The Taking of Ticonderoga in 1775:
The British Story

A Study of Captors and Captives

By Allen French

Based upon material hitherto unpublished.

Cambridge: at the Harvard University Press:1928

FORWORD

The following monograph is not a careless mischievous attempt to reopen a subject on which there has been much controversy. based in its most important part upon new material, it is rather an endeavor, modestly offered, to settle the main points of controversy for good. That the whole matter may stand complete, the story of the capture of Ticonderoga in May, 1775, by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold is here reviewed entire, assembling the most important part of old and new contemporary evidence, with the intention that the reader may have the whole subject before him, to judge the author's conclusions. From such a study tradition is excluded, as being at best of doubtful value in a case where all the main points are covered by testimony written at the time. until now, all that testimony has been American. Within the year, however, I have been given the privilege of studying the report sent by the captured British officers to General Gage, the commander-in-chief in America. That report, with Ietters 
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throwing light upon it, has been closed to American students for a hundred and fifty years. Combining with other documents already known, these British papers present an entirely new aspect of the old story. They bear so directly upon the main points of discussion, that I here present them as of real interest to all students of the American Revolution.

ALLEN FRENCH
CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS
May, 1928

AUTHORS NOTE.   August 17, 1928.  
As this book is about to be issued, I have found in the publications of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fourteenth Report, Appendix, Part X, The Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, Vol. ll, pages 313 -314, a listing of six items which would make it appear that the Dartmouth papers have contained, since 1775, duplicates of the Feltham reports in the Gage Papers. No one familiar with the habits of those days in duplicating reports and documents will be surprised at this. But the duplicates in the Dartmouth Papers, even though thus listed since 1895, seem, to have been quite unused by American students.
The Taking of Ticonderoga
in 1775: the British Story
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY

One of the fascinating by-products of historical study is the light it sheds on personalities, not only of the great men of the past, but of the small.  The great, it is true, are sure of close attention; every scrap of their writing has been preserved, to be scrutinized by each new student.  But the obscure will never be entirely forgotten, if they but wrote themselves down on paper, and if chance at last brings the documents to light. Often such men emerge, if only momentarily, out of the darkness of the past, to hold the attention of the student. A man’s name is read in a document, and is scarcely noticed; it is repeated in another, and fastens in the memory; a letter by the man appears; next comes the rejoinder; there is the fragment of a correspondence; a petition, a last reference, perhaps the statement of a death. The man is gone, a silently bursting bubble on the sea of history; the few facts in hand have not reconstructed him entire.

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But the student of the latter day has had a glimpse of his comedy, or more likely has viewed an act of his tragedy. Curiosity is aroused; the heart may even be touched; but there is no more of the man: he has vanished.  He proves, perhaps, a situation or a condition; one can use him as an illustration.  It is seldom that he means more than this, and not always so much. To the historian he is likely to remain merely a haunting figure, stimulating to the imagination, touching to the sympathies, but bafflingly disappearing the more one tries to peer into the shadows.  Rarely does he connect with great events. 
It is an odd circumstance, therefore, that there is one event in American history, reviewed often and mostly with wrangling, that now emerges into a new clearness because of the past existence of one of these semi-revealed characters.  Not tragic, and quite unaware of the comedy inherent in his own itch for writing, he is strangely connected with the series of events which, from 1773 to 1775, caused the fortresses of Ticonderoga and Crown Point to appear in our annals.  The pages of a volume in the British Public Record Office are sadly burdened with the memoranda of a Court of Inquiry which he set in motion and in the Gage papers are letters and reports which he busily prepared.  What he did before, and what he did afterward, it is scarcely worth while to discover. But Jocelyn Feltham, lieutenant of the 26th British regiment of foot, a fussy and probably intrusive person, managed to spread upon paper his version of 

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certain events with which he was intimately connected. Because his papers were officially filed, and therefore preserved, he becomes, even after such an interval, a real personality, and at this late date he throws new light upon the narrative of Ethan Allen, so often retold and so often questioned. As the stories which he tells must be true according to his interpretation of them, lets give Lieutenant Feltham once more his little day, even to the point of allowing him to speak for himself.
During the French and Indian wars there were built by the French, on the western shore of Lake Champlain, toward its southern end, two strongholds intended to dominate the natural military highway formed by that great lake.  History and romance alike have loved to, dwell on the fierce struggles which there and at Lake George wavered to and for as French or English gained the ascendancy.  The forts fell at last into the hands of the British (aided, be it remembered, by the provincial troops) and in the course of time all Canada followed.  Peace was signed in 1763; and after the French armies were withdrawn, even the trampling of the British troops almost ceased.  A post-route was maintained, up through Champlain, along which went a thin trickle of trade.  Ticonderoga and Crown Point lost their importance, and were neglected.  The forts, being largely of wood, and in time of peace seeming in no need of repair, began to fall into decay.  Their garrisons were thinned down to less than three score ‘men.  The dullness of these posts we can imagine.

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No longer of the frontier, they had no need of vigilance against the Indians.  No one was roused, at first, to think of using them against the colonies to the southward.  The two military posts slumbered in security and idleness; it was even thought safe to have their garrisons composed in part of soldiers almost too old for duty.  As the years passed, wooden bastions rotted; and the glacis below them, surfaced with the chips made when the lumber was hewn, dried into tinder.  The captain at Crown Point seems to have been running a little farm of his own; and his lieutenant, though alert, was watchful only of his commander.  Neither of these soldiers appears to have had a thought of the wide political movements which even in the forests near them were causing changes in men’s thoughts.
The troops were all of the 26th regiment; their headquarters was in Canada, from which in 1775 their colonel, Dudley Templer, was begging for leave of absence because of his physical infirmities.  In 1773 the senior captain, William Anstruther, was in command of the detachment which garrisoned the two posts, and he lived at Crown Point.  His second in command was our lieutenant, Jocelyn Feltham; it is an odd fact that both these men had received their commissions on New Year’s day of 1766. There was apparently but one company at Crown Point, consisting probably of about thirty-five men, including a surgeon’s mate, who later testified against his captain.

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On the twenty-first of April, 1773, the fort at Crown Point caught fire, and destruction spread from part to part through two days, until all was consumed. “The conflagration,” wrote Montresor the engineer, a year later, “rendered it an amazing useless Mass of Earth only; it’s Frame Work or Casing which was Pine Wood, caulked with Oakum, and paid  [painted?] with Spanish Brown and Tar facilitated its destruction, the Casemates being composed of the same materials, and contiguous to the Barracks and Laboratory completed it’s Destruction.” (1)
The next step in the drama was the recalling of the officers to Canada, where at a Court of Inquiry the lieutenant took the stage not only as accuser but actually as prosecutor of his captain, bringing charges and examining the witnesses.  The accusations were under five articles. “ 1. For not having a guard. 2. For laying the accident to the negligence of the Barrack-Master, knowing it to be occasioned by two of the Soldiers Wives boiling Soap. 3. For not giving any Assistance though often requested    which . . . might all have been saved, but preferred his own Interest to that of the Crown by taking out his own Baggage, tho’ his own Barrack didn‘t take fire till Twelve o’clock next Day which the Barrack Master says might also have been saved had he been assisted.  4. For allowing every kind of Stores of Steel and Iron . . . to be taken away and plundered by the Country people.  5. For not observing General Gage’s order, to dig for everything that 
(1) Cage papers.

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could be got out of the Ruins (1)….but employing the Men on Work of his own such as Mowing, Hoeing Corn, &c &c, and that, to such a degree, that sick men on the Doctor’s Report have been placed Sentries in order to get the men in Health to the Field, and those Sentries suffered to remain or their Posts from Seven to Eleven Hours, notwithstanding the Doctor’s repeated Remonstrances” (2)
Anyone who wishes to study the report of this inquiry may read its whole weary length in its one hundred and fifty-five pages in the Public Record Office, London. The sitting began in November 773; it lasted many days.  There are also in the Gag’ papers letters bearing on the affair: the colonel’s letter relieving Anstruther of his command; the complaint of the surgeon’s mate; Anstruther’s reply the complaint was false and groundless, and the Feltham’s accusations were nothing but “Pique Prejudice, and Resentment.”  The Court of Inquiry came to no conclusion. Anstruther was not restored to his command, but remained “still in the same horrid situation.”  This minor affair became of significance only when the generals took a hand, and policies in regard to the two forts were discussed as, still almost unsuspected, the rebellion drew near, when the two forts were to become of vital consequence.
(1) Much was left until Benedict Arnold dug it out two years late June 1, 1775, he wrote that his men “got out near one Ton of Lead and Iron Ball.”  They were employed “digging ball” on various other days   Hist. Mag. Penna., VIII, 370 ff.
(2) C. O. 5, vol. 9I. Public Record Office, London.

