577AD: Death of Saint Brendan the Navigator, the Irish monk whose legendary travels in a leather currach helped establish the idea of a lush and inhabited island across the sea from Europe. “St. Brendan’s Island” often shows up on early maps; one school of thought believes it indicates that Brendan was actually the first European to make landfall in North America. He remains the patron saint of sailors and navigators.
1532: Sir Thomas More resigns as England’s Lord High Chancellor, his second attempt to leave Henry VIII’s court over the issue of papal versus royal supremacy.
1655: The island of Jamaica captured by a 50 ship British fleet under Admiral William Penn.
1752: American Renaissance man Benjamin Franklin tests his first lightning rod. He somehow survives. Poor Richard is glad.
1775(a): Led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, American militia crosses Lake Champlain to capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British.
1775(b): The Second Continental Congress names Virginian George Washington as Supreme Commander of the newly formed Continental Army.
1801: Birth of William Seward (d.1872), Secretary of State in the Lincoln Administration, and the official at Lincoln’s deathbed who announced to the press, “Now he belongs to the ages.” In the Andrew Johnson Administration, Seward became the chief advocate of the United States’ purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. The popularly remembered “Seward’s Folly” cost the country $7,200,000.00, or 2 cents per acre.
1860: Opening day of the Republican National Convention in Chicago. Springfield lawyer and former Member of Congress Abraham Lincoln defeats the front-runner New Yorker William Seward on the third ballot.
1863: Stonewall Jackson dies of pneumonia, contracted subsequent to his Confederate-inflicted wounding. When he first heard of Jackson’s wounds, General Robert E. Lee said, “Jackson has lost his left arm; I have lost my right.” His loss will be particularly felt when the Army of Northern Virginia begins its northward march next month.
1864: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, the third sequential battle in U.S. Grant’s Overland Campaign to capture Richmond. Coming a week after the Wilderness fight, the battle was characterized by horrific bloodletting and unprecedented firepower that flattened the landscape and destroyed every tree and bush in the battle area. The climax occurred at the Bloody Angle, where hand-to-hand fighting occurred back and forth across trench lines and muddy fields completely filled with the corpses of the fallen. The mud was so thick that men who lost their balance were trampled and drowned before they could get back up. Because Lee was able to hold his position, and because the number of casualties was heavily weighted against the Union, it was technically a Confederate victory. But the battle was so costly to Lee that he was never able to re-gain the initiative against Grant, who continued to shift his army to the left and continue to probe and plunge against Lee’s ever-weakening right flank, eventually leading to the establishment of the siege line around Petersburg.
1865: U.S. Army soldiers capture Confederate President Jefferson Davis at Irwinville, Georgia. He spends two years in custody at Fortress Monroe in Hampton. You can visit his cell today in the Casemate Museum inside the fort.
1868: President Andrew Johnson is acquitted on his impeachment trial by a single vote in the U.S. Senate.
1869: Meeting at Promontory Point, Utah, the nation’s first transcontinental railroad is completed with a golden spike. The ceremonial hammer and spike are connected to telegraph wires that relay the historic impacts back to Washington, DC. The three-year project of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads was largely financed by generous federal land grants.
1871: The Treaty of Frankfurt am Main ends the Franco-Prussian war. In addition to ceding to Germany the German-speaking French provinces of Alsace and Loraine, France is saddled with reparations of 5 billion Francs. German forces remain in strategic occupation positions across the north of France, right up to the outskirts of Paris, until September of 1873 when the last payment is finally made. The crushing German victory at the Battle of Sedan (DLH 9/1) triggered the overthrow of the French government and set the stage for the simmering resentment and thirst for revenge that exacerbated the onset of the Great War in 1914.
1918: As a companion bill to its recently passed Espionage Act, Congress passes, and President Wilson signs, the Sedition Act. It makes it illegal to criticize, e.g.: to“…willfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the U.S. government during the time of war. In addition to a $10,000 fine and 20 years in prison, the Postmaster General was tasked to halt mail deliveries to and from any person convicted or associated with a person convicted of the act. Over 1500 were charged and more than 1000 were convicted. Wilson’s Attorney General sought to keep a peacetime version in place after the war, but Congress repealed it in December, 1920.
