”, then at the bottom added his own note: “ the People say the Troops fired first & I believe they did”.6CHAPTER 11
The current political debate was by no means limited to the provincial leaders. As the public debate heated up, the sensationalistic Massachusetts press was fast at work, eager to stir up readers’ passions for liberty. However, publication of incendiary propaganda was not without risk. Isaiah Thomas, editor of the Massachusetts Spy (Or, American ORACLE of Liberty!) in Boston, had wisely packed up his press and printing types just two days before the recent Battle of the Nineteenth of April and smuggled them out of the town. He set up shop in Worcester, where he continued to publish his strongly pro-Whig newspaper with the motto “Americans!—Liberty or Death!—Join or Die!”1
Benjamin Edes, one of two printers of the Boston Gazette, was not as sagacious and so found himself in besieged Boston. He nevertheless escaped by boat at night, much as Paul Revere had, crossing the Charles into Charlestown. Edes made his way to Watertown and there continued printing his news on a battered old press. His partner, John Gill, remained in Boston and was surprisingly left unmolested for months, before he was finally arrested and put in jail, “charged with printing sedition, treason and rebellion.”2
One of the greatest strokes in the propaganda war came from Ezekiel Russell, printer of the Salem Gazette. He issued a famous and dramatic broadside by giving another American account of the recent battle and prominently featuring forty black coffins at the top of the page with the names of the deceased countrymen by each. It was memorably titled, “Bloody Butchery, by the British Troops; or the Runaway Fight of the Regulars”. He offered it to New Englanders “either to frame and glass, or otherwise preserve in their houses…as a perpetual memorial”.3
Yet despite all of this, and despite the looming war, Gage largely tolerated and allowed the freedom of the press, even though most of the articles were scathingly written against him. Instead of evoking censorship, he sought to combat the sensationalism with his own version of the events.
The most obvious means at his disposal to effect his counterattack in the propaganda war was via the few Loyalist newspapers. However, of Boston’s two admittedly Loyalist newspapers, the Boston Post-Boy shut down just before the battle, while the editor of the Boston News-Letter waffled for fear of reciprocity and ultimately failed to publish anything of value to the Loyalist cause before also being shut down in early 1776.4 Thus, Gage was forced to publish his own broadside, A Circumstantial Account of an Attack that happened on the 19th April, 1775, intended to be widely published, partly to combat the American sensationalism and partly to fill the void the Tory papers had left behind.
He sent it to all the continent’s royal governors, as well as to many New England printers who in turn dispersed it to the masses. However, his account failed to achieve the desired effect. While pro-Whig accounts gave impassioned appeals to heaven and carefully constructed rhetoric against the unbridled authority of their sovereign, his was a simple and factual account, completely devoid of political comment and wholly unfit to conjure support for Loyalism or even a peaceful resolution to the great debate.5
Most Massachusetts Whigs were especially annoyed that A Circumstantial Account claimed the Americans had fired first at Lexington (though based on what we know today, this may indeed be the case). For colonial leadership, this was of fundamental importance, the crux of their argument that they were the victims of a barbaric army and a despotic Ministry. Dr. Joseph Warren obtained a copy of A Circumstantial Account, and in the margin near where it reported the Americans fired first, he penned in a footnote mark, “”, then at the bottom added his own note: “ the People say the Troops fired first & I believe they did”.6
Just as Warren was convinced the British fired first, the British were convinced the Americans had done so. Lord Percy was so sure that he wrote to the adjutant general in England, “they fired first upon the King’s Troops, as they were marching quietly along.”7 Yet neither Warren nor Lord Percy were eyewitnesses to that first action of the battle, and their certainty of how it happened illustrates that both sides were blindly dug in, each convinced that the other was to blame.
In truth, even if Gage had given a wonderful and eloquent argument in his Circumstantial Account, it was doomed to failure because he remained steadfast in keeping the remaining inhabitants of Boston penned up in the besieged town—a move that only served to reinforce the Whig argument that the British Army was an instrument of tyranny.
