A Visit to Fort Ticonderoga, Part 1

Fort Ticonderoga, an historic site in New York near the Vermont border (Lake Champlain) has everything: breathtaking views of the Adirondack high peaks, walking paths through gardens and restored pre-colonial buildings, hands-on stuff and lots of climbing and exploring for the kids, and oodles and oodles of ancient history– well, as ancient as America can get: Iroquois Indian arrowheads and French settlement from the late 1600s.

We’d visited the Fort Ti grounds once before, sneaking in after the place had closed for the season. We walked the leaf-strewn trails and peeked over the stone walls. We didn’t see any of the interiors of the fort or the buildings, as the places were locked and we didn’t dare intrude that far. We had gotten a healthy taste of the incredible landscape, however, to taunt us for a return visit. Which, I am happy to report, we did this autumn.

After walking through the admission area and gift shop (which is loaded with stuff and I spent a bundle of money in it), you walk down a small hill that faces the south side of the fort, toward the bottom of Lake Champlain and the top of Lake George. The views are simply staggering. Read more

Oriskany Battlefield: Bloodiest Battle of the American Revolution

We have visited the Oriskany Battlefield several times. Unfortunately, this park is slated for closure by New York State, due to the state’s financial mismanagement troubles. I’m glad I took so many photos when we last visited. I hope you enjoy our visit.

Oriskany, NY, has the sad distinction of the location of the bloodiest battle of the American Revolution.

The Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site is located on Route 69, north of the small village of Oriskany, NY. The site used to hold reenactments of the battle, although in the past we have always missed them, and I am not sure they are held anymore. I’ve seen photos and they were incredible events, with hundreds of actors posing as British, Mohawk and Oneida Indians, Loyalists, and American Patriots.

There is an Oriskany Museum approximately 4 miles south of this battlefield, also on Route 69. The Battlefield is a memorial to those who fought in the War, and the Museum is more about the U.S.S. Oriskany aircraft carrier, with some information about the American Revolution. The Museum is worth seeing. We spent a delightful hour there, and I found out some really neat things about the U.S.S. Oriskany. You can read about it here.

When you drive in to the Battlefield Memorial Site, these signs greet you.

The Battlefield site is plain and somber. The state has tried to keep it looking a lot like what it must have appeared as in 1777. When we last went in 2004, the fields were mown; today, swaths of wild grasses and weeds surround the trails that take you to key points of the battle. I don’t know if this au natural look is intentional, or due to neglect. I think it looked better when the place was trimmed. It looks too unkempt now.

The site has “play-by-play” markers posted along the trail.

The now-infamous ravine is where Mohawk Indian Joseph Brant (his birth name was Thayendanegea) led the raid of British soldiers and Tories against the Patriots. Brant and his crew were a vicious bunch, leading all sorts of horrendous massacres against settlers (especially the Cherry Valley Massacre). British General John Burgoyne (hiss hiss) found great use for the Iroquois Indians. He wrote a lovely poem for us Patriots, letting us know his intentions in his “Burgoyne’s Orderly Book”:

“I will let loose the dogs of hell,
Ten thousand Indians, who shall yell
And foam and tear, and grin and roar,
And drench their moccasins in gore:
To these I’ll give full scope and play
From Ticonderog to Florida…”

…. Nice.

Anyway, the ravine is very overgrown now. We had to jump over the weeds that wanted the trail back.

The events of the battlefield unfolded the first few days of August 1777. Those summer days were typical Upstate New York days– so hot and humid that the forest literally steamed with heavy gasps of respiration. The American Patriots–led by General Nicolas Herkimer– and their noble allies, the Oneida Indians, were hurrying from Tryon County (Little Falls, NY, area) to Fort Stanwix (in what is now Rome, NY). They were coming to the aid of the fort, which was under siege by the British armies. Their march was a three-day, 40-mile slog through dense woods and swamps. By the time they reached this point in Oriskany, they were only six miles from Fort Stanwix. We could only imagine how laborious this trudge through the depths of the Mohawk Valley had been.

The tiny trail we followed led us about 50 feet down and across a small footbridge. This was the site where the Patriots stooped down to sip the cool water and wash their sweaty heads. It was at this moment, while the Americans’ backs were turned, that Brant’s crew attacked them. The Indians and Loyalists had been waiting in the woods for them.

