During the Revolution there were but two naval engagements of major importance—if by that term we mean operations directly affecting the result of the war—the first at Valcour Island in Lake Champlain on October 11, 1776, and the second between the French and British fleets on September 5, 1781.
The former engagement, though ending in disaster for the American fleet, delayed the British force under General Carleton until the early northern autumn. It compelled the British to forego for that year their plan of gaining control of the Hudson valley and cutting off New England from her sister states. The time for preparation thus gained by the Americans made Saratoga and the French alliance possible.
The details of the battle have been told many times by able historians, and need not be repeated here. During the summer of 1776, the sight was presented of two commanding generals building naval armament to contest the supremacy of the lake; one, General Arnold, commanding the American forces at Skenesborough, at the southern end of Lake Champlain; and the other, General Carleton, commanding the British forces, at St. John’s at the lake’s northern end. Arnold was ready first.
By Herculean efforts he had created a fleet consisting of two schooners, the Royal Savage and the Revenge, a sloop, the Enterprise, four galleys, and eight gondolas, mounting in all eighty-four guns, and manned by about 500 men, most of whom were raw militia, with little or no nautical experience. Captain Thomas Pringle, of the British Navy, in command of the naval force under General Carleton, had at his disposal besides the flagship, the three-masted Inflexible, two schooners, the Maria and the Carleton, a large gondola, the Loyal Convert, a floating battery or radeau, the Thunderer, and twenty gunboats mounting about the same number of guns as the American fleet, and manned by 700 veteran British seamen.
On September 3, Arnold anchored his little fleet five miles south of St. John’s, from which advanced position the enemy’s shore batteries forced him to retire on September 23, to Valcour Island, where, in a small bay on the western side of the island he awaited the British advance. Valcour is about two miles long, and from 100 to 180 feet in height. Its southernmost point is about three-fourths of a mile from the western shore of the lake. Midway on the western side of the island a peninsula projects into the lake for about one-fourth of a mile, making the distance from the island to the mainland at its nearest point only half a mile. It was in the bay formed by this peninsula that Arnold determined to make his stand. Owing to the height of the island, his position would be invisible to an enemy traversing the main channel of the lake.
On the night of October 9, the British fleet sailed from St. John’s, and advanced to the channel between Grand and Long Islands, where they anchored on the night of the tenth. The next morning, with a strong northeast wind in their favor, they got under way, and, as they advanced, scanned the shores of Grand Island, where they supposed Arnold to be awaiting them. It was not until their fleet had passed some distance to leeward that the American position was discovered, when they had to haul up on the wind and slowly beat up to the bay where Arnold’s fleet lay. In the day’s action that followed, Arnold lost about eighty men killed and wounded out of his force of 500, and two of his vessels, including the Royal Savage, were totally destroyed. Most of his other vessels had been damaged not a little. The British lost about forty men in killed and wounded and two gunboats.
The action ceased with the early autumn sunset. The two fleets anchored within a few hundred yards of each other. Captain Pringle, in his report to the Admiralty four days later, wrote: “I called off the Carleton and gunboats, and brought the whole fleet to anchor in a line as near as possible to the rebels that their retreat might be cut off.”
This line extended from Garden Island, a small islet a few rods south of Valcour, to the shoals near the mainland, for the double purpose of being in a position to renew the attack with the coming of dawn, and to guard against the escape of the American squadron. The radeau was moored at the extreme right of the British line close to Garden Island, and the larger vessels were anchored in a line extending westerly to the shoals, while the intermediate spaces were covered by the gunboats. Thus a line was established, impenetrable and compact.
Baron Riedesel, commander of the German contingent under Sir Guy Carleton, says in his memoirs: “The latter (the English fleet) immediately formed in line of battle in front of the bay, their left wing resting on the shore, and their right on the Isle de Valeur (Valcour Island). At the same time several vessels were sent to the right to cut off the escape of the enemy’s ships through the passage formed by La Valeur and Grand Islands.”
The outlook for Arnold and his men on the night of the eleventh was not a comfortable one. To fight the next day was impossible as three-fourths of his ammunition was already expended. Escape by land was also impossible, as the forest on the mainland swarmed with hostile Indians. Escape by water seemed not less impossible, for the British ships were anchored in a compact line only a few hundred yards south of their position, and were presumably keeping vigilant watch. But Arnold was a man whom nothing daunted and who never knew when he was beaten. He says: “On consulting with General Waterbury and Colonel Wigglesworth, it was thought prudent to return to Crown Point, every vessel’s ammunition being nearly three-fourths spent, and the enemy greatly superior to us in ships and men. At seven o’clock Colonel Wigglesworth in the Trumbull got under way; the gondolas and small vessels followed; and the Congress and Washington brought up the rear. The enemy did not attempt to molest us.”
But by what route was this retreat conducted? Arnold, writing on the twelfth, after a day of terrific labor and excitement and two sleepless nights, was in no condition to give a detailed account of the maneuver. He gives us the outline and leaves the details to our imagination. Did the little American force slip through the strong British line anchored just south of them, and aided by the darkness and fog of the night escape undetected? Or did they drift with the current to the north end of Valcour, and then setting sail with a strong north wind at their backs, and hugging close to the shore of Grand Island, slip past the British vessels?
