The capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Colonel Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, though small on the scale of military engagements in American history, and nearly bloodless, was nevertheless of great importance to the patriot cause in the American War for Independence.
Background
Following the battles of Lexington and Concord, the Americans partially surrounded and besieged Boston. However, the American militia units were severely hampered in their operations by their lack of heavy artillery. The British had begun hostilities against the Americans by attempting to seize colonial arms at Concord; turnabout was only fair play, the patriots reasoned, and the thought of seizing a stock of British arms, especially artillery, began to loom large in the mind of Colonel Samuel Parsons, who left the patriot camp at Cambridge and returned to Connecticut the day following the battle of Concord to procure men for the impending siege. En route, he encountered Colonel Benedict Arnold, who was on his way to join the besiegers with a company of New Haven militiamen. Upon being told of the dearth of cannons in the American army besieging Boston, Arnold assured Parsons that there was an abundance of British arms and artillery at Fort Ticonderoga, and that the place was vulnerable because it was held only by a small garrison and the fort’s defenses had been allowed to deteriorate.[1]
Fort Ticonderoga stood on the western side of the narrow junction between Lake George and Lake Champlain, and guarded the route from Canada to the English colonies by means of the Great Lakes. The fort towered over the water, sitting on a one-hundred-foot hill. It had first been built in 1755, a star shaped structure with stone bastions. It had been held against the British in 1758 successfully, and unsuccessfully the next year, during the French and Indian War. The French had abandoned and destroyed the fort rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the British, and they had rebuilt the fortress and gave to it the name of Ticonderoga. Following the end of the French and Indian War, with no need to guard the frontier between the colonies and Canada any longer, the fort had been allowed to fall into disrepair, and was only garrisoned by a small and skeleton garrison.[2]
When Colonel Arnold reached Cambridge, he urged the Committee of Safety there to grant him authority to capture the fort. The Committee of Safety was sympathetic to such designs, and granted him the authority Arnold wanted, entrusting him with the power to raise “not more than 400” men for the task from Massachusetts. Meanwhile Colonel Parsons had met with lawyer John Brown from Massachusetts, sent to Canada to report on the friendliness of the French Canadians to the American cause. Brown had concluded that the taking of Fort Ticonderoga was imperative, writing to the Massachusetts of Committee of Safety on March 29th, 1775:
One thing I must mention to be kept as a profound secret: the fort at Ticonderoga must be seized as soon as possible should hostilities be commenced by the King’s troops. The people on New Hampshire Grants have engaged to do this business and in my opinion, they are the most proper persons for this job.
The people Brown referred to were the Green Mountain Boys, a company of rough and tumble backwoodsmen and frontiersmen who had staked a claim on the New Hampshire Grants, present day Vermont, and had defended their claims against the Governor of New Hampshire. Hence, resistance to what they perceived as tyranny was under the belts of the Green Mountain Boys, by the time the War for Independence rolled around. Their colonel was thirty-seven-year-old Ethan Allen, a tall, gigantic and broad-shouldered man, who was cut in the mold of the frontiersmen he led. Born in a log cabin in Litchfield, Connecticut, he had commanded a Connecticut regiment in the French and Indian War, and had moved to the New Hampshire Grants in 1768. His schooling was meager by the standards of the 1770s, but extensive by modern day dumbed down ones, even including a little Latin. He had written several pamphlets on political and philosophical topics, including one entitled Reason the Only Oracle of Man, presenting an argument for deism, to which Allen subscribed. It should be noted at this point that Allen’s deism was not the archetype of colonial thinking that it is often held up to be. On the contrary, the deism of Ethan Allen is noteworthy because it was so profoundly out of step with the generally Christian and Protestant, and largely Calvinistic beliefs of the overwhelming majority of the people of the Revolutionary period in the colonies.[3]
Two independent expeditions were thus marching to take Fort Ticonderoga. Arnold’s, with several hundred men, and Allen’s with the Green Mountain Boys. The forces rendezvoused at Castletown. Arnold, dashing ahead of his men, got there first. With two larger than life personalities, both of whom were proud, vain, and ambitious, there was bound to be contention over who should head the joint expedition – and there was. Waving his commission from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, in his scarlet coat, the impressive Arnold announced that he was taking command of the expedition. The hot-headed Allen, his green coat, had no intentions of relinquishing command to this blustering colonel, and flatly refused. Their subordinate officers tried to defuse the situation, but Arnold pressed his point. But the Green Mountain Boys were not going to fight without their colonel, Ethan Allen, and began to shoulder their arms and march away. Finally, Arnold had to back down, but to preserve the colonel’s pride, it was agreed that they would jointly command the expedition and would enter the fort together. The fact that the Committee of Safety had endorsed the operation was good news to the Green Mountain Boys. After the rendezvous, the American expeditionary force marched toward Ticonderoga.
