Fox News opinion: Arnold’s 1775 march through Maine became a brutal survival test, columnist says
Patrick K. O’Donnell wrote in a Nov. 11, 2026, opinion column on Fox News that Benedict Arnold’s late-September 1775 expedition from New England through the Maine wilderness to attack Quebec became a brutal test of survival that left many Continental soldiers starving, sick and dead.
O’Donnell said the advance party included 11 scouts from the 1st Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment led by Lt. Archibald Steele, who carried canoes and scouted routes for a trailing army he described as more than 1,000 men using more than 200 heavy bateaux to move supplies. He wrote the journey exceeded 350 miles and that the Great Carry — a 12-mile stretch of land and water between the Kennebec River and the Dead River — turned to quagmire in rain.
The column recounted delays and equipment failures, saying the bateaux measured about 22 feet and that poor construction and exposure to the elements rendered many unseaworthy. O’Donnell wrote that a bateau wrecked and sank in rapids and that a barrel of gold and silver coins used to pay the men and buy supplies in Canada sank in the Dead River.
According to the column, the men endured contaminated water, dysentery and starvation; commanders reduced rations and sent a picked force to seek provisions in French settlements. O’Donnell wrote survivors emerged in early November after weeks of exposure, with some men reduced to a pint of flour per day and others resorting to eating pets or roasting leather to survive.
O’Donnell described a relief party arriving with driven cattle and said many of the starving men became sick or died after gorging themselves on meat. He also framed the Revolutionary generation in the column as a “Greatest Generation” and said his recent book, Revolutionary Snipers, recounts the role of early Continental riflemen in the campaign.
The article is an opinion column and presents O’Donnell’s account and interpretation of the 1775 expedition as published on Fox News on Nov. 11, 2026.
Source: Latest & Breaking News on Fox News