By May 10, with no traction on releasing the remaining inhabitants, the Provincial Congress wrote one last official letter, signed by Dr. Warren, as a polite but stern remonstrance to Gage: “We would not affront your Excellency by the most distant insinuation, that you intended to deceive & disarm the People, by a cruel act of Perfidy… But your Excellency must be sensible, that a Delay of Justice is a denial of it, and extremely oppressive to the People now held in Duress.”8
Warren took this opportunity to write another letter to the governor, this one private. It was a final plea for cooperation from Gage: “I am very sensible of the Formalities which Gentlemen in your Situation generally think yourselves obliged to observe, but the present state of publick Affairs renders it necessary that you should seriously consider whether you are to sacrifice the Interest of Grt Britain, and the Peace of the Colonies, to mere Form[alitie]s—great Complaints are made respecting the Delays in removing the Inhabitants of Boston, I assure you Sir that this People irritated as they have been, will not with any tolerable Degree of Patience suffer the Agreement made between you and the Inhabitants of Boston to be violated, if you still retain those Sentiments of Humanity which I ever supposed had a very great Influence upon your Conduct, I for the last Time request that you would (without hearkening to the mad Advice of Men who I know have deceived you, and I believe care not if they ruin you, and this Empire) punctually comply with your Agreement with the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston”. Warren added an important postscript to the letter: “no Person living knows, or ever will know from me of my writing this”.9
His Excellency General Gage seems never to have replied, and sadly, Warren wrote to his friend Samuel Adams, away in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress, “General Gage, I fear, has trepanned the inhabitants of Boston. He has persuaded them to lay down their arms, promising to let them remove with their effects; but he suffers them to come out but very slowly, contriving every day new excuses for delay.” Warren also regretfully informed his friend that his son, Dr. Samuel Adams Jr., an apprentice of Warren, remained trapped in Boston. Warren had tried to secure his safe passage from the town and had even reserved a surgeon’s slot in the army for him, but it was all for naught, probably due to the young doctor’s famous last name. At last, Warren was unable to leave the surgeon’s slot unfilled any longer, and he unhappily expressed this to the senior Samuel Adams. However, another of Warren’s apprentices, Dr. William Eustis, did manage to escape the town sometime during this period and would serve alongside the New England Army.10
In the end, Rev. William Gordon of Roxbury summed up the whole debacle simply: “The General engaged with the Selectmen of Boston, that if the Town’s people would deliver up their arms into their custody, those that chose it should be allowed to go out with their effects. The townsmen complied, and the General forfeited his word, for which there will be an after reckoning, should they ever have it in their power to call him to an account.”11 By mid-May, essentially no more Bostonians would be able to leave the town.12
In anticipating the outcome of the struggle to free the remaining inhabitants, the Provincial Congress finally resolved that “general Gage hath…utterly disqualified himself to serve this colony as a governor, and in every other capacity, and that no obedience ought, in future, to be paid by the several towns and districts in this colony, to his writs for calling an assembly, or to his proclamations, or any other of his acts or doings; but that, on the other hand, he ought to be considered and guarded against, as an unnatural and inveterate enemy to this country.” If there was any doubt before as to whether Massachusetts was in rebellion, there was no doubt now. When Gage learned of this most treasonous resolve, he forwarded it to the home government, stating simply, “they have set all my Authority aside.”13
With that resolve, and with the yet secret expedition to take Fort Ticonderoga, the last hope for peace evaporated.
• • •
It was by happenstance that Col. Benedict Arnold’s mission to Fort Ticonderoga would not meet its objective until after the Provincial Congress had soundly committed itself to prosecution of the war, resulting in a perceived legitimacy for the enterprise. As Arnold traveled to the westerly extent of the colony, near Stockbridge, Massachusetts, he heard rumors of the parallel Connecticut mission that might snatch from him the glory that he had anticipated and so yearned for.
Fearing his opportunity about to escape his grasp, he issued “beating orders” to his two officers to recruit without him (so called because the recruiting drive in a town was announced by beat of a drum), and then, without a moment’s more delay, Arnold rode ahead on horseback with but his servant, eager to meet this Connecticut party. His recruiting officers were to join him once they had drafted the new recruits for his mission.14
The Connecticut party was doing its own recruiting, but had found it difficult. When one of their own went to Albany, New York, to raise men, he was sent back empty-handed, the people there telling him “they did not think that we should succeed.” At length, the Connecticut party managed to collect about 170 men, including thirty-nine Massachusetts volunteers under Col. James Easton, the rest mostly of the Green Mountain Boys from the New Hampshire Grants (Vermont).15
On the evening of May 7, the Connecticut-led force rendezvoused at the then-small backwoods town of Castleton (in modern Vermont). The next morning, May 8, they held a council of war and decided that a party of thirty under Capt. Samuel Herrick would march the next day to the small hamlet of Skenesborough (now Whitehall) in New York, situated at the southern extremity (or “harbor”) of Lake Champlain. Skenesborough had been settled by the Maj. Philip Skene, an accomplished British half-pay retired officer and wealthy merchant. He had successfully petitioned in 1764 for a royal patent giving him twentynine thousand acres upon which to build his settlement. By 1775, Skenesborough had grown to include a post office, sawmills, ironworks, and a general store. More importantly, it boasted a small schooner named Katherine. It was Captain Herrick’s mission to capture this schooner and any other boats there, as well as Major Skene himself if possible.16
Of the remaining 140 men, the war council elected Col. Ethan Allen of the Green Mountain Boys as their commander, Colonel Easton as their second, and Capt. Seth Warner of the Green Mountain Boys as their third, their ranks commensurate to the numbers of men they had raised.17 These men were to march out the next morning for Shoreham, a village on the shores of Lake Champlain directly across from Fort Ticonderoga, where they were to wait for Herrick and the boats by which to cross the lake and attack the fort.18
Arnold and his servant arrived later that same day, only to find that the war council had broken up and Allen had gone alone in advance to Shoreham to gather extra men and set guards on the roads. When Arnold declared his mission, the party rejoiced at his proof that Massachusetts also desired the capture of the fort, “but were shockingly surprised when Colonel Arnold presumed to contend for the command of those forces that we had raised, who we had assured should go under the command of their own officers”. The recruits thought Arnold had gall to declare that he, and only he, had legal right to command, though Arnold cited his orders and commission and gladly revealed these to them. In truth, his argument of legality had some merit, for the Connecticut contingent had not even consulted their assembly. When Arnold strenuously insisted, it “bred such a mutiny among the soldiers which had nearly frustrated our whole design, as our men were for clubbing their fire-locks and marching home”. (To club one’s musket was to turn it upside down as a signal of one’s unwillingness to fight.) Arnold promised the men that if he were made their commander, their pay would be the same as though they were under Allen’s command. But the men replied, “damn the pay,” and that “they would not be commanded by any others but those they engaged with”.19
Arnold gave up the endeavor until early the next morning, when he left Castleton for Shoreham, hoping to overtake Ethan Allen and convince him to give up his command. When the Connecticut men learned of it, they scrambled to muster themselves and pursue, “for fear he should prevail on Col. Allen to resign the command”. They departed with such haste they even left their provisions behind.20 Arnold and Allen at last met in Shoreham, though no document remains which describes their interaction.
