After the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 the yoke of British rule seemed increasingly heavy to the self-reliant and restive British colonists in North America. The colonists viewed the increased taxes, perceived limitations of rights, and trade duties levied by their absentee government as tyranny, while the British government considered growing colonial resistance a movement that required vigorous suppression. The leaders of the growing American rebellion grew more vocal in their advocacy of human rights and liberty. The colonies first unified to condemn the Stamp Act of 1765, but they reacted even more quickly to the passage of the Coercive [\u201cRepressive\u201d or \u201cIntolerable\u201d] Acts in 1774, which Parliament had instituted in response to the Boston Tea Party. As King George III informed Prime Minister Lord North in September 1774, \u201cthe die is now cast, the colonies must either submit or triumph\u2026.We must not retreat; by coolness and remitted pursuit of the measures that have been adopted I trust they will submit.\u201d The king\u2019s confident wish did not come true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the evening of April 18, 1775, the inevitable finally occurred when British troops marched out of Boston to seize patriot supplies in nearby Concord, Massachusetts. The next morning, shots were fired in neighboring Lexington, Massachusetts that left eight Americans dead on the town green. Further volleys were exchanged at Concord, and American militiamen hotly pursued the British force on its retreat to Boston. By nightfall of April 19, patriot militias had taken up arms in the call for resistance and encircled British-held Boston. The British attempt to discourage the \u201crude rabble without plan\u201d with a display of force had instead led to open conflict.
From the outset, rebel leaders knew that they must expel the besieged British garrison in Boston, but such an undertaking was impossible without heavy artillery. Such weaponry was at that time completely unavailable to colonial militias. However, cannon were known to be in ample supply at the weakly-manned British forts at both Ticonderoga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain. The Americans immediately devised plans to seize the guns and bring them to Boston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once again Lake Champlain became a critical strategic arena. If the Americans could capture the lake\u2019s forts, they would gain not only cannons but also control of the lake. They would then command the most direct invasion route to British Canada. On the other hand, if the British maintained their presence on Lake Champlain, then geography would favor their endeavors, allowing them to divide New England and the remaining colonies and conquer them piecemeal (Figure 0\ufdd37).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On May 10, 1775, three weeks after the engagements at Lexington and Concord, the Americans undertook their first offensive action against the British on Lake Champlain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early in May 1775, Connecticut authorized Ethan Allen and two hundred Green Mountain Boys to attack Fort Ticonderoga and capture its cannon for the siege of Boston. Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point were both lightly garrisoned and in severe disrepair. On the eve of the planned attack, Benedict Arnold arrived with a colonel\u2019s commission and orders from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, bent on the same mission. After a heated dispute between the two leaders to determine who was in charge of the attacking party, Arnold and Allen finally agreed to share the command. In the early-morning hours of May 10, they entered the fort \u201cside by side\u201d with a force of 81 and took the sleeping garrison by surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FPO<\/strong> Profile of the schooner Liberty<\/em> (from “God Bless Our Arms” courtesy of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Along with Fort Ticonderoga, Allen and Arnold quickly captured the fort at Crown Point in May 1775. At the southern end of the lake, the Loyalist settlement of Skenesborough (present-day Whitehall), New York, fell to the Americans as well. At Skenesborough, the Americans seized Philip Skene\u2019s schooner Katherine<\/em>, the first vessel to be captured in the war and the first designated warship of the rebellious colonies. In his journal, Lieutenant Eleazar Oswald noted the event: \u201cWe set sail from Skenesborough in a schooner belonging to Major Philip Skene, which we christened Liberty<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arnold immediately assumed command of Liberty<\/em>when the schooner arrived at Ticonderoga and embarked for St. Johns, Canada, at the northern end of the lake. There he surprised and captured the \u201cKing\u2019s sloop\u201d Betsy<\/em>. Arnold renamed the sloop Enterprise<\/em> and confidently reported, \u201cAt present, we are Masters of the Lake.\u201d Thus, just over a year before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, American forces on Lake Champlain were in complete control of a water highway that led directly into the heart of Quebec. To capitalize on their strategic advantage, the Americans made immediate plans to invade Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The colonial leaders decided on a two-pronged assault on Canada, mistakenly expecting Canadians to gladly join the Americans in their cause. One army would move north through the wilderness of Maine and Quebec and the second through the Champlain Valley, once again assigning Lake Champlain a key role as a highway for invasion. Brigadier General Richard Montgomery, Schuyler’s second-in-command, was chosen to lead the army north into Canada through the Champlain Valley, while Benedict Arnold took the second army. The capture of St. Jean on route to Montreal took two months, much longer than anticipated, but the victory yielded two prize vessels, the schooner Royal Savage<\/em> and a row galley that was later re-rigged as a schooner and called Revenge<\/em>. After taking St. Jean, the Americans ran the two gondolas Hancock and Schuyler over the rapids at Chambly and followed the St. Lawrence River to Montreal. With bad weather, little Canadian support, diminishing supplies, little hard money, and diminishing enlistments, the rebel colonial army attacked the city of Quebec during a raging snowstorm with disastrous results. The American army’s attempt to take Quebec was defeated, forcing the men to spend the winter outside the city’s walls. The weakened American force camped outside Quebec throughout the harsh northern winter. Despite famine and disease, they maintained the siege of the city. Reinforcements from New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut marched hundreds of miles north along frozen Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River, but they were too few and too late to save the American effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Americans stubbornly maintained their siege of