Quaint and Historic Forts of North America

by John Martin Hammond

Yet, under Abercrombie’s command, the English advanced against this work without waiting for the cannon which they had with them to be brought up. Between noon and nightfall of July 7 they made six gallant assaults without result. A perfect hades of shot and flame those logs became. The scene has been described by one of Roger’s rangers who took part in the action, and his description, found in an old letter, was published a decade ago in Harper’s Magazine, by one of his descendants. “The maze of fallen trees with their withered leaves hanging broke their ranks and the French Retrenchment blazed fire and death” he wrote. “They advanced bravely up but all to no good purpose and hundreds there met their death. My dear Joseph I have the will but not the way to tell you all that I saw that awful afternoon. I have since been in many battles and skirmishes but I have never witnessed such slaughter and such wild fighting as the British storm of Ticonderoga. We became mixed up—Highlanders, Grenadiers, Light Troops, Rangers and all, and we beat against that mass of logs and maze of fallen timber and we beat in vain. I was once carried right up to the breastwork, but we were stopped by the bristling mass of sharpened branches, while the French fire swept us front and flank. The ground was covered deep with dying men and, as I think it over now, I can remember nothing but the fruit bourne by the tree of war, for I looked upon so many wondrous things that July day that I could not set them downe at all. We drew off after seeing that no human valour could take that work. We Rangers then skirmished with the French colony troops and the Canada Indians until dark while our people rescued the wounded, and then we fell back. The Army was utterly demoralized and made a headlong retreat during which many wounded men were left to die in the woods.”

On the day following his victory Montcalm had a great cross planted in the battle-field bearing words, composed by himself, which have been translated by Parkman as follows:

Soldier and chief and rampart’s strength are nought;

Behold the Conquering Cross! ’Tis God the triumph wrought.

The old fort was to fall into English hands the next year, however, when Amherst, commander-in-chief of the English forces in America, advanced against it with a force of British and Americans. Montcalm had hurried to the defence of Quebec with the greater part of his force and Ticonderoga was in the command of Boulemarque, a capable officer, but one no more able than any other man to accomplish the impossible. He could not hold the position with the inconsiderable force he had against that opposed to him. A stroke of Providence was not to be anticipated a second time. So, while the British encamped under the walls of the fort prepared to attack it the next day, Boulemarque set a fuse to the powder magazine and marched his men out. There was a great explosion and a rending of walls, and Ticonderoga’s besiegers knew that the fort was their prize.

The Mess Hall [top]
A Council Room
INTERIOR VIEWS OF FORT TICONDEROGA, N. Y.

Through the rest of the French and Indian War, which was from this time forward a tale of uninterrupted success for the British arms, Ticonderoga played no part except that of a garrisoned English possession. Its walls were repaired where Boulemarque’s match had shattered them.

The prestige of the fort had now become such that in the fermenting first days of the outbreak in the colonies against the Mother Country it was conceived that the seizure of the place would have an immense moral effect in the colonies. A sturdy Vermont man, Ethan Allen, with his Green Mountain boys, was given the task of seizing it. In early spring, 1775, Allen approached the old Indian stronghold now held by merely a handful of British, who had no idea that the Americans were in action against them. One cannot depreciate the tenacity of purpose and hardiness which carried Ethan Allen and his men through the inhospitable wilderness to success in their enterprise, but the military valor of the action was not great. With his men Allen crept up to the unsuspecting stronghold, seized the sentry, and, while his men scattered through the fort making prisoners of its inmates, thundered at the door of the commanding officer: “Open in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.” While knowing little of the Continental Congress, the officer submitted to the inevitable.