1941: Nazi Deputy to the Fuhrer, Rudolf Hess, parachutes into Scotland to attempt peace negotiations with the government of Great Britain. The flight, staged just prior to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, continues to stir controversy over whether this was an official, but clandestine attempt by Hitler to make peace with his “natural ally” in England. Hess remained in British custody throughout the war, and was convicted at Nuremberg for crimes against the peace and conspiracy. After the 1966 release of Albert Speer and Baldur von Schirach, Hess remained imprisoned at Spandau- the only prisoner in the facility- at the insistence of the Soviet Union- until his death in 1987.
1949: Frustrated and embarrassed by the stunning success of the nearly year-long Berlin Airlift* (where air deliveries of food and supplies eventually surpassed pre-blockade rail shipments) the Soviet Union ends the Berlin Blockade, which is now recognized as the first battle of the Cold War. The success of the airlift compounded the political failure of the Soviets to intimidate the Western powers and led to the establishment of a separate West Germany on the 23rdof May.
1994: Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as the first black President of South Africa.
Margot Gorske says
The Irish Currach copied the older Welsh coracle; still in use today. You can even enroll in a weekend class to make coracles, keeping your achievement, across the pond. The coracle floats downstream in shallow/rocky waters and carried as a ‘backpack’ when walking. Also provided a semi-tent for spontaneous downpours in Wales.
Paul Plante says
With respect to Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, and the capture of Ticonderoga, an old French stone fort a bit to the north of me with a long bloody history of warfare between the French and English before the Revolution, in Chapter XV of “The Hoosac valley, its legends and its history” by Grace Greylock Niles, copyright 1912, entitled “THE HEROES OF FORT TICONDEROGA, MAY 10, 1775,” the author provides these details, to wit:
THE inhabitants of the Hoosac and Walloomsac valleys proved the first to take definite action against the oppressors of the Crown.
The first Revolutionary Councils of Safety met between Salisbury, Pittsfield, Williamstown, and Bennington Centre.
John Brown of Pittsfield, a spirited young lawyer lately graduated from Yale, was appointed to convey the letters of the Boston Committee of War to Canada during the latter part of February.
He was also advised to make observations of the strength of the British fortress on Lake Champlain.
On his march northward, Brown consulted with the Councils of Safety at Williamstown and at Bennington.
Col. Ethan Allen of the latter place appointed Peter Sunderland, one of his trusted messengers, to accompany Brown to Canada.
Allen assured Brown that if the sum of 300 were advanced to equip an expedition against Fort Ticonderoga, he would lead his Green Mountain Boys’ militia against the formidable fortress.
Brown despatched a letter to Adams and Warren of the Boston Council and advised a speedy reduction of Fort Ticonderoga, before colonial hostilities began.
Col. Samuel H. Parsons, an assemblyman of Connecticut, while returning from Massachusetts to Hartford, April 26, 1775, met Benedict Arnold, a flour merchant of New Haven, marching with a band of volunteers to Cambridge, Mass.
Arnold reported the weakened condition of Fort Ticonderoga to Assemblyman Parsons, and remarked that the cannon would be useful for the Continental Army.
He made no allusion, however, to his own secret dreams of capturing the Fort.
In a letter addressed to Joseph Trumbull in June, Assemblyman Parsons affirms that he arrived at Hartford, Thursday morning, April 27th, after meeting Arnold.
He held a council with his friends, Col. Sam Wyllys and Mr. Dean, and stated that: “They first undertook and projected the taking of Ticonderoga.”
He consulted Thomas Mumford, Christopher Leffingwell, and Adam Babcock later, and they obtained the required sum of 300 to finance the expedition on their personal notes from the Connecticut Treasury.
The sum of money was entrusted to Adam Babcock, Noah Phelps, and Bernard Romans on Friday, April 28th, and they marched to Col. Ethan Allen at Bennington as advance messengers from Capt. Edward Mott of the Hartford Council of Safety.
Salisbury, Conn., was at that time the home of Heman and Levi Allen.
Heman Allen joined Adam Babcock and his party the next day and pushed on to locate Ethan Allen and his captains.
Captain Mott and Colonel Easton, with their seventy-six Salisbury and Berkshire volunteers, assembled on the Square in Williamstown before they marched to Bennington Centre.
