The Road to Ticonderoga: Enter Benedict Arnold

Posted on May 4, 2025

On this day 250 years ago—May 4, 1775—a party authorized by the colony of Connecticut was traveling towards Fort Ticonderoga as part of a daring plan to surprise and capture the fort and its cannon. Although they didn’t know it, they were not the only ones. In the days after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, leaders throughout the American colonies were brainstorming ways to gain the upper hand against the British. Fort Ticonderoga, with its important strategic location, tiny garrison, and plentiful cannon, was an appealing target to Connecticut’s government. It was also appealing to another man from Connecticut: Benedict Arnold, later an infamous general and turncoat but in 1775 still a captain of a New Haven militia company.

Arnold’s company marched from New Haven to Cambridge, MA to join the American forces there after hearing of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Once there, Arnold went to work on the Massachusetts Committee of Safety and convinced them to adopt his plan. On May 3, the committee commissioned Arnold as a colonel and authorized him and others to recruit soldiers, march to Ticonderoga, and capture the fort. On May 4, Arnold set off.

Arnold’s journey can be tracked through the document seen here, a bill addressed to the Committee of Safety for his services in May and June 1775, labeled “Disbursements from Cambridge to Ticonderoga”. On May 4, the first day of his journey, he had a midday meal at Concord, MA. He and his party may have had trouble with their horses’ shoes, as the bill’s first line item is “To shoeing horses on the road,” but two lines later is an item reading, “Shoeing horse, Liquor &c.” By the end of the day Arnold had reached Shrewsbury, about 35 miles west of Cambridge, and was well on his way, he hoped, to military glory.

Follow along on our social media to see more of Arnold’s bill to Massachusetts and learn about his travels, his intersection with the Connecticut party led by Ethan Allen, and what happened once Ticonderoga was in American hands.

View the Arnold bill (object ID 2003.0071) and learn more on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database here.