Ethan Allen, at thirty-eight, was as stubborn and vainglorious as Arnold, perhaps more so (if that were possible). Allen exemplified his own quest for great laurels when he wrote, many months later, “The glory of a victory which will be attended with such important consequences, will crown all our fatigues, risks, and labours; to fail of victory will be an eternal disgrace, but to obtain it will elevate us on the wings of fame.”21
The difference between these two men was that Allen lacked the military competence and natural charisma Arnold had. However, Allen had the support of his men, while Arnold had no men at all, only a piece of paper from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety to cling to. So the conversation on who was to command was no doubt heated. Perhaps Allen thought it wise to add some sense of legality to their mission, or perhaps he simply conceded and chose to placate Arnold. Whatever the case, the two compromised to a joint command.22
By midday, the entire colonial force had gathered at Shoreham and waited for sunset. As they did so, they sent a small party under Connecticut Capt. Edward Mott back to Castleton for the provisions they had left behind.23 Finally, as the sky grew dark sometime after half past seven o’clock, they gathered at Hand’s Cove along Lake Champlain and quietly hid among the dense trees, where they could see battered Fort Ticonderoga across the shimmering lake, illuminated by the waxing gibbous moon that shone from almost straight above.24
Colonel Allen had managed to recruit still more men that day, and now their numbers were something more than 200, maybe as high at 270, the majority of them Green Mountain Boys.25 Fort Ticonderoga, on the other hand, was defended by just forty-five men, commanded by Capt. William De la Place of the 26th Regiment.26 Near half of these were invalids and old men, unfit for service, though the rest were fresh men just arrived from Quebec in two parties, with more on their way, part of a detachment General Carleton was sending to help rebuild the fort. The latest party was led by Lt. Jocelyn Feltham, who held the strange distinction at such a junior rank of being second-in-command at the fort (since there were no other officers present). Two dozen women and children also resided at the fort. This meager garrison was hardly a defense against a surprise attack by veteran frontiersmen.27
The Yankees waited at Hand’s Cove for many hours, apparently oblivious to the flaw in their plan. It was the job of Captain Herrick’s party sent to Skenesborough to bring up the boats intended for crossing the lake, but since that party had not left until midday and the distance was nearly twenty-three miles one way, their mission had been doomed to failure even before it began.28 As the moon sunk to the horizon around two o’clock in the morning of May 10, the men grew restless.29 They knew sunrise would soon come, yet they had no choice but to bide their time in the dark woods across from their target, having no way to reach it.
In their moment of desperation, somehow they managed to find two scows or bateaux (flat-bottomed boats, often with a single mast and sail, as these probably had). A tradition claims Capt. Asa Douglas was dispatched to Crown Point to “see if he could not agree with his brother-in-law who lived there, to hire the king’s boats, on some stratagem”, and in doing so successfully acquired one boat.30 According to the tradition, Captain Douglas also found a guarded ferry longboat belonging to Major Skene, out near Willow Point across from Crown Point. Douglas and his few companions were able to dupe the ferryman and his two rowers that they needed a ride back to Hand’s Cove to pick up a party for a squirrel hunt. The ferryman was suspicious but known to be a bit of a drunk, and Douglas easily enticed him with a jug of rum. Perhaps they rowed both boats together, side by side, southward back to the Shoreham cove. When the ferryman at last discovered the ploy, seeing the eager American backwoodsmen with their muskets hiding in the woods, it was too late—he and his two rowers were made prisoners.31
It was near three o’clock in the morning, with the moon now set and the shore shrouded in utter darkness, when the men began boarding the two bateaux for the first crossing. Their senses were high as they carefully and quietly embarked, hoping to retain the element of surprise. About eighty-three men plus Colonels Allen, Arnold, and Easton all managed to pile into the two bateaux, along with a handful of rowers and the Massachusetts agent John Brown. They quietly pushed off and rowed their boats across the mere half-mile stretch of the narrow lake. Upon reaching the opposite shore, the two bateaux gently scraped onto the muddy beach, and the men quietly disembarked before the decrepit fort. The rowers then turned the two bateaux back toward the opposite shore for the next crossing.32
By now, the sky was slowly growing bright as dawn was fast approaching. So the two joint commanders, Allen and Arnold, quickly consulted one another and concluded that, rather than waiting for the rest of their men, they would storm the fort immediately.33
• • •
The Americans quietly rushed around Fort Ticonderoga’s broken and rotting walls to the main gate in back, but despite the fort’s ruin, they were surprised to find the gate solidly shut. Luckily, the wicket, a small gate just beside the main, was open.34 Arnold and Allen, both obstinate glory-seekers, vied to be the first to enter the fort, perhaps pushing by each another in the process like two children eager for a prize. The result is unknown, as each says he was first, but probably they both entered the fort side by side.35
As the sun began to rise at about half past four o’clock on May 10,36 the Yankee force poured through the gate behind Allen and Arnold, some giving an “Indian war-whoop” as they did so, catching a lone sentry by surprise.37 The British sentry “snapped his piece at them; our men, however, immediately rushed forward, seized and confined the sentry, pushed through the covered way, and all got safe upon the parade [ground], while the garrison were sleeping in their beds.”38 Another sentry charged with his bayonet affixed toward a colonial officer standing near Allen, whom the sentry perhaps slightly wounded. Allen reacted immediately, swinging his saber toward the sentry’s head. “My first thought was to kill him with my sword; but, in an instant, altered the design and fury of the blow to a slight cut on the side of the head.”39
Simultaneously, the Americans stormed into the center of the fort’s parade ground, immediately formed a hollow square, and gave three loud huzzahs, which woke the fort and brought out the surprised garrison, half undressed.40 Frazzled and caught off guard, some popped out of their barracks without their muskets, only to dodge or hobble back in and reemerge with pieces in hand. The few women and children who were there with their soldier husbands shrieked with fear as a very short skirmish ensued.
