Amicus
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Climbing the NEHH peaks in Maine over the last couple of years has deepened greatly my appreciation for the high parts of that great State. That in turn has deepened my curiosity about their history, and in particular the extraordinary expedition of the Colonial army led by Benedict Arnold against the Citadel of Quebec in 1775.
I had read Kenneth Roberts' stirring fictional account - Arundel - decades ago, but a post here a few months ago by Papa Bear alerted me to his Trending into Maine (Little, Brown & Co., 1938) - essays by that native Down-Easter on Maine people and places of interest to him, past and present. I've borrowed it from our library and wanted to share a few highlights from his chapter recreating Arnold's march, which was based on his meticulous research for Arundel and includes copious excerpts from the surprisingly numerous journals kept by survivors.
Arnold's force of 1,000 men, detached from George Washington's Colonial encampment in Cambridge, Mass., rendezvoused at Fort Western, near modern Augusta, in September 1775. (That Fort is extant, as a State Park that, from its website, looks well worth a visit.) On September 25, they began their departure north on the Kennebec River for what they thought would be relatively straightforward 180-mile trip by that and the Chaudiere Rivers culminating in a surprise, backdoor capture of the Citadel. The true distance, however, was 350 miles, and their route far more tortuous and torturing than they suspected. (Their maps were a British ruse, according to some authorities.)
They traveled on 200 bateaux - clumsy 400-pound vessels thrown together in 15 days by a local boatsmith out of green wood, all he could procure that late in the season. Things went badly from the beginning. Their boats leaked, wetting their meager supplies (mostly salt pork and flour - soon soggy). Winter came hard and early, with an October 7 storm that left them facing snow and icy marshes, streams and rivers for the rest of their infernal journey.
At the Great Carry, a few miles north of modern Bingham, they had to tote their boats and gear over 15 miles of killing PUDs, swamps and small ponds, due west to what was, in the days of Arnold and Roberts both, the point where the Dead River heads west, paralleling the Bigelow Range, which looms overhead to the south. Since 1949, when Central Maine Power built its dam, this has been the east end of Flagstaff Lake.
There they were greeted by a three-day hurricane, which soaked anything that might still have been semi-dry and raised waters to levels which made it difficult or impossible for them to find dry ground to sleep on for several weeks.
Near the west end of what is now that Lake, they suffered their first human catastrophe. The Fourth Division, 200 soldiers under Col. Enos, had had enough and decided to retreat. Understandable, but they were bringing up the rear, defied orders, told no one and took with them far more than their proportionate share of the remaining supplies. It took most of the rest of the army two days to discover this desertion. Some who might have followed decided that, where they were and with what supplies remained, they had a better chance pushing on to Quebec.
The 800 who remained pushed on through the Chain of Ponds (about two miles north of where I stood in September, atop the headless firetower of COP Snow), losing en route and in the steeps of the Height of Land beyond Lake Arnold (westernmost of the Chain) most of the rest of their boats. Even worse were their travails in the frozen swamps around the southern ends of Spider and Megantic Lakes. Starvation (they boiled their mocassins and leather cartridge cases and ate moss and melted candles), rampant disease, universal diarrhea (sorry, but you need to know in order to empathize), pathetic, soaked and worn-out clothing (wool or buckskins, in large part, apparently) and freezing temperatures make it seem miraculous that only 200 of them died before they reached Point Levi - across the St. Lawrence from the Citadel - on November 14. When I read some of the journalists stating that, by then, the soldiers had lost all fear of death, seeing it at as welcome respite, for once this sentiment does not strike me as rhetoric.
Their arrival was not a suprise, however, and Arnold decided that his residue of living skeletons needed to be reinforced by the 200-soldier force of General Montgomery, who had just captured Montreal on an expedition north from Ticonderoga. Their heroic assault in a snowstorm on New Year's Eve failed, but not by much it seems.
Roberts calls this "the most dramatic and arduous march ever undertaken," and I don't find that an exaggeration. There are many other accounts, including Through a Howling Wilderness, published just last year by Maine historian Thomas Desjardin. I haven't read it and reviews are somewhat mixed, but it seems worth reading if you're interested in this. (He theorizes that the British victory was Pyhrric, as a Colonial victory would have required them to commit so many soldiers to the defense of their prize that the British would have been able to annihilate Washington's army).
I didn't find on line a really good map showing Arnold's route in detail, but you may be interested in this archived NY Times article, recounting a 1987 partial reenactment. The author quotes two participants in a 1975 bicentennial reeanactment who claim to be the only ones to traverse the entire route in 200 years. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9B0DE3D7153AF934A1575AC0A961948260
Roberts' book is spiced by color illustrations by the great N. C. Wyeth, including an inspiring view of what I take to be the Great Carry - grim heroes laboring under those bateaux.
