A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy (16 page)

It took several days of variable winds for the small naval force to travel the length of Lake Champlain. When they dropped anchor near Point au Fer at the Canadian frontier, the wind vanished and the surface of the lake shone like a polished mirror. A scout took a canoe and headed down the Richelieu River to infiltrate the British lines and reconnoiter St. Johns. By nightfall, he was back and reported that the sloop
George
was indeed there, moored at the wharf. He also brought news that Arnold had been correct to worry about a British counterattack—hundreds of Redcoat reinforcements were on their way to St. Johns from Montreal with plans to sail south in the sloop and retake Fort Ticonderoga. There was little time to act.

Deciding that they could not afford to wait for a favorable wind, Arnold decided to use the small boats to row downriver for the attack. Leaving fifteen men behind to guard the becalmed
Liberty,
the other thirty-five climbed into the two small boats and rowed all night, arriving before dawn at a point half a mile upriver from St. Johns. Pulling into a small creek, the men waited while another scout went ahead to see if the British had detected their coming or if the reinforcements had arrived from Montreal, either of which would have doomed the mission. The men sat quietly in their boats, resting their aching muscles and fighting off the effects of fatigue, with swarms of gnats and mosquitoes adding to their misery. The sun had risen by the time the scout returned with the happy news that the Redcoats seemed unaware of their presence and that the reinforcements had not yet arrived.

The Americans lost no time in mounting the attack. The small naval force headed downstream and landed about one hundred yards from the British barracks. The surprise attack was a complete success; without firing a shot, the Americans overwhelmed the troops in the barracks. They moved on to
George
and swarmed over the sides of the British ship. The unsuspecting crew was rudely awakened by the sound of musket butts pounding on doors and hatch covers, and they quickly surrendered.

Interrogating the prisoners, the Americans learned that the reinforcements were expected at any time. For two hours they loaded guns, powder, blankets, food, rum, and two brass cannon into the captured sloop; sank five boats they had to leave behind; and then got under way with four small British gunboats added to their force. The wind had picked up, and soon the
captured sloop and her six escorts emerged from the Richelieu and rejoined
Liberty
on Lake Champlain.

The audacious American capture of the British sloop prevented the planned British counterattack. It would be more than a year before the British would attempt to come south over the waterways guarded by Fort Ticonderoga.

As the small armada of eight vessels headed south along Lake Champlain, Arnold removed the name
George
from the sloop's stern and replaced it with a new, more appropriate name:
Enterprise.

In the aftermath of the capture of
George
—now
Enterprise
—the Americans were emboldened to strike into Canada, capturing and holding Montreal for a time and unsuccessfully attacking Quebec on New Year's Eve 1775. After their defeat at Quebec, they were forced to abandon their position in Montreal in the face of a growing British force and fell back to Lake Champlain, where they began to prepare for a British thrust south. What followed would be remembered as the Battle of Valcour Island, one of the most significant battles of the American Revolution.

Intent upon taking control of the Richelieu-Champlain-George-Hudson waterways to separate New England from the rest of the colonies—in effect “cutting off the head of the rebellion,” as one British commander described it—Major General Sir Guy Carleton moved his Redcoats down from Canada along the Richelieu River. Arriving at St. Johns near the northern end of Lake Champlain, the British commander received word that the Americans not only had
Liberty
and
Enterprise
down at the south end of the lake but also were building more vessels at Skenesboro. Determined that he must have control of the lake before moving his troops farther south, the cautious Carleton decided to put together his own “fleet” before proceeding.

Gradually, the British assembled a strange but effective mixture of vessels, some of which were built from scratch, while others were disassembled, moved in pieces to St. Johns, and then reassembled. It would be the first inland fleet for the Royal Navy.

Embarked in
Enterprise,
Arnold had arrived at Skenesboro in July and begun organizing the American shipbuilding effort. Dividing those men with at least some useful skills into crews of twenty-five, he tasked each group with building a ship. He sent five hundred more men into the forest to cut down trees and drag them out using oxen, and another hundred worked in shifts to keep the sawmills running.

While the British had experienced sailors, carpenters, and blacksmiths at
St. Johns, the Americans at Skenesboro had far less expertise to draw upon as they set about building their fleet. Most of these men had signed on to be soldiers, not sailors; but the circumstances were such that only a naval force could stop or at least slow the British advance that now threatened an early end to the Revolution.

In remembering great moments in history, such as key battles like the one that was about to occur, most of us remember—as well we should—the courage of those who face the terrors of combat and somehow prevail. But we should also remember that countless others give of themselves in other ways—less glamorous, but no less vital. Such was the case in the days preceding the Battle of Valcour Island. Not only would many brave men eventually face a formidable enemy, many others would also labor through the summer of 1776, building vessels from scratch and preparing for the critical battle that was to come.

Sweltering in the summer heat, and losing many of their number to the ravages of smallpox, the Americans set about the task, their determination offsetting their lack of equipment, materials, and skills. The many miles of rope needed to rig vessels of the time and the oakum needed to waterproof the hulls were in very short supply and had to be brought great distances. Because the British had long maintained restrictions on the American iron industry, nails were also hard to come by. The story of how the supplies, manpower, and technical expertise were all assembled is beyond the scope of this telling, but it was a gargantuan task; its accomplishment, under the able leadership of Benedict Arnold, makes his later defection all the more tragic.

