrassment. WIthin the first year of the war, they had been repulsed from Boston and then lost the crucial colony of Quebec, ending any and all hopes for a military operation to divide the colonies by cutting off New England,though there was the belief maintained that with enough significant defeats and the loss of New York City and Philadelphia would force the rebels to see reason and surrender. Prime Minister North would say of the loss of Quebec, “It’s a damnable failure on our part, but I believe that once the colonies are forced to surrender, it will rejoin us.” Which became the common British sentiment among any captured territories, being that if the colonies captured a region, it would be smart to not waste troops trying to retake it and instead focus on crushing the colonies' will to fight and regaining the lost possessions with the colonies remaining loyal to the crown. [17] After all, an offensive was being planned by William Howe that would take place in summer of 1776 targeting New York City in the hopes of taking it. While many felt 1775 was a major year of success for the rebels, 1776 and 1777 would determine the final full outcome and direction of where the rebellion would head towards.
In France, great interest was taken into the American Revolution and when news arrived of the American capture of Quebec, King Louis XVI de Bourbon assigned Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes to negotiate an alliance with the Americans, which was finally confirmed on March 31st, 1776 with the Treaty of Alliance and a month later, France would enter the war supporting the American colonies and would try to pressure both the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Spain to join in the war. [17] Meanwhile, for Quebec, an offer was sent to the Continental Congress on April 5th that was accepted and saw Quebec enter the Union as the 14th colony declaring independence from Great Britain, with some major concessions to them being 1) the recognition of church being linked to the governance of Quebec, 2) the protection of the language of the Canadien people, and 3) the declaration that all land north of the Great Lakes belongs to Quebec in the event that independence is achieved, which the Congress accepted. Now, 1776 was in full swing and it would be a year of the three most important campaigns of the early Revolution : The Nova Scotia Campaign, the New York and New Jersey Campaign, and the Bermuda Campaign, all three of which would given an opening sign of how the Revolution was looking.
[1] - Iroqouis
[2] - Mohawk
[3] - Huron
[4] - Oneida
[5] - Tuscarora
[6] - Joseph Brant
[7] - On Montgomery's death, North reportedly said "I cannot join in lamenting the death of Montgomery as a public loss. Curse on his virtues! They've undone his country. He was brave, he was able, he was humane, he was generous, but still, he was only a brave, able, humane, and generous rebel."
[8] - OTL, there was a brief panic here that doesn't happen ITTL, a minor PoD if anything.
[9]- Another minor PoD, but he would probably be better than Wooster who pissed the Canadiens off.
[10] - OTL, he led a disastrous attack on the city that led to Walker's capture in its aftermath. Since it doesn't happen here, Walker doesn't get captured and continues to report British movements.
[11] - While I don't know if this happened, it seems Montgomery was the type to do this type of thing, seeing as he was pretty well liked by the men.
[12] - Taking out MacLean means one half of the two figures that organized OTL Quebec's defense is gone.
[13] - And with Carleton and MacLean captured, the defense will not be properly organized to fight off the Americans when they come for Quebec City.
[14] - Prevents him from being Governor of Montreal and thus being a problem.
[15] - From what I have seen, Montgomery was generally willing to work with the Canadiens to get them into the colonies and with favorable terms, I think they would be tempted to do it, though it won't be all sunshine and rainbows for the first few decades even post independence at least.
[16] - Prince Edward's Island
[17] - It is widely agreed that an early victory like the capture of Quebec would get France into the war earlier than OTL, which has several effects on the war, but definitely not in the way you think. Remember, it wasn't until post-1777 that the colonies had decided to go for Independence, anytime before that is dangerous.
So, here it is, my first American Revolution TL. I got some help and clarifications from @TheRockofChickamauga for this and I would like to ask everyone, which campaign do you wanna see next - Bermuda, New York and New Jersey, or Nova Scotia?
On June 27th, following confirmation that Quebec’s governor Guy Carleton was fortifying Fort St. John’s and trying to gain the allegiance of the native Haudenosaunee [1] in upstate New York to support the British, Congress would authorize General Philip Schuyler to investigate and, if it was deemed possible, invade Quebec. Arnold, who had been passed over for command, traveled to Boston to convince the commander of the Continental Army, George Washington, to give him command of a force to assault Quebec City. On the side of the British, defensive preparations were being made following the raid on Fort St. Johns that coincided with the capture of Fort Ticonderoga as in the raid’s aftermath, Carleton became aware the danger his southern flank was in and requested from Boston reinforcements from Thomas Gage while raising local militias to support the defenses of Montreal and Quebec City and then sent seven hundred troops to Fort St. Johns along the Richelieu River that was just south of Montreal, constructed various vessels for use in Lake Champlain, and recruited around one hundred Kanien'kehá:ka [2] native allies to assist the defense of the fort while Carleton himself oversaw Montreal’s defense with around one hundred and fifty British regulars due to the fact that he relied on Fort St. Johns to be the main point of defense for Montreal. For the defense of Quebec City, he left his Lieutenant Governor Hector Theophilus de Cramahé.