Loyalists (also known as Tories) were Americans– they sympathized with the British and refused to join the fight for independence. Families were split apart over these political tensions. My own husband’s ancestors fought here at this battlefield, these Loyalists and Patriots. Many of the battles of Upstate New York were brothers fighting against brothers, and sons against fathers. This made the bloodshed more tragic. The Indians were not immune, either– the Iroquois Six Nations had been wrent when the tribes joined the British except for the faithful and pious Oneida tribe and the Tuscaroras. The Oneidas suffered horribly during the Revolution for their faithful alliance with the Patriots.

Patriot General Herkimer’s militia men fiercely fought the Brant crew. Herkimer was shot –mortally wounded– but continued to direct the battle from under a tree. War is truly hell. It must have been horrible. Losses were very bad– 450 of 800 Patriots and Oneidas died. 150 Loyalists and Mohawks perished. At Fort Stanwix in Rome (where these American Patriots and Oneida Indians were headed), there’s a reenactment video of this historic moment. It’s stunning, and really gives the viewer an idea of how chaotic and vicious this attack was.

A vivid painting of Herkimer at this moment, The Battle of Oriskany, by E. N. Clark, hangs upstairs in the >Utica Public Library (a GREAT library; boy, I wish they got more support and funding).

The obelisk at the Battlefield honors the dead. Listed on the monument is a relative of an ancestor of my husband’s, who was the only Patriot in my husband’s old family of Tories. Brother fought against brother. (My husband’s ancestors fled to Canada after the War.) My grandmother would be rolling in her grave if she knew I married a man whose ancestors were Tories! But my husband, a Patriot now, has been redeemed .

It is a sober memorial.

No one actually won this battle. The Americans suffered a horrific loss, but they did prevent Brant’s men from reaching Fort Stanwix. It is a surety that if the Patriots had not staved off Brant, Fort Stanwix would have fallen to the British.

There was a large monument erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution, in honor of the Unknown Soldiers who fought and died.

General Herkimer died several days later. He died from a botched amputation of his wounded leg. At the Herkimer House Museum, his old Bible is displayed, open to Psalm 38 which he wanted to read just before his death.

Psalm 38:1 O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath!
2 For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.

3 There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.
4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;
like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

5 My wounds stink and fester
because of my foolishness,
6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all the day I go about mourning.
7 For my sides are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am feeble and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

9 O Lord, all my longing is before you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me,
and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
11 My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,
and my nearest kin stand far off.

12 Those who seek my life lay their snares;
those who seek my hurt speak of ruin
and meditate treachery all day long.

13 But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear,
like a mute man who does not open his mouth.
14 I have become like a man who does not hear,
and in whose mouth are no rebukes.

15 But for you, O Lord, do I wait;
it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
16 For I said, “Only let them not rejoice over me,
who boast against me when my foot slips!”

17 For I am ready to fall,
and my pain is ever before me.
18 I confess my iniquity;
I am sorry for my sin.
19 But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty,
and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
20 Those who render me evil for good
accuse me because I follow after good.

21 Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
22 Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!

Herkimer’s efforts were not in vain. So although the Americans suffered tremendous loss, they did detain Brant’s group from getting to Fort Stanwix in Rome, where British General St. Leger was laying seige. Because of the failure of the British to gain ground in Fort Stanwix and in Oriskany, as well as some other typical British blunders, Burgoyne’s Three-Pronged-Attack on Albany collapsed. Burgoyne was captured in Saratoga. When the French heard of this American victory, they decided to aid our cause, and sent money, ships, and troops our way (most notably, to Yorktown). We can see the importance of this small battle today, but back then in the heat of things, it must have been hard to endure the loss. We are ever grateful that they hung on.

At the Battlefield site, we visited a small visitor’s center. The last time we visited, in 2004, the center was closed, so this was a real treat to finally go in.

This flag perked us up!

Outside the center was the coolest car I’d ever seen. A hybrid!! We quietly snuck in it for a quick photo.

It was fun to explore the area, fun to run down the trails and imagine life back then. But all the while the cloud of sobriety hangs above, reminding us that this little battle was more than just a little battle. These valiant men were fighting not for land or wealth, but for an idea: the right to live free and the right to our inalienable rights endowed by our Creator. These men weren’t blindly struggling, as so many pawns do in war (“the sport of kings”). These guys knew what they were fighting for, and they did it for posterity– for us!

