Aitken, Robert, Engraver. Plan of the town & fortifications of Montreal or ville Marie in Canada – view of the town &c of Montreal / Aitkin sc. Montréal United States Québec, 1775. Photograph. Library of Congress.

Aitken, Robert, Engraver. Plan of the town & fortifications of Montreal or ville Marie in Canada – view of the town &c of Montreal / Aitkin sc. Montréal United States Québec, 1775. Photograph. Library of Congress.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Gen. Richard Montgomery” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Gen. Richard Montgomery” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Col. Benedict Arnold, as painted by Thomas Hart, 1776, The Anne S. K. Brown Collection at Brown University.

Col. Benedict Arnold, as painted by Thomas Hart, 1776, The Anne S. K. Brown Collection at Brown University.

On 1 December 1775, Montgomery’s army which had departed from Fort Ticondoroga in August linked up with Arnold’s troops at Pointe-Aux-Trembles in Montreal. Montgomery wrote a letter to General Schuyler a few days later which offered his initial impressions of Arnold and his soldiers.

"I find Colonel Arnold's corps an exceeding fine one, inured to fatigue, and well accustomed to cannon shot (at Cambridge). There is a style of discipline among them much superior to what I have been used to see this campaign. He himself is active, intelligent and enterprising. Fortune often baffles the sanguine expectations of poor mortals. I am not intoxicated with the favours I have received at her hands, but I do think there is a fair prospect of success."

General Montgomery to General Schuyler, 5 December 1775
Sources
  • Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, The Spirit of ‘Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution As Told By Participants (Boston: Da Cap Press, 1968), p. 202.