“Nothing in any Kind of Readiness”: The Canadian Campaign Begins

Posted on July 18, 2025

“Nothing in any Kind of Readiness”: The Canadian Campaign Begins

250 years ago this month, preparations were underway for the new Continental Army’s boldest offensive campaign yet. After the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and other posts in the Champlain Valley, the eyes of many Americans turned to Canada. Capturing Quebec would eliminate the threat of a British invasion from the north. American leaders also hoped that the French Canadian population of Quebec would turn against their British leaders and join the revolution as the 14th colony.

On June 27, 1775, the Continental Congress authorized an invasion of Quebec led by General Philip Schuyler. American troops were to gather at Fort Ticonderoga, then sail north along Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River to Montreal and Quebec City. However, there was much to be done before the Americans could begin their journey north.

Compiled after the first months of the Canadian invasion, this retrospective journal is titled “Minutes, or a concise Journal of the principal Movements of the Continental Army towards, and in the Country of Canada”. Authorship has long been attributed to Reverend Benjamin Trumbull, a minister, historian, and chaplain of Colonel David Wooster’s Connecticut Regiment in the campaign.

The minutes begin on July 18, when Schuyler arrived at Ticonderoga. Despite the months of work that had been put into improving the works there, Schuyler “found nothing in any Kind of Readiness for an Expedition against Canada. He had no Batteaux, no Boards, no Workmen, or Materials to build them.” Without enough bateaux, or flat-bottomed boats, to transport the troops north, the expedition could not proceed.

Schuyler sprang into action, repairing Ticonderoga’s saw mills to produce boards and hiring carpenters to build bateaux. Trumbull says that he “forwarded Matters with so much Dispatch, that it was thought proper to have the Troops on their Way to that Post by the Beginning of August.” Check in on our social media throughout the fall to follow the progress of the Canadian invasion through this journal.

View the Trumbull journal (object ID MS.7196) and learn more on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database here.