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In this latter part of 1773, General Gage, the commander in chief in America, was in England giving his celebrated advice for a show of force against the Bostonians, against which “they would undoubtedly prove very meek.”  He had left in command in America General Frederic Haldimand, stationed in New York.    The Court of Inquiry, as said, was held in Canada.  And one needs to understand the influence of time in this affair, while letters slowly made their way from New York to Montreal and back again, and while reports were sent to England by the long weary voyages of those days. It was not till February 2d, 1774, when Gage was preparing to sail again for America to enforce the Port Bill against the Bostonians, that Haldimand forwarded to Lord Dartmouth the report of the Court of Inquiry. Haldimand was a Swiss who never wrote in English if he could help it; this time, however, he wrote by the hand of his secretary a brief comment which begins with wishing a plague on both Feltham and Anstruther.
“From the imperfect Idea which such prolix and contradictory enquiries and evidences can furnish me with, I can only observe to Your Lordship, that I cannot see that the loss of that Fort, can be attributed to any other but an accidental cause.”  So much, then, for Feltham’s accusations, frustrated by Anstruther’s obstinate defence.  “Yet,” continued the general, “l cannot help thinking but that the Military Service has been neglected, and the discipline of the Garrison relaxed to a great degree, and as a

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General Court Martial will give a better light in this affair, I shall only wait to order one till I can have the Honor of receiving your Lordship’s answer.”
In March the report, with its many pages and its colored map drawn from memory, was laid before the king. And in due time Anstruther’s court martial was ordered. But public events were moving more rapidly now, and before the trial could come to pass, war had begun. Anstruther’s case would seem never to have been tried. Men and officers were on active service, witnesses had scattered, some may have been killed, and it would have been impossible ever to assemble a court in the troublous times that were upon both New York and Canada.
Even the question of discipline, on which Haldimand had unerringly set his military finger, remained unprobed. No further inquiry was made, no reprimand or reproof was administered, and we shall see how mild a warning Gage gave to Anstruther’s still more luckless successor, when the second military post was in danger.
The successor was William Delaplace, likewise a captain in the 26th regiment.(2)  Finding Crown Point uninhabitable, he established himself at Ticonderoga, putting but a small garrison at the northern post, in
C. O. 5, vol. 9I, Public Record Office, contains the various letters and memoranda on this matter.
In two of the four signatures of Delaplace which I have found, the surname was written as one word; in the other two, as De la Place. As the former is the simpler, and was used by most of his contemporaries, I use it here.

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such quarters as could be made livable. And in the meanwhile the generals took up the question as to what should be done with the two posts.  For Ticonderoga, though not burned, was in very poor condition, as Haldimand wrote to Dartmouth on the second of March, 1774, before Gage’s return. He recommended leaving Ticonderoga “ to its ruinous state” and rebuilding Crown Point, as being more healthy, and better for laying up vessels in winter. For his Lordship’s information he would send an engineer to report, and accordingly sent John Montresor, who is well known to students of Revolutionary Boston.  He reported on the 13th of May, 1774. “With respect to the Post of Ticonderoga it’s ruinous situation is such, that it would require more to repair it than, the constructing of a new Fort (as your Excellency has justly observed to me;) it being at, and above the Cordon composed of decayed Wood and Earth; all the Revetments, Scarps and Counterscarps both of the Body of the Place and Outworks are leaning to the Horizon and in many places there are very capital Breaches; the Barracks are repairable being of Stone, those in the Redoubt of Wood are irreparable:  Upon the whole after summing up the Expences I found them at least equal to the constructing of a New York with the additional one of taking the greatest part down of the old New Work, and removing the same; and after all, not answering the purpose intended of protecting the Navigation, Vessels, Storehouses  Wharves Landings &c. both with respect to

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it’s Distance and Situation, being screened from the Fort by the neighbouring Bank:  These obstacles presenting themselves, together with the unhealthiness of the place, the Garrison being then ill with Fevers and Agues, the badness of the Water, and the difficulty of procuring it, and your Excellencys Observations in my Instructions, that, ‘Crown Point in that Case being a much more eligible place for the different purposes for which a Post is required in that part of the Country’ I made no longer delay there.”  (1)  Forthwith Montresor proceeded to Crown Point, and after describing the condition of the ruin, as previously quoted, planned a fort which should be built of the cut stone already on the ground.
It is now that, for the first time, imperial policies appear in the documents concerning Ticonderoga. In this matter Haldimand was, it would seem, a farseeing man.  Though in the growing bitterness of popular feeling his foreign birth and still foreign tongue, which later made him so valuable in the administration of Canada, now kept him from commands which devolved on Englishmen born, it is possible that he would have proved a better general than Gage or Howe, Clinton or Burgoyne, had he been given the chance.  Certainly at present he showed foresight; for at the very time when in Parliament, in the debates on the Quebec Bill, the Whigs were expressing fear lest Canada and the Canadians should
In C. O. 5, vol. 9~. Quoted from copy in Gage Papers.

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be used against the liberties of the colonies, Haldimand made a proposition looking to that very end. On the 5th of May, two days after receiving Montresor’s report, he wrote to Dartmouth that he would propose. to Gage the drawing of two regiments from Canada to Crown Point, “Under the presence of rebuilding that  Fort, which from its situation not only secures the communication with Canada, but also opens an easy access to the back Settlements of the Northern Colonies and may keep them in awe.” 
Five days later, writing now in his own hand and in the quaint French which he commonly used when writing to Haldimand made his suggestion to his military superior. “ Si vous craignies que les Peuples dc l.a Nouvelle.Angleterre voulu font pousser les choses a l’etreme, on pouroit (sous pretexte de faire travailler les  Troupes) faire venir deux Regmts du Canada a Croon Point.” (2)
Apparently at the time neither Dartmouth nor Gage saw anything in the idea. Certainly they did not push it. But if Haldimand’s suggestion had been promptly carried out, the post on Lake Champlain would have been a thorn in the flesh of the United Colonies in the first two years of the war, and a great help to Burgoyne in the early part of his campaign.
The summer of 1774 lagged by in the wilderness, though at the seashore matters were seething. Toward autumn a fresh misfortune occurred at Ticonderoga,
(1) C.O. 5,vol.91. 287.
(2) This and the three following letters are in the Gage Papers.

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for on the 1st of September Delaplace wrote to Gage: “I beg leave to acquaint your Excellency that the Commissary’s room is fallen in, and has damaged some provisions in the store‑room underneath. I have ordered some small repair, so as to make it habitable, as he has no place to dwell in. The Fort and Barracks are in a most ruinous situation, and would have been much worse, had not some repairs been made last winter by order of his Excellency Major General Haldimand.”
Gage replied on the fifth of October, and one sees in the answer the man careful to keep within his instructions. “I am fully sensible of the bad state of the Buildings at Ticonderoga, and am not surprised at the Accident you mention, you did right in ordering some small Repairs, to make the Commissary’s Room habitable, but you will be at as little Expence as possible, as it may soon be expected something will be decided respecting that Fort.”
In his expectation Gage was correct. On the second of November Dartmouth wrote, ordering him “to give the proper orders for putting” both Ticonderoga and Crown Point “in such a State as may effectually answer the purposes for which they were originally intended.” (1)  Roundabout expressions these for so simple and wise a purpose, and they came late-too late. For before Gage could receive the order, winter had set in, and all action must wait until forests and lake were unlocked in spring before any expedition, of
(1) C. O. 5, 9.323.

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size enough to accomplish the work, could be sent from Canada: and from Canada it must come, since Gage had drawn from New York all his forces, and even Haldimand himself, to meet the difficult situation in Boston. With the winter obstacles in mind, Gage seems to have taken his time in informing Carleton, commanding in Canada, of the plan.  When he did write, the fateful year of 1775 had well began.
“I am to Acquaint you,” he wrote from Boston on the 16th of March, “that His Majesty has judged it proper to have a Fort at Crown Point in lieu of the old one that was burned. There is no Occasion, I presume, to think of one so considerable as the former, but to have a place of “Strength there, and it would be best to build it of Brick or rather Stone, and there is a Quantity of each lying in ruins upon the spot. I will take an Opportunity to Send you a Copy of a Fort sketched out last Spring by Capt Montresor, by Order of General Haldimand, which you will be so good [as] to inspect, and if you Judge proper to send Lieut Marr (1)’ there, to see if there are Material Objections to this Project, or whether any better Plan can be adopted.”
Thus Gage wrote under no pressure of hurry, not mentioning Ticonderoga nor yet sending Montresor’s plan, and proposing to take plenty of time, even though in the same letter he wrote that in Boston the leaders of the People were trying ”all Methods to
(1) John Marr, commissioned 28 Jan., 1774, Engineer Extraordinary and Captain-Lieutenant.

