The Fall of Ticonderoga and the Beginning of the Revolutionary War

Posted on May 8, 2025

Literally overnight, the capture of Fort Ticonderoga changed the course of the Revolutionary War. The seizure of the British fort was the first victory of the American Revolution, opened a new front to the conflict, and also laid bare the challenges the revolutionaries faced, long before independence.

It took a week for the 2^nd Continental Congress to learn of the capture. Presented with a dramatic offensive across colonial borders, threateningly close to a large British-controlled Province to the north, Congress was forced to act. In days and weeks that followed colonists looked for direction from the Continental Congress, but their response required caution.

The chief factor expressed for launching the expedition was the need for artillery to break the siege of Boston. But this was challenging to justify. In the wake of Lexington and Concord the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had collected depositions from participants that supported a narrative of a defensive battle. Pinning the first shots on the British the provincials sought to control a narrative that they had acted merely in self-defense.

The capture of a distant fort with an unsuspecting garrison was more challenging to spin. In their response of May 18, the Continental Congress framed the captors as “several inhabitants…residing in the vicinity of Ticonderoga” rather than plans hatched in the populated heart of two coastal colonies. They claimed the capture was undertaken according to “the great law of self-preservation.” citing “indubitable evidence that a design is formed by the British Ministry of making a cruel invasion from the province of Quebec, upon these colonies, for the purpose of destroying our lives and liberties…”(1)

The cannon for Congress were secondary, a mere windfall, which would have been used for the subjugation of America anyway. Fearing a reprisal, Congress initially ordered the seized cannon and stores to be taken out of Ticonderoga and sent to the southern end of Lake George, ordering “an exact inventory” to be taken to allow the guns to be returned at the end of hostilities! But the resolution was vague enough that it caused confusion and alarm.

Massachusetts interpreted Congress’ orders as abandoning Ticonderoga! They pleaded that Ticonderoga was vital to the defense of the Northern colonies, and reminded colonists of the “immense sums of money, the loss of many lives, and five campaigns” it took to capture the fort during the French and Indian War.(2)

In effect, by capturing the fort the colonists were forced to hold it, unless they wished to hand the British the strategic advantage in the region, and possibly the war. But this required more manpower and resources from colonies that were still negotiating who was responsible for the post.

Both Massachusetts and Connecticut officials assured New York revolutionaries that they would not have moved into another province without cause, and deferred to New York’s authority. But New York’s late start establishing a revolutionary government created a vacuum as the province was unable to immediately muster men and materiel to take charge at Ticonderoga. All while Congressional resolutions were delayed by valuable days and weeks due to the relatively slow speed of communication. The overlapping jurisdictions and lack of centralized authority illustrated the need for a more cohesive command structure and previewed the growing pains that led to the creation of the Continental Army.

For years Ticonderoga had effectively been a Canadian outpost in New York. The British troops seized on May 10^th had their headquarters in Montréal, not New York. This placed Ticonderoga in a unique position relative to the expansive province of Quebec, with important repercussions in the coming months and years. Canada posed a threat but also provided an opportunity. The presence of British troops there, which could be used to suppress revolutionary activity and coordinate with Canadian and Native American raiders was a fear used to justify the capture. At the same time Canadians and Native Americans might become allies against British oppression, so they could not be alienated.

In the first weeks after the capture, Americans directly addressed the population of Canada to assure them of their intentions. Their war was with the regulars, not the habitants or native peoples. But others urged further action, amounting to a friendly invasion of all of Canada to put the British further on the defensive.

On May 18, 1775 Benedict Arnold raided St Jean in Quebec, seizing the government’s sloop Betsey, renamed Enterprise, and capturing more British soldiers and sailors, which Congress continued to claim as defensive. Seizing the naval power on the lake eased the initial fears of an immediate counterattack. Arnold’s successful raid was followed by another lead by Ethan Allen which ended in failure. But an escaped survivor reported British troops on the march, raising another scare, and causing Arnold to urgently request reinforcements and immediately write to Massachusetts and Connecticut for more substantial support.

Arnold’s alarm, written on May 23^rd, electrified colonial leaders.(3) Connecticut diverted hundreds of men to Ticonderoga who might have been sent to the Boston siege lines. Massachusetts increasingly began to see the theater as a drain on her resources and was prepared to give over command and control to Connecticut.

Up to this point command between Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold was unclear. Recruits began to arrive for Arnold’s Massachusetts force, but the departure of many of the Green Mountain Boys, meant he still lacked soldiers and sailors to hold the line, much less maintain supplies and equipment. In addition to spurring recruitment, Arnold ordered slave labor to mine for iron ore needed by the army, appropriating the enslaved workers seized on Phillip Skene’s estate at the southern end of Lake Champlain.(4) A tragic contradiction while at the same time Massachusetts officials claimed it was the British who aimed to “reduce the continent to slavery.”(5)

At once daring, unexpected, and successful, the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and its aftermath was also confusing, and fraught. The conduct, personalities, and repercussions of capture of Ticonderoga previewed the challenges that would define the Revolutionary War. Launched to relieve the siege of Boston, the seizure of Lake Champlain established a new front. Although still phrased defensively, by the end of June Congress had approved of an invasion of Canada, the beginning of a dramatic and far reaching new phase of the war.

The capture of Ticonderoga laid bare the complexities and contradictions that would characterize the next 8 years of war, as new individuals, groups, locations, and interests entered into the conflict. The capture of Ticonderoga tested the ability of the participants to act not solely out of self-interest but what the Massachusetts Congress called “the defence of the common cause.”(6) As early May 11, the day after the fall of the fort, Edward Mott, who led Connecticut’s committee to capture Ticonderoga, wrote that it was not his or Massachusetts men, but “American forces”(7) who had captured Ticonderoga, the first step towards a collective identity greater than the sum of its parts being forged 250 years ago.

1. Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1905), 70.
2. The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 269.
3. Benedict Arnold to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, May 23, 1775, https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/30168
4. Benedict Arnold’s Memorandum Book, May 10-June 24, 1775, https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/30645
5. The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, 321.
6. Ibid., 288.
7. Ibid. 696.

Learn more about these documents and more by visiting our Online Collections Database.