LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
General Gates having been appointed to the command of the northern army,
General Sullivan resigned it to him on the 12th of July, receiving the
thanks of his officers and the approval of Congress for the ability with
which he had conducted the retreat.
In conformity to the decision of a council of war, General Gates
withdrew his troops from Crown Point, where not a cannon was mounted, to
Ticonderoga, and began strengthening the works there and erecting new
ones upon a hill on the opposite side of the lake. While this new work,
a star fort, was in progress, news came of the Declaration of
Independence, and in honor of the event the place was named Mount
Independence. The smallpox patients were removed to a hospital at Fort
George, and the recruits, now coming in considerable numbers, were
assembled at Skenesborough.
The construction of vessels of war, wherewith to keep control of the
lake, was now entered upon. In spite of the difficulties attending their
construction in a place so remote from all supplies but timber, and
that green in the forest, the work was pushed so vigorously that before
the end of August one sloop, three schooners, and five gondolas were
ready for service, mounting fifty-five, twelve, nine, and six pounders
and seventy swivels. These were manned by 395 men, old sea-dogs drifted
to inland waters, and unsalted navigators of lakes and rivers, "a
miserable set," Arnold wrote to Gates. In the latter part of August the
fleet sailed down the lake under the command of Arnold, and, when soon
after reinforced by a cutter, three galleys, and three gunboats,
amounted to fifteen sail.
At the north end of the lake, the British were as busy in constructing
and assembling a fleet. Six armed vessels, built in England especially
for this service, could not be got over the rapids at Chambly, and were
taken to pieces, transported above this obstruction, and reconstructed.
The largest of these, the Intrepid, was completed in twenty-eight days
from the laying of the keel. Several gondolas,--a sort of long, narrow,
flat-bottomed craft,--thirty longboats, and 400 batteaux were hauled up
the rapids by the amphibious Canadians, with an immense expenditure of
toil and vociferous jabber. By the 1st of October the fleet was ready to
enter the lake, and consisted of the Inflexible, carrying eighteen guns;
the schooners, Maria and Carleton, carrying fourteen and twelve
respectively; and the Thunderer, a floating battery of raft-like
construction, mounting six twenty-fours, as many sixes, and two
howitzers; with a number of gondolas, gunboats, and longboats, each
carrying one gun. It was manned by 700 experienced seamen, and commanded
by Captain Pringle. In opposing this formidable fleet, so vastly
superior in all its appointments, in everything but the bravery of
officers and men, the odds were fearfully against the Americans, but the
intrepid Arnold did not hesitate to accept the chances.
The sails of the British squadron were whitening the lake beyond
Cumberland Head when Arnold disposed his vessels behind the island of
Valcour, where, screened from sight of the main channel by woods whose
gorgeous leafage was yet unthinned by the frosty touch that painted it,
he awaited the approach of the enemy. Sailing past the island, the
British discovered the little fleet of the Americans, and, conscious of
their own superiority, at once advanced to the attack from the
southward; but the wind, which before had favored them, was now against
them. The flagship Inflexible, and some others of the larger vessels,
could not be brought into action, and the Carleton and the gunboats took
the brunt of the battle.
For four hours the fierce fight raged, sustained with the utmost bravery
by both combatants. The forests were shaken with the unwonted thunder,
whose roar was heard at Crown Point, forty miles away, and the autumnal
haze grew thick with sulphurous smoke. General Waterbury, commanding
the Washington galley, was in the hottest of it, and only brought his
shattered vessel out of the fight when all but two of his officers were
killed or wounded. One of the American schooners was burnt, a gondola
sunk, and several other vessels much injured; while the British had two
gondolas sunk, and one blown up with sixty men on board. Toward
nightfall, Captain Pringle withdrew the vessels engaged, and anchored
his whole fleet across the channel to prevent the escape of the
Americans. Escape was all that Arnold hoped for now, and in the darkness
of night he silently got his vessels around the north end of
Valcour,[69] and, making all speed southward, was out of sight of his
enemy when daylight came.