By the time the leaves on the trees had changed to various shades of gold and red, the American fleet consisted of sixteen ships. The smallest vessels were the so-called gondolas, built low to the water to make them difficult targets and armed with one 12-pound gun in the bow, a pair of 9-pounders amidships, and several swivel guns. The latter were rigged like large shotguns to fire grapeshot, effective at destroying enemy rigging as well as serving as a lethal antipersonnel weapon. These eight gondolas were named
Spitfire, Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, New Haven, Connecticut, New York,
and
New Jersey.
Four galleys, powered by oars and armed with an array of cannon ranging from 6-pounders up to 18-pounders, were christened
Congress, Lee, Trumbull,
and
Washington.
The largest vessels were the schooners
Royal Savage, Revenge,
and
Liberty
and the sloop
Enterprise,
each carrying various combinations of cannon ranging from 2- to 6-pounders. All totaled, the little fleet could fire about 600 pounds of shot, which seemed quite potent until compared with the British total of 1,100 pounds.

The American fleet, as ready as it ever was going to be, got under way and headed north in the face of an early winter. Taking station part way up the lake, the men were soon sleeping on the open decks, snow falling on their shivering bodies and gale winds frequently buffeting the little fleet. As September drew to a close, the storms worsened, and Arnold decided to move around to the relative shelter provided by the kidney-shaped Valcour Island on the western side of the lake. While there, sheltering from the wind, Arnold made his plans.

The gondola
Philadelphia.
These craft were built low to the water to make them difficult targets to hit. This one, which sank after the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776, was raised from the bottom of Lake Champlain in 1935 and is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

If the Americans confronted the British as they came south along the lake with the north wind at their backs, the Redcoats would have what was known as the
weather gage,
a decided advantage when trying to maneuver sailing vessels, particularly those rigged with square sails. By remaining hidden there in Valcour Bay, however, the Americans could wait until the British had passed by, thereby gaining the upwind advantage over their adversaries. If successful, the British would have to beat against the wind to get at the Americans. For camouflage, the Americans cut spruce trees and rigged them along the sides of their vessels, not only making them more difficult to see but also providing some protection against small arms fire. They anchored the vessels stem to stern in a gradual crescent formation across the waterway formed between the island and the western shore. Vessels coming into the bay would thus be forced to come one or two at a time through the narrow channel and would be subject to the full force of American firepower.

Coming from the north was an enemy force of nine thousand men in more than six hundred ships and boats, ranging from Indian canoes to the
Inflexible,
a square-rigged ship armed with a powerful battery of eighteen 12-pounder cannons. Among these many vessels were several well-armed sailing schooners, twenty-seven smaller gunboats carrying heavy brass field pieces in their bows, and twenty armed longboats. The Redcoats also created a very large raftlike vessel that was by far the most heavily armed in either fleet. Armed with six cannon that fired 24-pound balls, six 12-pounders, and two large siege howitzers, she was appropriately named
Thunderer.
To make her even more formidable, she had an onboard furnace to heat cannonballs until they were red hot, all the better to set wooden ships on fire.

The British fleet sailed past Valcour Island without spotting the Americans. Once the bulk of the force was well south—downwind—of the island, several American vessels came out of the bay to lure the British into the trap.
Royal Savage
and
Enterprise
ran ahead of three of the American galleys, racing toward the British force with their newly created battle flags held taut in the steady wind.

Once the Americans were sure they had been spotted, the decoys turned and headed back toward Valcour Bay. Several of the British ships gave chase,
Inflexible
in hot pursuit of
Royal Savage,
and the schooner
Carleton
chasing
Enterprise.
The British flagship
Maria
followed close behind.

Enterprise
successfully led her pursuer into the bay. As the British
schooner closed on the American ship, Arnold's crescent formation loomed ahead. The British barely had time to realize what they were seeing when the line of American vessels disappeared behind a great cloud of white smoke. A great rumble rolled across the water as geysers erupted from the water close aboard the British ship. The American trap had been sprung.

Royal Savage
proved less elusive than
Enterprise. Inflexible
began firing heavy broadsides as she pursued the American schooner, her first salvo including cannonballs connected by a length of chain that tore into the target's rigging just as it was designed to do. A second salvo sent a heavy shot slamming into the hapless vessel's mainmast, and further broadsides began chewing her to bits.
Royal Savage
was no match for the much larger
Inflexible
; under the relentless barrage, she ran onto the shallow bar near the entrance to Valcour Bay, and her crew began abandoning ship.

British gunboats began pouring into the bay, and the firing from both sides intensified. The battle became, in the words of a German soldier fighting on the British side, “very fierce.” The British flagship
Maria
neared the crescent line, and the American flagship
Congress
opened fire. A cannonball passed between Major General Sir Guy Carleton and his brother Thomas; the latter was seriously injured by the concussion of the near miss, and General Carleton appeared to be stunned as well. The captain of the
Maria,
apparently concerned for the safety of the British commander, ordered his ship to withdraw, taking the flagship out of the battle.