I've resolved never again to whine about cold hands or wet feet. This may go the way of too many good intentions, but I'll try.
I had read Kenneth Roberts' stirring fictional account - Arundel - decades ago, but a post here a few months ago by Papa Bear alerted me to his Trending into Maine (Little, Brown & Co., 1938) - essays by that native Down-Easter on Maine people and places of interest to him, past and present. I've borrowed it from our library and wanted to share a few highlights from his chapter recreating Arnold's march, which was based on his meticulous research for Arundel and includes copious excerpts from the surprisingly numerous journals kept by survivors.
Arnold's force of 1,000 men, detached from George Washington's Colonial encampment in Cambridge, Mass., rendezvoused at Fort Western, near modern Augusta, in September 1775. (That Fort is extant, as a State Park that, from its website, looks well worth a visit.) On September 25, they began their departure north on the Kennebec River for what they thought would be relatively straightforward 180-mile trip by that and the Chaudiere Rivers culminating in a surprise, backdoor capture of the Citadel. The true distance, however, was 350 miles, and their route far more tortuous and torturing than they suspected. (Their maps were a British ruse, according to some authorities.)
They traveled on 200 bateaux - clumsy 400-pound vessels thrown together in 15 days by a local boatsmith out of green wood, all he could procure that late in the season. Things went badly from the beginning. Their boats leaked, wetting their meager supplies (mostly salt pork and flour - soon soggy). Winter came hard and early, with an October 7 storm that left them facing snow and icy marshes, streams and rivers for the rest of their infernal journey.
At the Great Carry, a few miles north of modern Bingham, they had to tote their boats and gear over 15 miles of killing PUDs, swamps and small ponds, due west to what was, in the days of Arnold and Roberts both, the point where the Dead River heads west, paralleling the Bigelow Range, which looms overhead to the south. Since 1949, when Central Maine Power built its dam, this has been the east end of Flagstaff Lake.
There they were greeted by a three-day hurricane, which soaked anything that might still have been semi-dry and raised waters to levels which made it difficult or impossible for them to find dry ground to sleep on for several weeks.
Near the west end of what is now that Lake, they suffered their first human catastrophe. The Fourth Division, 200 soldiers under Col. Enos, had had enough and decided to retreat. Understandable, but they were bringing up the rear, defied orders, told no one and took with them far more than their proportionate share of the remaining supplies. It took most of the rest of the army two days to discover this desertion. Some who might have followed decided that, where they were and with what supplies remained, they had a better chance pushing on to Quebec.
The 800 who remained pushed on through the Chain of Ponds (about two miles north of where I stood in September, atop the headless firetower of COP Snow), losing en route and in the steeps of the Height of Land beyond Lake Arnold (westernmost of the Chain) most of the rest of their boats. Even worse were their travails in the frozen swamps around the southern ends of Spider and Megantic Lakes. Starvation (they boiled their mocassins and leather cartridge cases and ate moss and melted candles), rampant disease, universal diarrhea (sorry, but you need to know in order to empathize), pathetic, soaked and worn-out clothing (wool or buckskins, in large part, apparently) and freezing temperatures make it seem miraculous that only 200 of them died before they reached Point Levi - across the St. Lawrence from the Citadel - on November 14. When I read some of the journalists stating that, by then, the soldiers had lost all fear of death, seeing it at as welcome respite, for once this sentiment does not strike me as rhetoric.
Their arrival was not a suprise, however, and Arnold decided that his residue of living skeletons needed to be reinforced by the 200-soldier force of General Montgomery, who had just captured Montreal on an expedition north from Ticonderoga. Their heroic assault in a snowstorm on New Year's Eve failed, but not by much it seems.
Roberts calls this "the most dramatic and arduous march ever undertaken," and I don't find that an exaggeration. There are many other accounts, including Through a Howling Wilderness, published just last year by Maine historian Thomas Desjardin. I haven't read it and reviews are somewhat mixed, but it seems worth reading if you're interested in this. (He theorizes that the British victory was Pyhrric, as a Colonial victory would have required them to commit so many soldiers to the defense of their prize that the British would have been able to annihilate Washington's army).
I didn't find on line a really good map showing Arnold's route in detail, but you may be interested in this archived NY Times article, recounting a 1987 partial reenactment. The author quotes two participants in a 1975 bicentennial reeanactment who claim to be the only ones to traverse the entire route in 200 years. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9B0DE3D7153AF934A1575AC0A961948260
Roberts' book is spiced by color illustrations by the great N. C. Wyeth, including an inspiring view of what I take to be the Great Carry - grim heroes laboring under those bateaux.
I've resolved never again to whine about cold hands or wet feet. This may go the way of too many good intentions, but I'll try.
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