16. The Americans remained to blockade Quebec through the winter
The battle had been an unmitigated disaster for the American forces. Montgomery was dead, Morgan and Henry Dearborn were prisoners inside the citadel. Arnold was severely wounded but determined to remain at Quebec with what few troops remained. Many of the Americans, their enlistments over, simply left for home. Arnold sent requests for reinforcements to several of his superiors, including Schuyler and Washington, but there were none to be had. In Philadelphia, Congress ordered the states to raise new units and that they are sent to Arnold in Canada, and slowly a trickle of men began to arrive to join his tattered band.
Arnold was forced to buy supplies with which to feed and clothe his army from local citizens, and by late winter he was out of hard money. The locals mistrusted his paper. Smallpox appeared in his army, in the closeness of camp in winter quarters it was difficult to control its spread. In April, Arnold was relieved by David Wooster. Arnold assumed command in Montreal, from whence he lobbied for reinforcements and a resumption of the attack on Quebec when the weather allowed. There he also found that Wooster had established an anti-Catholic military control of the city, which alienated the local population and erased the former support for the Americans.