This 1862 portrait of Richard Montgomery reading a map engraved by G. R. Hall from a painting by Alonzo Chappel seems to be the standard image of Richard Montgomery. It appeared in Duykinck's The National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Americans: Including Orators, Statesmen, Naval and Military Heroes, Jurists, Authors, etc. , Vol. 1, before page 135.
Richard Montgomery is most famous as the namesake of 18 (or so) counties and cities in the United States. He is so commemorated because he was one of the first and the highest ranking casualty of the Revolution, dying on the last day of 1775 trying to take the fortified city of Quebec. For short bio's of Richard Montgomery see: Appletons' Cyclopædia or The Biographical Dictionary of America …
Less well known, more contemporary, views of Major General Montgomery include John Norman's full length 1781 portrait below.
Major Genl. Richd. Montgomery
Slain in Storming Quebec Decbr. '31st 1775
J. Norman Sc.
(LOC)
General Richard Montgomery
Montgomery's Death
As we have said, Richard Montgomery's major contribution to American History is his death early in the Revolutionary War. The standard image of which is John Trumbull's “The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec December 31 1775.”
The Death of Montgomery (Detail)
The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec December 31 1775
by John Trumbull, 1786
In this detail, Montgomery has fallen into the arms of Mathias Ogden, a New Jersey Volunteer. On his left is 1st Lieutenant Morgan Humphries of Morgan's Company of Virginia Riflemen. Farther left is “Colonel Joseph Louis,” chief of the Oneida Indians. Dead at Montgomery's feet are his aides-de-camp, Capt. Jacob Cheeseman and Captain John MacPherson, both of the 1st New York Regiment. To Montgomery's left are 1st Lieutenant Samuel Cooper of the 2nd Connecticut Regiment and Lieutenant Col. Donald Campbell, deputy quartermaster of the New York Department, and Montgomery's successor in command. Campbell ordered an immediate retreat. (See Yale University Art Museum and Catalogue of Paintings, 1835.)
Two plaques at 193 Boulevard Champlain, mark the spot where Montgomery fell. The English plaque reads:
“Here stood
the Undaunted Fifty
safeguarding
🍁Canada🍁
defeating Montgomery
at the Pres de Ville Barricade
on the last day of
🍁1775🍁
Guy Carleton
commanding at
Quebec.”
High on cliffs above, there once hung a sign reading “Montgomery Fell Dec. 31st, 1775.”
This sign was placed by Alfred Hawkins (See Lossing, 1859) to replace a previous sign put there in 1852 (See Rockwell, 1927). The earlier sign read: “Here Major General Montgomery Fell, December 31st, 1775.” (See also D. Murray, 1910)
Here's an 1892 view of “Près-de-Ville - Place where Montgomery was killed.”
Près-de-Ville
Endroit ou Montgomery a été Tué
Alonzo Chappel painted another image of “The Death of General Richard Montgomery on 31st December 1775.” (You can buy it on E-bay.)
Vol. XXXVI
, No. 5
, March, 1911
.
Death of Montgomery, by C. W. Jefferys, '10.
British soldiers recovered Montgomery's corpse the next day and gave him a burial with military honors inside the walls of Quebec. F. S. Cohurn made this 1892 drawing of the recovery of Montgomery's body on January 1st, 1776.
Notes Pour Servir à L'Histoire du Général Richard Montgomery
by Faucher de Saint-Maurice, 1893.
An historical marker in Quebec identifies Jean Gaubert's house where Montgomery was “encoffined prior to his burial.” Another marker on Côte de la Citadelle near Rue Saint Louis, identifies the spot where Montgomery, McPherson, Cheeseman and a number of other soldiers from Montgomery's command were buried. The English text of the marker explains that Montgomery's remains were moved in 1818 to Saint Paul's Chapel on Broadway in New York.
“In this place was buried on the 4th of January 1776, along with his two aides de camp McPherson and Cheeseman and certain of his soldiers, Richard Montgomery, the American general who was killed during the attack of the 31st of December 1775. In 1818 his remains were exhumed and removed to the precincts of St. Paul’s Church, New York.”
Barry Swackhamer (HMdb) took this 2014 photo of the plaque on the stone marking the spot where Montgomery, et. al were buried:
Montgomery's Monument on Broadway in New York looks like this.
(Vidor at Wikimedia)
There are two marble plaques.
(Guy Saladino HMdb)
(F. Robby, HMdb)
The inscription on the uppermost plaque reads:
INVENIT ET SCULPSIT PARISIIS. J. J. CAFFIERI SCULPTOR REGIUS. ANNO DOMINI. MDCCLXVIIThis Monument is erected by the order of CONGRESS,
25th, Janry, 1776, to transmit to Poſterity a grateful remem
brance of the patriotiſm conduct enterprize & perſeverance
of Major General RICHARD MONTGOMERY
Who after a ſeries of succeſses amidſt the most diſcou
raging Difficulties Fell in the attack onQUEBEC. 31st, Decbr, 1775. Aged 37 Years.
