The Expedition to Ticonderoga

Posted on April 30, 2025

April 28, 1775: Captain Edward Mott arrived in Hartford, Connecticut to discuss with merchant and miller, Christopher Leffingwell, how to relieve the siege of Boston. Edward Mott believed that cannon from Ticonderoga and Crown Point could break the stalemate. Edward Mott described this meeting in his journal:

PRESTON, Friday, 28th April, 1775. Set out for Hartford, where I arrived the same day. Saw Christopher Leffingwell, Esq., who inquired of me about the situation of the people of Boston. When I had gave him an Account, he asked me how they could be relieved, and where I thought we could get artillery and stores. I told him I knew not, except we went and took possession of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, which I thought might be done by surprise, with a small number of men.(1)

Then it was revealed that his Colonel, Samuel Parsons, and–soon to be Continental Congress delegate–Silas Deane, already dispatched two men—Noah Phelps and Dutch surveyor Bernard Romans–with £300 to begin recruiting northward for just such an expedition. The next day, Edward Mott, with the rest of this Connecticut committee, began their ride northwest, proceeding unarmed to keep the venture secret.

April 30, 1775: From the outset, Benedict Arnold was two days behind Connecticut’s covert plan to capture Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point. As the Massachusetts Committee of Safety considered Benedict Arnold’s “certain information” about Fort Ticonderoga’s conditions, cannons, garrison, and that of Skenesborough, Connecticut’s collection of officers, and soldiers of fortune, approached the Massachusetts border in their secret ride north. Benedict Arnold laid out his venture succinctly in this letter, read April 30, 1775:

GENTLEMEN: You have desired me to state the number of cannon, &c˙, at Ticonderoga. I have certain information that there are at Ticonderoga eighty pieces of heavy cannon, twenty brass guns, from four to eighteen pounders, and ten to twelve large mortars. At Skenesborough, on the South-Bay, there are three or four brass cannon. The Fort is in a ruinous condition, and has not more than fifty men at the most. There are large numbers of small arms, and considerable stores, and a sloop of seventy or eighty tons on the lake. The place could not hold out an hour against a vigorous onset.(2)

Connecticut’s expedition and Benedict Arnold responded to the same situation. Both Connecticut and Massachusetts moved with incredible celerity to field soldiers after the Battle of Lexington & Concord. The alarm of April 19 reached New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island that same day, and militia began to march upon that alarm. By April 23, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress approved a “Grand Army” of 13,000. By April 26, the Connecticut Assembly resolved to raise 6,000 soldiers for 7-months emergency service. As New England citizens dug in on the hills surrounding Boston Harbor, the need for cannons only became more acute.

May 1, 1775: Connecticut’s Committee reached Colonel James Easton’s Tavern in Pittsfield Massachusetts, meeting Easton himself, and John Brown, who recommended such an expedition back in March. The Connecticut Committee had already met Ethan Allen’s younger brother Levi.

May 2, 1775: This growing expedition began recruiting, as they passed onward through Jericho and Williamstown. They pressed on to Bennington in the New Hampshire Grants. There in Faye’s Tavern in Bennington, Colonel Ethan Allen met with Mott, Easton, Brown & the others and agreed to raise the Green Mountain Boys for the expedition to Ticonderoga and Crown Point.  Ethan Allen departed the next morning to begin recruiting. Spies dispatched to Albany, returned with good news of an official promise of secrecy and private support including Philip Schuyler’s benediction and offer of 40 barrels of provisions. Noah Phelps of Connecticut and Ezra Hickock of Massachusetts departed to spy around Ticonderoga. Other committee members fanned out to cut any communication to Skenesborough and Ticonderoga. Epaphras Bull of Hartford described this planning and the departure of these spies in his journal:

Soon after our Arrival at Mr. Fay’s Tavern Colol Allen Arrd when we had a Consultation of the Compy In what manner to Proced. Finally Agreed that Capt. Phelps & Mr. Hecock should go to the Lake with a Letter from Colo Allen & that Mr. Hecock should go over to Ticonderoga to Reconnoiter the Situation of the Fort.(3)

May 5, 1775: The Connecticut expedition stretched out in a broken column of officers, recruits, riders and packhorses passing piecemeal through Shaftsbury, Arlington, Manchester, and Dorset.

