Page:Harris Dickson--The unpopular history of the United States.djvu/44

 at Quebec. Impatient militiamen refused to remain and take the fortress by siege, so the gallant General Montgomery risked a premature assault, lost his own life, had sixty Americans killed, and three or four hundred captured.

During 1775 the Colonies maintained at public expense 37,623 men, a force which from want of supplies and organization spent the year in a state of demoralizing inactivity.

The campaign of 1776 opened under heart-breaking conditions. General Washington had entered the conflict with the buoyant hope that his patriotic countrymen would swell the armies of freedom. On January 14th, he wrote:

“Search the volumes of history and I much question whether a case similar to ours is to be found, namely, to maintain a post against the flower of the British troops for six months together, without powder, and then to have one army disbanded and another to be raised within the same distance of a reënforced enemy. The same desire to retire into the