Carleton & Prisoners

On 27 January 1776, George Washington wrote to Benedict Arnold, "On the 17th instant I received the melancholy account of the unfortunate attack on the city of Quebeck, attended with the fall of General Montgomery and other brave officers and men, and your being wounded....I sincerely condole with you upon the occasion. But in the midst of distress I am happy to find that suitable honours were paid to the remains of Mr. Montgomery; and our officers and soldiers, who have fallen into their hands, treated with kindness and humanity."

Commanding British troops that drove a sickly American army from Canada, Irish-born General Sir Guy Carleton employed kindness toward American prisoners, a decision with strategic value.

Paul David Nelson, General Sir Guy Carleton, Lord Drchester: Soldier-Statesman of Early British Canada (Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000); William M. Dwyer, The Day is Ours!: An Inside View of the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, November 1776-January 1777 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998 [1983],)371.