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drive the People into every kind of Extravagance and Madness.” But a month later, on the 19th of April, we find the Governor of Massachusetts and the Commander in Chief of all His Majesty’s troops in America, perceiving that there was some need of hurry.
It is strange to find Gage able, on that day, to give time to anything but the pressing affairs at hand. For the night before he had despatched an expedition to Concord; early in the morning he had received news that the country was roused against it; at nine o’clock, possibly under his eyes, Lord Percy had marched out of Boston to support the detachment earlier sent; and at about the same time rumors came to Boston that there had been fighting in Lexington. Just when Gage had leisure to write to Carleton it is a little difficult to see; it may be that the letter, brought to him to sign, was a remainder of the business of the day before. Certainly there is no mention in it of the outbreak in Massachusetts, and the ending of the letter shows complete ignorance of what is about to happen, not only in New England, but in all America.
He had intended, Gage wrote, to ask Carleton to send the 7th Regiment to Boston, but “strong Applications” from New York made it seem “highly beneficial” to send the regiment, instead, into New York state, to quell insurrections in Cumberland County. “I am therefore to desire you to send the 7th Regiment to Crown Point or Ticonderoga without delay; if Tents &c. can be procured for them the
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better, if not, they will lodge as they can in the Hutts and Houses. The Officer Commanding will concert with Lieut. Gov’r. Colden, the Operations to be carried on in Cumberland County, but will not move unless he is Joined either by a good number of the Provincial Forces, or by a body of well Appointed Militia.

Again it was too late. Gage’s own hand had cast the die. No “ good number of Provincial Forces,” nor “body of well Appointed Militia,” was ever again to act in concert with British troops, except as despairing loyalists hoping against hope to bring back the golden days of colonists within the empire. And be fore Gage’s letter could reach Carleton a different kind of provincial force, neither good in number nor well appointed, was to bring a change of fate to the sleepy and ruinous fortresses on Lake Champlain.
So far we have followed British records entirely. Let us turn back as far as the preceding autumn, to see what the Americans had been doing in the matter.
It would be in itself an interesting study, to trace in American minds the growth of the feeling that, since the peace of 1763, Canada might become a menace to other colonies. For the territory, following the line of the Ohio River, swept round behind the northern colonies and limited westward expansion, and in it now royal authority was freshly established, without legislative check, and with many concessions to Roman Catholics, a new thing in English
(1) Cage Papers.
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colonial administration. Here, as Haldimand saw, was a chance to apply force to the thirteen colonies. Both in England and America many doubts and fears were expressed through the summer of 1774, nor were they less because during the debate on the Quebec Act the government took no trouble to allay them. So strong was the American feeling, that the first Continental Congress, in October, 1774, addressed a letter to the inhabitants of Quebec, arguing the case, pointing out the opportunity of freedom, and inviting the Canadians to set up a provincial congress which should send delegates to the second general American congress, which was to begin its sittings on the coming 10th of May, a date important in this story.
Massachusetts, however, was not content with a mere address, and desired closer touch with the Canadians. Likewise as early as October the Provincial Congress considered sending an agent to Canada, but nothing being done, took the matter up again in February, 1775. Declaring it to be “the manifest design of Administration to engage and secure the Canadians and remote tribes of Indians, for the purpose of harassing and destroying these Colonies, and reducing them to a state of absolute slavery,” the Congress empowered the Boston Committee of Correspondence “ to establish an intimate correspondence and connection with the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec.”  That connection was made not only by
(1) See IV Force, American Archives, I, 839‑840, 1338‑I339; the same is in the Journals of Each Provincial Congress, pp. 24, 27, 98-100.
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letters, but also by the appointment of an agent, one of the numerous John Browns who appear in American history. This was a man of Pittsfield, a vigorous and able character, who in the dead of winter under took the journey to Canada which Gage did not expect his troops to make in the reverse direction. Brown “established the connection,” sent back news, and on his journeys got in touch with Vermonters who were in strong sympathy with his purposes. He wrote to Samuel Adams: “the Fort at Tyconderogo must be seised as soon as possible should hostilities be committed by the Kings Troops. The people on N Hampshire Grants have ingaged to do this Business, and in my opinion they are the most proper Persons for this Jobb.” (1)
From this point on we tread on territory which controversy has made a dark and almost a bloody ground. Embattled patriots have long fought to deny the glory claimed for one who was always a thruster-in, a trouble-breeder, and who at last became the arch-traitor whose name is anathema to every American. It is almost too much to be borne that when the attack upon Ticonderoga was completely in train and could have proceeded without him, Benedict Arnold should flash upon the scene, claim command and be granted an equal share, and thus dim the glory of Ethan Allen. Historians so frequently denied the co-leadership claimed for Arnold,
(1) Massachusetts Archives, 193-44. Printed in IV Force, American, Archives, II, 243‑244
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that it seemed necessary to Justin Smith, in his monumental work on the struggle for Canada, to write: "The author hopes that he will not be accused of palliating treason, because he sets down some things to Arnold's credit.... A judge who does not discriminate is no judge at all ... He is blind.... To refuse to recognize merit is to deprive ourselves of the right to censure faults. Besides, the Arnold of West Point was the result of development, and we are bound to take the man of 1775 and 1776 as he was at that time."
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In the twenty years since Smith wrote this plea for open-mindedness, the virulence of American patriotism has grown. Various defenders of Washington's fame have objected to new presentations of the facts of the life of the father of his country. The mayor of a great American city finds political profit in assailing any change from history as taught in the days of our ancestor worship. And at least one more writer has gone on record as lessening Arnold's claim to equal command at the Ticonderoga assault.(2) To vary from any story of the ancient grammar-school histories has become a social crime. No wise man, therefore, will wantonly re-open the Ticonderoga story. It is only the possessor of new material who will venture to ask for reconsideration. And with diffidence is new material here brought forward. Let it be said that on

(1) Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony, I, 117, note.
(2) John Spargo, Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga, Tuttle Co., Rutland, Vt., 1926
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the main points of controversy only contemporary evidence will here be considered, documents written within a few weeks of the event, except in the case of Ethan Allen's two books, written in 1779. For the essential facts it would be a mistake to depend on local traditions, or the always untrustworthy memories of old men.
In his letter of March, 1775, John Brown said that the people of the New Hampshire Grants had engaged to take Ticonderoga when once hostilities had been commenced by the King's Troops. Had they done so when the news came, controversy would never have arisen, for the whole glory would have shone upon Vermont. Their wise reasons for hesitating were stated by Ethan Allen, four years later. "Provided they should take an active part with their country; and furthermore, provided an accommodation should take place, and the Colonies return to their former allegiance, what would become of them, [i.e. the Vermonters] or their remonstrances against the Government of New York, lodged at the Court of Great Britain?….
" Soon after the news of Lexington Battle, the principal officers of the Green Mountain Boys, and other principal inhabitants, were convened at Bennington, and attempted to explore futurity, but it was found to be unfathomable . . . However, it was imagined that, provided those inhabitants were loyal to their country, and the event of war should prove favorable to America, . . . in this case they should rid

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Themselves or the grievous usurpation of the Government of New York… It was therefore resolved to take an active part with the country, and thereby annihilate the old quarrel with the Government of New York, by swallowing it up in the general conflict for liberty.... It was, therefore, projected to surprise the garrisons of Ticonderoga and Crown Point....
"While these matters were deliberating, a committee from the Council of Connecticut arrived at Bennington, with advice and directions." I Upon that advice and those directions, the Vermonters acted.
Nevertheless it is curious to see, even in the coming of the Connecticut men, the distant hand of Arnold. His knowledge in this matter has never been explained. Yet he was so much of a soldier by instinct that as a boy he ran away to the war of those days, which in 1755 was in this very region. Ticonderoga once seen could not be forgotten; and any information which came to Arnold (and it must be remembered that he, as a horse-dealer, met people from many parts) he would have remembered. At any rate, Arnold, when upon the news of Lexington he started into action, was provided with statements about the fort which were nothing less than facts.

1 Materials in the rest of this chapter unless otherwise stated are to be found chiefly in Connecticut Historical Societies Collections, vol. 1; in IV Force, American Archives, vol. II; and in Ethan Allen's "Narrative," and "Vindication." The above is from the "Vindication." Compare Appendix III.

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And on his way to Cambridge, at the head of his company, he met a Connecticut man who, having just left the American camp, was journeying homeward. Colonel Samuel H. Parsons could tell Arnold of the lack of cannon in the camp besieging Boston; Arnold, on the other hand, could and did tell Parsons where cannon were to be had. He gave Parsons an account of the state of Ticonderoga, its weakness, and its great number of brass cannon.
It was quite enough. Whatever may have been, before this, in the minds of the Connecticut leaders at Hartford, we do not know. But they acted on the hint brought them by Parsons, laid plans, obtained public money, and sent off those agents who, having added to themselves men from western Massachusetts, arrived in Vermont in time to make the Vermonters decide to strike their blow. It makes no particular difference that the Connecticut story makes the place of meeting Castleton, instead of Bennington. At the meeting, all plans were laid for action.(1) It is not to be doubted that, whether or not Benedict Arnold himself had appeared on the scene, the fort at Ticonderoga would have been captured exactly as planned.
And yet the arrival of that lone traveler, and the influence of his personality, are historic facts. For Arnold, marching to Cambridge at the head of his New Haven company, had not contented himself

(1) Journal of Edward Mott; Historical Society of Connecticut Collections, 1, 182. The letter of Col. Parsons is in the same volume.

