[23] Obstructions at the Bridge. The Americans had stretched a boom of logs, strongly chained together, across the strait.
[24] Seth Warner was on the way to Ticonderoga when he met St. Clair retreating. The rearguard, which Colonel Francis had previously commanded, was then increased, and put under Warner's orders.
[25] Colonel Ebenezer Francis of Newton, Mass., colonel, 11th Massachusetts Regiment. His bravery was so conspicuous that the British thought he was in chief command of the Americans.
[26] Fort Anne, one of the minor posts built during the French War to protect the route from Albany to Lake Champlain. It consisted of a log blockhouse surrounded by a palisade. Boat navigation of Lake Champlain began here, fourteen miles from Skenesborough, by Wood Creek flowing into it.
V.
FACING DISASTER.
One of Washington's most trusted generals said, and said truly, that it was only through misfortune that the Americans would rise to the character of a great people. Perhaps no event of the Revolution more signally verified the truth of this saying, than the fall of Ticonderoga.
Let us see how this disaster was affecting the Northern States. In that section, stragglers and deserters were spreading exaggerated accounts of it on every side. In Vermont, the settlers living west of the mountains were now practically defenceless. Burgoyne's agents were undermining their loyalty; the fall of Ticonderoga had shaken it still more. Rather than abandon their farms, many no longer hesitated to put themselves under British protection. Hundreds, who were too patriotic to do this, fled over the mountains, spreading consternation as they went. From Lake Champlain to the New England coast, there was not a village which did not believe itself to be the especial object of Burgoyne's vengeance. Indeed, his name became a bugbear, to frighten unruly children with.