The British gave chase, and overtaking the Americans at Split Rock,
about noon of the 13th, at once began firing on them. The sorely
crippled Washington was forced to strike her colors after receiving a
few broadsides. Arnold fought his flagship, the Congress galley, with
desperate courage, while, within musket-shot, the Inflexible poured
broadsides into her, and two schooners raked her from astern. He
effectually covered the retreat of his escaping vessels with the
Congress and four gondolas, and then ran ashore in the shoal head of a
little bay on the eastern side of the lake. He set fire to the vessels,
and keeping his flag flying on the Congress, which he did not quit till
she was enveloped in flames, got all his men landed but one wounded
lieutenant, who, forgotten in the confusion, was blown up with his
vessel. Of the American fleet, only two galleys, two schooners, a sloop,
and gondola had escaped; and toward Ticonderoga, whither these had fled,
Arnold retreated with his stranded crews, barely escaping an Indian
ambuscade. Joined by the few and now defenseless settlers, they toiled
along the rough forest road, behind them rolling the irregular boom of
the cannon, exploding as the fire heated them, and at intervals the
thunder of a bursting magazine. Throughout that long, unequal combat, as
in many another in the same good cause, Arnold bore himself with cool,
intrepid valor, still preserved by an unkind fate from honorable death
to achieve everlasting infamy. The land-locked bay, where may yet be
seen the oaken skeletons of his brave little craft,[70] bears his name,
nowhere else honorably commemorated in all his native land.
General Carleton, who accompanied the British fleet, gave orders that
the prisoners taken should be treated with the greatest kindness. He
himself praised their bravery, and sent them home on parole. By this
politic course he so won their esteem, that it was deemed impolitic to
permit them to mingle with the troops at Ticonderoga, and they were sent
on to Skenesborough.
Following close on the heels of the victorious fleet came the swarming
transports bearing General Carleton's army, with the intention of moving
at once upon Ticonderoga. Crown Point was no longer an obstacle, for
when news of the disaster of their fleet was brought to that post, the
Americans set fire to the place, destroyed everything that could not be
removed, and withdrew to the main army holding Ticonderoga. But the
wind, which had been a fickle ally of the English since they began this
invasion, again turned against them from the south on the 14th, and held
stiffly in that quarter for eight days. General Carleton's transports
could make no headway against it up the narrow waterway, and he was
obliged to land his forces at Crown Point. Thence he sent reconnoitring
parties on both sides of the lake toward Ticonderoga, and some vessels
up the channel, sounding it within cannon-shot of the fort.
Meanwhile Gates's army made most of the time given by the kindly
autumnal gale. The works were strengthened and surrounded by an abatis.
In these eight days, carriages were built for forty-seven pieces of
cannon and the guns mounted; while reinforcements that came in, and sick
men recovered, swelled the army to 1,200 strong. Carleton's opportunity
for an easy conquest of Ticonderoga was past, and his reconnoissances
gave him no encouragement to attempt an assault. Therefore, after
tarrying at the fire-scathed fortress till past the middle of November,
when the wild geese were flying southward over the gray and desolate
forests, and the herbage of the clearings was seared by the touch of
many frosts, he reembarked his army and returned to Canada. General
Gates at once dismissed the militia, active military operations ceased
in this quarter, and the northern armies of America and Great Britain
began their hibernation.
FOOTNOTES:
[69] There are conflicting statements concerning Arnold's course in
eluding the British fleet. According to some authorities he slipped
directly through the enemy's line under cover of thick darkness; others
state circumstantially that he escaped around the north end of Valcour,
and this unobstructed course certainly seems the one which would
naturally be taken, instead of attempting the almost impossible feat of
passing through a fleet that guarded the channel, barely half a mile in
width.
[70] Years afterward, a brass gun was raised from one of these wrecks,
and played its part in gaining the naval victory at Plattsburgh.