The Maple Malaise
This Week in 1776, #19
“This Week in 1776” is an ongoing almanac of events from the American Revolution, mostly political and military in nature. I drew on these very loosely for my Engines of Liberty series of YA novels.
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We are once again in between big events. Washington (the man, not the city) continues to fortify New York (the city, not the state) so it can repel a forthcoming British incursion. Congress is currently hanging out in Philadelphia, handling paperwork relevant to things already in motion (alliances with France, and so forth).
The real action is up north in CND, which is a weird name for a country, but they spell it “C, eh, N, eh, D, eh,” giving it enough vowels to say aloud. Americans are trying to get a foothold up there but they’re having a tough time of it; the Snow Brits are gritty, and the Yanks have to deal with supply problems and disease. Generals Richard Montgomery (you haven’t heard of him) and Benedict Arnold (but him, yes) are reluctantly pulling back over a long stretch of time.
The straw that broke the camel came on May 6 when a limited cluster of British warships pulled into Quebec to resupply the locals against the Americans. As a result the militia had to retreat, leaving valuable goods and weapons behind. Soon Britain would have undisputed control of Ontario.
The retreat would continue and, unfortunately, grow larger in the coming weeks, and American ambitions for a “fourteenth colony” up north would crumble until 2025 or so, when another executive started making noise about adding them into the fold.
This won’t be the last that we hear from Benedict Arnold.
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