Preparations for Attack
The American expedition finally reached Ticonderoga in the wee hours of the morning of May 10th, 1775. About two hundred men assembled at Hand’s Cove. Two miles of water separated them from Fort Ticonderoga. “With the utmost difficulty” wrote Allen, had he obtained two boats with which to cross the lake opposite Ticonderoga. “The moon had set, the sun not yet risen; it was dark, and squalls of men and rain were blowing up to make the crossing more hazardous.”[4] Allen, Arnold and 83 of their men climbed into the boats and crossed the lake, landing half a mile below the fort. It was daybreak at this time, and there was no time to send the boats back for the rest of the men if they were to retain the element of surprise. The attack would have to be made with 83 men with the two officers already. Drawing his men up in three lines, Allen addressed the officer and soldiers as following:
“Friends and fellow soldiers, you have, for a number of years past, been a scourge and terror to arbitrary power. Your valor has been famed abroad, and acknowledged, as appears by the advice and orders to me, from the General Assembly of Connecticut, to surprise and take the garrison now before us. I now propose to advance before you, and, in person, conduct you through the wicket gate; for we must this morning either quit our pretensions to valor, or possess ourselves of this fortress in a few minutes; and, inasmuch as it is a desperate attempt, which none but the bravest of men dare undertake, I do not urge it on any contrary to his will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelocks.”
Attack on Fort Ticonderoga
Each man now poised his firelock. Arnold ordered them to face right, and at the head of the center-file, Allen, with Arnold by his side, marched them to the gate of Fort Ticonderoga. The 83 men were a motley bunch “in every sort of garb…armed with firelocks, pistols, swords, knives, or simple clubs, not a bayonet among them all.”[5] The sleepy sentry at the gate pointed his musket at the advancing Americans and attempted fire upon Allen, but the weapon failed to discharge. Allen charged him, and the sentry dashed through the gate and into the fort, shouting, and “ran under a bombproof,” in Allen’s words. Now inside the fort, Allen and Arnold formed up their men on the parade ground so as to face the two barracks that faced each other, in which the British garrison was asleep. The sentries were not, however, and were much startled by the shouts of “huzzah,” which came from the American lips. One of the sentries attacked one of Allen’s officers with the bayonet, and slightly wounded him. Allen recorded:
“My first thought was to kill him with my sword; but, in an instant, I altered the design and fury of the blow to a slight cut on the side of the head, upon which he dropped his gun, and asked quarter, which I readily granted him, and demanded of him the place where the commanding officer kept; he showed me a pair of stairs in the front of a barrack, on the west part of the garrison, which led up to a second story in said barrack, to which I immediately repaired…”
Allen demanded that the garrison commander come out at once, or he would “sacrifice the whole garrison,” in his words. Captain William Delaplace, the garrison commander timidly emerged, only half dressed, in his coat and waistcoat, but carrying his breeches in his hand. “Come out of there you d—-ned old rat!” Allen shouted at him, and when he had done so, Allen demanded the surrender of the British garrison. The stunned Delaplace retorted that he demanded by what authority Allen was demanding the surrender, to which Allen thundered, “In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!” However, Delaplace had as much respect for the Continental Congress as Allen had for the Great Jehovah, and the British officer was inclined to argue the point. But Allen interrupted him, and with drawn sword poised over his head, he again demanded the surrender of the British garrison. Delaplace now complied and ordered his men to form up on the parade ground without arms. By this time, the barrack doors had been kicked down, and the garrison captured. It comprised one Lieutenant, “a conductor of artillery, a gunner, two sergeants, and forty-four rank and file,” plus twenty-four women and children. In personnel, this was no great bag therefore, but the artillery was a different matter. Seized were one hundred artillery pieces, eighty heavy and twenty light, and twelve mortars. It was a rich booty, well worth the trouble and expense of expedition, and in small arms, gunpowder, supplies, and other plunder, was the booty rich as well.
Capture of Other British Outposts
The next day, the rest of the Americans had arrived at the fort, and the Green Mountain Boys began plundering and looting. Arnold attempted to stop it, but they wouldn’t recognize his authority over them. “There are here at present,” Arnold reported, “near one hundred men, who are in the greatest confusion and anarchy, destroying and plundering private property, committing every enormity and paying no attention to public service.”[6] Indeed, the Green Mountain Boys soon began consuming Captain Delaplace’s private liquor stores and were soon thoroughly drunk, a fact which the captain protested. Arnold gave the British captain a receipt for the stolen liquor.
