Battle of The Cedars - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Americans never held up their side of the prisoner exchange. Formally repudiating the agreement over the protests of George Washington, the Congress accused Forster of mistreating American prisoners by turning them over to the Indians. 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. The Congressional action may have been tainted by overly lurid accounts of the action—Charles Carroll, part of a Congressional delegation that was in Montreal at the time, reported that "a hundred or more were barbarously murdered by savages." Arnold's report of the incident included otherwise unsubstantiated allegations that two prisoners were killed by Forster's Indians. Some histories of the action (for example, the 1882 history by Jones) include accounts of significant atrocities committed by the Indians, but little supporting evidence has been found. The Congressional repudiation complicated an attempted prisoner exchange in 1781 involving Burgoyne and Henry Laurens, a Congressman from South Carolina whom the British were holding in the Tower of London; Laurens was eventually freed in exchange for a promise to help negotiate Lord Cornwallis's release.

Arnold initially blamed Bedel for the defeat. He removed both Bedel and Butterfield from command and sent them to Sorel for court-martial. Due to the army's retreat, the two men were not tried until August 1, 1776 at Fort Ticonderoga. Both were convicted and cashiered from the army. Bedel continued to volunteer his services, and following Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga in October 1777, he was given a new commission by Congress.

The site of some of the skirmishes was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1928.