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with giving information to Colonel Parsons, at that chance meeting. Arriving in camp on the 29th of April, he appeared the next day before the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, and reported as to the cannon at Ticonderoga. The same day he put his statement in writing, and added, “The place could not hold out an hour against a vigorous onset.”
Remembering how the Vermonters, in their planning, had been troubled by the claim of New York on their territory, it is interesting to note that the Massachusetts men were also temporarily checked by the recollection that Ticonderoga was within the boundary of New York. So important did it seem that everything done should be entirely legal, that the Committee of Safety at first held its hand, and on the same day wrote to its fellow-committee in New York a letter in which its longings are plainly apparent.
“It has been proposed to us to take possession of the Fortress at Ticonderoga. We have a just sense of the importance of that fortification, and the usefulness of those fine cannon, mortars, and field-pieces which are there; but we would not, even upon this emergency, infringe upon the rights of our sister Colony, New York. But we have desired the gentleman, who carries this letter, to represent the matter to you, that you may give such orders as are agreeable to you.” I
For these paragraphs see IV Force, 11, 450, 748-750. For these statements and others following see in Journals of Each Provincial Congress, the “ Papers relating to Ticonderoga and Crown Point,” pp. 695 ff. Some of the originals are in the Massachusetts Archives.

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Such self-restraint was almost super-human, in the face of the needs of Massachusetts. For Boston lay besieged, and in the American camp there were not enough cannon for the forts. In fact the self-control of Massachusetts must have been super-human, for it broke. After a single day, came action. The matter was laid before the Council of War,’ and a decision was taken, perhaps because of the knowledge that neither then nor for weeks would New York act, possibly also because news had come from Hartford, telling of the Connecticut plans. On the 2nd of May, Arnold was given a hundred pounds in cash, with gunpowder, balls, flints, and horses. He was allowed four hundred men, whom he was to enlist himself, and whose officers he was to appoint. From Captain, he became Colonel, “ appointed to a secret service.” And in the orders delivered to him next day he was told to enlist his men in the west, “and with them march to the Fort at Ticonderoga, and use your best endeavors to reduce the same.” Such cannon, mortars, and stores as would be serviceable to the army at Cambridge, he was to bring back with him, leaving a garrison behind. And with these specific instructions he went on his way.
Of what he then did there is no complete trace.

(1)On May 2nd members of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety “ were appointed a Sub-Committee to confer with General Ward, relative to the proposal made by Colonel Arnold, of Connecticut, for an attempt upon Ticonderoga.” IV Force, II, 750.

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But he acted with the furious energy which was so characteristic of him. Little enough time he gave to recruiting, yet there is evidence in a message, in a letter, in the record of wandering officers, that he appointed his captains and sent them to gather his men. (1) l With delay only for this, he himself went, as straight and as fast as he could, toward Ticonderoga. Whether he had wind of the Connecticut expedition or the Vermont plan, there is no knowledge; he may have acted upon a soldierly desire to spy out the land for himself. Whatever the reason, he fell like a thunderbolt in among the little council gathered at Castleton on the evening of the 8th of May.
The conference had already broken up. In command of about a hundred and seventy men were first Ethan Allen, second James Easton, and third Seth Warner, ranking “according to the number of men that each one raised.” Edward Mott was there, the chief man from Connecticut, and our John Brown of Pittsfield. It had been agreed that thirty should go against Skenesborough, partly to get boats with which to cross the lake. The rest should go to Shoreham, Vermont, join with more men, and descend upon the fort in the dark of the night of the 9th. To gather the extra men, and to set guards on all roads leading to the fort, Allen had already gone in advance.(2)
(1) See the last paragraph in the letter of Thomas Allen, as given complete in L. E. Chittenden, The Capture of Ticonderoga, p. 117. See also Something about Ticonderoga, George Sheldon. Worcester. 1884.
(2) Journal of Edward Mott cited above.

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To the remainder of the council, Arnold, coming with but a single servant, declared himself. At first he was welcomed for the evidence he brought that Massachusetts desired the capture of the fort; then they recoiled from him. “We were shockingly surprized,” wrote Mott almost plaintively, “ when Colonel Arnold presumed to contend for the command of those forces that we had raised.... But Mr. Arnold, after we had generously told him our whole plan, strenuously contended and insisted that he had a right to command them and all their officers, which bred such a mutiny amongst the soldiers which had almost frustrated our whole design.”’
It is a striking picture, Arnold alone against those whom he presently described as wild people, and by the very force of his personality putting them in a panic lest he should succeed in browbeating their leaders. For the next morning, “when Col. Arnold went after Col. Allan, the whole party followed him, for fear lest he should prevail on Col. Allen to resign the command, and left all the provisions, so that I, [it is Mott who is writing] (2) was obliged to leave the party that I was with, and go with the pack-horses with the provisions, and could not overtake them.”
As Mott tells the story (and he writes but two days later), it looks as if Arnold might have prevailed on Allen but for the insistence of his men. The demand

(1) Letter of Edward Mott to Massachusetts Provincial Congress. .Massachusetts Archives, 193. 179. Printed in “Journals,” 696-697; and in IV Force, II, 557 ff.
(2) Mott’s Journal.

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again made, "our men were for clubbing their fire locks and marching home, but were prevented by Colonel Allen and Colonel Easton, who told them that he should not have the command of them, and if he had, their pay would be the same as though they were under their command; but they would damn the pay, and say they would not be commanded by any others but those they engaged with." (1)

As to the agreement, that Arnold and Allen should share the command, that is the nub of years of controversy. Arnold claimed it in one letter, implied it in another, and in his memorandum book; Allen, in his letter to the Massachusetts Congress, does not mention Arnold at all. (2) Mott says nothing on this point. The only other contemporary authority is one who signed himself "Veritas", and was evidently so close to Arnold that his letter is as if the latter had written it. Very likely he did. "Veritas" says that the officers voted that Arnold " should take a joint command with Colonel Allen." (3) It should be plain that there was good reason for such an agreement, in Allen's need of legality for his project, a need which Arnold could fill with his commission and his orders from Massachusetts.

Closely connected with this question is the query: what part, if any, did Arnold take at the capture? From Allen's "Narrative" of 1779 one would never

(1) Mott's letter. To club the muskets, not for fighting but for marching, was the custom of those days.
(2) IV Force, 11, 556, 557, 584‑585; Hist. Mag. Penna., V111, 366. 
(3) IV Force, 11,1086.
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suppose that Arnold was there at all; but in Allen’s
letter of May 11, 1775, he wrote to the Albany Committee “Colonel Arnold entered the fortress with me 	side by side.. (1) ”Later stories make Arnold either a 	subordinate or a volunteer. Some allow him to enter 	the fort on .Allen’s left. There is therefore no American contemporary statement which makes entirely clear Arnold’s part in the capture. Let us, however, 	for the moment fill in this unfinished part of the story 	with the traditional tales which appear to have the 	most credibility. Under whatever agreement, the various members of the expedition gathered, according to Allan, at Hand’s Cove in the town of Shoreham, Vermont, on 	the evening of May 9th. There were more than two hundred men, a much greater force than the garrison which they were to attack. As time passed while 	they waited, it became evident that the Skenesborough party had failed, for no boats appeared. 	There are various late stories as to how two barges 	or scows were got, by which was begun the ferrying 	to the New York side. So long was the delay, and 	so slow was the process, that it was daybreak on the 	10th of May before the first trip was finished, and 	there stood on the western shore only Allen, Arnold, 	Easton, Brown, and some eighty more.(2)  Rather than 

(1) IV Force, II, 606. (2) For the ferrying, the contemporary story by “Veritas” (IV Force, 1086) is by general consent, and probably rightly, discredited in favor 	of tradition, for which see Thompson’s Gazetteer of Vermont, part 2, p. 33, with Goodhue’s History of Shoreham, chapter 3. For the presence of Easton and Brown, see Allen to Mass. Prov. Cong., May 11, IV Force II, 556. As to numbers, see these and other sources with Allen’s “Narrative,” p. 3: “I landed eighty-three men.” See my Appendix III. In Thompson’s Gazetteer “ a Mr. Douglass “ had to do with securing the boats. In a report of a committee of the New York Congress, May 25, 1775, he appears as “Captain Douglass, who lives on the line between that Colony [Massachusetts] and this”; also as guardian of the Stock bridge Indians. The committee stated “that Captain Douglass was a principal, and had great merit in the success of the enterprise.” Thus it would seem to be safe to name Douglass as having been present at the capture. This New York report calls all of the party “ adventurers,” as distinguished from provincial militia, and claims the Green Mountain Boys as of New York. See IV Force, II, 1250.
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wait for the rest, and lose the chance for a surprise, they marched at once to the fort.
Little light is shed on the details of the actual capture except by Allen’s “ Narrative “ of 1779. After entering the fort and subduing two sentries, his story reads: “I … ordered the commander (captain Delaplace) to come forth instantly, or I would sacrifice the whole garrison; at which the captain came immediately to the door with his breeches in his hand, when I ordered him to deliver to me the fort instantly, who asked me by what authority I demanded it: I answered him, ‘In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress.’ (The authority of the Congress being very little known at that time) he began to speak again; but I interrupted him, and with my drawn sword over his head, again demanded an immediate surrender of the garrison; to which he then complied.” (1)
(1) Allen’s “Narrative,” pp. 3 and 4.

