The Battle of Fort Ticonderoga took place on May 10, 1775, when a small force of American militia led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold launched a surprise attack on a British garrison in upstate New York, capturing the fort without a single casualty. It was the first American offensive victory of the Revolutionary War, coming just three weeks after the opening shots at Lexington and Concord. The capture secured a critical strategic position, provided the Continental Army with desperately needed artillery, and delivered an important early boost to the Patriot cause.
What Was the American Revolution?
The American Revolution was the political and military struggle through which the Thirteen Colonies broke free from British rule and established the United States of America. Open fighting began in April of 1775 at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, and the colonies formally declared independence on July 4th, 1776. Fort Ticonderoga was one of the very first military actions of that conflict and one of its most strategically important early victories. The artillery seized at the fort would play a direct role in forcing the British out of Boston less than a year later, making the capture of Ticonderoga one of the most important early events of the entire war.
Background – The Fort and Its Strategic Value
Fort Ticonderoga sat at the southern end of Lake Champlain in northeastern New York, at the point where the lake narrows near its outlet to Lake George. This location made it one of the most strategically important military positions in North America. Whoever controlled the fort controlled the natural water highway connecting the British colonies to Canada. The fort had been built by the French in 1755 as Fort Carillon and had been the site of one of the largest battles of the French and Indian War in 1758. The British captured it from the French in 1759 and held it ever since.
By 1775, the fort had fallen into serious disrepair. It was garrisoned by only a small detachment of the 26th Regiment of Foot, approximately 48 men including officers, many of them soldiers with limited duties due to illness or disability. Twenty-five women and children also lived at the fort. Despite its run-down condition, Fort Ticonderoga still held roughly 80 pieces of artillery, including cannons, howitzers, and mortars, weapons the newly formed Continental Army desperately lacked. American Patriots had identified the fort as a priority target almost as soon as the conflict with Britain began.
Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys
The men who captured Fort Ticonderoga were not regular soldiers. They were the Green Mountain Boys, a militia force that had been operating in the territory now known as Vermont since 1770. Their original purpose had nothing to do with the Revolution. The Green Mountain Boys had formed to defend the land rights of settlers in the New Hampshire Grants, a region claimed by both New York and New Hampshire. Under the leadership of Ethan Allen, they had spent years intimidating New York sheriffs and settlers, using tactics including property destruction, threats, and public humiliation to resist New York’s authority over the area.
Allen was a forceful, colorful, and at times reckless personality with little formal education but a natural talent for leadership. When fighting broke out between the colonies and Britain in the spring of 1775, Allen and the Green Mountain Boys immediately threw themselves into the Patriot cause. Connecticut leaders encouraged Allen to move on Fort Ticonderoga, and he began organizing the expedition almost immediately, likely even before any official authorization arrived.
Benedict Arnold’s Commission
At almost exactly the same time, Benedict Arnold, a Connecticut militia officer, separately arrived at the same conclusion. Arnold was on his way to join the militia besieging Boston when he told Connecticut leaders about the artillery stockpiled at Ticonderoga. Impressed, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress commissioned Arnold as a colonel and authorized him to raise troops to capture the fort. Arnold raced north, but when he arrived near Ticonderoga on May 9, 1775, he found Ethan Allen already there with roughly 150 men and planning to attack the next day.
The two men had a tense confrontation. Arnold argued that his formal commission from the Massachusetts government gave him authority to command the expedition. Allen’s men refused to follow anyone but Allen. After a day of arguments, the two agreed to share command and lead the attack together, though the practical leadership on the ground remained largely Allen’s.
The Capture of the Fort
By the evening of May 9, a force of between 200 and 300 men had gathered at a cove on the Vermont shore of Lake Champlain, directly across from the fort. However, there were not enough boats to carry the whole force across, and the attack nearly had to be called off. In the end, Allen and Arnold led about 83 men across in the boats that were available, deciding not to wait for the rest of the force to cross.
The small party reached the New York shore before dawn on May 10, 1775. Moving quietly toward the fort’s entrance, a single sentry was overcome before he could raise an alarm. The Americans poured through the gate and into the fort’s interior. A second sentry fired his weapon but it misfired, and he was quickly disarmed. Allen reportedly ran to the staircase leading to the commander’s quarters and shouted for the garrison’s surrender. According to a popular account that Allen himself later promoted, he demanded the surrender “in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.” The actual words may have been somewhat less dramatic, but the result was immediate. The British commander, Captain William Delaplace, surrendered the fort without resistance.
The entire engagement lasted only a few minutes. No Americans were killed or seriously wounded, and the British garrison was taken completely by surprise. The following day, May 11, a small American force under Seth Warner captured the nearby Fort Crown Point, taking another 100 pieces of artillery. Within days, Arnold led 50 men on a raid further north to Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River in Quebec, seizing British military supplies and the largest military vessel on Lake Champlain, giving the Americans control of the waterway.
Henry Knox and the Artillery
The capture of Fort Ticonderoga gave the Continental Army a cache of heavy weapons it had no other way of obtaining. However, putting those weapons to use required moving them more than 300 miles (480 km) across the mountains and frozen rivers of New England to the siege of Boston, where Washington desperately needed artillery to dislodge the British forces occupying the city.
Washington assigned the task to Henry Knox, a 25-year-old bookseller from Boston who had no formal military training but had read extensively about artillery and military engineering. Knox arrived at Ticonderoga in December of 1775 and organized the transport of 59 pieces of artillery, totaling roughly 60 tons, across the frozen lakes and through the Berkshire Mountains in the middle of winter. Using sleds, oxen, and sheer determination, his men dragged the guns to Boston, arriving in January and February of 1776. This remarkable feat became known as the Noble Train of Artillery.
Washington had the guns mounted on Dorchester Heights, which overlooked Boston Harbor, in early March of 1776. British General William Howe woke on the morning of March 5 to find his fleet and his army under the muzzles of dozens of cannon. Evacuating Boston was the only practical option. The British sailed out on March 17, 1776, ending the Siege of Boston without another major battle. The artillery from Ticonderoga had made Washington’s first great victory possible.
Later Events at the Fort
Fort Ticonderoga changed hands again during the war. In July of 1777, British General John Burgoyne forced the American garrison under General Arthur St. Clair to evacuate after placing artillery on the previously overlooked high ground of nearby Mount Defiance. The British occupied the fort for several months, but abandoned it permanently in November of 1777 following Burgoyne’s decisive defeat at the Battle of Saratoga. The fort was never garrisoned as a military post again after the Revolution.
Significance of the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga
The capture of Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775, mattered far beyond its immediate military effect. It was the first time American forces had successfully attacked and seized a British military installation, demonstrating that the Patriot cause had the will and capacity to go on the offensive. It secured the northern approach to New York and provided a staging ground for the later American invasion of Canada. Most importantly, the artillery taken from the fort enabled Washington to force the British out of Boston, a victory that proved the Continental Army could win and that sustained the Revolution through its difficult early months.