General Waterbury, in his report to John Hancock fifteen days later, says: “We immediately held council to secure a retreat through their fleet, to get to Crown Point, which was done with such secrecy that we went through them entirely undiscovered.
The early historians like Cooper are silent altogether on this point. Dr. Lossing, writing in 1851, says: “Anticipating such a movement on the part of the Americans, the British commander anchored his vessels in a line extending across from the island to the mainland. A chilly north wind was blowing all the afternoon and about sunset dark clouds overcast the sky. It was the time of the new moon, and therefore the night was very dark, and favored the design of Arnold. About ten o’clock* he weighed anchor and with the stiff north wind sailed with his whole flotilla through the enemy’s lines.” [*Dr. Lossing was evidently in error here (see Arnold’s report).]
Many writers in the years following accepted his statement without investigation, though Dr. Lossing himself, in later years, as we shall see, became convinced that he was in error as to the method of escape.
Baron Riedesel says, “General Arnold quietly hoisted anchor in the night and, sailing around the left wing, aided by a favorable wind, the American fleet escaped under cover of darkness.” Baron Riedesel, however, was not with the British fleet at this time but had his account of the whole affair from General Phillips, a British officer. As General Phillips most certainly did not see the American movement, nor did any one else on the British vessels, his statement can hardly be considered reliable evidence. Admiral Mahan, in writing of this event merely quotes Waterbury and Riedesel.
It will be noted, however, that Arnold makes no reference to a passage through the enemy’s fleet, and it would seem that he would have referred to such an extraordinary event if it had occurred. With all Arnold’s courage and audacity it seems hardly credible that he would attempt to pass through a line arranged as we have described, and run the risk of losing every vessel in his command. The British crews were composed of veteran British seamen, and the officers commanding them were selected for this special service. The vigilance of such crews would have been sleepless, and in such a tense situation British discipline would have been at its highest.
An American historian, Mr. Winslow C. Watson, in 1874, first elaborated a different theory of the escape. In an introduction to an essay by Mr. Watson on “A Naval Campaign on Lake Champlain,” Dr. Lossing says: “Mr. Watson makes statements and advances theories well supported by facts and probabilities which indicate that hitherto historians have been in error in their account of the most important movements of the American fleet, namely, the method of their escape from Valcour Strait unperceived by the British.”
Mr. Watson’s version of the escape was as follows: “The general council of the officers decided that a retreat, however doubtful and precarious, should be attempted. For the accomplishment of this purpose, Arnold devised a maneuver as novel and sagacious in its conception as its execution was daring and immediately successful. He proposed to steal away from a watchful enemy almost within hailing distance, to pass around the northern point of Valcour, and by the advance he might obtain before the morning light revealed his movement, he hoped to escape pursuit and secure a refuge at Crown Point. In accordance with this decision at an early hour in the night, Colonel Wigglesworth in the galley Trumbull weighed anchor and led the van, followed in succession in a single line by the other vessels, the space between them being maintained as large as practicable, and each bearing a single light in the stern to guide the course of the one that followed. Arnold, in the Congress, mutilated and shattered in the conflict, closed the marvellous procession…The intense darkness of the night was deepened by a storm of sleet and rain."
Mr. Watson had his account from his father, Elkanah Watson, author of Men and Times of the Revolution and a prominent figure in the early history of New York State. The elder Watson was intimately acquainted with many of the officers who served under Arnold in this campaign. He had often heard them relate the manner of their escape, and how after passing around the northern point of Valcour, they made their way southward through the main channel of the lake and brought up in the morning at Schuyler’s Island ten miles to the southward. With these men the circumstances of their escape were spoken of as well-established facts. Such a weird, picturesque incident, with the torn, disabled vessels creeping through the darkness and storm, must have made such a strong impression on their minds that they would hardly have forgotten any of its important details.
Another historian, Mr. Peter J. Palmer, of Plattsburg, in his History of Lake Champlain, corroborates this account of the escape. A family named Hay, who lived on the western shore of the lake, near where the engagement was fought, were spectators of the fight, and the traditions of their family confirm the statement that Arnold escaped with his fleet by passing around the northern point of Valcour.
The fact that two days later Arnold was to lose all his fleet but six of the smaller vessels, and over one hundred of his men prisoners to the British cannot dim the brilliancy of his intrepid achievement. The little fleet had maintained the mastery of the lake during the entire spring and summer of 1776, and until October, when the approach of winter put an end to all military operations and averted the danger of an immediate invasion. It held ten thousand British veterans and German mercenaries inactive and useless among the forts and camps of Canada, and shut up a large number of transports, intended to convey this force, which for many months floated in idleness in the Richelieu. Admiral Mahan sums up the campaign in these words, “The little American fleet on Champlain was wiped out, but never had any force big or small, lived to better purpose, or died more gloriously, for it saved the lake for that year.”