Radio Script #982

Little Talks on Common Things
October 7, 1973

Most accounts of Arnold’s Expedition end with the arrival of the army at the French settlements on the Chaudiere. Fortunately, Justin Smith, author of “Arnold’s Expedition”, the book we referred to last week wrote another book to which he gave the title “Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony”. By Fourteenth Colony Smith meant eastern Canada, which Americans hoped to annex from the time of Concord and Lexington in 1775 until well into the 19th century.

In this second book Smith summarizes the Arnold march, told in detail in his first book, then tells us what happened to Arnold’s little band after they reached the St. Lawrence. He adds one interesting item not in his earlier book. He says that on September 5, 1775, Washington wrote to Gen. Schuyler who was attacking Canada via Lake Champlain. Washington told Schuyler: “A detachment of ten lieutenant colonels, two majors, ten captains, thirty subalterns, thirty sergeants, thirty corporals, four drummers, two fifers, and 676 privates were ordered today to parade on Cambridge Common under command of Col. Arnold, and prepare to march to Newburyport, where they will take ship for the Kennebec.”

Smith tells us: “On November 8, Arnold stood in the new fallen snow on the bluff of Point Levi. Below rolled the vast St. Lawrence, and yonder towered the enormous bulk of stone, Quebec.”

Less than two miles away lay Quebec, waiting to be taken. Confident that Arnold’s troops could not pass the warships in the river, the city slept. But no attack was made. Arnold’s men crossed the Plains of Abraham and lay down in their blankets on the floor of MacDonald’s house and barn about a mile and a half from Quebec. The last day of the year 1775 saw the assault on the city led by General Montgomery, with Arnold’s men participating in the bitter fight. When it was over, the attack had failed. Not only was Quebec not taken, but Montgomery was dead, Arnold crippled and confined to a bed, Major Morgan and many other officers and men prisoners of war. Arnold’s army was now a mere shred, buried in drifting snows, beaten, its friends far away, and the victorious enemy at hand. In the fighting, a stray bullet had cut through Arnold’s left leg. Before his men reached the city gate, where they were firmly repulsed, he could only drag the wounded limb until he was carried to Montgomery’s improvised army hospital. The bullet had struck midway between ankle and knee, passed between the bones and lodged above the heel. It was a most painful wound and amputation was threatened. Despite Dr. Senter’s pleading – he was the surgeon with Arnold’s troop – Arnold would not leave the hospital for greater safety, and the few guards left there determined to defend the place to the death. But the British did not come.

Amputation was avoided, and in a few weeks Arnold was on his feet. Despite failure to take Quebec, the Americans were in control of the countryside on the south of the St. Lawrence. The inhabitants were ordered to accept the paper money of the Continental Congress with the promise that, within three months, it could be exchanged for silver and gold. Every person who refused to accept the paper money would be considered an enemy of the United Colonies.

Arnold was now promoted to Brig. General, and, able to mount his horse, he set off to take command at Montreal, which was then in American hands.

Meanwhile what about Arnold’s beaten troops? After laying down their arms in surrender, they made their way to the main guard of the garrison. One of them later wrote: “Fortune had been kind enough to save us from starvation or drowning in the Wilderness to bring us to this wretched place to be made prisoners, which I take to be no great favor.” But they were not badly treated. Major Meigs later reported, “We are used very well. In fact the merchants of Quebec have made us a gift of porter, bread and cheese.”

On May 7, 1776, another attempt to take Quebec ended in utter defeat. The American army was in demoralized rout. Most of the men had lost their baggage and were half naked. When some half-crazed troops plundered the house of a prominent Canadian, Arnold angrily denounced their act as suicide, meaning they had initiated terrible retribution, not only on themselves, but upon all Americans. But British vengeance looked to those wandering soldiers no worse than starvation. Smith tells us: “The retreat from Quebec had been the principal source of all disorders in the army, and an army without organization is a mob. The fleeing Americans made no stop until they came to the Sonell River, 140 miles above Quebec. The collapse of so glorious an expectation stirred colonial leaders. Washington declared, “We have got out of Canada pretty well.” But John Adams moaned, “We must prepare our minds for more melancholy scenes. For God’s sake explain to me how this could happen.”

