page_title: Military career of Benedict Arnold, 1775–1776
section_title: Retreat from Quebec
hierarchical_section_title: Military career of Benedict Arnold, 1775–1776 / Retreat from Quebec
caption_attribution_description: English: Oil painting of Continental Army general Horatio Gates.
context_page_description: The military career of Benedict Arnold in 1775 and 1776 covers many of the military actions that occurred in the northernmost Thirteen Colonies early in the American Revolutionary War. Arnold began the war as a captain in Connecticut's militia, a position to which he was elected in March 1775. Following the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and Concord the following month, his company marched northeast to assist in the siege of Boston that followed. Arnold proposed to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety an action to seize Fort Ticonderoga in New York, which he knew was poorly defended. They issued a colonel's commission to him on May 3, 1775, and he immediately rode off to the west, where he arrived at Castleton in the disputed New Hampshire Grants in time to participate with Ethan Allen and his men in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. He followed up that action with a bold raid on Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River north of Lake Champlain. He then resigned his Massachusetts commission after a command dispute with the head of a detachment of Connecticut militia troops that arrived in June to reinforce Ticonderoga.
context_section_description: In May 1776, while a delegation of the Continental Congress was visiting Montreal, a large British fleet began arriving in Quebec, precipitating the retreat of the Continental Army from Quebec City.  Arnold's administration of Montreal became complicated by a British-Indian force's attack on an American fort at The Cedars, upriver from Montreal, in May that began to unfold while he was attending a war council with the retreating army's command and the Congressional delegation at Sorel.  He returned to Montreal to organize a response, and, with the assistance of timely reinforcements, reached an agreement for a prisoner exchange with the British, who were holding the garrison from the fort.  In a war council discussing how to respond to the incident, Arnold had a heated exchange with Moses Hazen, the commander of the 2nd Canadian Regiment, that was the beginning of a series of disputes between them that eventually resulted in courts martial of both men.
  Arnold then began preparing to evacuate the American garrison from Montreal.  Pursuant to instructions from the Congressmen he began seizing supplies from local merchants, issuing receipts for the goods that the merchants could use in compensation claims later.  These goods, which were marked to identify the supplying merchant, were shipped to Fort Chambly in early June.  Hazen, who owned property in the area and was in command at Chambly, refused to store the goods, believing them to be goods seized improperly from merchants he knew.
  Arnold's anger at Hazen's act needed to be held back; the British advance up the St. Lawrence almost caught him by surprise.  He was alerted that British ships were approaching the city by a messenger he sent toward Sorel for news.  Upon departure from the city, he ordered fires to be set in an attempt to burn the city before the British arrived, and then went to Saint-Jean, where he joined the rear of the retreating army.  Arnold directed his forces to destroy by burning or sinking any ships the British could use on Lake Champlain, and set fire to the fort and nearby works.  Arnold is reported to have waited until the vanguard of the British army came into musket range before shooting his own horse dead and pushing off from Saint-Jean and departing up the Richelieu to Champlain.
  Arnold then spent the summer of 1776 coordinating the construction of a flotilla of small warships and gunboats at Skenesborough, to delay the British further by denying them free access to the lake. The British responded by building a much larger lake flotilla at Saint-Jean, which they launched in early October. The British destroyed Arnold's flotilla at the Battle of Valcour Island in mid-October, and advanced as far as Crown Point.  However, winter was setting in, so General Carleton called off the advance.
  During the fleet's construction, Arnold ordered the arrest and trial of Hazen for dereliction of his duty with respect to the incident at Chambly.  Hazen, a politically well-connected figure (his commission to lead the 2nd Canadian came after appearing before Congress following the Battle of Quebec), turned the proceeding on its head, countercharging that Arnold had stolen the goods in question, and that the officer responsible for transporting them, a Major Scott, had damaged them in transit.  Major Scott's testimony was questioned and eventually rejected by the court martial,  which acquitted Hazen and ordered Arnold's arrest.  General Horatio Gates, then in command at Ticonderoga, dissolved the arrest warrant, citing the desperate need for Arnold's services against the expected British attack.  Arnold's silence in response to Hazen's accusation probably confirmed and deepened the opinions people already held of him; those favorably disposed to him perceived it as a dignified non-response to a ridiculous accusation, while those who disliked him saw it as the reaction of a man whose hand had been caught in the till.  Historians continue to debate whether Arnold was actually engaged in anything illegal.  In the aftermath of these incidents, Congressman Samuel C
caption: General Horatio Gates, portrait by Gilbert Stuart
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