America's first offensive of the Revolution sent two armies through the wilderness in winter to capture Canada — and ended in catastrophe on New Year's Eve.
In the summer of 1775, the Continental Congress authorized an audacious gamble: invade the Province of Quebec and convince French Canadians to join the Revolution as a 14th colony. Two separate armies were sent on converging paths through the wilderness.
General Richard Montgomery led 1,200 troops north along Lake Champlain, capturing Fort St. Johns after a weeks-long siege and taking Montreal almost without a fight. Meanwhile, Benedict Arnold took a different route — a grueling 400-mile march through the Maine wilderness.
Arnold's expedition became a survival nightmare. Men ate their dogs, their shoe leather, and boiled cartridge pouches for nourishment. Of the 1,100 soldiers who started, only 600 starving survivors reached Quebec. It remains one of the most harrowing military marches in American history.
On the last night of 1775, during a blinding snowstorm, Montgomery and Arnold launched a joint assault on the fortified city of Quebec. The attack failed catastrophically. Montgomery was killed in the first minutes. Arnold was shot through the leg. Hundreds of Americans were captured.
The surviving Americans kept up a desperate siege through the brutal Canadian winter, but smallpox ravaged the camp. When British reinforcements arrived in May 1776, the retreat became a rout. The campaign to add Canada to the Revolution was over.
The invasion's failure had a lasting consequence: Quebec remained British, creating a loyal counterweight to the revolutionary colonies. Canada would never join the American Revolution — a fact that shaped the map of North America permanently.