General Gates having been appointed to the command of the northern army, General Sullivan resigned it to him on the 12th of July, receiving the thanks of his officers and the approval of Congress for the ability with which he had conducted the retreat.

In conformity to the decision of a council of war, General Gates withdrew his troops from Crown Point, where not a cannon was mounted, to Ticonderoga, and began strengthening the works there and erecting new ones upon a hill on the opposite side of the lake. While this new work, a star fort, was in progress, news came of the Declaration of Independence, and in honor of the event the place was named Mount Independence. The smallpox patients were removed to a hospital at Fort George, and the recruits, now coming in considerable numbers, were assembled at Skenesborough.

The construction of vessels of war, wherewith to keep control of the lake, was now entered upon. In spite of the difficulties attending their construction in a place so remote from all supplies but timber, and that green in the forest, the work was pushed so vigorously that before the end of August one sloop, three schooners, and five gondolas were ready for service, mounting fifty-five, twelve, nine, and six pounders and seventy swivels. These were manned by 395 men, old sea-dogs drifted to inland waters, and unsalted navigators of lakes and rivers, "a miserable set," Arnold wrote to Gates. In the latter part of August the fleet sailed down the lake under the command of Arnold, and, when soon after reinforced by a cutter, three galleys, and three gunboats, amounted to fifteen sail.

At the north end of the lake, the British were as busy in constructing and assembling a fleet. Six armed vessels, built in England especially for this service, could not be got over the rapids at Chambly, and were taken to pieces, transported above this obstruction, and reconstructed. The largest of these, the Intrepid, was completed in twenty-eight days from the laying of the keel. Several gondolas,—a sort of long, narrow, flat-bottomed craft,—thirty longboats, and 400 batteaux were hauled up the rapids by the amphibious Canadians, with an immense expenditure of toil and vociferous jabber. By the 1st of October the fleet was ready to enter the lake, and consisted of the Inflexible, carrying eighteen guns; the schooners, Maria and Carleton, carrying fourteen and twelve respectively; and the Thunderer, a floating battery of raft-like construction, mounting six twenty-fours, as many sixes, and two howitzers; with a number of gondolas, gunboats, and longboats, each carrying one gun. It was manned by 700 experienced seamen, and commanded by Captain Pringle. In opposing this formidable fleet, so vastly superior in all its appointments, in everything but the bravery of officers and men, the odds were fearfully against the Americans, but the intrepid Arnold did not hesitate to accept the chances.

The sails of the British squadron were whitening the lake beyond Cumberland Head when Arnold disposed his vessels behind the island of Valcour, where, screened from sight of the main channel by woods whose gorgeous leafage was yet unthinned by the frosty touch that painted it, he awaited the approach of the enemy. Sailing past the island, the British discovered the little fleet of the Americans, and, conscious of their own superiority, at once advanced to the attack from the southward; but the wind, which before had favored them, was now against them. The flagship Inflexible, and some others of the larger vessels, could not be brought into action, and the Carleton and the gunboats took the brunt of the battle.

For four hours the fierce fight raged, sustained with the utmost bravery by both combatants. The forests were shaken with the unwonted thunder, whose roar was heard at Crown Point, forty miles away, and the autumnal haze grew thick with sulphurous smoke. General Waterbury, commanding the Washington galley, was in the hottest of it, and only brought his shattered vessel out of the fight when all but two of his officers were killed or wounded. One of the American schooners was burnt, a gondola sunk, and several other vessels much injured; while the British had two gondolas sunk, and one blown up with sixty men on board. Toward nightfall, Captain Pringle withdrew the vessels engaged, and anchored his whole fleet across the channel to prevent the escape of the Americans. Escape was all that Arnold hoped for now, and in the darkness of night he silently got his vessels around the north end of Valcour,[69] and, making all speed southward, was out of sight of his enemy when daylight came.

The British gave chase, and overtaking the Americans at Split Rock, about noon of the 13th, at once began firing on them. The sorely crippled Washington was forced to strike her colors after receiving a few broadsides. Arnold fought his flagship, the Congress galley, with desperate courage, while, within musket-shot, the Inflexible poured broadsides into her, and two schooners raked her from astern. He effectually covered the retreat of his escaping vessels with the Congress and four gondolas, and then ran ashore in the shoal head of a little bay on the eastern side of the lake. He set fire to the vessels, and keeping his flag flying on the Congress, which he did not quit till she was enveloped in flames, got all his men landed but one wounded lieutenant, who, forgotten in the confusion, was blown up with his vessel. Of the American fleet, only two galleys, two schooners, a sloop, and gondola had escaped; and toward Ticonderoga, whither these had fled, Arnold retreated with his stranded crews, barely escaping an Indian ambuscade. Joined by the few and now defenseless settlers, they toiled along the rough forest road, behind them rolling the irregular boom of the cannon, exploding as the fire heated them, and at intervals the thunder of a bursting magazine. Throughout that long, unequal combat, as in many another in the same good cause, Arnold bore himself with cool, intrepid valor, still preserved by an unkind fate from honorable death to achieve everlasting infamy. The land-locked bay, where may yet be seen the oaken skeletons of his brave little craft,[70] bears his name, nowhere else honorably commemorated in all his native land.

General Carleton, who accompanied the British fleet, gave orders that the prisoners taken should be treated with the greatest kindness. He himself praised their bravery, and sent them home on parole. By this politic course he so won their esteem, that it was deemed impolitic to permit them to mingle with the troops at Ticonderoga, and they were sent on to Skenesborough.

Following close on the heels of the victorious fleet came the swarming transports bearing General Carleton's army, with the intention of moving at once upon Ticonderoga. Crown Point was no longer an obstacle, for when news of the disaster of their fleet was brought to that post, the Americans set fire to the place, destroyed everything that could not be removed, and withdrew to the main army holding Ticonderoga. But the wind, which had been a fickle ally of the English since they began this invasion, again turned against them from the south on the 14th, and held stiffly in that quarter for eight days. General Carleton's transports could make no headway against it up the narrow waterway, and he was obliged to land his forces at Crown Point. Thence he sent reconnoitring parties on both sides of the lake toward Ticonderoga, and some vessels up the channel, sounding it within cannon-shot of the fort.

Meanwhile Gates's army made most of the time given by the kindly autumnal gale. The works were strengthened and surrounded by an abatis. In these eight days, carriages were built for forty-seven pieces of cannon and the guns mounted; while reinforcements that came in, and sick men recovered, swelled the army to 1,200 strong. Carleton's opportunity for an easy conquest of Ticonderoga was past, and his reconnoissances gave him no encouragement to attempt an assault. Therefore, after tarrying at the fire-scathed fortress till past the middle of November, when the wild geese were flying southward over the gray and desolate forests, and the herbage of the clearings was seared by the touch of many frosts, he reËmbarked his army and returned to Canada. General Gates at once dismissed the militia, active military operations ceased in this quarter, and the northern armies of America and Great Britain began their hibernation.

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