General Richard Montgomery and the American Revolution. Hal T. Shelton
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and eight wounded. The expedition resumed its advancement northward. However, the French destroyed and abandoned Crown Point before the British could reach it. Montgomery and other members of the expedition spent the next two months reconstructing the works at Crown Point, establishing control of Lake Champlain, and building a road to the Connecticut River. The next objective was Isle aux Noix, some 120 miles down the lake where the French had retired, but the late season interrupted this operation. When cold weather arrived in October, the troops at Crown Point went into winter quarters. Gen. Robert Monckton assumed command of the 17th Regiment in October 1759, officially replacing the deceased Forbes.24
In the meantime, the other two expeditions were progressing as planned. Fort Niagara surrendered to the British on July 24, 1759. Troops under Wolfe were closing on the French stronghold at Quebec. Montgomery’s oldest brother, Capt. Alexander Montgomery, served in the 43d Regiment, which was included in Wolfe’s expedition. Unfortunately, some researchers have confused Richard Montgomery with Alexander Montgomery in an incident during the Quebec campaign. Lt. Malcolm Fraser of the 78th Regiment asserted that on August 23, 1759, his detachment was brought under the command of Captain Montgomery for an attack on a village in the vicinity of St. Joachim. In his journal, Fraser stated: “There were several of the enemy killed and wounded, and a few prisoners taken, all of whom the barbarous Captain Montgomery, who commanded us, ordered to be butchered in a most inhuman and cruel manner . . . one shot and the other knocked down with a tomahawk and both scalped in my absence.”25
Fraser’s outrage over the event is curious in one respect: scalping was not an uncommon practice during the war. One of the earlier instances of its usage was when Col. George Washington sent the scalp of a French officer taken by Indians to Virginia’s Governor Dinwiddie in March or April 1756. Because the French had greater Indian allies, they probably were more involved in this practice than the British. However, both sides condoned this savage behavior and encouraged their Indian confederates in the brutality by offering them scalp bounties. The guerrilla or irregular nature of the war contributed to the general acceptance of this atrocious form of combat. Wolfe addressed the issue by signing an order on July 27, 1759, stating that “the general strictly forbids the inhuman practice of scalping, except when the enemy are Indians or Canadians dressed like Indians.” Warranted or not, Montgomery’s brother gained the name of “Black” Montgomery because of the wartime affair.26
Wolfe’s force continued to descend upon Quebec and on September 18, 1759, overcame the French defenders there. Both Wolfe and Montcalm, who was in command at the fortress-like city, lost their lives during the contest.
Montgomery continued to rise steadily through the officer ranks. On May 15, 1760, the commanding officer appointed him regimental adjutant, an assignment reserved for the most promising lieutenant in the unit.
Success of the British offensive triad cleared the way for the final stage in the conquest of Canada. The major French opposition that persisted was concentrated in Montreal, which subsequently became the target for a climactic strike by the three British expeditions poised at Quebec, Lake Ontario, and Lake Champlain. The 17th Regiment formed part of the Lake Champlain division. It set out from Crown Point on August 11, 1760, and captured the intermediate objectives of Isle aux Noix and Fort Chambly before arriving at Montreal. There it merged with the other two divisions in a fine example of strategic concentration to threaten the last French bastion of resistance. As the British troops enveloped the vicinity, refugees crowded into the city, Canadian militiamen deserted, and the twenty-four hundred French regulars found themselves greatly outnumbered. The French commander, realizing that he was unable to withstand the opposing forces, unconditionally surrendered Montreal on September 8, 1760. With this capitulation, all of Canada passed to the British.27
From Montreal, Montgomery and his regiment marched to New York during the summer of 1761, and encamped on Staten Island. After conquering Canada, the British government formulated a plan to subdue the French in the West Indies. Plans called for an expedition to be assembled in Barbados and placed under the command of Monckton, who had received a promotion to major general on February 20, 1761. Having been designated as part of the operation, the 17th Regiment, mustering 488 men, sailed from New York on November 19, 1761. After arriving at Barbados on December 24, the regiment joined other units from North America and different garrisons in the West Indies. The combined army numbered thirteen thousand troops accompanied by a large naval flotilla, including transports, frigates, and sixteen ships of the line. This invasion force departed Barbados on January 5, 1762, proceeding toward the initial objective of the campaign—Martinique, an island colonized by the French in 1635.28
Even though the British strove to maintain secrecy with their planning and mobilization, the French in Martinique received warning of an intended attack on that island, and took measures to strongly oppose any attempted assault. The French command readied a defense in depth, augmenting natural barriers of steep and rugged terrain with fortified outposts and redoubts that extended over the entire island. In the middle of January 1762, the British forces, including Lieutenant Montgomery and the 17th Regiment, landed on Martinique and established a beachhead. At daybreak on January 24, they opened the main offensive against stout resistance. The enemy’s outlying works were eventually stormed one by one, and survivors fled to the citadel at Fort Royal, the island’s capital. Losses of British troops in these actions amounted to 33 officers and 350 men killed or wounded. Included in these figures, the 17th Regiment had one captain wounded; three rank and file killed and sixteen wounded.
By the first of February, the British had closed around and were ready to launch an onslaught on Fort Royal itself. Reduction of several batteries on the heights overlooking the fortress cost the British another 150 casualties, but only one man from the 17th Regiment. On February 3, the French commander, observing the extensive preparations by His Majesty’s troops to force the city, now judged it prudent to surrender the fort. It consisted of about 800 regulars and militia, as 150 men were killed or wounded during the siege.
Nine days more sufficed to consolidate the British hold on the rest of the island. On February 12, after suffering over a thousand casualties, the French governor-general agreed to surrender Martinique to the British. General Monckton summed up the conduct of his troops during the campaign in one of his dispatches: “The difficulties they had to encounter, in the attack of an enemy, possessed of every advantage of art and nature, were great, and their perseverance in surmounting these obstacles furnishes a noble example of British spirit.” After the capture of Martinique, threatened garrisons on the other main islands of the French West Indies—Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent—submitted to the British without hostilities.29
Fearing that a British victory in the global conflict would jeopardize its New World possessions, Spain belatedly entered the contest in 1761, allied with France. Now that Britain had overcome France in North America and the West Indies, the British ministry decided to avail itself of the large amassment of troops then in the Caribbean area by attacking the Spaniards, as they had the French, in some of their principal settlements. Havana, Cuba, was an important Spanish seaport at this time. Since all Spanish commerce in Mexico and South America funneled through there, to take Havana would sever the lifeline between Spain and its great colonial empire. Therefore, the British resolved to start their Spanish West Indies campaign with Havana. General Monckton returned to New York, to which the British government had appointed him governor before the Martinique campaign. Gen. George Keppel, Earl of Albemarle, assumed command of the new expedition. Once again, the 17th Regiment would see combat—this time as a component of Keppel’s eleven-thousand-troop expedition.
On May 6, 1762, the military command rewarded Montgomery’s exceptional service by promoting him to captain and giving him one of the ten companies in the 17th Regiment to lead. As company commander, the new captain would be accountable for the activities and welfare of some seventy-five men assigned to his unit. During the upcoming battles, the lives of these men would depend on the correctness and timeliness of his decisions. Although Montgomery realized the heavy responsibility, he was self-assured in his abilities and welcomed the opportunity to live up to the confidence his superiors had placed in him.
The expedition, accompanied by 24 ships of the line, 22 frigates, and 150 transports, set sail from Martinique on May 6, 1762. Shortly after