There was also the struggle to have Native intervention in the planned invasion. For the British, a loyalist and British Indian agent who resided within New York’s Mohawk Valley, Guy Johnson, was on friendly terms with the native tribes of the region and had become concerned for his and his family’s safety after it became clear that New York would join the patriot cause. Convinced that he would no longer be able to conduct business for the Crown, Johnson would leave his estate with two hundred Loyalist and Kanien'kehá:ka supporters before going to Fort Ontario where, on June 17th, he was able to get promises by local Haudenosaunee and Wyandot [3] tribal leaders to assist in keeping both supply and communication lines open and aid in being a nuisance for the patriots. Following that, he would move on to Montreal where he met with General Carleton and over 1500 indigenous people and made a similar agreement to the one he made in Ontario and delivered warbelts to be readied for service. However, these agreements for the most part were with the Kanien'kehá:ka as the other tribes that were among the Haudenosaunee avoided these conferences and instead opted to stay neutral, with many Kanien'kehá:ka remaining in the Montreal area until the middle of August by which point it was uncertain if the Americans would actually invade and so they went home.
On the part of the patriots, the second Continental Congress sought to keep the Haudenosaunee out of the war with missionary Samuel Kirkland, who was influential with the Onyota'a:ka [4] people, arriving with a statement from Congress for them in July stating “we desire you to remain at home, and not join either side, but to keep the hatchet buried deep.” While the tribes of the Onyota'a:ka and the Skarù:rę [5] largely remained neutral, many Onyota'a:ka expressed sympathy with the American cause. News of Johnson’s Montreal meeting would prompt General Schuyler, who himself had influence with the Onyota'a:ka,to call for a mid-August conference in Albany. With nearly four hundred natives in attendance, primarily Onyota'a:ka and Skarù:rę alongside a few Kanien'kehá:ka, Schuyler and other indian commissioners explained what had caused the conflict from the Patriot perspective, emphasizing that the colonies were fighting to preserve their rights and were not looking to conquer the native tribes. Due to the conference, the assembled chiefs would agree to remain neutral, with one Kanien'kehá:ka chief stating that the war was a family affair which they would sit and let the Americans and British settle. However, concessions were extracted, such as promises to address the ongoing grievance of white settlers encroaching on their lands.
On September 4th, Schuyler’s invasion of Quebec began after the general received word that the British ships at the fort were nearing completion with him and a force of about 1500 men arrived at the undefended Île-aux-Noix in the Richelieu River. The general, who was catching ill, would be able to send a letter to James Livingston, a cousin of the wife of Brigadier General Richard Montgomery Janet and a Canadian who was prepared to raise local militia forces in support of the Americans. The next day, the forces marched on the Fort but would fall back upon seeing its defenses and after engaging in a brief skirmish that saw both sides get casualties. This skirmish, which saw mostly natives fighting alongside the British, was not supported by the fort, causing the natives to withdraw from the invasion. Any potential further aid from the natives was halted when the timely arrival of the Onyota'a:ka intercepted a Kanien'kehá:ka war party moving to St. Johns from Caughnawaga, with the Onyota'a:ka convincing the party to return to their village where Guy Johnson and fellow British Indian Agent and loyalist Daniel Claus and Kanien'kehá:ka military and political leader Thayendanegea [6] had arrived to attempt to get the Kanien'kehá:ka’s assistance. The Onyota'a:ka would refuse to meet with the British agents, however, and explained to Thayendanegea and the Kanien'kehá:ka the terms of the agreement they had made in Albany with Schuyler, causing Thayendanegea and the British to leave with no promises of support and uneven more formal snub happened when the belt that Johnson had given to the Haudenosaunee was given to the Americans in December.
On September 10th, Montgomery, a war hero with a promising career ahead of him in the eyes of many Americans and a well respected man by the British, with even the Prime Minister Frederick North believing him to be one of the greatest man of the era [7], led 1000 men out again, returning to the first landing by boat in relatively short and well conducted order with little to no panic or struggle and were able to make a gentle approach on the fort. [8] On the 16th, Montgomery took full command of the army from Schuyler, who was too ill to be an effective leader, causing him to head towards Ticonderoga, though the terrain caused many Americans to fall ill as well, though good news would arrive when the Green Mountain Boys led by Seth Warner and a New Hampshire company led by Timothy Bedel arrived to reinforce the American lines.
