The Battle of the Cedars (French: Bataille des Cèdres) was a series of military confrontations in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War that occurred during the Continental Army's invasion of Quebec, which began in September 1775.

Colonel Timothy Bedel and Lieutenant Isaac Butterfield, commanders of the American force at the Cedars, were court-martialed and cashiered from the Continental Army for their roles in the affair.

The nearby rapids in the Saint Lawrence required portage, making the Cedars a strategic landing point for anyone navigating the river to or from Montreal.

Montgomery left a garrison of troops under the command of Major General David Wooster in control of Montreal before leading the rest of the army to Quebec City.

He arrived early in April 1776, and the military administration of Montreal passed temporarily to Colonel Moses Hazen before going to Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, who had been in command at Quebec.

Wooster had reported to General Schuyler as early as March 5 of rumored scheming between British troops and Indians to the west of the city.

[11] Lieutenant Isaac Butterfield led an advance force that arrived at the Cedars on April 26 and began construction of a wooden stockade fort, fortifying it with two 4-pound cannons.

[12] The Indian agent Lorimier traveled west to Oswegatchie, where a company of the 8th Regiment of Foot under the command of George Forster had occupied Fort de La Présentation.

[15] At Fort Niagara in early May the Loyalist captain, John Butler, held a conference with several hundred tribesmen, primarily from the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee, in which his goal was to break pledges of neutrality some of them had made in 1775.

[2][18][19] James Stanley Goddard, one of the fur traders who left with Lorimier, traveled further west in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to raise an Indian force to oppose the Americans occupying Quebec.

He reached Fort Michilimackinac in June, where the British commander, Captain Arent DePeyster, sent him recruiting among the Menominee and Winnebago tribes near Green Bay.

[20] Once forces began assembling at Oswegatchie, Lorimier made arrangements with a sympathetic priest near the Cedars for the provisioning of supplies for the troops.

With the assistance of some men of the 8th Foot, he strategically hid several shallow-draft boats, known as bateaux, near a point where the Saint Lawrence River could be crossed.

[24] Arnold, who was meeting with the retreating Continental Army command at Sorel, returned to Montreal when the news reached him and set about organizing a larger relief force.

Additional help arrived for the British in the form of about 40 Canadiens under Jean-Baptiste Testard de Montigny; Forster sent them to harass Sherburne.

The scout was allowed to notify Sherburne of his capture; in his message he included a claim that 500 Indians had surrounded the fort at the Cedars.

[27] The Haudenosaunee claimed these captives as war spoils, since they were not part of the fort's garrison, and prepared to kill some of them in retaliation for their own losses.

Leaving some of the prisoners there, he advanced on May 23 to Fort Senneville, a fortified works on the southwest tip of Montreal Island that was owned by Montigny.

Forster began to advance on Lachine, but decided to retreat back to Quinze-Chênes when his scouts notified him of Arnold's position.

[31] Arnold attempted to cross the Ottawa River with some of his men in bateaux, but Forster used the four-pounders captured at the Cedars to drive them back.

In a breach of etiquette, the letter containing the repudiation was delivered to Lieutenant General John Burgoyne, instead of the British commander-in-chief and governor of the province, Guy Carleton.