Hero before Traitor
Benedict Arnold and the Battle of Valcour Island, October 11, 1776
T'was a bitter cold night as we drove thru the north woods of eastern New York.
Flashing out the passenger window then gone was a sign that read, "Birthplace of the American Navy." Not believing my eyes, we stopped at the lonely 7-11 up the road. The gum-chewing teenybopper behind the counter with barely enough interest to answer me said,
"NO…. Sign? I have no idea what you're talking about."
So began my love affair with Benedict Arnold, the Battle of Valcour Island and Gunboat ‘Philadelphia.’
Having been brought to the surface in 1935, the ‘Philadelphia’ now resides at the Museum of American History in DC complete with the cannonball hole through her starboard bow that took her to the bottom of Lake Champlain in the fall of 1776. Yet this first naval engagement of the Revolution, though it may have destroyed the nascent American fleet, delayed Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne and his British army just long enough for his defeat the next year at Saratoga. This proved the turning point of the war. And who oversaw the fleet's construction, commanded the naval engagement and was largely responsible for Burgoyne's surrender? General Benedict Arnold.
And then he met Peggy Shippen...... a Tory.
The first men Benedict Arnold brought to the thick forest on the shores of Lake Champlain in upstate New York were carpenters. They were the best paid employees of the new Navy, requiring big money to be lured away from the coast. Here 200 skilled craftsmen built 12 ships including 8 gundalows, sisterships of ‘Philadelphia’. Then Arnold had to teach naval warfare.
Meanwhile, the British at the north end of the lake were reassembling full-size warships that had been delivered in pieces from England. When finished, two British ships (out of 25 armed vessels) ‘Inflexible’ and ‘Thunderer’ by themselves outgunned the combined firepower of the American fleet. Philadelphia carried 3 canon, above.
The British Line firing on the American fleet33
Arnold chose the battle site where superior firepower and inferior seamanship would have minimal negative impact. He hid his fleet in Valcour Bay between the Lake’s west shore and Valcour Island. The wind was strong and from the North on October 11th. The powerful British fleet sailed by heading south not seeing the Americans.
Arnold sailed down on the enemy and peppered them as they attempted to turn upwind and engage. Later when the Brits had the American fleet back in the Bay, blocked from leaving and ready to finish off in the morning, Arnold, under dark of night, muffled oars and stealthily took his banged-up fleet between the British line and the shore, escaping the Bay.
In the morning the British were none too pleased to find their quarry vanished. They gave chase, caught, scattered and destroyed the Americans, putting ‘Philadelphia’ and others on the bottom. But Benedict Arnold escaped again to fight another day and the Brits had lost precious time in subduing the colonies.
(That same tactic of muffling oars - cushioning oarlocks to keep them from rubbing on the oars - had aided Washington’s escape across the East River at night two months earlier at the Battle of Long Island. Washington had had one more trick – he kept campfires burning to fool the Brits into believing the enemy was still in camp.)
Hot Action in Valcour Bay
Looking south, in background the British fleet holding a line and blockading
the Americans in Valcour Bay (Valcour Island on left). The American gunboats were
equipped with oars allowing Arnold’s fleet to make its escape that night.