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There never has been any American contemporary evidence which could seriously contradict this part of Ethan Allen’s narrative. Arnold could have told his story, and perhaps he did, for on the day of the capture, May 10th, he reported on it to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. But the letter never was received.(1) “Veritas,” in his newspaper article, gave a single additional detail, which was accepted by Justin Smith: Arnold desired Delaplace “to deliver up his arms, and he might expect to be treated like a gentleman.” besides this, there was a report which gained currency for a little while, when Easton arrived in Cambridge and. told his story, which he was perhaps cautious enough never to put in writing. it appears in the great collections of Force’s American Archives, apparently in the form of a newspaper story, dated Watertown, May 8th. The commanding officer soon came forth; Colonel Easton clapped him upon the shoulder, told him he was his prisoner, and demanded, in the name of America, an instant surrender of the Fort, with all its contents, to the American forces. The officer was in great confusion, and expressed himself to this effect:: damn you, what - what does all this mean? Colonel Easton again told him that he and his garrison were prisoners. The officer said that he hoped he should be treated with honour. Colonel Easton replied he should be treated with much more honour than our people
Journals of Each Provincial Congress, p. 698, note.

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had met with from the British Troops. The officer then said, he was all submission.” (1)
It was this statement of Easton’s which drew out (June 25) the letter by “ Veritas” already mentioned. Easton, “Veritas” claimed, had been backward in the assault, “he having concealed himself in an old barrack near the redoubt, under presence of wiping and drying his gun, which he said had got wet in crossing the lake”; and later Arnold, on learning certain statements Easton had made about him, “heartily kicked” him, to which Easton submitted, though armed.(2) Another month, and Delaplace, hearing Easton’s story, solemnly declared that he “never saw Col. Easton at the time the fort was surprised.” (3) It is not to be wondered at that Easton’s story never gained respectable standing.
Allen’s story, though thus having no serious opponent, has through the generations been supplied with a supplement through Vermont oral tradition which, coming down through various sources, has at least three variations. It will be noted that Allen, in his story, said that he “ordered the captain to come forth instantly.” It is upon the expletive with which he decorated this demand that Vermont tradition has loved to dwell. One version is that Allen, thundering
(1) The story is in IV Force, II, 624. Veritas saw it quoted in “Mr. Thomas’s Oracle of Liberty, the 24th of May last.” It is also in the Massachusetts Gazette of May 25, 1775.
(2) Arnold’s version of the kicking is in his memorandum book, Hist. Mag. Penna., VIII, 373. (3) IV Force, II, 1087.

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at the door, called the commander an old rat; another, an old skunk; another, that he cast doubt on the legality of the Briton’s parentage. As to the further demand when Delaplace showed himself, for surrender in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress, it forms the warp and woof of this part of our history, and has never been contradicted. Nor does the present writer claim that these words were not said, merely pointing out that there is no room for them in, the British story, as presently to be related. Nevertheless, the almost fervent defences of Ethan Allen’s claims, set up at intervals in the past years, have always seemed open to the rejoinder that (as Thomas Fuller said of John Smith more than a century before Ethan Allen took up his pen) “ It soundeth much to the diminution of his deeds that he alone is the herald to publish and proclaim them.”  Whatever else may be said of Allen’s account of himself, this at least is clear: that while in his letters written immediately after the event, he gives credit to Brown and Easton, and admits that Arnold was there, as well as some fifty Massachusetts men, in his “Narrative” of 1779 he mentions only himself and his Vermonters.
It is not particularly edifying, this endeavor of the leaders of the Americans, and particularly Allen and Easton. (2) to elbow others out of the credit due. It was
(1) Fuller’s Worthies of England, 16620. See my  Appendix IV.
(2) Arnold wrote in his memorandum book; (Hist. Mag. Penna., VIII, 367): “ May 10. This day Colonel Eaton [sic] taking umbrage . . . set off for the Congress with an announced intention to injure me all in his power.” And May 19, Arnold wrote to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety: “ I have had intimations given me, that some persons had determined to apply to you and the Provincial Congress, to injure me in your esteem, by misrepresenting matters of fact [because of] my refusing them commissions.” IV Force, II, 645.

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early detected, and an excellent commentary is in the letter by Colonel Samuel H. Parsons, who, writing on the second of June, 1775, after telling of his meeting with Arnold which set the Connecticut men in action, wrote:
“ ‘Tis a matter of diversion to me to see the various competitors for the honor of concerting and carrying this matter into execution, contending so strenuously about a matter, in the execution of which all concerned justly deserve applause. But some cannot bear an equal, and none a superior; and all make representations at the expense of truth, to monopolize what ought to be divided.” I
On this whole subject, until lately, British annals have been silent. A recent writer (2) has, to be sure, revived Stedman’s story that on the 9th of May Allen “went to captain De la Place, with whom he was well acquainted, and prevailed on him to lend him twenty men, for the pretended purpose of assisting him in transporting goods across the lake. These men he contrived to make drunk,” and so was
(1) Colonel Samuel H. Parsons, New London. ln Connecticut Historical Society’s Collections, vol. I.
(2) Rupert Hughes, George Washington, II, 339, referring to Charles Stedman’s History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War. This was first published in London in 1794; I quote from the Dublin edition of the same year, I, 147.

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enabled the more easily to capture the fort. But Allen’s actions on the 8th of May are fairly well accounted for, he had no means of crossing the lake from Shoreham, and he needed no such stratagem to get the better of the little garrison. All Allen needed was surprise, whether at the gate or at one of the “ capital breaches “ of the ruinous fort. As to his previous acquaintance with Delaplace, and the hocussing of that gentleman in the face of warnings from Gage, all that will scarcely seem likely in the light of our newest knowledge.
Taken in the large, many of these minor matters may be unimportant, as compared with the great fact of the capture. But as history, even in the large, depends upon detail, it is interesting, so late as this, to find evidence appearing from British sources, and more nearly at first hand than Stedman’s. Indeed, nothing could be more at first hand than the narrative of the very man who confronted Allen’s and Arnold’s demand for surrender; and though it contains no dramatic dialogue, and does not settle every obscure point, it will have to be used, in future, to combine with Allen’s story to attain an average of the truth. Exactly as we now turn to British sources for comparison with American in order rightly to understand Bunker Hill or Monmouth, let us see the other side of this story. And thus we are brought once more to our obscure lieutenant, Jocelyn Feltham
As we have seen, Feltham had been recalled from Crown Point. On the 15th of October, 1774, he had

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written from Canada to Gage in Boston a letter of four closely written pages. In these he explains his accusations against Anstruther: the five counts already mentioned, all upon Anstruther's neglect of the king's business, and a sixth, "his personal treatment of myself." Both he and Anstruther wanted " a suspension of opinion" until their court martial could come on. And further, Feltham found that his recall was to his financial loss. "I . . . had been at vast expense at laying in everything I could want.... My things were sold at a very great disadvantage. . . . Some of my cattle were drowned by carelessness during the winter."' So Feltham suffered by not being at Ticonderoga to protect his interests. And he lingered on in Canada, not in Anstruther's "horrid situation" of being under accusation, but doubtless knowing that no relief could come from Gage until the court martial was over.
Meanwhile Captain Delaplace, in command at Ticonderoga, had probably limited himself to the "small repairs" to the buildings which Gage had authorized, and may have wondered whether his military superiors, or Philip Skene as newly appointed governor of the region, would ever make the place comfortably habitable. The usual somnolence of winter life at the post was somewhat interrupted by a letter from General Carleton, in Canada, requiring him to report " the state and condition of the Forts
This and the following letters are in the Gage Papers.

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and Posts under [his] Command, as also what lodgments there are for Officers and Soldiers." This may have roused in Delaplace the hope that in the spring something would begin. But the letter had also contained a warning, for the captain was told "to keep a strict look out on whatever passes in your neighbourhood." In consequence Delaplace wrote on the 10th of February, 1775, to report to Gage two incidents. A week previous " nine men armed came at the dead time of night, to one Curry, who lives within two miles of the Fort," and being admitted, "behaved very rudely, seized upon all the poor man's provisions, and went away, steering their course across the Lake, towards New Hampshire Government." A few days later a single man came to the same farmer, and asked as to the strength of the fort, whether sentries were " planted at the Gate," wanted to buy powder, and went away, steering the same course. It was surmised, wrote the captain, that these and other men might want to seize upon the ammunition at Ticonderoga. "This I thought my duty to acquaint your Excellency therewith, taking every necessary precaution to frustrate their designs, if so intended."
Gage was sufficiently experienced with frontier conditions to know that the incidents reported by Delaplace might be of no importance. At the date of the letter, Massachusetts had not yet appointed its Canadian agent; and even when Gage answered, in early March, he saw no political plot implied. On the

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8th he wrote to give Delaplace the mildest of warnings.
"The Intelligence you sent me . . . will no doubt have put you on your Guard, against any attempt to Surprize your Fort; and I conclude that you had made Report thereof to Major General Carleton, whom you will apply for any Succour you may stand in need of. There are Numbers of Armed Vagabonds going frequently about the Lakes looking out for Lands. And if they meet you off your Guard may form a Scheme to Seize your Ammunition which they are in want of."
As to the need of powder amongst the provincial that was their greatest lack: cannon and even muskets were likely to become useless for the want of it.  But while Carleton knew this fact, he also was likely to know what Gage was not aware of as yet, namely that the Massachusetts emissary had been busy in Canada. Accordingly when Delaplace asked for a reinforcement, Carleton sent it; and it is here the Feltham entered again into the story. He may not as yet have been on regular duty; but if he had been, he knew the way to Ticonderoga, and was a proper man to conduct thither a part of the force. And so our lieutenant, always with ready pen, in early spring once more journeyed to that isolated post, concerning the capture of which he was to write the longest account that has yet come down to us.

The circumstances under which he wrote were a follows. After the capture the British troops were

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sent down to Hartford, in Connecticut, and there detained. There with some promptness Delaplace, on the 24th of May, sent a memorial (which Feltham claimed to have drafted) to the Connecticut Assembly, stating briefly that he and his men had been captured by one Ethan Allen, and asking to have their status defined. "That your memorialists being ignorant of any crime by them committed, whereby they should be thus taken and held, also are ignorant by what authority said Allen thus took them, or that they are thus detained in a strange country, and at a distance from, the post assigned them; thus know not in what light they are considered by your Honours, consequently know not what part to act; would therefore ask your Honours' interposition and protection, and order that they be set at liberty, to return to the post from whence they were taken, or to join the Regiment to which they belong; or if they are considered in the light of prisoners of war, your Honours would be pleased to signify the same to, them,, and by whom they are detained."
This request of Delaplace's was not quite so absurd as it may appear from the end of this long perspective, and it was embarrassing to the Assembly of

(1)   See lV Force, ll, 698‑699. This use of Allen's name only, without Arnold's, has been used as an argument to prove that only Allen held command at the capture. But Allen came with the hacking of Connecticut, as we shall see in Feltham's story, while Arnold s Massachusetts Commission had no authority there.  Therefore Delaplace omitted Arnold's name. On the other hand, when later Delaplace appealed to the Continental Congress, which had authority over both Connecticut and Massachusetts, he used tile joint names of Allen and Arnold. See below.

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Connecticut. For from the day of the taking Ticonderoga, the status of the fort, of its captors and of the captives, had been very much in doubt. Albany would not take the responsibility of sustaining the captors, and asked advice of New York.
New York hesitated, and asked the Continental Congress. The Congress itself would not immediately act. Only Massachusetts and Connecticut were for keeping the forts and acknowledging the capture; but even they were doubtful as to legality, and were still elaborately mindful of each other's privileges and the superior claims of New York to the territory at Ticonderoga. Connecticut passed the request for further action on to Massachusetts, and Massachusetts desired the Continental Congress to assume the responsibility. Notes were passing back and forth, and nothing had as yet been decided. Thus slow was our country at large, in May of 1775, to go to war. (1)
The reply of the Connecticut Assembly to Delaplace appears to have been in a resolve which printed in Force, II, 570-571, bears no date. "As this Colony has no command of said Posts, now in possession of people of several Colonies, it is impracticable for said officers and soldiers to return to said posts, and the dictates of humanity require that said officers and soldiers, with their families, should be provided for and supported while they continue in this Colony." A committee was therefore appointed, to take care of and provide for the officers and soldiers,
(1)  For this paragraph, see IV Force, Il, 605, 618, 719, 721‑722, 728
and their families, until the Continental Congress should intervene. They were kept at Hartford for some time to come, and Delaplace was still there in December of 1776, more than a year and a half later.
But his two lieutenants were placed on other footing. On the 31st of May a pass was given to Feltham and Wadman, allowing them to go to New York and New Jersey. And since those two colonies were not yet in open rebellion, since Tories came and went, boats sailed frequently to Boston, and the royal governors were not yet deposed, Feltham had his opportunity. By agreement with Delaplace he drew up a report on the capture, made out two returns of the prisoners, wrote out information concerning the captors, and sent them all to Gage, among whose papers they have slumbered for more than a century and a half. To allow Feltham to speak for himself, these reports are here given entire.

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CHAPTER II
LIEUTENANT FELTHAM'S REPORTS

New York,  June 11th 1775

Sir
Capt Delaplace of the 26th regt has given me directions to lay before you in as plain a narrative as l can the manner of the surprizal of the fort of Ticonderoga on 10th May with all the circumstances after it that I thought might be of any service in giving your Exy any light into the affair.

Capt Delaplace having in the course of the winter applied to Gen: Carleton for a reinforcement, as he had reason to suspect some attack from some circumstances that happen'd in his neighbourhood, Gen Carleton was pleased to order a detachment of a subaltern and 20 men to be sent in two or three seperate parties the first party of which was sent as a crew along with Major Dunbar who left Canada about the 12th April, I being the first subaltern on command was ordered down with 10 men in a few days more, to give up to Capt Delaplace with whom Lt Wadman was to remain, having receiv'd orders from the regt some time before to join there. As he was not arrived when I came I had orders to wait until he did I was 12 days there before he came which was about an

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after the fort was surprized. I had not lain in the fort on my arrival having left the only tolerable rooms there were, for Mr Wadman if he arrived with 	his family, but being unwell, had lain in the fort for 	two or three nights preceding the 10th May, on which 	morning about half an hour after three in my sleep I was awaken'd by numbers of shrieks, & the words no quarter, no quarter from a number of armed rabble I jump'd up about which time I heard the noise continue in the area of the fort I ran undress'd to knock at Capt Delaplace's door & to receive his orders or wake him, the door was fast the room I lay in being close to Capt Delaplace's I stept back, put on my coat & waist coat & return'd to his room, there being no possibility of getting to the men as there were numbers of the rioters on the bastions of the wing of the fort on which the door of my room and back door of Capt Delaplace's room led, with great difficulty, I got into his room being pursued from which there was a door down by stairs in to the area of the fort, I ask'd Capt Delaplace who was now just up what I should do, & offer'd to force my way if possible to our men, on opening this door the bottom of the stairs was filled with the rioters & many were forcing their way up, knowing the Commg Officer lived there, as they had broke open the lower rooms where the officers live in winter, and could not find them there, from the top of the stairs I endeavour'd to make them hear me, but it was impossible, on making a signal not to come up the stairs, they stop'd, & proclaim'd silence
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among themselves, I then address'd them, but in a stile not agreeable to them I ask'd them a number of questions, expecting to amuse them till our people fired which I must certainly own I thought would have been the case, after asking them  the most material questions I could think viz by what authority they entered his majesties fort who were the leaders what their intent etc etc I was inform'd by one Ethan Allen and one Benedict Arnold that they had a joint command, Arnold informing me he came from instructions rec'd from the congress at Cambridge which he afterwards shew'd me. Mr Allen told me his orders were from the province of Connecticut & that he must have immediate possession of the fort and all the effects of George the third (those were his words) Mr Allen insisting on this with a drawn sword over my head & numbers of his followers firelocks presented at me alledging I was commanding officer & to give up the fort, and if it was not comply 'd with, or that there was a single gun fired in the fort neither man woman or child should be left alive in the fort Mr Arnold begg'd it in a genteel manner but without success, it was owing to him they were prevented getting into Capt Delaplaces room, after they found I did not command. Capt Delaplace being now dress'd came out, when after talking to him some time, they put me back into the room they placed two sentry's on me and took Capt Delaplace down stairs they also placed sentrys at the back door, from the beginning of the noise till half an hour after this I

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never saw a Soldier, tho' I heard a great noise in their rooms and can not account otherwise than that they must have been seiz'd in their beds before I got on the stairs, or at the first coming in, which must be the case as Allen wounded one of the guard on his struggling with him in the guard room immediately after his entrance into the fort. When I did see our men they were drawn up without arms, which were all put into one room over which they placed sentrys and allotted one to each soldier their strength at first coming that is the number they had ferry'd over in the night amounted to about 90 but from their entrance & shouting they were constantly landing men till about 10 O'clock when I suppose there were about 300, & by the next morning at least another 100 who I suppose were waiting the event & came now to join in the plunder which was most rigidly perform'd as to liquors, provisions, &c whether belonging to his majesty or private property, about noon on the 10th May, our men were sent to the landing at L: George, & sent over next day, then march'd by Albany to Hartford in Connecticut where they arrived on the 22nd they would not allow an Officer to go with them tho' I requested it. they sent Capt Delaplace his Lady family & Lt Wadman & myself by Skenesborough to Hartford where we arrived the 21st having great reason to imagine from what I had been inform'd that the governor & assembly of Connecticut could not have been ignorant of the matter long before it was put into execution, so far as that it should not appear by their