A few ruthless Yankees yelled “No Quarter! No Quarter!” meaning they would slay the British soldiers rather than take them prisoner, but the American officers skillfully prevented their men from such violence.41 The Americans had the element of surprise, and most of the British soldiers were too decrepit to give much of a fight. Moreover, the Yankees outnumbered the small garrison nearly two to one. It seems not even one shot was fired as the Americans swarmed the feeble garrison still emerging from their barracks.42
Lt. Jocelyn Feltham heard the commotion and rushed from his chamber on the upper level of one of the barracks. He was undressed and without breeches, maybe wearing only an undergarment or bedclothes. He knocked on the adjacent door to wake the garrison commander, Capt. William De la Place, then rushed back into his door, putting on his waistcoat and scarlet officer’s coat before darting back to De la Place’s door, still wearing no breeches. Feltham noticed “rioters on the bastions” as he dashed into his commanding officer’s chamber, now open, his commander also struggling to dress.43
Down below, the feeble and short-lived melee between British invalids and hardened frontiersmen—hardly much of a fight—was already over. The Americans were now breaking into several chambers below—where they expected the officers to be—but upon finding them empty, they turned their attention toward the upper level. A doorway blocked the stairs up to the officers’ chambers, and the Yankees surged toward it and attempted to break it in. Upstairs, Feltham proposed to his commander that he would rush down the stairs and force his way to the men, which De la Place seems to have agreed to.
Just as the half-dressed Feltham popped out of his commander’s quarters at the top of the stairs, the Yankees at last broke through and rushed up, with Colonels Allen and Arnold in the lead, swords drawn and pistols in hand. Feltham yelled that they halt, but none could hear him over the tumult. With the mob continuing to thunder up the steps toward him, he put out his hand to gesture that they halt. Allen and Arnold halted just before the half-dressed officer and ordered their own men to silence.44
Feltham decided to buy time for his men below, figuring that at any moment, he would hear a volley or two as the British garrison began to slaughter the American invaders.45 He could not see from his vantage point that the short-lived skirmish was already over. The entire garrison had been captured in less than ten minutes, with no Americans wounded and only a few British slightly so.46
Not knowing this, Lieutenant Feltham bode his time. He first demanded by what authority the colonists had entered His Majesty’s fort.47 Ethan Allen would later claim he replied, “In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress.” Allen observed that it was necessary to refer to a higher power since the authority of Congress was as yet unknown to many.48
Feltham next demanded who were their leaders and what was their intent. The colonial officers wore no distinguishing uniforms, so Feltham did not know he was already talking with the men he sought. Allen and Arnold introduced themselves as having a joint command, and Arnold added that he came with instructions from the Massachusetts Congress, which he promptly pulled from his pocket and showed the lieutenant. Not to be trumped by Arnold, Allen then declared his orders were from Connecticut (though he had no written proof of such), and “[We] must have immediate possession of the fort and all the effects of George the third”. Feltham paused at those words, but impetuous Allen, having had enough conversation, did not wait for the lieutenant to ponder the situation. Drawing his sword, Allen extended it over Feltham’s head, even as some of the colonial mob behind him brought their firelocks to bear. Allen insisted Feltham surrender the fort, “and if it was not comply’d with, or that there was a single gun fired in the fort[,] neither man woman or child should be left alive”. With this, Allen proved himself the more brutal and unrefined of the two commanders.49
Capture of Fort Ticonderoga—engraving by Johnson, Fry & Co., c. 1866, based on a painting (before 1859) by Alonzo Chappel (1828–1887). It does not accurately portray how the scene unfolded. Clements Library, University of Michigan. (Original painting at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.)
Colonel Arnold interrupted his co-commander, speaking to Feltham in “a genteel manner”, but also insisted that he surrender the fort. Feltham tried to talk around the subject, when at last Arnold realized Feltham was not the commander at all. Arnold must have said so, for his men eagerly pressed to storm the other chamber above, where they now knew the true garrison commander remained hidden. The cooler Arnold prevented it, whereupon Captain De la Place revealed himself, fully dressed in his scarlet coat with all of its accoutrements.
The Americans surged forward, pushed Feltham back into his own quarters, and set a guard of two sentries there. De la Place then asked Arnold and Allen many of the same questions Feltham had. When the commanders began to discuss the terms of surrender, Arnold assured De la Place “he might expect to be treated like a gentleman”,50 but the troops would not parade with arms.51 At length, De la Place accepted, and the fort now belonged to the colonies.52
The short-lived and near bloodless battle to take Fort Ticonderoga was over. But the battle for its command had just begun.
