The Massacre of Jane McCrea
(From a painting in the Museum.)
CHAPTER NINE
Burgoyne Takes the Fort and Brown Fails to Retake It
The winter of 1776-1777 was a terrible one. The sufferings among the troops at Ticonderoga exceeded anything at Valley Forge. Men were frozen to death in their tents, smallpox broke out in the spring and altogether it was almost unbearable. General Gates succeeded General Schuyler as commander-in-chief of the Northern Army. Anthony Wayne was succeeded by Arthur St. Clair as commander at Ticonderoga, in the spring of 1777 and took command of 2500 Continental troops and 900 militia. General John Burgoyne had succeeded Sir Guy Carleton as commander-in-chief of the British Army in Canada.
With the destruction of the American Fleet at Valcour Island the autumn before, there was nothing to stop the advance of the British, and their army moved south up Lake Champlain in a great flotilla of bateaux and little sailing vessels. A large part of the American army was concentrated at Mount Independence directly across the lake from Ticonderoga and a floating bridge had been built connecting the two posts.
General John Burgoyne
Early in July Burgoyne invested the defenses on the New York side of the lake. John Trumbull in 1776 had suggested the fortifying of Mount Defiance which commanded the Fort, but it was never done. On July 5th the British succeeded in drawing a battery of guns to the top and opened up on the Fort. General St. Clair decided to retreat by way of the bridge and Mount Independence, the only road open. The retreat was well conceived, but someone set fire to General de Fermoy’s house and the British outposts discovered the American army retreating. A rear guard had been left at the Mount Independence end of the bridge, but unfortunately, they found a cask of wine and when the British succeeded in repairing and crossing the bridge, the whole guard was hors de combat. Part of the Americans retreated toward Skenesborough, the Whitehall of today, in the few gondolas and row galleys that had escaped the defeat at Valcour Island the year before. Most of the army, however, marched east toward Castleton. The British soon cut the boom which had been thrown across the lake from Willow Point to the Vermont shore and part of their army went on up the lake by water after the fleeing Americans. General Fraser pursued the retreating army and overtook the American rear guard under Seth Warner near Hubbardton. A sharp engagement took place and the Americans were defeated, losing 324 in killed and wounded. It was the German troops under Baron Riedesel, who, coming into the action a little late, forced the Americans from the field. On July 6th some of the British ships pursued the American galleys as far as Whitehall, then Skenesborough, and captured two of them, forcing the Americans to blow up the remainder. Burgoyne left a garrison at Ticonderoga under General Powell and proceeded to follow out his plan of taking northern New York and meeting General Howe at Albany.
St. Clair was courtmartialed for retreating but was exonerated as it was the only thing he could have done under the circumstances. In the meantime the army from Ticonderoga formed the nucleus that eventually, having received an enormous number of recruits from New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, forced the capitulation of Burgoyne and the surrender of his whole army at Saratoga late in the autumn. It was Burgoyne’s bombastic proclamation to the settlers to be loyal to the King, or he would unloose his Indians, coupled with the unfortunate murder of Jane McCrea by some of his Indians, which aroused the countryside.
A determined attempt to recapture the Fort was made by Colonel John Brown, the same Brown who probably was the originator of the capture by Allen two years before. He was supported by Colonel Johnson whose duty it was to take Mount Independence and by Captain Ebenezer Allen, whose job it was to capture Mount Defiance. The attack was by way of the foot of Lake George and his own account reads as follows: