WI American Revolutionaries went for Nova Scotia, instead of Quebec?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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This WI is inspired by a lecture of the American Revolution that I heard from an Anglophone-Canadian historian.

In the lecture, he remarked that for the strategic goals the Continental forces advancing to Quebec were trying to achieve, the denial of North American campaigning bases to the British forces, Nova Scotia was a more decisive objective than Quebec.

However, what was its operational feasibility in 1775? Was Nova Scotia considered as a objective but dropped as impractical?

From what I recall being told about the sentiments of the local population (not in the lecture, but elsewhere), the Continentals should have had an easier time coopting Protestant, Anglophone Nova Scotians than they did with the Catholic, French-speaking Quebecois.

Although during and after the war, Nova Scotia (and New Brunswick) were bulwarks of loyalism, I got the impression that this was the consequence of military developments and refugee movements, not the state of pre-war opinion in Nova Scotia. On the one hand, I have heard the Anglo population of rural Halifax was similar to that of the New England states in culture, values and political sympathies. On the other hand, I had heard that there was a general tendency for older colonies to be more pro-independence, while colonies founded later, including Georgia, Nova Scotia and the Middle Colonies, had larger Loyalist constituencies.

Assuming no big grassroots political impediment Continental Army operations towards Nova Scotia, there is the fact that Britain had a naval base at Halifax, and that geographically, the territory is an island connected to the mainland only by a narrow isthmus, much to the advantage of the navally superior Britain.

However, under the circumstances of 1775, does this render a Continental campaign and/or victory there impossible. Regarding Halifax as a naval base, was it a more substantial base for the British than Boston or New York were? Or did it only become so after Boston was lost?

And although the intolerable acts closed the port of Boston, and the British increase maritime controls in New England, did they really have the area under thorough blockade in 1775? Were they reliably stopping coastwise traffic along the Maine and Maritimes coasts? How large a garrison did the British have in Halifax?
 
The base at Halifax had been secondary to Boston and New York but it had been primary to the defence of Quebec and the British, who realise its importance, would not have allowed it to fall.

For American forces the march there would be brutal. Just as bad, if not worse, than the one to Quebec. Here they won't find anymore local assistance than they did in Quebec. The British will be able to defend their gains alot more easily and because they have better access to the Harbor here at Halifax they will defeat the Americans much quicker.

All in all it will be more of a diasaster than Quebec.
 

Flubber

Banned
For American forces the march there would be brutal. Just as bad, if not worse, than the one to Quebec.

As bad as the march to Quebec was, I can't even imagine marching to Halifax.

Most of the Continental forces reached Canada via the old Lake Champlain route used so often during the wars against the French, although Arnold did lead about 1,000 men up the Kennebec and through Maine in an horrific march to reach Quebec.

An attack on Halifax would mean that the Continental forces would have to first move through what is now eastern Maine and New Brunswick. Hauling supplies will be incredibly tough. The OTL expedition used rivers with the occasional portage, something a force marching across Downeast and the Maritimes won't enjoy. Moving men and supplies by sea may require more shipping than the Americans can muster and will run the risk of interception by the RN.

All in all it will be more of a diasaster than Quebec.

Agreed. Quebec is within, if only barely, the reach of Continental forces in 1775. Halifax is just too far away.
 
It is just to far out of reach for the rebels. One can only shudder at the thought of the horror inflicted on poor Benedict in this situation.
 
I imagine they had good reasons for not doing it OTL, probably along the same lines as everyone's pointed out.

One question, as I'm a little rusty on the ARW: If the Americans had taken Quebec, how big would the strategic benefits have been? I remember reading about one American higher-up (can't remember who, might have been Trumbull) saying that if they could take Canada, the war would be over. Anyone know the specifics?
 
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