Fort Ticonderoga was a Revolutionary War engagement fought in New York, 1775. It was an American victory.
On May 10, 1775, early in the Revolutionary War, a modest band of Green Mountain Boys under Ethan Allen, alongside Colonel Benedict Arnold, caught the British defenders of Fort Ticonderoga off guard and took the post with its slim garrison. Months afterward, Colonel Henry Knox hauled the fort's cannons and other weaponry to Boston as part of what became known as the noble train of artillery, and these guns went on to strengthen the American position at Dorchester Heights, ultimately breaking the deadlock of the siege of Boston.
This triumph at Ticonderoga signaled the first offensive move made by the Americans in the conflict. Just one day later, on May 11, a small party pushed on to seize Fort Crown Point nearby. Then, a week after that, Arnold led fifty men in a strike against Fort Saint-Jean, situated on the Richelieu River in the southern reaches of Quebec, where they made off with cannons, military stores, and the biggest warship then sailing Lake Champlain.
Though the fighting itself was small in scale, its consequences reached far beyond the moment. The action disrupted the British Army's ability to coordinate between its northern and southern forces, while also handing the young Continental Army a foothold from which to launch its Quebec invasion later that year. The episode was also shaped by the outsized ambitions of Allen and Arnold, both eager to claim as much glory and recognition as they could for what had happened. Above all, it was the effort spearheaded by Henry Knox, moving the captured artillery across Massachusetts to the high ground overlooking Boston Harbor, that proved decisive, ultimately compelling the British to abandon the city altogether.
No sooner had Arnold received his orders than he set out, taking with him two captains, Eleazer Oswald and Jonathan Brown, whose job was to gather the necessary manpower. By May 6 he had reached the line separating Massachusetts from the Grants, and there he found out that the Connecticut Committee was already enlisting men, and that Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys had already set off toward the north. Pushing his horse hard in a northward dash, which cost the animal its life, he made it to Allen's base at Bennington the following day. Once there, he was informed that Allen himself had gone on to Castleton, some 50 miles (80 km) further north, where he was waiting on supplies and additional recruits. He also received a caution: even though Allen's mission carried no official blessing, the men under him would probably refuse to follow anyone else. Setting off again early the next morning, Arnold got to Castleton just as a war council was convening, and there he argued that his formal authorization from the Massachusetts Committee entitled him to lead the expedition.
By that point, Allen had gathered a force at Castleton consisting of roughly 100 Green Mountain Boys, close to 40 men that James Easton and John Brown had raised in Pittsfield, and 20 more from Connecticut. The group had chosen Allen as their colonel, with Easton and Seth Warner serving beneath him as lieutenants. By the time Arnold showed up, Samuel Herrick had already been dispatched toward Skenesboro and Asa Douglas toward Panton, each leading a detachment tasked with rounding up boats. Meanwhile, Captain Noah Phelps, who belonged to the "Committee of War for the Expedition against Ticonderoga and Crown Point," had scouted the fort under the guise of a peddler in search of a shave. From this reconnaissance he determined that the fort's walls were falling apart, and he also learned from the commander of the garrison that the troops' gunpowder had gotten wet and that reinforcements were anticipated soon. Once Phelps passed these findings along to Allen, the two of them settled on staging a raid at daybreak.
A good number of the Green Mountain Boys balked at the idea of Arnold taking charge, declaring flatly that they would rather return home than take orders from anyone besides Ethan Allen. Eventually Arnold and Allen reached some kind of understanding, though nothing in writing survives to confirm its terms. Arnold himself later claimed that the command had been split evenly between them. This version has found support among certain historians, while others argue that all he actually received was permission to march alongside Allen.
Seth Warner led a small flotilla up the lake and seized Fort Crown Point nearby, a post defended by just nine men. Most accounts place this victory on May 10, a date drawn from a letter Arnold sent the Massachusetts Committee of Safety on May 11, in which he said headwinds had blocked an earlier push toward the fort. Warner himself told a different story: writing from "Head Quarters, Crown Point" on May 12, he stated that he had secured the post the previous day. The likely explanation is that the first attempt on May 10 failed, and the mission succeeded when tried again the following day, a sequence matching Warner's own account. Meanwhile, a separate detachment moved against Fort George on Lake George, overpowering its garrison of only two soldiers.
Around this time, men recruited by Arnold's officers started reaching the lake, some arriving fresh from taking Philip Skene's schooner Katherine and a handful of bateaux at Skenesboro. Arnold gave the schooner a new name, Liberty. Captives taken in these actions revealed that the only British warship on Lake Champlain was stationed at Fort Saint-Jean, up the Richelieu River past the lake's northern end. Unsure whether news of Ticonderoga's fall had yet reached that post, Arnold resolved to strike quickly and capture the vessel. He armed Liberty with cannon and set out northward on May 14 with fifty men. Allen, unwilling to let Arnold claim sole credit for such a prize, pursued in bateaux with a company of his own, but lacking sails, his boats soon fell behind Arnold's swifter craft. By May 17 Arnold's small squadron had reached the lake's far end. Hoping to learn what awaited them, he dispatched a scout toward Saint-Jean, who returned that same day with word that the British already knew of the losses at Ticonderoga and Crown Point and that soldiers seemed to be mobilizing toward the fort. Arnold chose not to wait.
