Patriots defeated at Trois-Rivieres

Jim Bayne / Culpeper Star Exponent
Published: April 25, 2007

If war is inevitable, let it begin here and now. The first shots of the revolution came from the colonists in Massachusetts. 

General Thomas Gage, who was the Royal Governor of Massachusetts and the commander-in-chief of all British forces in the Colonies, considered the Colony to be in revolt from February, 1775. He dispatched a force to seize arms on the 19th of April that were believed to be stored in Concord. At Lexington this force was met by patriot militiamen who withdrew after a brief skirmish and the British continued on to Concord. On their return to Boston they were harassed by the militia and were in dire straits until they were able to join up with a relief column at Lexington. It was now that Gage recognized the problems he faced. His regular British force was outnumbered by an angry civilian population that had organized a large militia force and essentially had him bottled up in Boston.

Gage called for reinforcements from Britain and on May 26, 1775 they arrived. Gage attacked the patriots at Bunker Hill on June 17. Although he captured Bunker Hill, it was a disaster for the British as almost half of their army was either killed or wounded. The British replaced Gage with General Howe.

On the patriot side June 15 saw the appointment of Gen. George Washington as the commander of the newly formed Continental Army which was made up largely from the militia forces who were laying siege to Boston. Washington faced a number of obstacles with his new command. First and foremost was the reluctance of the militiamen to take orders from officers who had not been selected by them as was the custom in the militia. Second, the men were reluctant to serve away from their own colony and to serve with men from other colonies. They were not properly supplied and finally they were, for the most part, serving short periods of enlistment.

It was determined that we should invade Canada in the expectation that the French of Quebec would be eager to assist us in overthrowing the British. That proved to be an erroneous expectation as the French in Canada were apparently satisfied living under British rule. We started our Canadian campaign in May with an advance along Lake Champlain and moved northward until we captured St. Johns on Nov. 2. A second force had moved further north and was defeated at Montreal on Sept. 25. A third force under the command of Benedict Arnold went north through Maine to the St. Lawrence and arrived there on Nov. 9. Arnold was facing the problem of the completion of the enlistment period on Dec. 31 for most of his troops so he ordered an all out assault on Quebec on that date which ended in failure.

Despite this failure and the loss of many men due to the expiration of their enlistments, Arnold continued his siege of Quebec. With the spring thaw coming on and the arrival of British reinforcements in early May, we withdrew and marched about 100 miles up the St. Lawrence to a place called Sorel at the point where the Richelieu River joined the St. Lawrence. Gen. John Sullivan was in overall command of patriot forces in Canada. We received reinforcements and the decision was made to again move back up the St. Lawrence and strike the British. The objective was to sever the main route between Quebec and Montreal.

We had more than 1,800 men in our army and Sullivan was eager to engage the British. The British force was composed of regulars and Hessian mercenaries under the command of Gen. Sir Guy Carleton and numbered nearly 3,000. We were moving toward Montreal and would join up with Arnold there. Carleton was on our heels and Sullivan decided to attack the British at Trois-Rivieres. The date was June 8, 1776. We planned a surprise attack for 3 a.m. and had engaged a local guide to lead us. Instead he led us down a wrong road and when we discovered this we tried to recover time by going across the countryside but soon found ourselves in a swamp.

It was daybreak before we found dry land and then we were seen by British ships in the St. Lawrence River who began firing on us with their cannon. We sought refuge in the woods and again fell into a swamp. Many of the men scattered. Anthony Wayne with about 200 of us engaged a body of British and we routed them. William Thompson, who had the largest group of patriots, ran into a line of entrenchments manned by the British under the command of Gen. John Burgoyne. He attacked but was driven back under the intense firing of the British. Although we were encircled by the British they were of no mind to take us prisoners and let us escape.

We lost at least 25 percent of our army in this disaster while inflicting hardly any casualties on the British. On the 15th of June, Arnold abandoned Montreal and wrote to Sullivan saying: "let us quit and secure our own country before it is too late."
Our attempt at removing any threat from the British in Canada ended in complete failure.

Jim Bayne is the immediate past president of the Virginia Society, Sons of the American Revolution. He can be reached at .