On the morning of May 10, , fewer than a hundred of these militiamen, under the joint command of their leader, Ethan Allen, and Benedict Arnold , crossed Lake Champlain at dawn, surprising and capturing the still-sleeping British garrison at Fort Ticonderoga. As the first rebel victory of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga served as a morale booster and provided key artillery for the Continental Army in that first year of war.
Cannons captured at Fort Ticonderoga would be used during the successful Siege of Boston the following spring. Because of its location, the fort would also serve as a staging ground for Continental troops before their planned invasion of British-held territory in Canada.
Clair to evacuate. In the years following the Revolutionary War, no military regiment would occupy Fort Ticonderoga, though at times the fort provided shelter for scouting parties or raiding detachments. In , a New York merchant named William F. Pell began leasing the grounds of the fort. He bought the property in , building a summer home there known as The Pavilion, which in was converted into a hotel to house a growing numbers of tourists in the area.
In , Stephen Pell began a restoration of Fort Ticonderoga; the fort opened to the public as a tourist attraction the following year. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. They clashed with a larger force of American soldiers led by General Horatio Gates On December 31, , during the American Revolutionary War , Patriot forces under Colonel Benedict Arnold and General Richard Montgomery attempted to capture the British-occupied city of Quebec and with it win support for the American cause in The capture of fort of Ticonderoga had a major and positive impact on the American soldiers.
It was the first victory of rebels in American Revolution which served as a moral booster for them. It provided them the control of cannons which were used in the subsequent rebel attacks and sieges. Those who were captured were often put to work on farms as laborers, some even offered 50 acres of land if they were willing to desert.
After accounting for those who were killed, both in action and from the high cost of illness and accidents, it looks as if up to 6, Hessians remained in America. Most of the Hessians received no compensation for their services beyond their daily bread. He sold the services of 12, Hessians to the English at [sterling]7 4s. Americans, both Patriot and Loyalist, often feared the Hessians, believing them to be rapacious and brutal mercenaries.
Throughout the war, Americans tried to entice Hessians to desert the British, emphasizing the large and prosperous German-American community. About Hessian soldiers and officers were taken prisoner by General Washington and the Continental Army following the Battle of Trenton on December 26, And the Americans were also moving the captured Hessian armaments, including six cannons.
Colonists considered the British hiring the Hessians as an insult because the colonists are fighting for nationalism whereas the Hessians are just doing their job with no passion for the cause following orders from the aristocracy.
When Hessians were captured, especially after the Battle of Trenton, they would be paraded through the streets. Entire extended families usually did not migrate, so some descendants of those soldiers still remain here.
The United States Bicentennial Celebration in sparked a wider interest in genealogy and in our history. Hessian Uniforms: German Hessian soldiers wore blue coats and colored facings indicating their regiment. The Jager units of riflemen wore green coats with red facings. The coats and uniforms were made out of a cheap, coarse material similar to burlap. The region is strategically located between the main part of Prussia and the Prussian provinces of Westphalia in western Germany.
Ethnic Germans served on both sides of the American Revolutionary War. Large numbers of Germans had emigrated to Pennsylvania, New York and other American colonies, and they were generally neutral or supported the Patriot cause. In the s and s, the New York and New Hampshire colonies issued competing land grants to settlers in the northwest frontier region, the area that later became Vermont. However, the Hampshire Grant residents believed that even if New York owned the area, the colony had no right to evict them.
They had built farms in the wilderness and felt they should not be forced to abandon them. These landholders maintained that their personal liberties were being violated, and they vowed to defend themselves. In the settlers resolved to resist New York control with a militia named for the local topography. They formed the Green Mountain Boys and elected land speculator Ethan Allen as their colonel and commander. Allen and the Green Mountain Boys were tough frontiersmen and employed terror tactics such as threats, humiliation, and intimidation to chase off any who attempted to exert New York control over the area, including land surveyors, law officials, and settlers.
When Americans rose up in rebellion against the British in , the militia was also ready to take on the cause of independence. The bravado of the Green Mountain Boys served them well at Fort Ticonderoga, where they took it upon themselves to capture the British garrison with no official commission from the Congress.
But it failed in the summer of , when Allen and his men, now part of the Continental Army, decided to seize Montreal, Canada, in a joint attack with about Massachusetts militia. The Green Mountain Boys disbanded more than a year before Vermont declared its independence from Great Britain in The Vermont Republic operated for 14 years, before being admitted in to the United States as the fourteenth state.
Command of the newly formed regiment passed from Ethan Allen to Seth Warner. His regiment fought at the battles of Hubbardton and Bennington in before disbanding in Today it is the nickname of the Vermont National Guard.
To transport the heavy artillery from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston in winter, the resourceful Colonel Henry Knox put together a complex operation that included mobilizing a large corps of men, assembling a flotilla of flat-bottomed boats for the lake trip, building 40 special sleds, and gathering 80 yoke of oxen to pull the pound sleds. Although George Washington agreed to the ambitious and risky plan, his advisors had their doubts. The guns would have to be dismantled and loaded onto barges, transported down Lake George before the mile-long lake froze, then hauled the rest of the way by sledge and oxen over rough trails.
Undaunted, Knox arrived at Fort Ticonderoga in early December and began disassembling the guns — 43 heavy brass and iron cannon, six cohorns, eight mortars, and two howitzers. They were removed from their mountings and transported by boat and ox cart to the head of Lake George. By December 9, all 59 guns were loaded onto flat-bottomed boats and headed down the lake.
With a gale whipping up, Knox succeeded in getting the last of the cannon to the southern end of the lake just as it began to freeze over. I hope in 16 or 17 days to be able to present your Excellency a noble train of artillery. Knox finally got his wish on Christmas. With several feet of fresh snow underfoot, he and his men cut a path toward Boston.
By January 5, the artillery had reached Albany, but the ice on the Hudson was not deep enough to support the weight of the sleds. During each of the first two attempts at crossing, Knox lost a precious cannon to the river.
Six weeks later, Washington's gun batteries in Cambridge distracted British troops while several thousand Americans quietly maneuvered the artillery up Dorchester Heights and frantically constructed emplacements. When British General Howe looked up at Dorchester Heights the next morning, he was dumbfounded: "The rebels did more in one night than my whole army would have done in one month.
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