On September 17th, Montgomery disembarked his makeshift fleet just south of the Fort and sent John Brown of Pittsfield out with a detachment to block the road that went north towards Montreal and had a small flotillas of armed gunboats to defend against the HMS Royal Savage in case it moved against the landing army. During the night, Brown would capture British goods and, with the help of Bedel, repulse a sortie that attempted to regain the supplies and Brown would capture both Moses Hazen and British Indian Agent Claude de Lorimier, a former French officer. After some brief questioning, they would be handed over to Montgomery, where the general made the offer that if Lorimier betrayed the British and declared loyalty to the American cause, Montgomery would appoint him as military governor of Quebec. [9] Lorimier accepted the offer while British soldiers who had been in the skirmish would alert Carleton of the situation. As Montgomery entrenched himself and prepared for a proper siege against Fort St. Johns, he would order Brown to take point at La Prairie and Ethan Allen to take point at Longueuil, the two main crossing points, and send reports back to him on any movements. Livingston would take point near Fort Chamby and repress attempts by the Loyalists in the region to stop support for the Americans with Carleton unwilling to assist them. Despite Initially considering an assault on Montreal, Allen would ultimately decide against it upon receiving reports of how well situated and large the garrison of the city was. [10] Thus, for all intents and purposes, a stalemate erupted in the region as the American siege position was difficult due to the swampy ground and trenches filled with knee deep water, with general Montgomery describing his force as “half-drowned rats crawling through a swamp.” and even worse, food and ammunition was drying up and the British showed no signs of surrendering despite the bombardment and disease had worked its way into the American camp with more than nine hundred man being sent back to Ticonderoga by Mid-October and in the siege’s early days, the defenders of the fort had cleared the land around the fort to make life as difficult as possible with Sir Charles Preston, 5th Baronet, a major in the British Army, writing in his journal on the 23rd “a deserter [tells us where] the enemy are erecting their battery and we distress them as much as we can with shells.” while the defenders also enjoyed firepower superiority. However, Montgomery would attempt to keep morale up as much as possible, being in the trenches with the men, interacting with them, learning their names, and helping build their resolves by promising that a victory here would make them heroes while using captured supplies to properly drill and train his men to be prepared for a proper battle and conflict. [11]
On October 6th, ”Old Sow”, a large cannon from Ticonderoga, arrived and was placed on October 7th to start lobbing shells at the fort. Soon, a second battery was placed on the Richelieu’s eastern shore after Montgomery was convinced to put it there and not at the fort’s northwest, allowing the Patriots to hold command over the shipyard and challenge the Royal Savage should it try to oppose the rebel army. The battery was completed on the 13th and by the 14th, the Royal Savage had been sunk. On the 18th, Fort Chambly had surrendered to Livingston, granting the patriots six tons of powder, 6500 musket cartridges, 125 muskets, 80 barrels of flour, and 272 barrels of foodstuffs had been captured and following the surrender, a third and final battery was constructed at the northwest of St. Johns with Montgomery’s staff, sensing no threat from Chambly and the shipyard anymore, agreeing with him. Thus, by mid-October, St. Johns was surrounded by all sides and was now facing heavy bombardment.
Back in Montreal, unaware of the presence of Allen at Longueuil, General Carleton was finally prodded into moving after being under near constant criticism for months of inaction. He would send word to Colonel Allen MacLean in Quebec to bring his Royal Highland Emigrants and smoke militia forces to Sorel while Carleton would move towards Longueli. Thomas Walker, a pro-American merchant who was in Montreal, would discover these plans and report them to Montgomery, who would order Brown to march on Sorel and engage and halt MacLean and Allen to halt Carleton at Longueuil with the hopes being that the news of the defeat of both relief forces would finally convince the fort's defenders to surrender and Quebec would be wide open for conquest.
On October 9th, Brown had arrived at Sorel with Carleton and MacLean none the wiser and on October 15th, an engagement began that saw MacLean’s capture along with the vast majority of his force. [12] Fifteen days later, Carleton would attempt a landing at Longueuil, ignoring reports of MacLean’s capture as Rebel propaganda, only to encounter Allen and after a five hour engagement, would be forced to surrender himself, becoming yet another Prisoner of War alongside MacLean. [13] Following the two key victories at Sorel and Longueuil, Montgomery would order Brown and Allen’s men to return to him to finish the siege on St. Johns while relying on Walker to continue to bring him reports about potential British movements. Around the same time as Longueuil, the American force surged a final time as five hundred New York and Connecticut men, under the command of David Wooster, arrived. With the situation in the force growing bleaker by the moment, montgomery would send a prisoner with a truce flag to the fort on November 1st with news of the capture of Carleton and MacLean and after some brief back and forth, during which time Wooster would grow ill and be forced back to Ticonderoga [14], Preston would finally surrender on the 3rd with 536 officers and soldiers, 79 Canadiens, and eight English volunteers while the Americans raised the Royal Savage. On November 13th, Montgomery would occupy the city of Montreal and on New Year’s Eve, with little threat, Quebec City would fall with Montgomery appointing Lorimier as Military Governor of Quebec and offering any and all Canadiens to come forward to develop their own terms to enter the thirteen colonies, promising to argue on their behalf for it. [15]
Claude-Nicolas-Guillaume de Lorimier, A former British Agent and French Officer who joined the American cause after Montgomery offered to appoint him as Military Governor of Quebec, a role he would serve in until the war's end.