History of Fort Ticonderoga

As promised, my daughter has penned a brief history of Fort Ticonderoga, the park we recently visited. You can ride on over to here to read about our enthralling visit, and then come on back for a little history lesson.

FORT TICONDEROGA

In America’s early decades, before the independence of the colonies from the European nations that ruled them, and then from Great Britain, it was a vast and unexplored wilderness, rich with all the resources to make the drooling monarchs of Europe desire to enrich themselves with it. New York was (is, and always has been) one of those colonies replete with abundant natural resources. It is not surprising, then, that the nations of Europe and France, perhaps the two most powerful and influential nations in Europe during the 18th century, would battle over this land, and fight a long war over it.

During the early to mid-eighteenth century, the France had claim to territory in Canada, directly adjutant to the north of New York, which was a bone of contention between the French and the British. Disputes and conflicts over New York territory and the territory of other parts of what is now the United States between England and France (of course with the Indians and the American colonists automatically caught in the crossfire) erupted into the Seven Years War; this war is now more popularly known as the French and Indian War, which lasted from 1754 to 1763.

The struggle for control of the eastern waterways of New York played an enormous part in the Seven Years War, but in order to understand this, we must understand some geography.

New York was directly in the middle of the thirteen colonies, which made up the land that the English and the French were bickering about. New York’s borders did not extend as far west as they do now, but nevertheless, the land which stretched from south of Montreal in Canada to the Atlantic Ocean (and through which land stretched a “rod” of rivers and lakes) was the eastern half of New York. At this time, it was not easy to transport goods, ammunition, and men over land through the dense and hostile wilderness of New York. Not only was travel slow and good shelter rare, but wagons and carts found it nearly impossible to make it through the dense woods and infested swamps. Travel by water, on the other hand, eliminated the disadvantages of land travel. Therefore, whoever controlled the waterways of New York controlled its commerce and military.

The eastern waterway of New York was a perfect place for ships loaded with supplies, men, horses, and cannon to be quickly transported from place to place at little cost (compared to land travel), because out of the south of Hudson Bay (north of what was then French Canada) flowed the St. Lawrence River, which ended directly at the top of northeastern New York. At this place where the St. Lawrence River ends there is (well, guess what!) a short interruption of land. Directly south of that is Lake Champlain. This lake is rather elongated, so it shaped much like a river. To the south of Lake Champlain follows a very long and complicated system of waterways, with rivers sprouting out of the lake into the interior of New York. One of the rivers that flows out of the south of Lake Champlain flows westward, and the other river that flows out of the south of the Lake flows directly south. On the intersection of the west-flowing river and Lake Champlain (this intersection makes a “v” shape) sits Fort Ticonderoga. The location of this fort was very strategically erected, for it would have full control over which ships (make that, WHOSE ships) could continue going into the southern or western interior of New York, and therefore, have access to its natural resources and a traffic way into the rest of the colonies.

It was the French who initially erected this fort (which they called “Fort Carillon” and not “Ticonderoga” — which, if you ask me, sounds Native American), in order to protect their precious possessions in Canada from the boats of the British, as well as to secure (so they thought) conquest of New York. Not surprisingly, the British tried to claim the fort during the war, in 1758, but they lost the siege. Later on during the War, the British General Amherst captured the fort, forcing the French to leave Lake Champlain. Peace was eventually signed in 1763, which secured the colony of New York in British hands (and therefore it continued to be habited by the American colonists and the Iroquois who allied with the British), and not long after, the British claimed the eastern part of Canada.

But then, as we all know, “In 1775, the Revolution came alive,” and the American colonists found themselves fighting with their own former British allies (this time, the Iroquois were caught in the middle, and they split up among themselves, some joining the patriots, and others the British). If the patriots wanted to prevent the British from sending their men and ammunitions down through New York,, and on the the rest of the colonies, than Fort Ticonderoga had to be secured for the patriots. But how?