Noah Phelps, Adam Babcock, Bernard Romans, and Heman Allen had meanwhile marched forward to act their part.
Heman Allen located his brother, Ethan Allen, in Arlington; Noah Phelps and Bernard Romans were sent to reconnoitre Fort Ticonderoga, and Adam Babcock awaited the arrival of Ethan Allen at the Catamount Tavern at Bennington Centre.
Bernard Romans, one of the first American map-makers, was a friend of Benedict Arnold.
He was in an envious mood and deserted Noah Phelps on his march to the Fort.
Arnold reports that he sent him later to Albany.
Captain Mott recorded that his men were “all glad” when Romans deserted the expedition, since he had caused much trouble on the march.
Romans was falsely reported by Arnold’s admirers as “the eminent engineer and leading spirit” of the Ticonderoga expedition.
Colonel Allen and Captains Warner and Herrick were on hand at the Catamount Tavern to welcome Captain Mott, Colonel Easton, John Brown, and Captains Douglass and Harris.
It was one of the most famous councils of war in the history of the Revolution.
Colonel Allen later sent Gershorm Beach of Rutland, a fleet-footed messenger, to rally the Green Mountain Boys’ militia.
Within twenty-four hours he covered a circuit of sixty miles between Castleton, Rutland, Pittsford, Brandon, Middlebury, and Whiting to Hand’s Cove in Shoreham, on the east shore of Lake Champlain, opposite Fort Ticonderoga.
Beach was an intimate friend of the Tory, Maj. Philip Skene, and visited Skenesboro Manor now Whitehall, Saturday, May 6th.
Major Skene was not at home, but his son informed Beach that he was momentarily expected, adding that his father was to be appointed Governor of New York, and that it was proposed to rebuild the fortresses at Ticonderoga and at Crown Point.
Within seventy-five hours after Beach completed his circuit the Green Mountain Boys rallied, Sunday evening, May 7th, at Castleton, sixty miles north of Bennington, and less than twenty-five miles east of Fort Ticonderoga.
A council of war was held, Monday evening, May 8th.
Capt. Edward Mott of the Connecticut Committee of War was chosen chairman.
It was formally voted that Colonel Allen should be first in command of the expedition; Colonel Easton, second; and Captain Warner, third, ranking according to the number of their volunteers enlisted.
Each company was assigned a special part in the expedition.
Capt. Samuel Herrick of Bennington was sent with thirty men to seize Major Skene and his boats about East Bay, which were to be rowed down Lake Champlain to Shoreham before dawn, May 10th, in order to convey Allen’s militia over the lake to surprise the garrison of Fort Ticonderoga.
Captain Douglass of the Hancock company was appointed to visit his brother-in-law, Smith, residing at Brideport, twelve miles down Lake Champlain, and endeavor by some stratagem to get possession of the King’s boats at Crown Point and row them up to Shoreham before light on May 10th.
Capt. Noah Phelps, in the habit of a Yankee farmer, visited Fort Ticonderoga meanwhile and observed the garrison’s strength.
He engaged the lad, Nathan Beeman, to meet Col. Ethan Allen and his militia before sunrise on May 10th and conduct them through the wicket gate to the British stronghold.
Phelps affected a most awkward appearance and inquired for a barber, under the pretence of desiring to be shaved.
He amused the gallants of Old England with his simple questions and meanwhile observed the position of the artillery.
He certainly returned to Colonel Allen’s camp a type of those Yankee varlets of Connecticut described by Washington Irving as belonging to the Dutch period of “Fort Good Hope.”
After the close of the Castleton Council, May 8th, a gust of confusion arose with the arrival of Benedict Arnold.
He was clad in a colonel’s epauletted uniform, accompanied by a colored servant.
Each was mounted upon a very much winded steed.
Arnold presented Chairman Mott his Massachusetts Commission as colonel of an expedition to be sent against Fort Ticonderoga.
He claimed that it gave him the right to command Colonel Allen’s Green Mountain Boys’ militia, financially equipped by the Connecticut Committee of War.
Colonial rivalry, personal honor, and national glory were all at stake.
The consternation of Chairman Mott and Colonel Allen’s Green Mountain Boys was intense.
The latter swore in chorus that rather than be led by Colonel Arnold against Ticonderoga, they would disband and return to their homes.
