Battle of Ticonderoga (1775)

For other battles at Fort Ticonderoga, see Battle of Ticonderoga.

The 1775 Battle of Ticonderoga occurred early on the morning of May 10, and was the first significant action of the American Revolutionary War. Colonels Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold surprised and captured the small British garrison at Fort Ticonderoga.

The Campaign for Ticonderoga

The Connecticut Committee of Safety had decided that taking Ticonderoga was a good idea. They wrote to Ethan Allen and others, who also liked the idea. James Easton raised 40 volunteers at Pittsfield, Massachusetts for the venture. Allen assembled over a hundred of his Green Mountain Boys. They met on the evening of May 9 at Bennington, and made their plans.

Ethan Allen was elected Colonel, with Easton and Seth Warner as his lieutenants. Samuel Herrick was sent to Skenesboro and Asa Douglas to Panton with detachments to secure boats. Allen would march the rest up the lake to a point a few miles below Ticonderoga, to cross there. The council had just parted when Benedict Arnold arrived with orders from the Connecticut committee and insisted that he should be in command. He was generally ignored, but they did let him march up front with Allen.

Local volunteers brought their numbers up to about 200. By moonset, they had assembled at Hand's Cove and were ready to cross the lake, but had only two boats secured by Douglas. Eighty-three of the Green Mountain boys piled in with Arnold and Allen and crossed the lake. Douglas went back for the rest. But as dawn approached, fearful of losing the element of surprise, they attacked. Surprising the only sentry on duty at the south gate, they rushed into the fort. Allen and Arnold charged up the stairs into the officer's quarters and demanded surrender, which they got.

Ticonderoga was not the fortress it had been in 1758. It had largely fallen into disrepair and the garrison consisted of only two officers and fifty men. But, it still had a large stock of artillery. Only one shot was fired, and there were no serious injuries on either side.

Aftermath

Seth Warner marched a detachment up the lakeshore and captured Crown Point and more supplies along with nine more prisoners. On May 12, Allen sent the important prisoners to Connecticut's Governor Jonathan Trumbull noting that "I make you a present of a Major, a Captain, and two Lieutentants of the regular Establishment of George the Third."

Arnold took a small schooner and several bateaux from Skenesboro north with 50 volunteers. On May 18 they seized another garrison at Fort St. Johns along with the Enterprise, a seventy ton sloop. Aware that several companies were stationed a twelve miles down river at Chambly, they loaded the more valuable captured supplies and cannon, burned the boats they couldn't take and returned to Crown Point.

Ethan Allen and his men returned home. Benedict Arnold remained with some Connecticut replacements in command at Ticonderoga. At first the Continental Congress wanted the men and forts returned to the British, but on May 31 they bowed to pressure from Massachusetts and Connecticut and agreed to keep them. Connecticut sent a regiment under Colonel Benjamin Hinman to hold Ticonderoga. When Arnold learned that he was second to Hinman, he resigned his Connecticut commission and went home.

In the winter of 1775-1776, Henry Knox moved the guns of Ticonderoga to Boston, to support the Siege of Boston. The captured ships were used, along with others, in 1776 by then General Arnold to thwart Britain's attempt at recapture in the Battle of Valcour Island. Ticonderoga was retaken by the British Saratoga Campaign in 1777, but abandoned after their surrender at the Battle of Saratoga.

See also: Fort Ticonderoga, the Battle of Ticonderoga (1777).