Not quite a month after the “shot heard ’round the world” was fired, Colonel Ethan Allen, an American patriot and commander of the Green Mountain Boys sneaked up on Fort Ticonderoga before daylight on May 10, 1775. The British guards (the British were always so darn sure about themselves) outside the fort were caught by surprise, and were immediately apprehended by the Americans. Then Col Allen and his men made their silent way into the labyrinth of the fort. Ethan Allen in his Memoirs would later relate that as they were creeping through the fort that suddenly a British soldier charged at one of his officers with a bayonet. Allen, quick as a flash, drew his sword and gave the British soldier a slash on the forehead, and would have killed him, but the man begged for quarter (that is, allowance to live in exchange for being captured), which Allen granted him. “Besides,” Allen must have thought to himself, “this rascally Brit may come in handy.” Allen demanded that his new captive lead him to the quarter of the British commander of the fort. When they reached the door, Allen banged on the door, and called the commander to come out of bed (it was still dark, and the British weren’t planning on a bunch of rag-a-muffin Yankee Doodles capturing their fort). The commander came out, still in his night-gown, holding his bed robe, and perhaps rubbing the slumber out of his eyes, and wondered what this fiery Yank wanted. Allen demanded that he surrender possession of the fort immediately. “Of all the nerve!” the commander thought to himself. “Who does this rambunctious, country bumpkin Yankee think he is? I am a respectable British officer who has just been so rudely awakened from his beauty sleep and this fellow thinks he can simply knock on my door and make me surrender this fine and well-equipped fortress!” The officer wanted to know what authority this young rapscallion made his claim, to which Allen added, drawing his sword to illustrate his point, “In the name of the Great Jehovah, and of the Continental Congress!”

Maybe that “Continental Congress” part didn’t impress the officer very much, but a bathrobe in the hand (against a sword) is not nearly worth hiding in three bushes. Fort Ticonderoga was now in possession of the American patriots! For a while …

In the year 1777, the British, knowing (er, thinking) that they knew a way to end this war in their favor and end it quickly, proposed a strategy which would again utilize the geographical importance of New York, and rely upon which side owned Fort Ticonderoga. British General John Burgoyne (who was knows as “Gentleman Johnny by his soldiers) proposed a three-pronged attack on New York. He needed the assistance of General Barry St. Ledger (in Canada) and General William Howe (in New York City) to meet him (who would start from Montreal, Canada and march south) in Albany, in which city was the headquarters of the American head of the North Department, and HHIC of the Patriot forces in New York, Major-General Philip Schuyler. The adventures (and mishaps) of British Generals St. Ledger and Howe are a story of themselves. Gentleman Johnny’s, um, New York travel, shall we say, proved to be quite an adventure. He started his march southward into New York, taking full advantage of New York’s eastern waterways. His boats, loaded with his sub-officers, their wives, champagne, fine clothing, and necessities, as well as the troops and their wives and children luxuries from England, traversed over Lake Champlain, and then came to Fort Ticonderoga. This fort was nearly invincible, and the only way to take it without losing such a great amount of men and ammunition (which needed to be saved for the big siege at Albany and the rest of the conquest of America) was to find dome way to get to the top of Mount Defiance, which was the only place were the ground rose above Fort Ticonderoga. Right there, however, was a problem. Mount Defiance was called so because no one had been able to climb it, much less to mount cannon on top of it and force the Americans out of it without a fight. But that is what Burgoyne and his forces managed to do – and all in one night. The next morning, the Americans in the fort noticed the British cannons over their heads, and the American commanders decided to retreat from the fort, rather than fight to keep it, knowing that they would all be terribly killed. Burgoyne got the fort.

The capture of Fort Ticonderoga was a big point in Burgoyne’s favor in the eyes of the British, but it was also a big demerit of General Schuyler in the eyes of the Continental Congress, who were already planning on replacing him and/or General Washington with the New-Englander Horatio Gates. It would soon be too late before the Congress would realize their big mistake. But in the meantime, Burgoyne continued his triumphant march toward Albany. Little did he know that Fort Ticonderoga would benefit his cause very little out in the strange and hostile wilderness of New York. The British occupation may have caused a greater sense of urgency among the patriots in the northeastern colonies (as Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Hamilton said would benefit the Americans and not the British), it would not aid Burgoyne and his troops against the legions of mosquitoes, hauling wagons through dense woods, starvation, disease, and cold. But, Burgoyne’s eventual failure will be discussed in its own good time — when we visit Saratoga Battlefield!