Fort Ticonderoga Falls

Fort Ticonderoga Falls

Emerging from the 4:00 A.M. darkness on May 10, 1775, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys caught the British by surprise and captured Fort Ticonderoga, at the junction of Lake Champlain and Lake George, in the first offensive action of the American Revolution. Benedict Arnold, later best known as a traitor to the American cause, helped conceive the action and was among those who crossed with Allen from the Vermont to the New York side of Lake Champlain to participate in the daring exploit. This first American victory in the war not only yielded control of vital waterways leading to Canada and to New York City, it also provided the colonists with badly needed cannons, which were dragged the following winter all the way to Boston. There they were crucial in the action of Dorchester Heights that resulted in expulsion of the British.