Arnold’s Commission advised him “to enlist his own men, not to exceed four hundred,” at the expense of the Massachusetts Congress, and he was directed “to act according to best skill and discretion for publick interest.”
Chairman Mott called a second council, and it was decided that Benedict Arnold should join the expedition, with rank of colonel, but without separate command.
It was, however, voted that Colonel Allen should head the central file; Colonel Easton, the right file; and Colonel Arnold, the left file, upon marching against Fort Ticonderoga.
After Benedict Arnold held his interview with Assemblyman Parsons of Connecticut, April 26th, he proceeded to the Massachusetts Committee of War at Cambridge and revealed his plans for capturing Fort Ti.
His Commission, dated May 3, 1775, was signed by Chairman Benjamin Church, Jr., and Secretary William Cooper of the Committee of Safety.
He was assigned a colonel’s uniform, a colored servant, steed, and funds to enlist his own volunteers.
Col. Benedict Arnold journeyed from Cambridge to Old Deerfield; thence over Hoosac Mountain to Williamstown.
According to his Bill of Expenses, he left 18 with Captain Oswold, May 4th, to rally his Shrewsbury militia, and on May 6th, Arnold crossed the Deerfield ferry and breakfasted at Landlord Talah Barnard’s Tavern in Old Deerfield Village.
He purchased a herd of fat cattle of Thomas W. Dickenson, and engaged him and his brother, Consider, to drive the herd to Fort Ticonderoga.
The bargain, with usual “toddy-sticks,” was confirmed over the bar in the North Room of the inn.
Meanwhile the Negro servant had the horses shod and they rode over Hoosac Mountain.
While at Capt. Moses Rice’s Charlemont Inn, Arnold enlisted a lad named White, who became the grandfather of Joseph White, the late Treasurer of Williams College.
Young White marched to Ticonderoga in less than a week and was present at Allen’s and Arnold’s contest for the rights of command of the captured Fort.
He related to his grandson that Col. Ethan Allen “lacked grit,” and that Allen made concession to Arnold by finally, on May 13th, placing him in command of Crown Point and the Lake Champlain schooner.
Colonel Arnold arrived at Capt. Nehemiah Smedley’s Green River homestead in Williamstown on the evening of May 6th.
Smedley’s house was not finished until after the surrender of the British at Old Saratoga in 1777, although the cellar kitchen in 1775, with its large stone oven, was in baking order.
Arnold left 3 with Captain Smedley, according to his Bill of Expenses, to bake a batch of rye and Indian bread, to be forwarded later by the Dickenson brothers to Fort Ticonderoga.
It was in Williamstown that Colonel Arnold first heard of Capt. Edward Mott’s Connecticut council of war and Colonel Easton’s and Colonel Allen’s rally of the Berkshire and Bennington Boys.
In consequence, Arnold headed his steed direct for Castleton early on May 7th.
The Green Mountain Boys forced Arnold to accept his fate after the second Castleton Council, May 8th.
It was late before Captain Herrick’s party set out that night and captured Maj. Philip Skene.
A guard was placed in command of Skene’s Whitehall Manor and all available boats were seized and rowed to Shoreham.
Major Skene and his two lieutenants were escorted by Captain Nichols and Lieutenants Hickok and Halsey to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull at Hartford, Conn., where they arrived, May 12th.
It proved a serious problem to seize boats sufficient in number to convey all of Colonel Allen’s regiment over Lake Champlain to Fort Ticonderoga before the dawn.
Captain Douglass and his party meanwhile secured a scow and a few small boats at Brideport, and Noah Phelps and Nathan Beeman posted at their appointed places, quietly fishing on Lake Champlain, greatly aided the expedition.
About one hundred and eighty troopers assembled at Shoreham before dawn, May 10th, ready to advance against the Fort, and several of Arnold’s volunteers arrived also the next morning.
The boats at Shoreham conveyed only eighty-three men over the Lake, including Colonel Allen, Captain Mott, Colonel Easton, and Colonel Arnold, and their men.
Capt. Seth Warner’s volunteers awaited the return of the boats to convey them later, but time was precious and the big oar-boats moved slowly.
The rising sun brightening the horizon led Colonel Allen to hold a council of war.
