The winter of 1775 was one of the worst in living memory. Outnumbered almost three to one, the best Arnold could do now was to deny the enemy firewood and forage, so he systematically burned outlying buildings and even some of the ships moored in the river. Carleton remained inside the city and refused to discuss prisoner exchanges, which Arnold sought to regain his only experienced artillery officer, Lamb.
From late January, American reinforcements began arriving from Ticonderoga via Montreal, including Warner's Green Mountain Boys and the first units from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. However, the journey had left the men in poor health, their uniforms in tatters and their weapons unserviceable. They arrived to find the camp riddled with smallpox (allegedly started by a prostitute sent out by Carleton), so much so that the other sick and the wounded were denied attention. Dr Senter reported 400 smallpox cases, mostly among the New Englanders; apparently, half of Warner's and Brown's men had disobeyed orders and inoculated themselves.
Equally worrying was the lack of specie. On 4 March, Arnold proclaimed that whoever accepted paper money would be paid in full, in coin, within four months. The ruse kept the army supplied for a few more months, but stories of troops looting from civilians - even priests and nuns - at bayonet point became rife. Discipline was collapsing and men overheard talking of going home when their enlistments expired were flogged. Even among officers morale was low, a situation not helped by the campaign still being waged against Arnold by Brown, Easton, and others.
The effect was to cause the habitants to reconsider their loyalties. On 23 March, 300 assembled to attack a detachment of Arnold's troops at Point Levis. Arnold learned of this and sent Major Lewis Dubois with 150 New Yorkers to the south shore, where they were joined by 150 rebel Canadians. Dubois dispersed the 46-strong advance party, killing three and wounding several more. Soon after, Carleton's sentries noticed men erecting a battery at Point Levis. Despite constant shelling, the battery became operational on 2 April, throwing red-hot shot at the town and the shipping in the river. Later that day, three men, believed to be Wooster, Arnold, and Antill, were seen surveying the town from a distance of 500 yards (457m). The next day, a second battery sprouted in front of Porte St Louis; a third later appeared across the St Charles.
