The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack of Quebec, December 1775

Inscriptions

Inscribed, in plate, lower left: Painted by John Trumbull Esq.r; lower center: London, Published March 1798, by A.C. de Poggi, No. 91, New Bond Street / The Death of General Montgomery / In the Attack of Quebec Dec.r 1775; lower right: Engraved by J. T. Clemens

Label

Continental Army Major General Richard Montgomery slumps in the arms of Major Matthias Ogden at the center of a dramatic composition dominated by strong verticals, swirling smoke, barren trees, and snow-covered ground. Among those surrounding Montgomery, Chief Colonel Louis Cook, or Akiatonharónkwen, raises his tomahawk in anger. Cook led Onieda and Tuscarora forces who sided with the Continental Army and became the highest-ranking Black and Indigenous officer as a lieutenant colonel. As this print illustrates, the American Revolution was a multiracial and multinational conflict. Had Montgomery’s attempt to launch a surprise attack and take Quebec during a blizzard been successful, parts of southern Canada might have become part of the United States.

From the 2025-26 exhibition Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, curated by Michael W. Hartman (Jonathan Little Cohen Curator of American Art), Haely Chang (Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art), Elizabeth Rice Mattison (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art), Ashley B. Offill (Curator of Collections), and Evonne Fuselier (Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow)

Exhibition History

Death and Dying: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Anthropology 55, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 11-March 26, 1995.

Lower Jewett Corridor, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 23-March 21, 1976.

Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, Harteveldt Family Gallery and Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 18, 2025 - August 8, 2026.

The Napoleonic Era, Strauss and Barrows Galleries and Barrows Windows, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 29-September 3, 1979.

Town of New London (NH) Bicentennial, New London, New Hampshire, October 19-November 7, 1979.

Unlayering Stereotypes: Selections from the Permanent Collection For Teaching Cultural Anthropology, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Anthropology 7, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 24-August 20, 1995.

Provenance

Goodspeed's Book Shop, Boston, Massachusetts; sold to present collection, 1957.

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