Longueuil, Canada

LONGUEUIL, CANADA. Located on the south bank of the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal, this town and La Prairie, ten miles south, were the two main approaches to Montreal from the south. Ethan Allen and John Brown arrived here during Montgomery's siege of St. Johns and subsequently launched their abortive attack on Montreal on 25 September 1775, in which Brown changed his mind and left Allen unsupported. The main action at Longueuil was on 30 October 1775, when Sir Guy Carleton assembled a force of nearly eight hundred and attempted to relieve St. Johns. The British expedition comprised some of Allan MacLean's newly raised Royal Highland Emigrants; sixty men of the Royal Fusiliers; a large contingent of Caughnawaga Indians; and mostly Canadian volunteers, both French and English. One contingent of Caughnawagas was led by the notorious St. Luc. The river crossing was contested by Seth Warner's Green Mountain Regiment and the Second New York, supported by a four-pounder. Artillery and musket fire drove back the main attacking force. MacLean tried to make a secondary crossing upstream but turned back when he found the site well defended.

When Benedict Arnold led the American garrison out of Montreal after the collapse of the Canada invasion in the summer of 1776, he crossed with his three hundred men to Longueuil. Hotly pursued by Carleton's forces, he retreated to St. Johns.

SEE ALSO Montreal (25 September 1775); St. Luc de la Corne, Pierre.

                        revised by Michael Bellesiles