• • •
As the rest of the ragtag colonial force crossed Lake Champlain and joined those at Fort Ticonderoga, Benedict Arnold once more demanded command of the men and the fort, again citing his orders from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. The men were mutinous, finding Arnold’s audacity incredible, for “he had not one man there” that he had enlisted himself.
At last, Capt. Edward Mott, who had just himself arrived with the provisions left at Castleton, drew on his extralegal authority as a representative of the Colony of Connecticut and wrote an order to Ethan Allen declaring that Allen must keep the command of the fort and its men.53 Meanwhile, Colonel Easton and others had had enough of Arnold and drafted a quick letter to be sent by express to the Massachusetts Congress, positively declaring the fort was now in Allen’s command and complaining of Arnold’s constant difficulties.54
Arnold wrote his own express on the matter, stating, “I had agreed with Colonel Allen to issue further orders jointly, until I could raise a sufficient number of men to relieve his people…since which, Colonel Allen, finding he had the ascendancy over his people, positively insisted I should have no command, as I had forbid the soldiers plundering and destroying private property.”55 Though it might seem Arnold was just fuming because he was a colonel without a man to follow him, Allen’s men were indeed plundering the private goods of the soldiers and their families, contradictory to the rules of war. As Lieutenant Feltham observed, “the plunder…was most rigidly perform’d as to liquors, provisions &c [etc.] whether belonging to his majesty or private property”.56 Arnold added in his letter, “Colonel Allen is a proper man to head his own wild people, but entirely unacquainted with military service”.57 Benedict Arnold was indeed right on this point as well. Within weeks, Allen’s own men would turn on him, and by autumn, he would prove himself a completely incompetent military officer.
As the morning drew on, one of Colonel Allen’s first commands was to send Capt. Seth Warner, and fifty of the fresh men recently crossed, to embark aboard one of their two bateaux, row or sail northward down lake, and surprise and secure the ruins of nearby Fort Crown Point. They promptly set off, making their way down the winding, narrow lake. The ruins of old Fort Crown Point were situated on a peninsula that guarded where the lake grew much wider, and when the detachment arrived, they surprised and overwhelmed the meager garrison, commanded by a sergeant and defended by a mere eight men. Ten women and children also resided there. The garrison of Fort Crown Point gave up without a fight.58
May 10 proved to be a great day for the American war effort, and it was somewhat apropos that on the same historic day, across the colonies in Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress was finally convened.59 As Captain Mott agreeably described the taking of the two forts, “Not one life lost in these noble acquisitions.”60 But it remained unclear just how noble these acquisitions really were. As Arnold explained to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, “It is impossible to advise you how many cannon are here and at Crown Point, as many of them are buried in the ruins. There is a large number of iron, and some brass, and mortars, &c., lying on the edge of the Lake, which, as the Lake is high, are covered with water.”61
In all, Ticonderoga had about eighty-six pieces of varying quality. Just as important a discovery was the fort’s large war stores, including many artillery implements and tools, carriages, wheels, and hundreds of round shot in the larger 18- and 12-pound varieties, plus thousands of round shot in the smaller 4- and 6-pound varieties—a plethora of artillery ordnance. All that was lacking was gunpowder, because most of the twenty-eight barrels found there were damaged, probably by water.62 At Crown Point, the first report was of about sixty-one serviceable pieces of artillery, with another fifty-three unfit for service.63 Of all the artillery between the two forts, the prize pieces were three iron 13-inch mortars. Besides various other mortars and howitzers, some serviceable, some not, there were many brass and iron cannon, including a very large brass 24-pounder, as well as more than a dozen serviceable 18-pounders and nearly as many 12s.64 But while Arnold made arrangements and laid the groundwork to begin moving these cannon to Cambridge, the plan would soon fall through, and the cannon would mostly remain where they lay for many months to come.65
By the next day, May 11, the Fort Ticonderoga prisoners were paraded without their arms and marched southward. In days, they would arrive in Hartford, and there many would remain as prisoners of war.66 The prisoners from Fort Crown Point were sent soon after.67
Also on May 11, Ethan Allen learned that his detachment to the south, the party that had marched to Skenesborough under Capt. Samuel Herrick, had succeeded in taking that small hamlet and the retired officer’s prize schooner Katherine. However, the schooner was not yet rigged for the spring, and Allen, who knew nothing of seamanship, expected it would take days to do so. (It would take just one.) Allen anxiously planned to bring Katherine to Fort Ticonderoga and outfit her with six or eight cannon. As to Herrick’s other objective at Skenesborough, Maj. Philip Skene himself, he was not at home, having sometime earlier returned to London. So while the Americans failed to capture their most threatening neighbor in that region, the capture of his schooner Katherine would pay out dividends long into the war.68
All that remained for the Americans to have total domination of the Lake Champlain region was His Majesty’s sloop Betsey, known to be longer and better armed than Skene’s schooner. Betsey had been spotted cruising the north end of the lake, and now that the Americans had a ship of their own, Ethan Allen began plotting to take her.69
• • •
On the same day as the taking of Fort Ticonderoga, the Committee of Safety in Cambridge recognized how encumbered their chairman, Dr. Joseph Warren, was by his many duties, in particular his role as president of the Provincial Congress. The committee apparently selected Dr. Benjamin Church Jr., the well-placed spy in His Majesty’s Service, as their new chairman. The chairmanship seemed to ebb and flow to different committee members depending on availability, and Church may not have held the seat permanently. However, even if it was temporary, Dr. Warren must have welcomed this change. Little did Warren and his fellow Whigs suspect that the man now given charge of the committee that wielded the greatest executive power to govern the military, the defenses, and the province itself when the Congress was not in session was the greatest traitor to their cause.70
One of Church’s first acts seems immediately suspicious to our modern understanding, though it was thought an innocent mistake at the time.
