In mid October 1775, Fort Chambly along the Richelieu River was surrendered to the American Army. Chambly had been under the command of Major Stopford and 100 of his men in the British Military. For the most part, however, Chambly was being used by the British as a place to keep their stores for their main fort (St. John’s or Fort Saint-Jean), and as a safe haven for the women and children who had followed their husband soldiers to the area. The passage between St. John’s and Chambly had been cut off well before the fall of the fort which had made passage to St. John’s for retreat impossible. After the fall of Chambly, the Americans now turned their attention to St. John’s itself, devoid of the possibility of refreshing its stores or gaining help from Chambly.
As Fort St. John's was considered the major fort protecting Canada from an American passage to Montreal, and was vital in the defense of Quebec, it was believed that a full on attack of Canada could best be determined with the fall or victory of the British soldiers in Fort St. John's. Many attempts to capture St. John’s had already been conducted, but now the Americans truly threw themselves into the attempt. On October 29, 1775, The Americans erected a battery while under fire of the fort. Sir Guy Carleton, in charge of British troops in Canada, had tried to bring relief to St. John’s but was intercepted and obliged to retreat to Montreal. Within only a couple days after the battery was erected on the 29th, St. John’s, where a young Lieutenant André now began to experience his first stirrings of warfare, would fall.
It is interesting to note that the fall of St. John's was due to the fall of Chambly, in that it was a Major James Livingston who led the attack. In this case Major Livingston became not just the indirect cause of the fall of St. John's, but also the indirect cause of Lieutenant André being taken as a prisoner of war from that fall. In 1780, Livingston, who in the mean time would become a Colonel, would again be the indirect cause of André’s capture when he would order his men at Verplanck’s Point to fire upon André’s ship The Vulture, waiting in the Hudson River, while André finalized plans with Benedict Arnold for his defecting at West Point. By so doing, Colonel Livingston forced The Vulture down river and André to be stranded. Little did André also know that the officer now pointing artillery pieces at the fort in which he fought, was Officer Lamb who would be the one personally responsible for firing the artillery that sent The Vulture down river in André’s ill fated plan to capture West Point with the defection of Arnold.
Picture 1: Map of the forts along the Richelieu River including Fort St. John's (Saint-Jean) and Fort Chambly (Chambli).
Picture 2: Fort St. John's circa 1750s
Picture 3: Fort St. John's circa 1775, the time of the American invasion and siege.
Picture 4: Fort Chambly circa 1840
