Special 250th Conference “Arnold’s Defeat or Ultimate Victory? Perspectives on the 1776 Campaign”

On the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Valcour Island, Fort Ticonderoga will host a distinguished panel of scholars to reflect on the campaign of 1776 on Lake Champlain. The failure of the British to seize Ticonderoga in the fall of 1776 was a critical, vital victory for the Americans in the early years of the Revolutionary War—acknowledged even at the time. But who gets the credit for the year’s victory? Benedict Arnold and his lake fleet? Horatio Gates and the defenses of Ticonderoga and Mount Independence? Sharing new perspectives and new research from a variety of disciplines, our panelists will detail, and debate, the critical actions of the campaign to better understand the impact of October 1776.

Featured Speakers

• Carleton’s Race to Ticonderoga: his Opponents and Why He Lost — After British troops broke the siege of Quebec in May 1776, General Sir Guy Carleton led his army on a 300-mile race towards a prized objective: Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. Many obstacles stood in the way of establishing a British garrison at the fort before winter; from the moment they set out, the clock was ticking. This talk looks at the timeline and the challenges that Carleton faced, to investigate whether the goal of Ticonderoga was ever achievable. Don Hagist is the editor of The Journal of the American Revolution, served as an advisor for Ken Burns’ The American Revolution, and is the author of several books related to the American Revolution.

• The Crucial Campaign: How Three American Generals Stopped an Invasion — In 1776, Philip Schuyler, Horatio Gates, and Benedict Arnold together managed to hold off a superior British army. With George Washington’s troops hard pressed around New York City, the northern victory proved pivotal. Jack Kelly is an award-winning historian whose book Valcour details the events of 1776 in the north.

• The Archaeology of “Destruction Bay” and the Events of October 13, 1776 — In late October 1776 when the Royal Navy returned to the site where a large portion of the Colonial Fleet on Lake Champlain was destroyed on October 13, they found a terrible scene of burned vessels and bodies awash on the shoreline. In recent years Arnold’s Bay has been the subject of intense archaeological research both on land and in water. The results of this study have added to our understanding of this, often-overshadowed event. This presentation will share some of the archaeological findings of the study of the battlefield and examination of the hull remains of the row galley Congress. Christopher Sabick is the executive director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and has been an active archaeological investigator of the Champlain Valley for more than 25 years.

Additional information coming later this winter.

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