At the Roxbury camp, commanded by Massachusetts Militia Brig. Gen. John Thomas, the number of men had been reduced to between two and three thousand, a result of militiamen going back to their homes and the lackluster success of the ongoing enlistment effort. One anecdote tells that Thomas occasionally marched his men around and around a hill to make his force appear larger than it was. In theory, this might have worked, for the colonists mostly wore homespun clothes of browns and whites, nothing by which to distinguish and count different regiments. But the British were not duped by the ploy.71
With the Provincial Congress making strong steps toward open war, Gen. Artemas Ward grew nervous, especially since the colonials’ enlistment effort remained incomplete. On this, he consulted his council of war, which included Col. William Heath as representative of General Thomas, the latter opting not to leave his post in Roxbury.72 The council decided to recommend that the dispersed recruiting officers send whatever men they had so far enlisted to Cambridge at once, instead of waiting to fill their regiments completely.
The decision of the council was given to the Committee of Safety, and Church signed copies of the order, which were sent by couriers to the recruiting commanders in the various towns throughout the province. The order seemed innocent enough: “As we are meditating a Blow against our restless Enemies—We therefore enjoin you…forthwith upon the Receipt of this Order to repair to the Town of Cambridge with the Men inlisted under your command.”73
The order was intended only for those officers on recruiting service, not those along the siege lines. The questionable conduct by Church was that he sent a copy of this order to Gen. John Thomas in Roxbury. It may have been a mistake, but Thomas read the letter as an explicit order. Yet he was incredulous: if he marched his men to Cambridge, Boston Neck would be left unguarded, allowing the British to freely march out from the town and break the siege.
Thomas was too wise to stand by and allow such a tactical mistake, but he could not complain to Ward, because as Chairman of the Committee of Safety, Dr. Church stood higher in authority. The only higher authority to whom Thomas could then petition was Dr. Joseph Warren, President of the Provincial Congress. Accordingly, Thomas dispatched a courier to find Warren, probably meeting with the Congress at Watertown. When Warren learned of the order, he wrote Thomas a prompt reply:
“I have this moment received your letter, the Contents very much surprised me, as I had been absent from the Committee of Safety all Day I could not at first understand the matter, but upon Enquiry I find the Committee gave Orders that all recruiting Officers should repair to Cambridge with the Men they enlisted, but the sending the Order to your Camp was certainly a very great Error, as it was designed only for those Officers who are in the Country, absent from Camp.
“Your readiness to obey Orders does you great Honor, and your prudence in sending to Head Quarters upon receiving so extraordinary an Order convinces me of your Judgment.”74
Whether it was indeed a “very great Error”—quite likely the case—or an act of treachery by the secret spy may never be known. One is left to wonder whether Warren later discussed the matter with Dr. Church, or if Warren ever began to suspect his perfidious colleague. The only thing certain was that as Chairman of the Committee of Safety, Dr. Church was now in the best possible position by which to continue his espionage.
Church’s promotion to chairman freed Warren to focus on his role as president of the Provincial Congress, but Warren’s swift rise to prominence did not go unnoticed by the British and the Tories.75 As Customs Commissioner Henry Hulton wrote of him, “Since Adams went to Philadelphia, one Warren, a rascally patriot and apothecary of this town, has had the lead in the Provincial Congress.”76 Lieutenant Francis, Lord Rawdon of the 5th Grenadiers, called the “famous Doctor Warren” “the greatest incendiary in all America”.77
Despite Warren’s many burdens, he still found time to look after his family. By May, his children and their belongings were safely removed from his mother’s home in Roxbury to the farmhouse he rented from Dr. Dix in Worcester. There they remained with his fiancée Mercy Scollay, safe from the looming war in Boston. On occasion, Warren allowed his mind to drift to more peaceful and joyous times, which he hoped would return to Massachusetts. Looking to the future with his family, he wrote to Mercy, “am happy in hearing you with the Family are all in Health… Dr. Dix wanted to be informed respecting the sowing some wheat, let the Dr. know I shall acquiesce in his Judgment… I think it will be advisable for him to hire for me ten or twenty Acres more of Land, as I shall keep several Horses and cannot think of being deprived of indulging myself in the Leisure Hours of this one year in the Pleasures of Agriculture.”78
Unfortunately, Warren would not have the opportunity to enjoy the life of a gentleman farmer, for the war effort would entirely consume him. And while it is unknown, we can only hope that amid all of his responsibilities and burdens, the good doctor found time to ride out to Worcester and see in person his fiancée and four children.
Meanwhile, in the Lake Champlain region, the Americans plotted their next daring raid.
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On the day after the taking of Fort Ticonderoga, Capt. Jonathan Brown (a different man than the Massachusetts agent79) and Capt. Eleazer Oswald, Arnold’s two recruiting officers, marched into Skenesborough from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, at the head of fifty men, the first of Arnold’s recruits. Arnold had apparently sent word back to these men to march southward to Skenesborough rather than Fort Ticonderoga, there to help rig the captured schooner Katherine. By the next day, they had completed the rigging, and the men celebrated by joyously rechristening her Liberty.