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consent, therefore Capt Delaplace for himself Lt Wadman & myself begg'd to have the honor of waiting on him as a governor to obtain redress, or as a private gentleman to represent our case, in answer to which we had a reply, that as governor he was but one of the assembly, as a private gentleman he was too busy and would [be?] until the session was over the gentleman who brought us this answer agreed with us that it was proper to memorial the house of assembly, but at the same time inform'd us that we would not receive any answer until the express wou'd return which had gone to the continental congress however this day the 22nd  I drew out by Capt Delaplaces desire a memorial in which as Commanding Officer of said forts taken he requested in justice to him that the governor & assembly would please to inform him whether this attack on the forts making a seizure of his majesties stores, confining, making prisoners of, and sending as such 3 officers etc etc into their colony, whether it was by the consent the knowledge or orders of the house of assembly, or whether it was countenanced by them, if it was we must tacitly submit - if not to beg such assistance as would enable us to get to our regt or into Boston, if they did not look on us as prisoners in their colony. - if we were not allow'd to depart Capt Delaplace requested that they would please to provide means to forward a letter wrote by him to your Excy in which he was to give a plain narrative of the affair. ‑‑ a memorial to this purport was deliver'd in, & read in the house, as

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I was inform'd by one of the members, but to which there never was any answer sent except they deem their act of assembly one, a copy of which I enclose and which was brought; to us by a committee appointed by them on the 30th, and from whom Lt Wadman & myself obtain'd leave to come to the Jersies, myself on account of my health, & a knowledge that your Excy could never receive any true acct from us in the place where we then were. & as I thought it essentially necessary you should be inform'd of the part the province of Connecticut takes in this affair without an appearance of any, as they supplied to my knowledge fourteen hundred pounds including the £300 given to Allen & their scheme was that the Albany people might garrison the place until the arrival of troops from the lower provinces, for farther particulars refer you to the names of Allen and Arnold in a list of the chief actors in this affair which I enclose. they have acted with cunning through this affair, having sent off men days before your Excy received or Governor Trumbull had wrote a letter to you, even out of their very town in which they were then sitting, and those very particular men were the persons employ'd in seizing every pass or post for two days before the affair happen'd in order to prevent any intelligence two of their names were Willm Nicholls and John Bigalo.—not down in the enclosed list.
By their evasive act of assembly, it is plain they want to inveigle our men from us, at first they
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attended roll call &c & behaved like soldiers, but now the committee have taken that entirely on themseIves in consequence of the act of assembly.

I enclose your Excy a return of the number of prisoners taken at the particular places they were taken at, if there should be any mistakes in it or in anything I beg you to' impute it to, the hurry that I am in, there being hardly a place where I dare put pen to paper in, in New England it was needless to attempt it. I am obliged to memory for it but you may depend on the list of the persons concern'd sent to you to be an exact one of the chiefs, & which I wish for an opportunity of providing. I have also sent you a list of the men's names mark'd in such a manner that should there ever be an exchange of men it might be known whom to apply for, there was a Sergt and party of ours taken with the sloop at St Johns their number I do not know ;As they are detained at Albany .—. Ensign Moland of our regt was taken on the Lake it is said with dispatches from Gen: Carleton to your Excely. he was permitted to come down to York, from whence on private Business I have been informed that he went to E: town? I sent all express immediately on my arrival in order if he knew the purport of them that they might go with these of mine, he is not to be found so that I conclude him gone to your ExcellY or to Philadelphia, I have not been so explicit in regard to the fort as I presume it will be a matter of future inquiry. &;as either that or many other things which I have seen & heard since would

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swell this packet to a most enormous bulk, finally I have enclosed your Excell a copy of Lt Wadmans and my pass on which I beg your instructions by means of the Capt of the Asia. to it I have promised for myself & servt not to join the regt. nothing more, therefore how to act or if I can be of any service here you will please to let me have orders, though taken in a base manner & treated ill at first, I would not chuse that any other person should suffer by any misconduct of mine, but must own I have resentment sufficient to prompt me to any revenge ordered by you on account of my king, country, & your Excelly all of which I have been obliged to hear most villainously traduced.

June 12th
Ensign Moland is just now arrived, who informs me that he had not dispatches himself but that they were in the mail which those who took him kept, Major Skene is arrived at Philadelphia and a close prisoner as he will not part with some papers of consequence which he has, he has destroy'd a number, Lt Moncrieff is also a prisoner. I remain your Excell most obedient humble servt
Jocelyn Feltham Lt 26th  regt

A list of the persons chiefly concern'd in  the taking the forts of Ticonderoga & Crown point his majesties sloop at St Johns and Fort George with the names of the places in which some of them reside.

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Benedict Arnold of New haven who received his instructions from the congress at Cambridge, some few days after the battle of Lexington, they appointed him a Colonel with power to appoint Officers & raise 400 men on his march, & to take those forts sloop &c  (I saw his instructions) he was in arms.
Ethan .Allan of the town of Sheffield in Connecticut province who received 300 pounds in a private manner out of the treasury of the province, for which consideration he rais'd what are there term'd his green mountain boys, to get immediate possession of those forts, as the affair might get wind, before the raising a sufficient number of men in the provinces of New Hampshire & Connecticut, these two plans were laid much about the same time in the different provinces of Massachusetts, & Connecticut, by the above Benedict Arnold in the former province, and by one Noah Phelps and one Mott of Connecticut province each province ignorant of the plan of the other at first. -  the above Phelps and Mott have each a brother concern'd in the taking the forts.
another person concerned in the plan with Allen was a man who calls himself Col: Eston residing in Pittsfield in the province of Massachusetts who also appeared in arms at the fort. there are in this same village two other persons whose names follow. one John Brown who I saw in Canada some short time before I left it, who was in arms at the fort and has committed many crimes deserving punishment the other is their presbyterian clergyman one .Allen, who

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utters from the pulpit words shocking to hear, and commits or gets effected actions almost as base as his words.
there appear'd in arms at the taking of the fort a number of men who were named captains viz one Seth Warner one Lusk of the province of York this last person kept possession of the fort when Ethan Allen went to assist in taking the sloop at St Johns, and while Warner and one Douglas a captain also, went to take possession of Crown point.—one Baker who calls himself a captain was in arms at the taking of Crown point, he lives at Union river 40 miles above Crown point, where his station was for to prevent any boat arriving from Canada, this person Ethan Allen and Warner are as great villains as any on earth.
the person who took possession of Fort George is a foreigner, one Romans an excellent Draughtsman, and as I am inform'd has fifty pounds a year from government, he resides at New haven, and was to have been engineer had they repair'd either of the forts.
as we came by Skenesborough we found it in the possession of Elisha Phelps mentioned before, one Brown a waggoner from New haven, but then a captain, & one Noah Lee another captain here we were treated extremely ill particularly by Brown, he took possession of a schooner that belongs to Major Skene & have fitted her out for the use of themselves they have committed vast plunder there, the person who took the sloop at St Johns is one Oswald a distiller at

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New haven a near relation of Holt the Printer in New York.
in New haven there is also, one Bird now in trade but who was once a clergyman he is a vast promoter of sedition &c there are vast numbers of others who acted their parts in a lower sphere whose names I know, but I have only mention'd such persons as if I was confronted with them I should with the help of Lt Wadman & my own servant be able to prove facts against, for which they deserve to suffer
one other person of the name of Epaphras Bull of Hartford in Connecticut who appear'd in arms at the fort and was the person who brought our men prisoners to Hartford
NB.  many of the persons mentioned in this list have been concern'd in opening his majesties mails to my knowledge and detaining one 48 hours & upwards.
Ensign Moland was on board with the post from Canada when he was taken, & the mail examined.

List of persons concern'd in taking Ticonderoga &c.

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A list of the names of Officers non commiss'd Officers & soldiers the places they were taken

N: B those marked O are old wore out &: unserviceable - very few that can stand fatigue but those mark'd with an S: being chiefly the party brought down by Lt Feltham a few days before are serviceable those without any mark: are middling
At Ticonderoga.

Officers &c of the 26th.
Capt Delaplace.
Lt Feltham
Non commiss'd officers & privates.
Henry Anderson Serj   S
John McCullough drummer
John Ross O	Henry Grant S
John Traviss S	Willm Swann S
John Catham O	John McCormick S
Alexr Brodie lame	Daniel Cameron S
Benjamin Fowkes	Richard Sharpless S
Alexander Frazer	George Scott S
John Barrender O	Robert Miller S
David Jenkins S	Peter McFarlane S
John Orram O	Alexander Ramsay S
Alexr Willson	John McCloud S
Archibald McNabb S	Hugh O'Hara S
Robert Anderson	Daniel Stapleton S
James Hartly	William Stafford S
Peter Campbell O	Robt Pollard S
John Blake S	John Mason S
Edmund Grigson S	Henry Pearce S

John McDonald baker left at             ) left at
John Mcintosh, deserter S                 ) the fort

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Board of Ordnance at Ticonderoga
- Gentle conductor
Rollert Rondick [?] Corp

Matrosses
John Miller
Robert Sherrie
John Hall

Provision store at Ticonderoga Commissary Godlieb Sweitzer left behind sick.