May 6, 1775: After three days of riding, Benedict Arnold reached Nehemiah Smedley’s Tavern in Williamstown, Massachusetts in the evening. He had Colonel’s commission from the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in Watertown in his pocket as he sat down to dine. As Arnold began to eat and requested bread to feed his regiment for the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, he quickly discovered Connecticut’s expedition was underway to Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Not only was this expedition already underway, it passed through Williamstown, five days earlier and was two days’ ride northwards in the New Hampshire Grants.

Late in the morning of May 6, Colonel Ethan Allen and Captain Seth Warner of the Green Mountain Boys reached “Smith’s” in Rupert, hours before Benedict Arnold realized the expedition was afoot. On May 7, the scattered column of the expedition pressed on through Rupert, Pawlet, Wells, & Poultney, before finally reaching Castleton that night.

May 8, 1775: The entire expedition assembled through the day in Castleton, there the assembled officers held a Council of War, with Captain Edward Mott serving as chairmen of this Committee. Edward Mott described this Council of War in his May 11, 1775 letter to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, congratulating them on the capture of Fort Ticonderoga:

the next day, was held a Council of War by a Committee chosen for that purpose, of which Committee I had the honour to be Chairman. After debating and consulting on different methods of procedure in order to accomplish our designs, it was concluded and voted that we would proceed in the following manner, viz: That a party of thirty men, under the command of Captain [Samuel] Herrick, should, on the next day, In the afternoon, proceed to Skenesborough, and take into custody Major Skene and his party, and take possession of all the boats that they should find there, and in the night proceed up the Lake to Shoreham, with the remainder of our men, which was about one hundred and forty, who were under the command of Colonel Ethan Allen, and Colonel James Easton was his second, and Captain [Seth] Warner the third in command; as these three men were the persons who raised the men, they were chosen to command, and to rank according to the number of men that each one raised. We also sent off Captain [Asa] Douglass, of Jericho, to proceed directly to Panton, and there consult his brother-in-law, who lived there, and send down some boat to Shoreham, if possible, to help our people over to the Fort. All this was concluded should be done, or attempted, and voted universally. After this affair was all settled, and the men pitched on to go in each party, all were preparing for their march, being then within about nine miles of Skenesborough, and about twenty-five miles, the way we went, from Ticonderoga.(4)

Benedict Arnold arrived at 4 p.m. after the committee had adjourned. He demanded command based on his commission as members of the Council of War prepared for their next day’s march. Men threatened to club their muskets and leave, but Ethan Allen and James Easton promised that all would serve under the commanding officers who recruited them. The question of command remained. Writing to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, on May 11, 1775, Edward Mott explained how tenuous this left the entire expedition:

But Mr. Arnold, after we had generously told him our whole plan, strenuously contended and insisted that he had a right to command them and all their officers, which bred such a mutiny among the soldiers winch had nearly frustrated our whole design, as our men were for clubbing their fire-locks and marching home, but were prevented by Colonel Allen and Colonel Easton, who told them that he should not have the command of them, and if he had, their pay would be the same as though they were under their command; but they would damn the pay, and say they would not be commanded by any others but those they engaged with; (5)

May 9, 1775: The expedition went into action, fanning out as agreed. Benedict Arnold rode on to overtake Ethan Allen and settle command. The Green Mountain Boys dropped their packhorses of provisions and rushed after him. The conflict over command was resolved temporarily after Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold approached Lake Champlain, in present-day Shoreham, Vermont. Epaphras Bull succinctly described the temporary truce, with Colonels Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold sharing command:

7 0Clock Arrid at Shoram within ½ Mile of the Lake where we had more Inteligence of the Security of the Fort. Some Disputes have Arrisen on Acct. of Capt. Arnold’s taking any Command. Have however Agreed that he take the Left hand of Coll. Allen.(6)

By 11:30 p.m. they began crossing Lake Champlain.

1. Journal of Capt. Edward Mott, Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, Vol. 1 (Hartford, 1860), 165.
2. Benedict Arnold to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, April 30, 1775. Peter Force Ed. American Archives, Series 4, Vol.2, p. 450.
3. Journal of Epaphras Bull, May 1775- December 13, 1776, https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/30171
4. Edward Mott to the Massachusetts Congress, May 11, 1775. Peter Force Ed. American Archives, Series 4, Vol.2, p. 558.
5. Ibid.
6. Journal of Epaphras Bull, May 1775- December 13, 1776, https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/30171