At this point in the fight, Lieutenant Colonel Greene intervened and urged Captain Morgan to hold off on another effort to get over the top of the second barrier until General Montgomery arrived with reinforcements.

Like so much else in war, we didn’t know what we didn’t know. By 7:30 a.m. as Captain Morgan was organizing a second Forlorn Hope to follow him over the second barricade, we didn’t know General Montgomery was already dead.

Nor were we aware the British had reinforced the other side of the barricade with more than 400 troops composed of Regulars, sailors, Canadian militia, and Royal Highland Emigrants, many with fixed bayonets. Two light artillery pieces were also placed on a platform ten yards behind the barrier to fire grapeshot across the top of the rampart. It was a grapeshot from one of these guns that hit the brave Capt. Lamb in the face.

And while the sky had brightened somewhat, the howling blizzard was unabated, reducing visibility to ten yards or so.

The tight quarters on the street, the short distance between attackers and defenders and the reduced visibility of the howling storm eliminated any advantage for our rifles. We not only had no bayonets, but it also took us longer to re-charge our firearms than the musketeers.

As we were positioning four ladders for Captain Morgan’s Forlorn Hope, none of us can see the defenders on the other side of the second barrier breaking down doors and clamoring up to the second-story windows to engage any of us who manage to make our way to the top of the barricade.

Captain Morgan shouted, “Follow me, men, Quebec is ours!” and scrambled up the ladder. As he and the first five or six of our Riflemen appeared over the top of the barricade, the defenders’ cannons and muskets erupted, killing all but Captain Morgan who miraculously fell over backward, landing at our feet with new holes in his hat and hunting shirt. Lt. Humphrey and I bent to help him to his feet.

Suddenly, as our Forlorn Hope party is reloading our rifles, a dozen enemy troops rush through a sally port2 with muskets at the ready, bayonets fixed. An officer, holding a pistol demands, “Drop your weapons! Surrender or die.”

At this, Captain Morgan grabs my reloaded rifle and shoots the officer through the head.

As the British troops dragged their dead officer back through the portal to the other side of the barricade, all hell breaks loose.

Until this point in the battle I saw so many of my friends in front, beside, and behind me killed and wounded, I was quite convinced my prayers for protection3 were being answered. They were. But not the way I expected.

Second Barricade, Rue du Sault-au-Matelot,
Lower Town, Quebec City, Canada

7:30 a.m., Sunday, December 31st, 1775

I didn’t see the man who shot me.