Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ticonderoga is an 18th century fortification at a strategically important bottleneck in Lake Champlain in what is now New York State , from which a passage leads to the north end of Lake George . The name Ticonderoga comes from a word from the Iroquois language and means "space between two waters". Fort Ticonderoga has been the site of four battles and sieges in 20 years.

Location of Ticonderoga

View of the front lines and Fort Ticonderoga from a hill on the southern bay side in 1759.

history

Samuel de Champlain was the first white man to visit Ticonderoga in 1609. He came there with a group of Algoquin Indians and fought the Iroquois there. In 1691 Major Peter Schyler and his troops camped there for three days on the way to attack the Canadian settlements.

The governor of Canada commissioned de Lotbiniere, a Canadian engineer, to build a fort in 1755, which was named Carillon . At its location it dominated important trade routes between the English- controlled valley of the Hudson and the Saint Lawrence River, which was ruled by France .

Between 1758 and 1777 the battles below followed. In 1783 General Washington visited the fort. After independence, the land was transferred to Columbia State. In 1816, William Ferris Pell, a New York merchant, leased the fort and bought it four years later. Stephen Pell started the recovery. The following year, de West Barracks were opened to the public in the presence of President Taft .

Battle of Ticonderoga (1758)

James Abercrombie , portrait by Allan Ramsay around 1759/60.

Louis-Joseph de Montcalm -Gozone.

During the French and Indian War ( Seven Years War ), a 16,000-strong British army led by General James Abercrombie attacked the fort, which was defended by 4,000 men under the command of Louis-Joseph de Montcalm , on July 8, 1758. The British soldiers advancing uncovered in formation without artillery preparation were hindered by barricades made of felled trees and shot down in rows by the defenders, who were well covered by the fortifications. A small part of the 42nd Highlands Regiment (Black Watch) managed to penetrate the fort with heavy losses, but the soldiers were killed. The Scottish regiment lost half of its men and two-thirds of its officers in this battle. In total, the British lost around 2,000 men in this battle. Interestingly, the losses suffered by the French were far lower than those of the British in absolute terms, but in terms of the percentage of combat strength they suffered, they were even higher than those of the attackers. Ultimately, this is also the reason why Montcalm refrained from pursuing the defeated British. The course of the battle was thus far less one-sided than it was often interpreted in retrospect - mainly due to the horrific British losses. The battle itself was one of the hardest and most costly of the war. A disorderly, panicked retreat followed, leaving behind weapons, luggage and wounded. Because of this defeat Fort Carillion was nicknamed the " Gibraltar of the West". The Battle of Ticonderoga is now considered a classic example of incompetent leadership.

Battle of Ticonderoga (1759)

The next year, the British under General Jeffrey Amherst attacked the fort again. On June 25, 1759, the French garrison gave up the fort due to the great British superiority, blew it up and retreated towards Canada. The damage was repaired, then British troops billeted.

Battle of Ticonderoga (1775)

After the outbreak of the American War of Independence , a small troop of Americans under the command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold succeeded in a surprise occupation of the fort on May 10, 1775, while the garrison of only two officers and 64 men slept. The Americans captured large stocks of powder and ammunition which they used for the siege of Boston .

Battle of Ticonderoga (1777)

In 1776 the British counterattacked from Canada. Although the Continental Army succeeded in delaying a first advance under General Guy Carleton until the onset of winter, the British resumed the attack next year - this time under General John Burgoyne . Since the British succeeded in placing artillery on Mount Defiance towering over the fort , the American commander Arthur St. Clair ordered the abandonment of Fort Ticonderoga on July 5, 1777. The British marched in the next day. The Americans withdrew to Fort Independence ( Vermont ) and from there to the Hudson Valley. After Burgoyne's defeat in the Battle of Saratoga , the fort became unimportant and was abandoned by the British in 1780.

Because of its importance to early American history, four American warships and one class of cruiser were named after Ticonderoga. The name of the fort also lives on in the name of the village of the same name near the fort. The fort itself is privately owned, restored in 1909 and is now a tourist attraction.

In October 1960, Fort Ticonderoga was recognized as a National Historic Landmark . In October 1966, the entry in the National Register of Historic Places followed .

Others

The Dixon company in Heathrow, Florida, USA, has been producing the Dixon Ticonderoga pencil since 1913, true to the motto “a fine American name for a fine American pencil” .