It was hastily agreed that if they delayed until Warner’s troops arrived, Captain DeLaplace and his British garrison would be astir.
Colonel Allen speedily formed his eighty-three men into three files, headed by Nathan Beeman and himself.
The road leading from the Lake Champlain landing permitted three men to march abreast.
But before marching orders were given, Colonel Allen inspired his Green Mountain Boys.
He said: Friends and fellow soldiers, you have, for a number of years past, been a scourge and terror to arbitrary power.
Your valor has been famed abroad, and acknowledged, as appears by the advice and orders to me from the General Assembly of Connecticut to surprise and take the garrison now before us.
I now propose to advance before you, and in person conduct you through the wicket gate; for we must this morning either quit our pretensions to valor, or possess ourselves of this fortress in a few moments; and, inasmuch as it is a desperate attempt, which none but the bravest of men dare undertake, I do not urge it on any one contrary to his will.
You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelocks.
Colonel Allen and Nathan Beeman lead the central file of the troops through the wicket gate to the Fortress.
The garrison still slept, all save the single sentry, and Captain De Laplace was soon aroused by three hearty cheers from the Green Mountain Boys, drawn up in battle order within the Fortress’s parade.
Captain De Laplace’s quarters were soon located, and in rough and stentorian voice Colonel Allen commanded the “old rat” to get out of bed instantly and surrender the Fort, or he would sacrifice the garrison.
De Laplace appeared at his barrack door with his trousers in his hands, and inquired by what authority the surrender was demanded.
Colonel Allen replied rotundly: “In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!”
That authoritative demand, with Allen’s sword raised defiantly over his head, proved too much for Captain De Laplace, and he surrendered the Fortress without the firing of a single gun.
Captain Warner’s troops arrived soon after Colonel Allen captured the first British flag of the Revolution.
It is better for Arnold’s ill-fame to-day that he be forgotten.
One of his champions, known as “Veritas,” was Capt. Israel Harris of Williamstown.
In 1832, Harris applied for a Revolutionary pension.
He often related to his grandsons, Prof. James Butler of the University of Wisconsin and the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Harris Butler of Schaghticoke, that he was the third man in single file to enter the gate of Fort Ticonderoga, and that only Arnold and Allen preceded him.
“Veritas” reported that Colonel Arnold rushed five yards and entered the Fortress ahead of Colonel Allen.
After the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, May 10, 1775, Allen wrote a letter to the “Committee of Correspondence for the City and County of Albany.”
He described the manner in which he and Colonel Easton surprised the Fort, and added that Colonel Arnold was present.
Capt. Edward Mott, chairman of the Connecticut Council, commissioned Colonel Allen Commander of Fort Ticonderoga, May 10, 1775, until further orders from the “Continental Congress.”
Later Colonel Hinman of Connecticut took command of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and the Allen and Easton troops were dismissed, although Capt. Samuel Wright’s Pownal company, according to Josiah Dunning’s application for a pension in 1827, remained in service a few weeks longer.
Dunning was present, May 9th, when Arnold claimed Allen’s right to command the Fortress by virtue of his Commission from the Massachusetts Council.
“Allen and Arnold had drawn their swords, and the men under their command had raised and cocked their muskets and presented their bayonets, when a private, named Edward Richards, stepped forward with great firmness, commanded both officers to put up their swords, and ordered the soldiers of both parties to arrest the two leaders if they did not immediately desist.”
They retired and agreed upon fighting a duel later.
Paul Plante says
We of course all know the fate of Benedict Arnold, who became disillusioned with the American cause, perhaps because it did not allow his young bride to live in the style she wished to grow accustomed to, and went over to the Brits, as a result, but what of Ethan Allen?
What became of him?
For that answer, back we go to Chapter XV of “The Hoosac valley, its legends and its history” by Grace Greylock Niles, copyright 1912, entitled “THE HEROES OF FORT TICONDEROGA, MAY 10, 1775,” where we have as follows:
After Baker’s death, Ethan Allen and John Brown were sent with scouting parties to determine the Canadians’ attitude toward the Americans’ cause.
This proved unfortunate for Allen, as there appears to have existed a military jealousy between the Berkshire and Bennington Boys’ militia at the time.
The closing story is this:
Colonel Allen met Major Brown between Longueuil and La Prairie, and they agreed to attempt the capture of Montreal.
