The final hours of 1775 witnessed one of the most audacious and ill-fated military operations of the American Revolution. As snow swirled through the narrow streets of Quebec City and temperatures plunged well below freezing, a ragged army of American soldiers launched a desperate assault against the fortified capital of British Canada. The attack would end in catastrophe, claiming the life of one of America's most promising generals and effectively dooming the colonial invasion of Canada.

In the early months of the American Revolution, the Southern colonies experienced violent struggles as Patriots and Loyalists clashed over the future of British rule. One such engagement, the Battle of Great Cane Brake, took place on December 22,1775, in the backcountry of South Carolina.

On December 9, 1775, an engagement at Great Bridge, Virginia, unfolded that effectively ended British royal authority in the oldest American colony. The Battle of Great Bridge, though modest in scale compared to later Revolutionary War clashes, delivered a decisive blow to Governor Lord Dunmore's efforts to maintain Crown control over Virginia and emboldened the patriot cause throughout the Southern colonies.

On a cold December day along the frozen banks of the St. Lawrence River, two weary American commanders finally met at the small village of Point-aux-Trembles, roughly twenty miles southwest of Quebec City. General Richard Montgomery, fresh from his successful capture of Montreal, arrived to find Colonel Benedict Arnold and the ragged survivors of one of the most punishing military expeditions in American history. Their handshake that day marked the beginning of a new chapter in the American invasion of Canada, transforming two struggling operations into a unified force that would soon march on the last major British stronghold in the province.

At the start of December 1775, the Siege of Boston hadalready stretched into its eighth month. What had begun with the thunderous volleys at Lexington and Concord the previous April had devolved into a grinding stalemate, with General George Washington's Continental Army encircling the city while General William Howe's British forces occupied it.Neither side could claim victory, and both were suffering tremendously as the harsh New England winter began to tighten its grip.

In November 1775, while George Washington's Continental Army besieged British forces in Boston and American troops pushed into Canada, a different kind of battle erupted in the South Carolina backcountry. The First Battle of Ninety Six marked the second battle in South Carolina and the first bloodshed in the state during the fight for independence.

In the autumn of 1775, the Continental Army found itself in a frustrating stalemate outside Boston. General George Washington's forces had successfully contained the British within the city following the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, but lacked the heavy artillery necessary to drive them out. The solution to this predicament would come from an unlikely source: a 25-year-old Boston bookseller turned artillery officer named Henry Knox, whose ambitious proposal would launch one of the most remarkable logistical achievements of the Revolutionary War.

On November 13, 1775, Brigadier General Richard Montgomery led Continental Army forces into Montreal, occupying Canada's largest city without firing a shot. This bloodless victory represented the high-water mark of American ambitions to make Canada the fourteenth colony in the rebellion against British rule.

On November 10, 1775, amid the escalating tensions of the American Revolution, the Second Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia to address a critical military need. That day, they passed a resolution that would forge one of America's most enduring military institutions.

On November 3, 1775, after enduring a grueling six-week siege, Major Charles Preston raised the white flag over Fort St. Jean in Quebec. The surrender of this strategic British stronghold to American General Richard Montgomery marked a pivotal moment in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War and opened the gateway to Montreal. The capitulation represented not merely the fall of a fortification, but the crumbling of Britain's defensive line protecting the heart of its Canadian colony.