Quebec throughout the winter of 1775-1776, but Carleton knew that English assistance would arrive as soon as the St. Lawrence River was clear of ice. In May 1776, a British convoy from Europe reached Quebec, carrying 10,000 British regulars and German mercenary troops. Their arrival triggered a hasty and disorganized American retreat from Canada. They stopped at Ile-aux-Noix in the Richelieu River to regroup, but it was a desperate scene. Three thousand ailing soldiers camped on the island, and at least 15 to 20 perished every day for want of medical supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Realizing that they had no hope of defending the island, the remaining colonial troops evacuated Ile-aux-Noix and retreated to Crown Point. Encamped at the ruins of the fort, the remnants of the American (Continental) Northern Army had better access to supplies, but the ravages of disease continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the American army lay at Ile-aux-Noix and Crown Point, the British forces rested at St. John\u2019s waiting for orders to invade. The King\u2019s troops knew of the deplorable condition of the American army, but they elected not to take advantage of the situation. For the moment, the Americans\u2019 four little ships captured in 1775 blocked the British advance. The French and Indian War had demonstrated that whoever controlled the waters of Lake Champlain controlled the Champlain Valley. Despite the condition of their army, in July 1776 the Americans had vessels sailing the waters while the British had no fleet available. Until the British could gain naval supremacy on Lake Champlain, their army could not advance unprotected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know of no better method than to secure the important posts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and by building a number of armed vessels to command the lakes, otherwise the forces now in Canada will be brought down upon us as quick as possible, having nothing to oppose them\u2026 They will doubtless try to construct some armed vessels and then endeavor to penetrate the country toward New York. (Brigadier General John Sullivan to George Washington, June 24, 1776)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Americans had captured and armed four vessels in 1775: Liberty<\/em>, Enterprise<\/em>, Royal Savage<\/em>, and Revenge<\/em>. This small fleet gave the Americans the upper hand on Lake Champlain and prevented the British army from advancing south. Throughout the summer of 1776, American and British forces at opposite ends of the lake worked furiously to assemble naval squadrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FPO<\/strong> View of the saw mill at Fort Anne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The southern lake town of Skenesborough was chosen for the construction of the American vessels, and, an ironworks to supply the shipyard. In just over two months, the American shipbuilding effort produced one small galley constructed from timbers captured at St. Johns, eight new 54ft (16.5m) gondolas (or gunboats), and four 72ft (22m) row galleys. Each completed hull was rowed to Fort Ticonderoga where it was out fitted with masts, rigging, guns, and supplies. By early October 1776, the American fleet numbered 16 vessels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are as well prepared for the enemy as our circumstances will allow. They will never have it in their power to surprise us. The men are daily trained in the exercise of their guns. If powder was plenty, I would wish to have them fire at a mark with their great guns often. At present, we cannot afford it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedict Arnold to General Horatio Gates, September 21, 1776<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the autumn of 1776, the American navy on Lake Champlain was a combined fleet of captured and newly built ships. Under the command of General Benedict Arnold, the fleet was manned by volunteers and troops drafted from the Northern Army. Arnold, who had sought troops with some maritime experience, was not very pleased with his recruits. He wrote to General Horatio Gates, Commander of the Northern Department, \u201cWe have a wretched motley crew in the fleet, the marines the refuse of every regiment, and the seamen, few of them ever wet with salt water.\u201d Experienced sea officers, not tempted by the potential riches of privateering, were sent from the New England colonies to command the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the British fleet arrived at the basin below Quebec in May 1776, it brought troops to reinforce Montreal and also signaled the end of any American invasion of Canada. Thus began a British counter-thrust into the colonies. The British anticipated that their 1776 campaign might take place \u201con the lakes,\u201d and therefore sent prefabricated parts of gunboats from England to Quebec. British General Guy Carleton selected the outpost at St. John\u2019s as the center of the British shipbuilding effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The British fleet on Lake Champlain was constructed for two purposes: to overcome the American fleet then patrolling the lake, and to escort and protect the army that was preparing to invade the colonies. The larger vessels were manned by Royal Navy officers and seamen from the St. Lawrence naval and transport ships, and the gunboats were manned by British and Hessian artillerymen. These professional forces were far superior to the untrained novices aboard the American fleet. Captain Pringle commanded from the deck of Maria, and General Carleton accompanied him on the same vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two fleets met on the western side of Valcour Island on October 11, 1776. The American fleet, commanded by Arnold, consisted of eight gondolas, three row galleys, two schooners, one sloop, one cutter and bateaux. The vessels in the British fleet were not only larger with better sailing characteristics, but they were also crewed by professional sailors under the command of skilled naval officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arnold picked the location for the battle. Lying about halfway between Crown Point and St. John\u2019s, Valcour Island provided the American fleet with both a natural defensive position and relief from the increasingly blustery autumn weather. Arnold\u2019s vessels sheltered to the west of the island, knowing that the British fleet would sail past on the east side. The Americans were both outgunned and outmanned in seamanship, and they hoped that the British vessels would have difficulty beating back against the wind after spotting the American line at anchor.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRetreat from Canada<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Americans: Building a Fleet from a Forest<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The American Fleet<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The British Fleet<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Battle of Valcour Island<\/h3>\n\n\n\n