With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga

by W. Bert Foster

“It was Halpen–I am sure of it!” muttered the youth, striking into the trail at last and continuing the journey upon which the darkness had overtaken him. “He believes that he has killed me. I only hope he will not be undeceived. But if he is ever in my power he shall suffer! What a villain the man is to follow our family and seek to murder and injure us! Oh, I hope this war which Colonel Allen says is surely beginning, will give us folks of the Grants our freedom from New York as well as from England. I fear men like Halpen more than I do the soldiers of the King.”

Although he had not slept, Enoch was rested in body and he traveled quite rapidly. Before dawn he had aroused two settlers from their slumbers, delivered Colonel Allen’s message, and gone on his way. He observed no signs of his enemy of the night and was confident that the man had not continued on this trail, and was not, therefore, ahead of him. But he determined not to sleep in the forest during the remainder of his journey. He spent the day in alarming the farmers, circling around into the mountains before night and stopping at last with a distant pioneer who, with his two grown sons, promised to go back with him to the rendezvous of Allen’s army at Castleton in the morning.

Enoch’s mind was burdened with the mystery of Halpen’s presence in the Grants at this time, however. Surely the Yorker could not be upon private business. He must have a mission from either the land speculators, the New York authorities, or from those even higher. The plans of the Colonials to attack Old Ti and seize the munitions of war stored there, might have been whispered in the ears of the British commander, De la Place. Perhaps he had sent this man, who knew the territory so well, to spy upon the Green Mountain Boys and their friends. Simon Halpen could do the cause afoot much harm by returning swiftly to the lake and warning the commander of Fort Ticonderoga. Enoch believed Colonel Allen should know of Halpen’s presence as soon as possible; and he was determined to return at once, although he certainly deserved rest and refreshment after his arduous journey through the wilderness. Therefore he urged the hurried departure of these three pioneers and before dawn the quartette started for Castleton.

Meanwhile, at the camp of the Green Mountain Boys much was transpiring of importance to the expedition. The honor of capturing Ticonderoga history gives unconditionally to Ethan Allen and his handful of followers; but the suggestion and preparations for the momentous task was divided between the Colonies of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the Hampshire Grants, or Vermont, as it was now beginning to be called. In April the authorities of Connecticut raised three hundred pounds for the expense of this expedition and Samuel H. Parsons, Silas Deane (afterward one of America’s representatives in Paris, but an arch enemy of Washington) and Benedict Arnold, raised a handful of troops to send north as a nucleus of that army which was expected to fall upon one of the strongest British forts in the country.

At Pittsfield, in western Massachusetts, Colonel Easton had recruited a larger band of earnest patriots, and these, joined with the company from the more southern colony, made a very respectable force to march through the country to Bennington, where they arrived on May third. In the meantime at Albany Messrs. Halsey and Stephens had been pleading with the New York Congress to grant permission for troops to be raised for, and money devoted to, the capture of the same fortresses as the New England leaders had in mind. But, as we have seen, New York was at that time lukewarm in the uprising of the colonies. Beside, the Continental Congress was to meet in seven days and it was judged better by the cautious Yorkers to wait and see what that body of representatives would do before any direct act of war was indulged in. Therefore New York lost her opportunity of joining in one of the most glorious campaigns of the entire Revolutionary period.

The Committee of Safety in Massachusetts, on the other hand, had decided to act against Old Ti. Benedict Arnold, after stirring up the people to fever pitch in his own colony, Connecticut, went post-haste to Cambridge and demanded a commission and authority to raise and lead the troops against the Champlain forts. This first move of this much-hated man in the Revolution savored of intrigue and self-seeking–as did most of his other public acts. He desired the honor of commanding this expedition, and he was personally courageous enough to march up to the mouths of Old Ti’s guns if need be; but he had no personal following and could not hope to recruit men himself for the expedition. Nevertheless, he proposed to have the backing of a regular commission from the Massachusetts committee and thus supersede Colonel Easton. This desire on his part might have become a fact had it not been for one person whom Benedict Arnold did not take into consideration.

The Massachusetts and Connecticut forces were guided to the camp of the Green Mountain Boys while the leaders held a conference at the Catamount Inn in Bennington. Colonel Easton was a truly brave man, and as such was not disturbed by petty jealousy. It was left to fate to decide who should command the expedition, and Ethan Allen having the largest personal following, was acclaimed commander. Greatly to Captain–now Major–Warner’s disappointment his own men did not number as many as the Massachusetts troops; but he gracefully yielded second place to Easton and accepted third himself. Plans for the march through the wilderness were then carefully discussed and the leaders rode to Castleton and reviewed the raw recruits whose valor was, at a later day, to be so noised abroad.

The Green Mountain Boys, after four years of training, presented much the better appearance. And every man was practically a sharpshooter. What their rifles and muskets could do against the thick, if crumbling, walls of Ticonderoga, might with good judgment be asked; but they lacked neither courage nor faith in their leader. They would have followed Ethan Allen through a wall of fire if need be to the line of the British fortifications. In their eyes he was invincible.

On the morning of the start from Castleton the army was paraded–a few hundred meagrely armed men to march against a fortress, to capture which had cost the British two expensive campaigns and the loss of some three thousand men. Their leaders harangued them, and Ethan Allen’s promises of glory and honor inspired quite as much enthusiasm as the commander of any expedition could have wished. There had gathered to observe the departure many gentlemen of the countryside, and not a few of those individuals who, at a time like this, always occupy a prominent position “on the fence”–that is, they having not yet decided which cause to espouse, waited to see whether the King’s troops or the earnest patriots would win.

Among these spectators was a well set up man of military bearing, indeed garbed in a military coat, with a cockade in his hat and his hair carefully dressed. He was quite a dandy, or a “macoroni” as the exquisites of that day were called both in London and in the Colonies. His dark visage and hawk-like eye commanded more than a passing glance from all and when, just before the troops started, he was observed to walk across the parade and calmly approach the group of officers standing at one side, all eyes became fixed upon him.