Who’s in Command at Fort Ticonderoga?
Posted on May 10, 2025
On this day 250 years ago—May 10, 1775—a party of soldiers led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured Fort Ticonderoga. The victorious Americans then faced the question of what to do next. The most important question in Arnold’s mind was who the garrison’s commander would be. Connecticut and Massachusetts had both raised expeditions to take Ticonderoga, but the final party consisted almost entirely of men raised by Connecticut. Arnold, the leader of Massachusetts’ expedition, had rushed to catch up with Connecticut’s party, led by Allen, then insisted that their authority was invalid and he was the rightful leader due to his formal commission from Massachusetts. In a compromise, Arnold was named co-leader, although most of the party still viewed itself as only under Allen’s command.
After Ticonderoga was captured, Arnold raised the issue again, insisting that he had the legal right to command the new garrison. According to one of the leaders of Connecticut’s party, Edward Mott, this nearly led to a revolt as soldiers “declared they would go right home, for they would not be commanded by Arnold.” A likely exasperated Mott calmed the men and belatedly wrote official orders commissioning Allen as the fort’s commander.
Arnold did not take this well. In a memorandum book that he kept while at Ticonderoga, he describes what he saw as a coup: “Mr. Allen finding he had a Strong Party & being Impatient of Controul & taking umbrage at my Forbiding the People to Plunder, He Assumed the Intire Command, & I was not Consulted or Advised With, for 4 Days which Time I spent in the Garrison As a private Person, often Insulted by him & his Officers, Often Threatned with my Life & twice Shot at by his Men with their Fusees.” Arnold was unharmed, if indignant, and soon found a niche of his own, beginning work on an American fleet on Lake Champlain.
Follow our social media in the coming weeks to see more of Arnold’s memorandum book as a new army worked to consolidate American control over Lake Champlain.
View the Arnold memorandum book (object ID MS.7160) and learn more on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database here.