11/10/2021
, the last remnants of British General John Burgoyne’s “Grand Army” and Colonel Barry St. Leger’s Mohawk Valley army abandoned Fort Ticonderoga and retreated into Canada.
With the official news arriving on October 20th that Burgoyne had indeed surrendered his army to the Americans, there was no longer any reason for St. Leger’s force to attempt to reach Burgoyne. Attention now shifted as to whether Ft. Ticonderoga and its surrounding defenses should be held any longer or be abandoned.
The post commander, Gen. Watson Powell, was in a quandary. He could no longer receive orders from Burgoyne, and the governor of Canada, Sir Guy Carlton, still smarting from having command of the army taken from him, refused to give Powell any guidance. In response to Powell’s request for orders, he stated that he could not issue any orders “not alone because the Post you are in has been taken out of my command” but also because he was too distant from the scene of action. He advised Powell to “act by your own judgement…by your own prudence and resolution…”
Powell’s “resolution” had been faltering ever since the successful American raids on the Ticonderoga area on September 18th. Plus, winter weather was now setting in. A heavy snow and frost had fallen on the night of October 20th and German Ensign Julius von Hille noted in his journal that his men were building “huts of boards to protect themselves from the cold weather.” British Gen. Allan Mclean was on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain with a small army ensuring that the supply lines to Ticonderoga remained open. He reported on November 1st that” The weather has been so severe since we left St. Johns that we have now got 30 sick..We have now2 feet of Snow on the Ground and freezing hard, firewood scarce and far from us…” Mclean also noted that in a council of war, Gen. Powell had “resolved to abandon Mount Independence (across the lake from Ticonderoga) and Ticonderoga and to withdraw “the Garrison and Stores on Diamond Island (on Lake George).”
Preparations for the retreat to Canada were in full swing by November 3rd. The fatiguing work proved too much for 10 men of Sir John Johnson’s King’s Royal Regiment of New York. They had first served as artillery boatmen during St. Leger’s Mohawk Valley expedition, and then helped move supplies from Oswego to Ticonderoga. Faced with more back-breaking work, they all deserted on November 5th.
Ensign Von Hille recorded the end of Ticonderoga in his journal, noting first that all excess cannon were “blown up, spiked or deprived of their trunnions (the axels on the cannon barrels that allow them to raise and lower on the cannon carriage). Later on November 8th, he recorded that in the morning “all the newly built blockhouses, huts, barracks, magazines, etc. were set afire.” Also burned was “the large communications bridge between Mt. Indep. and Ticonderoga as well as the small one toward the portage to Lake George.”
With the fort and its various defenses now in ruins, the British, German and Loyalist troops loaded into their boats and under a heavy snowfall, headed north on Lake Champlain for Canada. The grand British strategy which had started so successfully at Ticonderoga in July of 1777, now ended in the same place in failure.
Image description: A 1777 watercolor painting of the Lake Champlain-Ticonderoga area. Several small British boats are seen in the foreground and in the distance on the lake. A group of British sailors, officers and soldiers stands on the shore. In the distance the fort and defenses of Ticonderoga can be seen.
