On a crisp September morning in 1775, Colonel Benedict Arnold stood before approximately 1,100 Continental soldiers gathered at Newburyport, Massachusetts. The ambitious expedition he was about to lead would become one of the most daring military operations of the Revolutionary War, a grueling march through the Maine wilderness to attack Quebec City. As the men preparedto board ships that would carry them to the Kennebec River, few could imagine the trials that lay ahead.