The siege of Quebec was an event that was months in the making, and it was still just the penultimate act of the play.

Benedict Arnold and his troops thought they could get to the American side of the St. Lawrence River within 21 days; instead it took several weeks. Along the way they lost about a third of their troop strength. Some of the men died of illness en route, but most of them finally gave up altogether and headed home.

When they finally arrived they realized they didn’t have nearly what they needed to effect a decent attack on the city, so they had to hunker down and wait for supports to arrive. They were able to institute a couple of blockades, but that wasn’t nearly enough.

Finally General Montgomery showed up, and after an attempt at getting the city to surrender, they began the shooting. Unfortunately that didn’t do a lot of good, so the Continental Army had to settle for placing the city under siege. At this point, however, the clock was ticking because a big chunk of the Colonial soldiers were due to have their enlistments end on December 31. Something had to give, and soon.

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