Brown and his two hundred men were to cross the St. Lawrence above Montreal on the night of September 24th; and Allen and his one hundred and ten men were to cross the river below the city.
At a certain signal from Brown, they were to rush against the city from opposite sides and seize the guards.
Allen waited for Brown’s signal, but either through cowardice or jealousy, Brown never crossed over the river.
The position and numbers of Allen’s party were reported to General Carleton.
Allen, deserted in the heat of battle by his Canadians, was, therefore, forced to surrender, September 25, 1775.
In Allen’s Narrative of Captivity in England’s jails, written in 1778, he says that General Prescott ordered thirteen of the Canadian prisoners captured with him thrust through the breast with bayonets.
He stepped between them and the executioner and told General Prescott “to thrust his bayonet into his breast, for he was the sole cause of the Canadians taking up arms.”
He continues: “The guards in the meantime, rolling their eyeballs from the General to me, as though impatiently waiting his dread commands to sheathe their bayonets in my breast.”
“I could, however, plainly discern that they were in suspense and quandary about the matter.”
“This gave me additional hopes of succeeding; for my design was not to die, but to save the Canadians by a finesse.”
The British officers held a bitter hatred for Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain captains.
Lieut.-Governor Colden sent a doleful account of the capture of Fort Ticonderoga to Lord Dartmouth, and consoled him by avowing that: “The loyal loving subjects of the King in New York were not concerned in the Revolution.”
“The only people of the Province, who had any hand in the expedition, were the lawless people whom your Lordship has heard much of, under the name of the ‘Bennington Mob.'”
As their ring-leader and as the “avenger of the oppressed,” Allen, loaded with irons, was sent to one of England’s gloomy prison pens.
Gov. Thomas Chittenden later recorded that: “In all places he remained Ethan Allen and no one else.”
Paul Plante says
As to Fort Ticonderoga and American history, according to the New York State History Page in an article entitled “The ‘Black Watch’ at Ticonderoga, July 8, 1758″ tells us the Glens Falls Insurance Company’s historical calendar for 1904 dealt with the subject of Abercrombie’s Expedition against Fort Ticonderoga, July, 1758, the most imposing martial aggregation known to the New World up to then.
Its more than 6,000 British regulars and about 10,000 provincials, with artillery train, munitions and equipment, gathered at the head of Lake George and started down the lake July 5th – a splendid pageant.
Abercrombie was without antecedents or ability for the command, and after Lord Howe (” the noblest Englishman of his time,” second in command and the controlling spirit), fell at the first fire of the first encounter with an advance French detachment, all was hesitancy, indecision and folly.
end quotes
It was that hesitancy, indecision and folly by the British general Abercrombie witnessed by those early Americans at Ticonderoga in 1758 that was to lead to the Americans in the 1770s refusing to pay taxes to England for that incompetence, as well as instilling in the Americans a belief that the mighty British were hardly invulnerable.
Getting back to that story:
Montcalm (French general), with less than 5000, half French regulars, industriously profited by Abercrombie’s delay in strengthening his outlying defenses; throwing up earth and log breastworks, felling forest trees outward and sharpening their branches, making an intricate and difficult abatis.
On July 8, 1758 Abercrombie hurled his solid columns against the entrenched French and for six hours they fought with unsurpassed but unavailing valor.
Seldom has life and courage been more unreasonably wasted.
The English loss was quite 2,000 and that of the French about 500.
end quotes
People in this country today are totally unaware of all the blood that was shed in this country by the British and French before it became the United States of America, and so, cannot appreciate early American history as a result – not that they even care – history happened a long time ago, afterall, and who needs to know that **** today anyway.
Getting back to Abercrombie’s Folly at Ticonderoga:
Under Abercrombie was the famous “Black Watch,” the 42nd, and for valor at Ticonderoga designated by King George II. the “Royal Highland Regiment.”
This regiment, conspicuous in all of England’s wars for 170 years, fought the fiercest of its many battles at this time, with a loss quite equal to that of any single regiment in any single engagement of history.
Writing of this battle at the time, Lieutenant William Grant of the “Black Watch” said: “The attack began at a little past one in the afternoon, and at two the fire became general on both sides.”
“It was exceedingly and without intermission, in so much that the oldest soldiers never saw so furious and so incessant a fire.”
