As a nation, we should be able to face our failures as squarely as we crow our triumphs, and make no mistake: the invasion of, and withdrawal from Canada was a botched effort from one end to the other.

Perhaps the only thing that kept it from being a bigger deal was the distraction a few weeks later of the Colonies delcaring themselves to be states independent from Great Britain.

We barely had an army that had any idea of how to provision its forces, yet we sent a bunch of them to the north anyway, far from home and no easy way to get there or back. We started this invasion in a blizzard! And, perhaps even worse, our withdrawal from Canada suddenly left us open to a potential invasion from the north by British troops.

I realize that I have the benefit of 250 years of hindsight on this, but this really does feel like one of those things where people said “We have to see this through to the end, which will be glorious,” and then nearly six months later, when it all falls apart, the same people say, “Wow, it was so obvious.”

(forgive me, I’m having a cynical day.)

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