The situation for the British,however, had been an embarrassment. WIthin the first year of the war, they had been repulsed from Boston and then lost the crucial colony of Quebec, ending any and all hopes for a military operation to divide the colonies by cutting off New England,though there was the belief maintained that with enough significant defeats and the loss of New York City and Philadelphia would force the rebels to see reason and surrender. Prime Minister North would say of the loss of Quebec, “It’s a damnable failure on our part, but I believe that once the colonies are forced to surrender, it will rejoin us.” Which became the common British sentiment among any captured territories, being that if the colonies captured a region, it would be smart to not waste troops trying to retake it and instead focus on crushing the colonies' will to fight and regaining the lost possessions with the colonies remaining loyal to the crown. [17] After all, an offensive was being planned by William Howe that would take place in summer of 1776 targeting New York City in the hopes of taking it. While many felt 1775 was a major year of success for the rebels, 1776 and 1777 would determine the final full outcome and direction of where the rebellion would head towards.
In France, great interest was taken into the American Revolution and when news arrived of the American capture of Quebec, King Louis XVI de Bourbon assigned Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes to negotiate an alliance with the Americans, which was finally confirmed on March 31st, 1776 with the Treaty of Alliance and a month later, France would enter the war supporting the American colonies and would try to pressure both the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Spain to join in the war. [17] Meanwhile, for Quebec, an offer was sent to the Continental Congress on April 5th that was accepted and saw Quebec enter the Union as the 14th colony declaring independence from Great Britain, with some major concessions to them being 1) the recognition of church being linked to the governance of Quebec, 2) the protection of the language of the Canadien people, and 3) the declaration that all land north of the Great Lakes belongs to Quebec in the event that independence is achieved, which the Congress accepted. Now, 1776 was in full swing and it would be a year of the three most important campaigns of the early Revolution : The Nova Scotia Campaign, the New York and New Jersey Campaign, and the Bermuda Campaign, all three of which would given an opening sign of how the Revolution was looking.
[1] - Iroqouis
[2] - Mohawk
[3] - Huron
[4] - Oneida
[5] - Tuscarora
[6] - Joseph Brant
[7] - On Montgomery's death, North reportedly said "I cannot join in lamenting the death of Montgomery as a public loss. Curse on his virtues! They've undone his country. He was brave, he was able, he was humane, he was generous, but still, he was only a brave, able, humane, and generous rebel."
[8] - OTL, there was a brief panic here that doesn't happen ITTL, a minor PoD if anything.
[9]- Another minor PoD, but he would probably be better than Wooster who pissed the Canadiens off.
[10] - OTL, he led a disastrous attack on the city that led to Walker's capture in its aftermath. Since it doesn't happen here, Walker doesn't get captured and continues to report British movements.
[11] - While I don't know if this happened, it seems Montgomery was the type to do this type of thing, seeing as he was pretty well liked by the men.
[12] - Taking out MacLean means one half of the two figures that organized OTL Quebec's defense is gone.
[13] - And with Carleton and MacLean captured, the defense will not be properly organized to fight off the Americans when they come for Quebec City.
[14] - Prevents him from being Governor of Montreal and thus being a problem.
[15] - From what I have seen, Montgomery was generally willing to work with the Canadiens to get them into the colonies and with favorable terms, I think they would be tempted to do it, though it won't be all sunshine and rainbows for the first few decades even post independence at least.
[16] - Prince Edward's Island
[17] - It is widely agreed that an early victory like the capture of Quebec would get France into the war earlier than OTL, which has several effects on the war, but definitely not in the way you think. Remember, it wasn't until post-1777 that the colonies had decided to go for Independence, anytime before that is dangerous.
So, here it is, my first American Revolution TL. I got some help and clarifications from @TheRockofChickamauga for this and I would like to ask everyone, which campaign do you wanna see next - Bermuda, New York and New Jersey, or Nova Scotia?