“Fontenoy was nothing to it – I saw both.****”
end quotes
Fontenoy, or the Battle of Fontenoy on 11 May 1745 was a major engagement of the War of the Austrian Succession, fought between the forces of the Pragmatic Allies – comprising mainly Dutch, British, and Hanoverian troops under the command of the Duke of Cumberland – and a French army under Maurice de Saxe, commander of King Louis XV’s forces in the Low Countries.
The battle was one of the most important in the war and considered the masterpiece of Saxe.
Saxe went on the offensive in April 1745 with a large French army, looking to build on the previous year’s gains.
His initial aim was to take control of the upper Scheldt basin and thereby gain access to the heart of the Austrian Netherlands.
As Wikipedia tells us, to these ends, he first besieged the fortress of Tournai, protecting the siege with his main force about 5 miles (~9 km) southeast of the town.
In order to relieve Tournai, the allies first decided to attack Saxe’s position – a naturally strong feature, hinged on the village of Fontenoy and further strengthened by defensive works.
After failing to make progress on the flanks – the Dutch on the left, Brigadier Ingolsby’s brigade on the right – Cumberland decided to smash his way through the centre without securing the flanks of his main attack.
Despite devastating flanking fire the allied column, made up of British and Hanoverian infantry, burst through the French lines to the point of victory.
Only when Saxe concentrated all available infantry, cavalry, and artillery was the column forced to yield.
The allies retreated in good order, conducting a fighting withdrawal.
The battle had shown, however, the strength of a defensive force relying on firepower and a strong reserve.
By the year’s end, the Saxon-born Saxe had completed the conquest of much of the Austrian Netherlands, and with his successes he became a national hero in his adopted country.
The battle had established French superiority in force and high command, which takes us back to the subsequent battle between the French and British at Ticonderoga, as follows:
“The difficult access to the enemy’s lines was what gave them fatal advantage.”
“They had taken care to cut down monstrous large trees, which covered all the ground from the foot of their breastworks about a cannon shot in every direction in their front.”
“This not only broke our ranks, but put it entirely out of our power: to advance until we had cut our way through.”
“I had seen men behave with courage before that day, but so much determined bravery can scarcely be paralleled.”
Other accounts mention the “Black Watch” as hewing their way with their broadswords through the tangled branches of the felled trees under a terrible musket and artillery fire; some even reaching the works, and the actual entering by Captain John Campbell, “one of the two ‘Black Watch’ soldiers presented to George II.,” with a few followers, to be dispatched by French bayonets.
There is also the story of a Highland piper “continuing to play his bagpipe after the loss of a leg.”
It is also said that “the Highlanders were so obstinate that not ’till the third order of the general did their commander get them to withdraw.”
The loss of the “Black Watch” was 8 officers, and 297 rank and file, killed and 17 officers, and 306 rank and file, wounded, – a total of 628.
Among the officers – “displaying great valor” was Major Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, who, according to a tradition of song and story, had been warned of his death at an unknown place named Ticonderoga by the ghost of a murdered cousin whose slayer he unwittingly sheltered; but, while wounded at Ticonderoga, he died at Fort Edward nine days later, and his grave is in the cemetery between Glens Falls and Fort Edward, near that of Jane McCrea.
And such is history made!
Paul Plante says
And speaking of history, the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga after its capture by Ethan Allen in May of 1775 were hauled overland from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester heights in Boston, Massachusetts, a distance of roughly 300 miles, as we see from a MassMoments website for January 24, 1776, Henry Knox Brings Cannon to Boston, as follows:
On this day in 1776, Colonel Henry Knox reached the headquarters of the Continental Army in Cambridge.
The young Boston bookseller had pulled off a daring plan.
He had led a small group of men on a 300-mile journey from Boston to Fort Ticonderoga in New York State.
Once there, the party disassembled cannon taken when the British surrendered the fort and retreated to Canada in May 1775.
In less than two months time, Knox and his men moved 60 tons of artillery across lakes and rivers, through ice and snow to Boston.
On March 7th, 2,000 Continental soldiers maneuvered the guns to a hill overlooking the city.