Bad as was the immediate result, the Canada campaign did have some profitable long-term results. It prevented the British from regaining control of Lake Champlain and thus build up a substantial force to move south toward New York and New England. It held up a full division of the British strength, and was a kind of dress rehearsal for a long, successful war. It revealed weak points in American army organization. It made plain what could be done and what could not. Its schooling helped the Revolution to succeed. Even the common people came to realize the value of discipline and the evil of short enlistments. The idea that officers ought to manage troops after the manner of a democratic caucus gave way to the necessity for authority. The meaning of war and its methods became gradually understood as they were not understood at Bunker Hill. Many volunteers were turned into veterans. Arnold’s surgeon,Dr. Senter, wrote when the ill-starred adventure was allover: “This ended our expedition of nine months. Its ill success would, in any other cause, have induced us to renounce our principles.”

Two years later Arnold was a hero at Saratoga. Schuyler had been removed from the Champlain command, and General Gates had taken his place. Though Arnold had hoped for that command and had disappointedly seen juniors appointed over his head, he legally supported Gates. It was his sudden, impromptu thrust at the British center that saved Americans from defeat on the first day of the battle at Saratoga. On the second day Arnold said, “No man shall keep me in my tent today. If I am without command, I will fight in the ranks. The soliders, God bless them, will follow my lead.” By nightfall Burgoyne had surrendered.

A year later, a disgruntled and disillusioned Arnold, in command at West Point and delegated to keep Howe’s forces from coming up the Hudson, ignominiously turned traitor, and planned to surrender West Point to the enemy but the capture of his emissary, Major Andre, revealed the plot. Arnold fled to sanctuary with the British fleet. Later he led several attacks against his old compatriots, and after Cornwallis’ surrender, he lived a lonely, shattered life in England. Not even the British whom he had helped had much use for a traitor.

So it comes about, with the passing of the years, that Maine remembers not so much the traitor Benedict Arnold, as it remembers the daring determined American comrade who led a thousand men up the Kennebec and into the wilderness in 1775.

Now we turn to another subject. On this program six years ago I was telling about forgotten names for old dress goods sold in the country stores 130 years ago. At that time I asked if anyone could tell me just what was a dress goods called celeshia. At that time I got no response. As you listeners well know, in recent years, it has been the custom of Little Talks to repeat each year during July and August selected programs from former years. Every year from September to June there has been a new series. One day this past summer that six-year-old program about dress goods was repeated, and again it asked for information about celeshia. This time I got immediate response.

It came from Miss Della Towne of Vassalboro, who tells me that celeshia was a cotton material with a slightly glazed finish. Its common color was gray, but it came also in brown and black. It was used as interlining in all kinds of dresses. The old-time whalebone stays were attached to the seams, both front and back.

Recently I ran across the act of the legislature that created the town we know as Oakland, at first called the town of West Waterville. That act, passed in 1873, said: “All that part of the town of Waterville lying westerly of the following described line, namely, commencing in the north line of the town of Sidney, about two miles west of the Kennebec River, in the range of the west line of the second mile rangeway in Waterville; thence northerly in said west line of said rangeway to the center of the cross road leading from Emerson Bridge to West Waterville village; thence northerly on the westerly line of said second mile rangeway road to the south line of the McKechnie Road; thence westerly in the south line of said McKechnie Road about forty rods to the east line of Henry J. Morrill’s land; thence northerly in the east line of said Morrill’s land, and in the same course, to the southerly line of the Marston Road; thence westerly in the southerly line of said Marston Road to the thread of the Emerson Stream; thence westerly down the thread of said stream to the mouth of the Toby Brook; thence up said Toby Brook to the south line of the town of Fairfield.”

Why is Oakland ignoring its 100th birthday this year?

Now a few words about the founding of Vassalboro. John Vassall, a member of the Virginia Company of London in 1609, was an alderman of the city and prominent member of a family of Protestant Huguenot refugees from France. His son William came to Massachusetts Bay in 1629, a year before John Winthrop established the colony there. However, he returned to London almost at once, and did not reappear in Massachusetts until 1635, when he came with his wife and children to settle in Scituate. He then left for the West Indies, settling on Barbados. His son John came back to Massachusetts, and was the father of a son named Florentius, who prospered as merchant and owner. He joined Sylvester Gardiner, John Hancock and the Bowdoins in forming the proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase in 1749.

By 1753, when the company was in full swing, Florentius Vassall was allotted 3,200 acres of the Kennebec Purchase to which he soon added more. Because he did not get the required number of settlers, he later had to pay the company for some of his land. That tract became in 1771 the town of Vassalboro, and then included what is now Sidney as well as the present area of Vassalboro on the east side of the Kennebec. The town was naturally named for the proprietor, Florentius Vassall.

Year: 1973