The Battle of Quebec (1775)

Ticonderoga opened the water road north, and Congress sent two armies up it to make Canada the fourteenth colony. One took Montreal without a fight; the other staggered out of the Maine woods eating its shoes. By December they stood together before walls they could not break, with the army's enlistments expiring at midnight on New Year's Eve.

Two feints at the walls, two real columns converging on the Lower Town in a blizzard. Montgomery died in the defenders' first blast of grapeshot; Arnold fell wounded at the first barricade; Morgan fought deepest into the city and surrendered his sword to a priest.

Carleton buried his dead enemy with honors while Congress voted Montgomery the first national monument. The blockade that lingered till spring was broken by smallpox and silver, not bayonets, and when the king's ships came up the river in May, the Canadian adventure was over.