Having tasted success, the Americans were not disposed to quit while they were ahead. There remained other British forts and outposts in the area, lightly defended, but with rich prizes to be taken. Lieutenant Seth Warner of the Green Mountain Boys took a party of those patriots to the British fort at Crown Point and took the place, capturing the whole garrison of nine men, and a number of artillery pieces. Arnold, growing increasingly unhappy at Fort Ticonderoga, where his authority was disregarded, was delighted to command a naval expedition to capture St. Johns, a frontier post on the Richelieu river, “some miles beyond Lake Champlain.”[7] In several bateaux, Arnold and 35 men rowed all night to St. Johns, and on the morning of May 17th, captured the place bloodlessly, and its 15 man garrison, as well as a British sloop of war and its seven man crew. But Allen had no intention of letting Arnold get all the glory. With ninety men in four bateaux, he followed Arnold. “The two expeditions, Allen’s going, Arnold’s returning, met about six miles south of St. Johns and saluted each other with three volleys apiece.”[8]
Allen now boarded Arnold’s sloop, and the two officers drank several toasts to the health of Congress, where Allen learned that Arnold had taken St. Johns already, and that its garrison was in irons down in the hold. But when Allen learned that Arnold had abandoned the place, he resolved to occupy it instead and hold it. After feeding his men, Allen pushed on, and at St. Johns, he resolved to ambush a party of British that were coming to reinforce the garrison, much too late. But he thought better of the idea and pulled back his men across the river. Six British cannons opened up on his men from the other side of the river. Arnold’s men scrambled into their boats and got out of there fast, exchanging fire with the British as they did so. In their haste to depart, they left three men behind. One man was captured and the other two managed to escape.
Aftermath
Furneaux records that:
To their chagrin and fury Arnold and Allen were ordered to abandon both forts and return to Boston bringing the captured cannons. Later, Congress relented and sent a thousand soldiers to garrison these valuable posts. The captured cannons could not be moved without transport, and they did not reach Boston until January, 1776.[9]
Ward records:
No exercise of military genius was involved in the taking of the Champlain posts, nor was there needed any display of valor. They fell like ripe apples from a shaken limb. Nevertheless, their capture was of vast importance to the colonies. Leaving out of consideration, their subsequent value in the operations of that territory, the guns which they yielded were of inestimable value to the Americans. Many of them were found to be in such bad condition as to be useless, but no fewer than seventy-eight were serviceable, ranging from 4-pounders to 24-pounders. There were also six mortars, three howitzers, thousands of cannon balls of various sizes, nine tons of musket balls, thirty thousand flints, and a large quantity of miscellaneous apparatus.[10]
The small arms and gunpowder were naturally valuable considering the shortage of American gunpowder as evidenced at the battle of Bunker Hill. Although the value of the heavy artillery seized in May 1775 was not immediately utilized, their capture was nevertheless a great boon to the American cause. In January of 1776, Henry Knox would have the guns transported in a great feat of logistics to Dorchester Heights at Boston, where their presence would force the British to abandon Boston. Though a little skirmish with no fatalities and only a few wounded, the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga was thus nevertheless important to the history of the American War for Independence and should be remembered by all Americans.
[1] Rupert Furneaux The Pictorial History of the American Revolution As Told By Eyewitnesses and Participants (Chicago, Illinois: J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company, 1973) p. 41
[2] Christopher Ward The War of the Revolution (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1952) I:63
[3] Indeed, Reason the Only Oracle of Man was a publishing failure selling only 200 of 1500 printed copies. Anti-Christian tracts and pamphlets were not high on the reading lists of colonial Americans.
[4] Christopher Ward The War of the Revolution (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1952) I:67
[5] Ibid p. 68
[6] Quoted in Ibid p. 69
[7] Ibid p. 69
[8] Ibid p. 70
[9] Rupert Furneaux The Pictorial History of the American Revolution As Told By Eyewitnesses and Participants (Chicago, Illinois: J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company, 1973) p. 44
[10] Christopher Ward The War of the Revolution (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1952) I:71-72
Bibliography
Christopher Ward The War of the Revolution (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1952)
Rupert Furneaux The Pictorial History of the American Revolution As Told By Eyewitnesses and Participants (Chicago, Illinois: J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company, 1973)
Ethan Allen, Narrative of the Capture of Ticonderoga: And of His Captivity and Treatment by The British (Burlington, Vermont: C. Goodrich and S.B. Nichols, 1849)