He and thirty-five men rowed through the night until their boats reached the vicinity of the fort. A short reconnaissance preceded their surprise attack, which overwhelmed the modest garrison and yielded both military stores and the seventy-ton sloop-of-war HMS Royal George. Prisoners cautioned that reinforcements were already marching from Chambly, so the raiders hastily loaded the finest supplies and artillery onto the George, which Arnold rechristened Enterprise. They scuttled the boats they could not bring along and withdrew toward Lake Champlain with their expanded fleet. A retired British officer named Moses Hazen, who lived close to the fort, witnessed the raid and rode first to Montreal to alert the commanding officer there, then pressed on to Quebec City, where he informed General Carleton on May 20. In response, Major Charles Preston set out from Montreal with 140 men bound for Saint-Jean.
About fifteen miles down the lake, Arnold's ships crossed paths with Allen's, still traveling north. The two forces exchanged celebratory volleys, and Arnold shared his provisions with Allen's exhausted men, who had rowed a hundred miles in open boats without food. Convinced he might still take and hold Saint-Jean, Allen pressed onward while Arnold turned back south. Allen reached the fort on May 19, only to be warned by a Montreal merchant sympathetic to his cause, who had ridden ahead of the approaching British troops, that danger was near. After drafting a message for the merchant to carry to Montreal's citizens, Allen withdrew, arriving back at Ticonderoga on May 21, having left Saint-Jean just before the British columns appeared. In the scramble to escape, three of his men were abandoned; one fell into British hands, while the remaining two eventually made their way south on foot.
Once the liquor ran dry, Ethan Allen's followers scattered from Ticonderoga bit by bit, leaving Arnold to run things largely on his own from Crown Point. He supervised the outfitting of the two large vessels and ended up commanding Enterprise himself, since no one else on hand knew enough about seamanship. His men set about restoring the barracks at Ticonderoga while digging weapons out of the ruined forts and fashioning carriages to mount the guns.
Connecticut dispatched roughly 1,000 troops led by Colonel Benjamin Hinman to garrison Ticonderoga, and New York started raising its own militia to protect Crown Point and Ticonderoga from any northern assault by the British. Hinman's force showed up in June, reigniting the dispute over who was actually in charge. Nothing the Massachusetts committee had sent Arnold suggested he answered to Hinman, so when Hinman tried claiming authority over Crown Point too, Arnold pushed back, pointing out that Hinman's orders covered only Ticonderoga. Eventually the Massachusetts committee dispatched representatives to the fort, arriving on June 22 to inform Arnold plainly that he now fell under Hinman's command. After mulling it over for two days, Arnold broke up his unit, quit his commission, and headed home, having sunk more than £1,000 of his own funds into the fort's capture.
Once Congress learned what had happened, it composed a second message to the people of Quebec, dispatched north in June through James Price, another Montreal merchant sympathetic to the cause. That letter, together with further correspondence from New York's Congress and the efforts of outspoken supporters, helped agitate the Quebec population through the summer of 1775.
Word of Ticonderoga's fall reached England and prompted Lord Dartmouth to call it "very unfortunate; very unfortunate indeed."
News that Ticonderoga and Crown Point had fallen, along with the raids against Fort Saint-Jean, shook the people of Quebec. Colonel Dudley Templer, who commanded the Montreal garrison, called on May 19 for a militia to be raised for the city's protection, and he asked nearby Indians to join the fight as well. Only about 50 men answered, mostly French-speaking seigneurs and minor nobility with land holdings, and they were sent on to Saint-Jean; no Indians ever appeared to help. Templer also blocked merchants friendly to the American cause from shipping supplies south after Allen sent his letter.
General Carleton, informed by Hazen about the situation on May 20, wasted no time ordering the garrisons at Montreal and Trois-Rivières to strengthen Saint-Jean's defenses. Troops stationed at Quebec were likewise sent there. The bulk of the remaining forces in Quebec were scattered to various posts along the Saint Lawrence, reaching as far as Oswegatchie, to watch for any invasion. Carleton then went to Montreal himself to direct the province's defense, leaving Quebec city under Lieutenant Governor Hector Cramahé. Before departing, he convinced Monsignor Jean-Olivier Briand, the Bishop of Quebec, to issue a call to arms of his own supporting the province's defense, which circulated mainly around Montreal and Trois-Rivières.
By July 1775, General Philip Schuyler was using the fort as a launching point for the invasion of Quebec begun that August. That winter, spanning 1775 into 1776, Henry Knox oversaw hauling Ticonderoga's cannons to Boston. Once positioned on Dorchester Heights above the besieged city and its harbor full of British ships, those guns forced the British to pull their soldiers and Loyalist allies out of Boston in March 1776.
Benedict Arnold commanded a fleet once more at the Battle of Valcour Island and contributed to blocking Britain's 1776 attempt to retake the fort. The British finally succeeded in recapturing it in July 1777 during the Saratoga campaign, only to abandon it again by November following Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga.
Despite Fort Ticonderoga's limited military value at the time, its seizure carried significant consequences. With rebels in control of the region, land routes and supply chains linking British forces in Quebec to those in Boston, and later New York, were cut off, forcing a reorganization of British command. This communication gap became evident when Arnold, traveling north toward Saint-Jean, intercepted a disp
Shaded area is the surveyed battlefield boundary; the pin marks its centre.
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