Guy Carleton
A stalwart commander who led the British defense of Quebec and oversaw the final withdrawal of British troops from America in 1783
The scion of a family of landed Anglo-Irish gentry, Guy Carleton was born on 23 September 1724 in County Tyrone, Ireland. One of seven siblings, Carleton was commissioned an ensign in 1742 at the age of 17. Carleton made his way up the career ladder over the next fifteen years, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel in the prestigious 1st Foot Guards in 1757. As the Seven Years’ War raged on, he was relegated to a minor staff role in Europe, but was rescued from these doldrums by Maj. Gen. James Wolfe, a brilliant officer he had befriended early in his military career. Wolfe requested that Carleton be made quartermaster general for his coming campaign against Québec City.
This engraving, based on Benjamin West's groundbreaking painting, depicts Wolfe's death outside Quebec in 1759.
After his arrival in May 1759, Carleton quickly became Wolfe’s trusted aide and was given command of a detachment of several grenadier companies for special missions. He led these grenadiers at the victorious Battle of the Plains of Abraham on 13 September, in which Wolfe was killed on the cusp of capturing Québec City.
With his reputation buoyed by his conduct during the Seven Years’ War, on 7 April 1766 Carleton was tapped to serve as lieutenant governor of Québec, tasked with integrating the recently conquered territory into the empire. The de facto governor of the province since his superior’s recall in 1766, Carleton’s command was ratified with his official elevation to the governorship in March 1768.
He made strenuous efforts to maintain order in Québec by respecting the customs, religion, and civil laws of the predominantly French Catholic population, keeping the peace as turmoil and dissent began to spread in the thirteen colonies to the south. He eventually was promoted to the rank of major general in 1772, and Parliament largely codified his conciliatory administrative efforts in the Québec Act of 1774.
When the American colonies slid into outright revolt in 1775, Québec largely rejected calls to join the rebellion. Carleton was lucky because the military assets at his disposal to suppress an uprising were sparse. Much of his force had been sent to bolster Lt. Gen. Thomas Gage in Massachusetts, leaving Carleton with only about 700 regulars at hand, most of whom were concentrated near Montréal. During the summer, he began strengthening the various fortified posts that guarded Québec’s border and requested reinforcements from Britain, although he was informed that they would not arrive until the following year.
In late August 1775, Continental forces began a two-pronged invasion of Québec , seeking to force Carleton to divide his limited military assets. A main column led by Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler and Brig. Gen. Richard Montgomery traveled up Lake Champlain toward Montréal, while a second column under Col. Benedict Arnold traversed the rugged wilderness of what is now Maine on a direct course for Québec City.
Modern depiction of Col. Allen's abortive attempt to capture Montreal.
Although the British garrison at Saint-Jean, along the Richelieu River, bought time for Carleton by occupying Schuyler and Montgomery’s attention for nearly seven weeks, the British commander’s circumstances remained dire. He was unable to mobilize much of Québec’s habitant (francophone tenant farmers) population, who mostly were intent on staying uninvolved, and with a force of just thirty-four redcoats and a motley array of civilians and militia he had to fend off a late September attempt by Col. Ethan Allen to capture Montréal. Carleton’s subsequent late October effort to relieve Saint-Jean was turned back by another Vermonter, Lt. Col. Seth Warner , and the fort fell on 3 November.
The ruins of Fort Longueuil, the 17th century chateau where Lt. Col. Warner turned back Gen. Carleton's relief force.
With Montgomery advancing rapidly, Carleton abandoned Montréal and made for Québec City, his last remaining redoubt, arriving on 20 November. The British garrison at Carleton’s disposal consisted of only about 300 trained soldiers and roughly a thousand additional militia, sailors, and mobilized civilians, but the city was well fortified and provisioned to hold out until the expected arrival of reinforcements in spring 1776.
American painter John Trumbull's 1786 work, "The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775."
Outside the walls, Arnold’s 600 troops rendezvoused with 300 soldiers led by Montgomery and laid siege to the city in early December, culminating in a disastrous American assault on the night of 30–31 December, during which Montgomery was killed. Arnold remained into the spring, but the arrival of seaborne British reinforcements under Maj. Gen. John Burgoyne in May 1776 forced the Americans to abandon their efforts.
As the summer progressed, Carleton rolled up the American forces still in Québec and began building ships for an offensive into Lake Champlain. Carleton set off from Saint-Jean on 4 October and defeated the rebels at the Battle of Valcour Island on 11 October. Despite this victory, Carleton balked at further movement south and withdrew, believing winter too close to engage in further campaigning.
Left: A British map, produced in 1776, showing the positions of American and British vessels during the Battle of Valcour Island - Right: A modern painting depicting the battle.
Carleton was rewarded for his successes with a knighthood, but still he became the target of substantial reproach. Detractors like Burgoyne and the colonial secretary for America, Lord George Germain, viewed Carleton’s conservative strategic decisions as timidity. In the spring of 1777, word arrived from Germain that Burgoyne would supersede Carleton as commander of the army, leaving him with just a few thousand troops to garrison Québec.
Furious at this slight against him, especially because of Germain’s own checkered military past, the upright Carleton demanded permission to resign his governorship, and he was relieved in early 1778. The possibility of a return to America was eliminated by Carleton’s steadfast refusal to serve under Germain. However, the defeat of Lt. Gen. Charles, 2nd Earl Cornwallis , at the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781 led directly to British commander in chief Lt. Gen. Henry Clinton ’s resignation late that year, and eventually to Germain’s ouster early in 1782.
Assessing the available options in December 1781, King George III wrote that Clinton’s replacement “should not have been concerned in what has yet happened. . . . The best officer is Sir Guy Carleton.” Carleton’s time in the wilderness had turned to his advantage, and he was offered the role of commander in chief in North America, arriving in New York City on 5 May 1782.
This print, copied after a lost painting by Benjamin West, allegorically depicts the reception of American Loyalists by the British Empire, including Black and Native Loyalists.
With Parliament’s prohibition on further offensive warfare, Carleton’s role was largely administrative, and he spent most of the following year and a half planning the evacuation of loyalist Americans and British troops. On 5 May 1783, he met General George Washington in a conference to discuss the finer points of the British withdrawal, including the fate of the formerly enslaved persons who had been granted their freedom by the British in exchange for service with the loyalist forces. Carleton refused to return these Black loyalists to their erstwhile owners, asserting the British prerogative to honor the terms of their freedom.
During the evacuation of the former colonies in the autumn of 1783, Carleton paid particular attention to the fleeing loyalists, working to ease their plight by facilitating land grants for them when possible. On 25 November, he mustered the last British troops out of New York and himself departed for Britain on 5 December.
Although his chapter in American history had ended, Carleton’s postwar career continued to be dominated by North American affairs. In 1786, he returned to Canada to begin a decade-long tenure as governor of Québec, and in the same year he was made 1st Baron Dorchester. Carleton retired after his return to Britain in 1796 and died in 1808 at age 84.
