Book Description

Lengthy eyewitness accounts of events in the Revolutionary War are rare. The expedition to Quebec led by Benedict Arnold is an exception with 35 such accounts. In this book, Stephen Darley has compiled 13 unknown journals and 6 pension applications written by men who were participants on that famous march. These accounts provide details of the trek through the untamed wilderness of Maine and Canada, the New Years Eve assault on Quebec and being held as prisoners in Quebec. These personal narratives present the extreme hard ships and difficulties each writer experienced being part of a unique and historic march from Cambridge to make Canada the 14th American Colony and deprive the British of its North American base of operations. One historian concludes that “the march of Hannibal over the Alps has nothing in it of superior merit to the March of Arnold.’” he goes on to conclude that the men who were on the march have “been left an heir to oblivion, almost unwept, unhonored and sung only in a minor key.” This book will help to understand and appreciate the sacrifices made by its participants.