After sending their few prisoners, including Major Skene’s family, southeastward to Connecticut, the men boarded their prize schooner and set sail northward toward Fort Ticonderoga, with perhaps a Capt. John Sloan serving as ship’s captain. Two days later, May 14, Liberty arrived at her destination,80 where she was immediately outfitted with six swivels and four carriage guns, probably light brass 3-pounders.81 Liberty thus became the first naval vessel of the American colonies, and she arguably marked the foundation of the modern United States Navy.82
With Liberty, it was now possible for the Americans to capture the King’s sloop Betsey on the opposite end of Lake Champlain. Betsey was believed to have “carried more guns and heavier metal than the schooner.” On about May 14, a war council was called on the matter, which included both Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen, and likely Colonel Easton and Captain Mott. They agreed Liberty would set sail at once for the small British post of Fort St. Johns (modern Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu), situated along the western bank of the Richelieu River, which flows from the north end of the Champlain to the St. Lawrence River. A small handful of bateaux, some of which may have been brought up from Skenesborough, would sail alongside Liberty to the same objective. Together they would attempt to take the British sloop, now known to be docked at Fort St. Johns, as well as the fort’s meager garrison. But who was to lead such an expedition? Benedict Arnold was anxious to secure his own laurels, and Ethan Allen was anxious to be rid of him. So the council decided to give Liberty over to Arnold and his men, owing in part to Arnold’s substantial experience in seamanship gained from his otherwise bankrupt profession as a merchant. Ethan Allen and between ninety and one hundred fifty of his own men would follow Liberty in four bateaux.83
Arnold’s selection made him America’s first naval commander, and this sort of honor, adventure, and freedom seemed to be just the kind of service one would expect him to revel in. Yet just before he set sail, he sent another letter to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, lamenting, “I have done every thing in my power, and put up with many insults to preserve peace and serve the publick. I hope soon to be properly released from this troublesome business, that some more proper person may be appointed in my room”.84
Arnold and his fifty men boarded Liberty the next morning, May 15, and with two bateaux aboard, set sail northward down Lake Champlain. Ethan Allen and his men climbed into another four bateaux and followed, but soon found the fast Liberty, with her fair curves and fine lines, gliding ahead. She did not get far. The winds turned contrary, and all Liberty could make that day was Crown Point.85
The next day’s winds were no better, and Col. Benedict Arnold, master and commander of Liberty, eager to secure his laurels, decided to take thirty of his men and go aboard one of their bateaux to row ahead, leaving Liberty with a skeleton crew under Capt. John Sloan.
On the following day, May 17, a fair gale blew in, filling the sails of Liberty and allowing her crew to catch Arnold and take them back aboard. They made for Fort St. Johns with fantastic speed, covering near sixty miles in a day, reaching the north side of Isla la Motte, some thirty miles south of Fort St. Johns, before the winds died. They dropped anchor near the opposite shore’s Point au Fer, just as the last dim light of the sky faded around eight o’clock.86 It was here, where Lake Champlain becomes the narrow and windy Richelieu River, that they manned their two bateaux with thirty-five men and quietly rowed northward, again leaving Liberty behind with a skeleton crew.87
Arnold and his two small bateaux made their way up the circuitous river, guided by a bright and waning gibbous moon that filled the fair-weather sky. All around them were dark, dense trees sprinkled with the occasional flickers of fireflies. The gentle breeze was filled with the sounds of crickets and locusts, accompanied by the light lapping of the water against their bows as they cut their way northward.
Soon the sky began to brighten, the birds began to chirp, and finally, at about sunrise, near half past four o’clock, they came upon a small creek just half a mile south of the fort, where they turned and came to rest along its muddy bank. Arnold ordered one of his men to reconnoiter the fort, and the man promptly hopped out and moved through the thick but sunlit woods northward to the fort. The rest of the men sat waiting in their bateaux, swatting at the “numberless swarms of gnats and muskitoes”. There they “waited with impatience for his return.” About an hour later, the scout returned, informing Arnold that the small garrison was not on their guard. As the scout hopped back into one of the bateaux, Arnold and his men pushed off. By about six o’clock in the morning of May 18, they laid eyes on their destination.88
The two bateaux rowed to within about three hundred yards of the small wooden outpost. As they did, Arnold noted the prize sloop Betsey anchored nearby. The two bateaux ground onto the muddy beach, and without delay Arnold and his men clumsily disembarked and split into two prongs: one stormed toward the small wooden fort, the other to the guarded sloop. Arnold led from the front, perhaps driving those that went for the outpost, drawing his sword high above his head, the men eagerly following with their muskets at the ready.
The garrison at Fort St. Johns consisted of a mere sergeant and twelve men, and maybe one camp follower. Because this was a remote fort in deep wilderness, its soldiers were dumbfounded when they unexpectedly found nearly three times their number racing toward them. The seven seamen aboard the sloop were equally astounded. Both the small British garrison and the sloop’s crew surrendered at once—neither side gave battle nor fired a shot.89
As the Americans searched the fort for war stores, Colonel Arnold interrogated the fort’s sergeant in charge. The British noncommissioned officer reported their captain had gone to Montreal and was expected within the hour with a large reinforcement bound for Fort Ticonderoga. Furthermore, from the outpost at nearby Chambly, just ten miles to the north, a company of about forty men was due any minute. Arnold thought it “a mere interposition of Providence that we arrived at so fortunate an hour.”90 Without hesitation, he turned to his men and ordered that they grab what valuable provisions they could, including fourteen stands of arms, and put them aboard the British sloop, along with their fourteen prisoners. They also hastily prepared four of the nine British bateaux they found there, destroying the other five. As his men complied, Arnold boarded the sloop and surveyed his new prize. It was a fine 70-ton sailing vessel, about 60 feet in length, mounted with just two small brass 6-pounder cannon, though the British sergeant reported it was due to be outfitted with more guns once the detachment bound for Fort Ticonderoga stopped there en route.91 This reminded Arnold that time was of the essence, and he hurried his men along.
