Qualla: The Battle of Longue-Pointe: Ethan Allen's Worst Idea

The Battle of Longue-Pointe: Ethan Allen's Worst Idea: Introduction

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ethan Allen had already done the impossible once. Four months earlier, in May 1775, he and Benedict Arnold had stormed Fort Ticonderoga and taken it from the British in a dawn raid that made Allen famous across the Thirteen Colonies. Now, on the night of September 24, he stood on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River at Longueuil, staring across at the island of Montreal, and decided to do it again -- this time with 110 men, borrowed canoes that could only carry a third of them at once, and a partner who would never show up. What happened the next morning at Longue-Pointe was not a battle so much as a catastrophe, but it was a catastrophe that helped deliver Montreal to the Americans seven weeks later.

The Battle of Longue-Pointe: Ethan Allen's Worst Idea: The Plan That Existed Only on One Side

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Allen had been sent south of Montreal by General Richard Montgomery with modest orders: join James Livingston's Canadian militia and secure the south bank of the St. Lawrence to prevent British General Guy Carleton from relieving the besieged Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu Rive...

The Battle of Longue-Pointe: Ethan Allen's Worst Idea: A Detainee Slips Away

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Allen's force landed at Longue-Pointe on the eastern end of the island of Montreal -- then a rural area, today the Mercier-Est neighborhood of Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The local inhabitants were friendly, and Allen posted guards on the road to Montreal to prevent word of hi...

The Battle of Longue-Pointe: Ethan Allen's Worst Idea: Abandoned on Both Flanks

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Captain John Campbell marched out of Montreal with the entire British garrison -- 34 regulars from the 26th Foot -- supplemented by 120 Canadien militia, 80 English militia, 20 British Indian agents, and a handful of Indigenous allies. It was a force of roughly 250 against Allen'...

The Battle of Longue-Pointe: Ethan Allen's Worst Idea: Prison Ships and a Mayor's Reluctant Martyrdom

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Allen was imprisoned in a ship's hold and sent to England. He spent about a year on prison ships before being paroled in British-occupied New York City in October 1776 -- the British authorities feared that hanging him would create a martyr. He was finally exchanged in May 1778 f...

The Battle of Longue-Pointe: Ethan Allen's Worst Idea: The Ironic Aftermath

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Allen's failed attack produced an ironic result: it helped the Americans take Montreal. Carleton's response to the raid -- mobilizing nearly 1,000 local militia -- looked decisive but proved unsustainable. The militia members from rural parishes drifted away within weeks, returni...