As authorized by Congress in 1776, Benjamin Franklin chose French sculptor Jean-Jacques Caffieri, royal sculptor to Louis 15, to sculpt the monument in 1777. It arrived in Edenton N.C. in 1778, during the war and remained there until 1787 when it was installed in New York. New York became the Capital of the United States on September 13, 1788.
The lower marble plaque, pictured below, notes that Montgomery's body was moved from Quebec and interred here in 1818.
A modern sign that describes the second plaque makes the claim that Montgomery's Monument in New York is “the first American memorial.”
The State of New York
Caused the Remains of
Maj. Gen. RICHARD MONTGOMERY
to be conveyed from Quebec
and Deposited beneath this Monument
the 8th day of July
1818
(via Bill Coughlin, HMdb )
(via Bill Coughlin, HMdb)
General Richard MontgomeryIn 1787, St. Paul’s Chapel erected a monument to honor General Richard Montgomery, the first officer to die in the American Revolution. The Continental Congress commissioned this monument in 1776, the first American memorial. Montgomery’s body was interred at St. Paul’s in 1818, 43 years after his death.
Montgomery's Life
General Richard Montgomery
1736-1775
Bicentennial Coin, Montgomery Country Maryland, 1976.
Richard Montgomery was born in northern Ireland in 1736 (or 1737 or maybe 1738) into an aristocratic Ulster Scots family. An article in Harper's Magazine by Justin Harvey Smith entitled Our struggle for the Fourteenth Colony: Canada and the American Revolution included this image of Montgomery's Arms.
“patriae infelici fidelis” indicates “a loyal patriot to an unhappy country.” The Montgomery County Maryland seal is derived from Montgomery's Arms by the reduction of the number of rings and fleurs-des-lis from three to one, and the substitution of the motto “Gardez Bien,” a motto associated with Clan Montgomery meaning “watch well.”
For a discussion of the relationship between Richard Montgomery, Montgomery Country MD, and the District of Columbia, See Proctor, 1930.
Richard Montgomery joined the British Army in 1756, at age 18, as an Ensign. In the image below he is shown coming ashore during Wolf's attack on Louisbourg, in what we Americans call the French and Indian War.
Richard Montgomery at Louisbourg
Fitzhugh describes General Wolfe's attack on Louisbourg:
Swimming in until he had reached a point where he could stand upright in the water, General Wolfe turned about and waving his sword above his head, called the soldiers to follow him. Inspired by the desperate resolution of their leader, they leaped into the rolling surf and reaching the shore pressed on with resistless force against the French batteries. Among these men was young Montgomery, filled with the patriotic enthusiasm which the bold and adventurous enterprise inspired. Dripping wet, they made their way up the craggy approach to the stronghold and with rousing cheers, scaled the ramparts of felled trees, assaulted and took the outer defences and pushed the enemy back into the startled town. The French commander was thunder struck.
Young Montgomery was promoted Lieutenant for his actions at the Siege of Louisbourg. He eventually rose to the rank of Captain but became frustrated with the lack of promotion in the British Army. After a failed attempt to purchase a Major's commission he sold his commission in 1772 and moved to New York.
In 1773 he married Janet Livingston, eldest daughter of Judge Robert R. Livingston, and sister of Robert Livingston Jr., delegate to the Continental Congress. Percy Fitzhugh, 1906, describes this as Montgomery's first great victory.
Janet Montgomery
“General Richard Montgomery and his wife, Janet Livingston, plant locust seedlings on what will become the lawn of “Grasmere”, by Olin Dows 1940, Panel 6b 1776.
At the outset of the Revolution, in 1775, Congress made Richard Montgomery a Brigadier General in the American Army. Fitzhugh tells it this way:
As soon as … it became apparent that war was actually being carried on, the Continental Congress appointed the commander-in-chief, and with him four major generals and eight brigadiers, and among these latter was chosen Richard Montgomery; for his bravery and skill were well remembered and his sympathy with Colonial independence widely known. Without hesitation he accepted the commission as an honor, bade farewell to his sweet young wife, and laying aside the duties of his calling and the pleasant life of his beautiful home, he came forth to battle for the people whom he had come among, and in whose rights and virtues he so fervently believed. As the patriot was about to leave all that was dear to him to join the army which was gathering at Cambridge, he said:
“The will of an oppressed people, compelled to choose between liberty and slavery, must be obeyed.”
And he did obey that will—obeyed it through blast and tempest, ... and with a smile upon his lips he paid the cost.
There's a certain irony in General Montgomery's reference to the American Revolution as a choice “between liberty and slavery” as he, himself, was the “owner” of an unknown number of enslaved people. (See Montgomery History)“The will of an oppressed people, compelled to choose between liberty and slavery, must be obeyed.” - Fitzhugh, 1906, page 57.
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