Arnold seems to have impressed the seven British seamen to man the sloop. Now, instead of serving the Crown, they would serve the Americans.92 Within two hours after their arrival, Arnold and his men proudly embarked with their newfound laurels. Fortune smiled on them again as they weighed anchor on their new prize Betsey, for as one participant wrote in his journal, “a fine gale arose from the north! we directly hoisted sail and returned in triumph.” The new American sloop sailed southward upriver, the flotilla of now six bateaux sailing close behind.93
They had not sailed far when Betsey came upon the small cluster of four bateaux under the command of Ethan Allen and his men. In fine naval tradition, Arnold fired Betsey’s two brass 6s as a salute to Col. Ethan Allen, to which Allen and his men fired a volley of musketry in response. The two sides fired two more such salutes as the two flotillas converged. Allen then came alongside the sloop and, with Arnold’s permission, came aboard the fine prize. There they celebrated in the other fine naval tradition, drinking several loyal, healthy toasts (probably of rum) to the Congress.94
The foolhardy Allen then proposed that he intended to continue with his men northward to establish a garrison of eighty to one hundred men at Fort St. Johns. Colonel Arnold delicately explained to Allen the intelligence he had gathered from his prisoners, warning, “It appeared to me a wild, impracticable scheme, and provided it could be carried into execution, of no consequence, so long as we are masters of the Lake, and of that I make no doubt, as I am determined to arm the sloop and schooner immediately.” However, Arnold’s logic could not prevail. What was worse, Allen’s men were “in a starving condition”. Arnold had the luxury of extra provisions, partly because he had sailed in the spacious Liberty, partly because he had collected a little more from their raid on Fort St. Johns. But as the two parties had met some distance north of Liberty, Arnold could only redistribute to Allen’s men what little he had aboard Betsey. The two parties then parted ways, a thankful Allen making his way toward Fort St. Johns and Arnold aboard his prize sloop making his way southward to Isle la Motte and the waiting Liberty.95
The wind was swift, and within an hour or so, Arnold and his flotilla reached the anchored Liberty, where they off-loaded some of their men. Arnold no doubt kept to his new prize, it being the more magnificent sailing vessel. Together the combined flotilla weighed anchor and set sail again, catching the swift wind and riding it into the wider expanse of Lake Champlain to the south.
The next morning at Fort St. Johns, May 19, Ethan Allen and his men were startled when a local frontier trader came to their camp and alerted them that a British reinforcement of around two hundred men under Maj. Charles Preston were on the march from Montreal to attack them. Allen and his men quickly decamped and scurried to their four bateaux.96 With a swift and favorable wind at their backs, they retreated with full sails southward to rejoin Arnold. Arnold’s flotilla reached Crown Point later that same day, while Allen and his four boats arrived maybe the day after. It was perhaps there at Crown Point, before sailing back to Fort Ticonderoga, that they rechristened Betsey as the sloop Enterprise, the first of a long line of American ships to bear the name.97
Within the whole eight-day campaign, British America had formed its first American Navy, comprised of ten or more bateaux, an armed sloop, and a schooner. And with this navy, the Americans now held command of all of Lake Champlain.
On May 20, Quebec Governor and British Maj. Gen. Guy Carleton in Montreal learned of the taking of the two forts and the raid on Fort St. Johns, which, according to his intelligence, had been achieved by “one Dominick Arnold”. Carleton promptly wrote of the news to General Gage, but His Excellency already knew of it.98 For on May 17, when Dr. Joseph Warren first learned the news himself, he wrote of it to Selectman John Scollay in Boston—yet the letter failed to get past the British lines and was instead delivered to General Gage. One is left to wonder if this was a mistake or part of Dr. Warren’s design. The spy Dr. Church would also send Gage intelligence on the fort’s capture.99
Despite the unexpected news, there was little Gage could do about it from besieged Boston. Not even Carleton could do much, because he had few soldiers there in Quebec. Furthermore, Carleton could not rely on the finicky French Canadians or the opportunistic Indians, for as he informed Gage, “I am trying all Ways and Means to animate both the one and the other, whether my Endeavors will meet with Success, I cannot pretend to say”.100
So the Americans were now masters of Lake Champlain, and with their new and sizable arsenal of artillery, they had the firepower necessary to retain their newfound status. However, getting those cannon to Cambridge where they could do real service was another matter entirely. Until then, the British would remain the masters of Boston.
• • •
The American victory in the Lake Champlain region further punctuated what had begun with the Battle of the Nineteenth of April—that the Americans not only could fight, but they were also willing to fight and even take the offensive. The British now recognized they could no longer be gentle in dealing with the escalating aggression that had started two years earlier in 1773. Nor could they expect to easily squash the growing rebellion that was now sweeping beyond Massachusetts and into the other colonies. Instead, the British realized their only hope in quelling the American insurgency was to bring to bear the full power and aggressive might of the British Army. But the Americans would not give in so easily.
The Revolutionary War—and the fight for British America—had only just begun.