In the autumn of 1775, the Continental Army found itself in a frustrating stalemate outside Boston. General George Washington's forces had successfully contained the British within the city following the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, but lacked the heavy artillery necessary to drive them out. The solution to this predicament would come from an unlikely source: a 25-year-old Boston bookseller turned artillery officer named Henry Knox, whose ambitious proposal would launch one of the most remarkable logistical achievements of the Revolutionary War.
On November 13, 1775, Brigadier General Richard Montgomery led Continental Army forces into Montreal, occupying Canada's largest city without firing a shot. This bloodless victory represented the high-water mark of American ambitions to make Canada the fourteenth colony in the rebellion against British rule.
On November 10, 1775, amid the escalating tensions of the American Revolution, the Second Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia to address a critical military need. That day, they passed a resolution that would forge one of America's most enduring military institutions.
On November 3, 1775, after enduring a grueling six-week siege, Major Charles Preston raised the white flag over Fort St. Jean in Quebec. The surrender of this strategic British stronghold to American General Richard Montgomery marked a pivotal moment in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War and opened the gateway to Montreal. The capitulation represented not merely the fall of a fortification, but the crumbling of Britain's defensive line protecting the heart of its Canadian colony.
On October 30, 1775, Governor Guy Carleton's relief expedition to break the American siege of Fort St. Johns met with disaster near Longueuil, a critical crossing point on the Saint Lawrence River opposite Montreal.
In the early morning hours of October 26, 1775, the coastal town of Hampton, Virginia, became an unlikely battleground in America's struggle for independence. The Battle of Hampton, though modest in scale compared to the epic confrontations that would follow, holds a significant place in Revolutionary War history as the first engagement fought south of New England. This two-day conflict would test the resolve of Virginia's colonial militia and demonstrate the growing tensions between Crown and colonists in the Southern colonies.
On October 18, 1775, the coastal town of Falmouth, Massachusetts (present-day Portland, Maine) became the site of one of the most devastating British attacks during the early stages of the American Revolution. The bombardment and subsequent burning of this prosperous seaport marked a turning point in colonial sentiment, transforming reluctant revolutionaries into committed patriots and demonstrating the British government's willingness to wage total war against its own subjects.
On October 20, 1775, Fort Chambly, a strategic French-built fortification on the Richelieu River in Quebec, fell into American hands after a brief siege. This victory represented a crucial milestone in the Continental Army's audacious campaign to bring the northern colonies into the revolutionary fold and secure the invasion route into British-held Canada.
In July 1775, one of the Continental Army's most trusted leaders committed an act of treachery that would shock George Washington and the fledgling American cause. Dr. Benjamin Church, the first Surgeon General of the United States, sent an encoded letter to British forces that exposed him as a spy. The discovery of his betrayal would establish America's first major treason case and reveal how even the inner circle of Revolutionary leadership had been compromised from the beginning.
The morning mist hung heavy over the Richelieu River as American forces moved into position around Fort St. Jean on September 17, 1775. This date marked the formal beginning of what would become a grueling 45-day siege, a pivotal engagement in the ambitious American campaign to bring Canada into the revolutionary cause against British rule. The siege of Fort St. Jean would test the resolve of untested American forces and ultimately determine whether the Continental Army could successfully prosecute its first major offensive operation beyond the thirteen colonies.
On a crisp September morning in 1775, Colonel Benedict Arnold stood before approximately 1,100 Continental soldiers gathered at Newburyport, Massachusetts. The ambitious expedition he was about to lead would become one of the most daring military operations of the Revolutionary War, a grueling march through the Maine wilderness to attack Quebec City. As the men preparedto board ships that would carry them to the Kennebec River, few could imagine the trials that lay ahead.
In the late summer of 1775, as revolutionary fervor swept through the thirteen colonies, American military leaders conceived an audacious plan that would shape the early course of the Revolutionary War. The invasion of Quebec, often called America's first foreign military expedition, began in earnest when Continental forces established their forward operating base at Île aux Noix on September 4, 1775. This strategic move up the Lake Champlain-Richelieu River corridor represented both the promise and peril of the revolutionary cause.
On August 26, 1775, American forces made the critical decision to fortify Ploughed Hill, a strategic elevation northwest of Boston that would prove instrumental in tightening the Continental Army's grip on the besieged city. This bold move, coming just two months after the costly victory at Bunker Hill, demonstrated the evolving tactical sophistication of the American forces and their determination to maintain pressure on General Thomas Gage's British garrison.
In late August 1775, General Richard Montgomery faced one of those moments that define military careers and shape the course of wars. Standing at Fort Ticonderoga, the formidable stone fortress commanding the southern approaches to Lake Champlain, Montgomery received intelligence that would force him to choose between military protocol and strategic necessity. The news was alarming: British forces at Saint-Jean were nearly finished constructing two warships that would give them undisputed control of Lake Champlain. With his commanding officer Philip Schuyler away at an Indian conference in Albany, Montgomery had to decide whether to wait for orders or act on his own initiative.
On August 23, 1775, King George III issued a proclamation from St. James's Palace that would fundamentally alter the trajectory of British-American relations and help seal the fate of the American colonies. The "Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition" formally declared that parts of the American colonies were in "open and avowed rebellion" against the Crown, marking a decisive escalation in what had been mounting tensions between Britain and its North American territories.
In the early months of the American Revolution, before the Declaration of Independence was even conceived, a small but significant naval encounter occurred off the shores of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. The Battle of Gloucester represented one of the first instances of American maritime resistance against British naval supremacy.
In early August 1775, George Washington received one of the most alarming reports of his nascent military career. After assuming command of the Continental Army just weeks earlier, he discovered that his forces besieging Boston possessed a mere 36 barrels of gunpowder—enough for perhaps nine rounds per soldier. This revelation exposed a vulnerability so severe that, according to witnesses, it left the typically stoic commander speechless for half an hour.
In the early morning darkness of July 31, 1775, three hundred American soldiers silently paddled through the black waters of Boston Harbor. Their target: the strategic lighthouse on Little Brewster Island, held by British forces and vital to their control of the harbor. Leading this daring raid was Major Benjamin Tupper, whose successful assault would become one of the most celebrated small unit actions of the Revolutionary War's early months.
The establishment of an independent postal system in the American colonies during the summer of 1775 marked a pivotal moment in the journey toward American independence. This seemingly mundane administrative act represented far more than the mere delivery of letters; it was a bold assertion of colonial autonomy. and a direct challenge to British authority.
The flames that consumed Fort Johnston on July 18, 1775, marked more than the destruction of a military installation. They signaled the definitive end of British royal authority in North Carolina. This bold assault by Patriot militia forces, occurring just three months after the battles of Lexington and Concord, demonstrated that revolutionary fervor had spread far beyond New England. The attack on Fort Johnston stands as a pivotal moment in the American Revolution'ssouthern theater, revealing both the fragility of British colonial control and the determination of American patriots to seize their independence.