The British had no choice but to evacuate Boston.
end quotes
And then speaking of irony in history, when he came south from Canada in 1777 to crush the rebellion, British General Johnny Burgoyne took back Ticonderoga by hauling cannon up to the top of Mt. Defiance, so they could then shoot down and into Fort Ticonderoga, renderings its continued possession untenable to the rebels who were then occupying it.
According to Wikipedia, and really, this used to be schoolboy history when I was younbg here to the north of you, having been on Mt. Defiance, the height then called Sugar Loaf (now known as Mount Defiance) overlooked both Ticonderoga and Independence, and large cannons on that height would make the fort impossible to defend.
This tactical problem had been pointed out by John Trumbull when Gates was in command.
It was believed to be impossible for the British to place cannons on the heights, even though Trumbull, Anthony Wayne, and an injured Benedict Arnold climbed to the top and noted that gun carriages could probably be dragged up.
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Talk about famous mistakes or blunders, there is one right there, and interestingly, when Benedict Arnold subsequently sold out America to the Brits, he gave them the plans to take the high ground above West Point the way Burgoyne had taken the high ground above Ticonderoga.
And that blunder about not being able to put weapons on the high ground was what caused the French to lose at Dien Bien Phu when the Viet Minh had in fact dismantled 105 artillery pieces and hauled then piece by piece to the high ground overlooking Dien Bien Phu, so that the Viet Minh were then able to defeat the french in detail.
As we were taught when children, the defence, or lack thereof, of Sugar Loaf was complicated by the widespread perception that Fort Ticonderoga, with a reputation as the “Gibraltar of the North”, had to be held, so that neither abandoning the fort nor garrisoning it with a small force (sufficient to respond to a feint but not to an attack in strength) was viewed as a politically viable option.
Defending Fort Ticonderoga and the associated outer works would require all the troops currently there, leaving none to defend Sugar Loaf, and furthermore, George Washington and the Congress were of the opinion that Burgoyne, who was known to be in Quebec, was more likely to strike from the south, moving his troops by sea to New York City.
Following the war council of 20 June, General Philip Schuyler ordered General St. Clair to hold out as long as he could, and to avoid having his avenues of retreat cut off.
Schuyler took command of a reserve force of 700 at Albany, and Washington ordered four regiments to be held in readiness at Peekskill, further down the Hudson River.
Chapter XVI, THE COUNCILS OF SAFETY 1775-1778, of “The Hoosac valley, its legends and its history” by Grace Greylock Niles, copyright 1912, picks up that narrative, as follows:
Burgoyne’s army of 7000 troops consisted of over 4000 German hirelings, including Brunswickers, Dragoons, Hessians, and Chasseurs, and 3000 Britishers.
Only 2800 of the German troops survived.
For the death or non-return of each of the German soldiers England was forced to pay the petty sovereign 14 – twice as much as she paid for those returned.
Burgoyne’s campaign of 1777 was mapped out for him by King George II. and his ministers.
He left Quebec in May and was ordered to make a juncture with General Howe at Albany.
On the march south from Canada the British army swelled to nearly 10,000 men, including Canadians, Indians, and Tories.
On June 1st, Burgoyne broke up his River Boquet Camp and marched for Fort Ticonderoga.
The settlers fled in terror ahead of his Indian scouts.
They left their tables as they rose from breakfast and set a torch to their dwellings.
The British gained the Old Military Road and soon arrived at Fort Ticonderoga.
The battery of the Patriots on Mount Independence in Orwell was connected with the main fortress on the west shore by a floating bridge.
Both forts were within cannon shot of Sugar Loaf Mountain, known as Mount Defiance, where the British hauled formidable batteries during the night of July 5th.
Before sunrise the Patriots evacuated Fort Ticonderoga and crossed on the bridge to Mount Independence.
They were advancing toward Hubbardton, Vt., when the British overtook General St. Clare’s rear-guard, composed of Warner’s, Francis’s, and Hale’s nine hundred Continentals.
The Battle of Hubbardton lasted three hours, until the British were reinforced by the Hessians, who marched forward singing their Battle Hymn of Winfield’s Fight, louder than the sound of musketry.
Colonel Francis was slain and Colonel Warner ordered his men to look out for themselves and meet him at Manchester.
The loss of both the Americans and the Britishers was heavy; only about one hundred and fifty of Warner’s Continentals reached Manchester safely.