Montgomery, Richard

Know this topic well? Help others and get FREE products!

(b. December 2, 1738; d. December 31, 1775) Revolutionary War hero.

Richard Montgomery was born in County Dublin, Ireland, in 1738 to a wealthy gentry family. Richard's father, a member of the Irish parliament, and his older brother, an army captain, encouraged him to seek a position in the British Army, and in 1756 he enlisted. He rose fairly quickly through the ranks to become a captain by 1762, due in part to his good service in North America during the Seven Year's War and in part to the army's typical promotion of sons of privilege.

During his stay in North America, Richard Montgomery formed a favorable impression of the British colonists there, unlike most of his fellow British officers. Upon his return to England in 1765, he was outspoken on behalf of the colonists as conflicts over taxes and other imperial matters worsened. Montgomery resigned his army commission in 1772 and migrated to New York State, where he hoped to become a prosperous farmer.

Montgomery became a successful landowner, and he greatly enhanced his status the following year, when he married Janet Livingston, the wealthy daughter of New York scion Robert Livingston. Janet's wealth and family connections would influence not only the course of Montgomery's life, but also his fame after death.

As the imperial crisis between the American colonies and Great Britain heated up, Montgomery found a new chance to become an important public man in his adopted country. In 1775 he was elected to the Provincial Congress of New York, and when the Revolutionary War broke out that same year, the Continental Congress appointed Montgomery a brigadier-general of the Continental Army. Montgomery was appointed second-in-command of a planned invasion of Canada, but when his commander, Major General Philip Schuyler, became ill, most of the planning and everyday command of the operation fell to Montgomery.

Montgomery's Canadian expedition set out in September 1775, and, although his underprepared band of mostly New England troops faced a hard winter march through rough terrain, Montgomery's force was quite successful at first, capturing several forts and then the city of Montreal on December 13. Montgomery connected with another group of American troops commanded by Benedict Arnold outside of Quebec, and together the two forces laid siege to that city, hoping to capture it before the end of the year, when the first Continental Army enlistments formally expired. The American forces were weak and undersupplied, and with their siege failing, they attempted an attack on the city on the last day of the year. Montgomery was killed during the attack on Quebec, which ultimately also failed.

Immediately after his death, Montgomery's even more important career as an American martyr began. Montgomery, the well-born British army officer, who had chosen to cast his lot with the Americans during their revolution, became a symbol of the elite brand of heroism that expressed the sacrifice of the Revolutionary War to the American public and helped to inspire allegiance to the new American nation. Even the British instantly recognized Montgomery as a heroic figure. After the battle at Quebec, the British forces buried his body with honors outside the city's gates.

The Continental Congress learned of Montgomery's death on January 17, 1776, and the representatives, hoping to boost public support for the war and for the cause of American freedom, took immediate steps to commemorate him. A congressional committee commissioned a marble monument to Montgomery's memory, and the entire Congress convened in Philadelphia for a public funeral for Montgomery on February 19, 1776. Montgomery, along with Joseph Warren, a martyred hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill, became the subject of laudatory poems, pamphlets, and other popular printed materials. Praise for his bravery and sacrifice helped to cement support for American independence in July 1776, and he remained a potent figure of patriotic inspiration throughout the Revolutionary War.

Montgomery's memory lived on in the postwar years. In 1787 the monument to Montgomery commissioned by Congress was erected in Trinity Church in New York City. It became a popular tourist destination and the inspiration for further writings lauding Montgomery. Janet Livingston Montgomery did much to preserve the memory of her husband in the public mind. In 1818 she spearheaded a drive to have his remains reinterred in New York City at the site of his monument. This second burial was again accompanied by great public ceremony and praise, and the occasion provided an opportunity for Americans to rededicate their allegiance to the memory of the American Revolution, a primary basis of early American nationalism.

Although Richard Montgomery's symbolic importance receded somewhat by the end of the nineteenth century, he retained his reputation as a semi-aristocratic hero who served to inspire allegiance to the American revolutionary cause during the early republican period. Montgomery, as a heroic figure much praised by the public, embodied the values of the Revolutionary War and the American nationalism that grew out of it.

Bunker Hill Monument; Flags; Lafayette's Tour.

Gabriel, Michael P. Major-general Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002.

Purcell, Sarah J. Sealed with Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

Shelton, Hal T. General Richard Montgomery and the American Revolution: From Redcoat to Rebel. New York: New York University Press, 1994.

This is the complete article, containing 890 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).