Crown Point 
Sergt Alexander Nairne S 
Adam Brown Corp 
John Balfour 
Joshua Drake 
Robert Matchett 
John Butler 
William .Webster 
John Kennell O 
George McKay deserter S left at Crown point
Landing place at Lake George

Officer Lt Wadman
Private John Bowdon
Sam Windsor
Wm Buckle O
Richard Bartlet O
Lake Champlain

Private William Patterson
Daniel Bartlett.

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Return of the garrison of Ticonderoga made prisoners in the fort May 10th, 1775.

Of His Majesties 26th Regt.	Board of Ordnance	Provision Store	
Captain	Sub	Serg	Drum	Rank & file	Women and children	Conductor	Corporal	Matrosses	Commissary of Provisions	
1	1	1	1	35	24	1	1	3	1	

N.B.  All the above sent prisoners to Hartford in Connecticut but the commissary of provisions, and 2 private, one a baker, & another who deserted to the people who took the fort.----

Return of Prisoners taken at

Crown Point 11th May 75	Lake George 11th May	Lake Champlain 11th May 75	
Of the 26th regt	Do Regt.	Do Regt.	
Sergt	Rank and File	Women and children	Subalterns	Rank & File	Rank & File	
1	8	10	1	4	2	
N.B. one of the above party deserted to the people who took the place.

Total number of prisoners sent into New England from the two garrisons & those taken on both lakes.

Of the 26th Regt.	Board of Ordnance	
Captain	Subalterns	Serg	Drummer	Rank & File	Women & children	Conductor	Corporal	Matrosses	
1	2	2	1	46	34	1	1	3	
49 private of the 26th in all sent to Hartford.

Jocelyn Feltham…..Lt.  26th Regiment.

More tables to come
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CHAPTER III

POSTSCRIPT

Some little comment on these papers of Lt Feltham's is necessary to bring them in line with previous narratives, and to analyse the light which they throw on earlier American controversy.  The comment will be brief, the deductions scanty and cautious.  Indeed if a historian needed a warning against making evidence carry more weight than it can bear, he would find it in the conclusions drawn, and set forth with some emphasis, by students of this very matter, unaware what documents still lay unedited in England.  Other documents may yet be found: some garret may give forth Feltham's diary to show what was unexpressed in his reference to the "most enormous bulk" to which he might have swelled his report; or papers of an entirely unexpected kind may yet come to light.  So one must be cautious.  This postscript is for the mere purpose of squaring Feltham's story with the tale as viewed from other angles, and bringing out the remaining evidence as to the fate of the British captive.

Lieutenant Feltham's report explains the circumstances of his writing. In Hartford he was too closely

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watched to get a chance to write; even in New York he had to take much care. Apparently he first wrote his description of the American leaders, laying particular emphasis on all whom he had seen in arms against the king - in which consisted their "crimes" or their "villainy." As this list should normally follow the story of the capture, it has been placed in that order here. As to the narrative itself, it has the value of being written just a month and a day after the taking of the fort, before (on the one hand) any of the events had faded from the mind, and also before (on the other hand) it had been improved by frequent telling. Ethan Allen's narrative, written four years later, has to the historian the disadvantage that it must have been preceded many times by oral recounting, in the course of which a story comes to take its most effective form, but not one always close to the original events. The careful exclusion of Arnold from Allen's printed story, suggests the equally careful exclusion, or inclusion, of other incidents of the tale. Finally, there is no evidence in Feltham's telling of the story that he has read any American version. He tells the tale as he remembers it, without controverting any other statement.

That Feltham's story should meet Allen's at all points is not to be expected; but on the essential point of the first encounter and the demand for surrender he is curiously complete and endeavors to be exact. The person, then, who first confronted Allen and has in all these years been ridiculed because of his

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trouserless state, was not Delaplace. It was Feltham, who saved his captain's dignity, hoping perhaps that while he delayed the invaders on the stairs, Delaplace might slip out by the other door and get to his men, to organize some resistance. And how plain a tale is that of Feltham's interview!.  The "rioters" proclaim silence among; themselves; Feltham, to, gain time, tries to "amuse" them by his questions, listening the while for the shots which the  soldiers should soon be firing. .Arnold and Allen face him together and explain their joint command. They state their commissions: Arnold's is from Massachusetts; .Allen's is from Connecticut and he demands ("those were his words") an immediate possession of the fort and all the effects of George the Third. The shots do not come; the rioters fail to be amused; and exactly as in Allen's story, over Feltham's head flashes the Vermonter's sword. The guns of his followers are directed at the lieutenant with threats. He declares himself not to be the commander. Then the room behind him will be forced! .Arnold is so polite as to prevent that; and now Delaplace out, fully dressed. Perhaps at this point  Allen enforces his demand by appealing to his two higher authorities; but it appears inconsistent with Feltham's story. It seems more likely, as Allen and `Arnold " talk" to Delaplace "for some time," that the authority of Massachusetts and Connecticut is urged again. Feltham is put into the captain's room and may don his breeches; the surrender is complete.

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In American accounts the British figures have always been given correctly enough. In 1779 Ethan Allen wrote that the captives consisted of "the said commander, a lieutenant Feltham, a conductor of artillery, a gunner, two sergeants, and forty four rank and file," which would make a total of fifty. Writing in 1775 he had made the total lower: "a Captain, and a Lieutenant and forty - two men." Arnold, writing the day after the capture, said that the prisoners were "one Captain, one Lieutenant, and forty - odd privates and subalterns," doubtless meaning by the last term, non-commissioned officers. These are near enough to Feltham's total of forty five taken at Ticonderoga, and acquit our writers of any share of that tendency to exaggerate the enemy's numbers, which was so common at that time. (1)

Feltham believes himself to give exact figures and a complete list. He may have had with him copies of the roll - call to which for a while the soldiers answered at Hartford. If not, we can only admire his memory; and it is worth remarking that in very few British reports of that day are the names of privates given. From these lists we learn for the first time that a number of Delaplace's original garrison were "old wore out & unserviceable," a fact which makes more natural his call for reinforcements. Naturally too those sent in response were better stuff. Besides the captives

(1)  Allen's letter to Albany Committee, May11, 1775. In IV Force 11, 606. Also Arnold's letter of same day to Massachusetts Committee of Safety, IV Force II, 557

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at Ticonderoga were sixteen more men, taken at the three other posts. Of them all, two deserted to the captors at once. Most of the others were taken to Hartford, where "at first they attended roll call &c & behaved like soldiers." But Feltham doubted what would become of them when, according to the Connecticut resolve, the committee should "encourage, assist, and advise said soldiers in procuring such profitable labour and business as they may be capable of, wherever said soldiers can find persons willing to entertain and give them employment." (1)

A year later one more English officer wrote his opinion on the same matter. This w as Major Christopher French, another minor character who throws various little gleams of light upon the major facts of history, and who has a claim to fame because of his correspondence with Washington. Captured at sea and sent into captivity at Hartford, French demanded various privileges, partly because he had not yet drawn his sword in the war, partly on the general principles of contentiousness which were essential to his being. His bristling letters demanding the right to wear his sword, and Washington's patient though firm replies, have gained the Major a remembrance which otherwise never would have been his.

Of these captive soldiers French wrote as follows in his diary. "As I found this committee had an intention of sending such soldiers to gaol as should refuse to work, under a pretence of keeping them from drink

(1) IV Force, II, 571

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and consequently from riotous behaviour (of which however I never heard any complaints,) but, in fact, to supply the places of such men as they had sent or were about to send to fight against us, I objected to it in general, and particularly against their being employed in building powder mills, making powder, saltpetre, arms of any sort, casting of cannon or shot, or being sent to cultivate the lands, and informed them that I should acquaint the soldiers that I should consider such of them as assisted in these works as enemies of his Majesty, and consequently disqualified from being admitted to the benefit of Chelsea
The story is carried no further, but in spite of Major French's protest we may question the fate of these soldiers, particularly in the light of one other glimpse which Feltham's figures permit, into the warfare of those days. Among the captives taken at Ticonderoga were twenty-four women and children, the families of the soldiers.. At Crown Point were taken ten more. All of these were conveyed to Hartford. No narrative tells us of them. Until now only Delaplace's wife has figured in any history; and artists have depicted her night-capped head peeping over her husband's shoulder when surprised by the capture. Feltham now mentions the captain's children as well, and in a later petition to the Continental Congress Delaplace tells US there were two. Without question the families of the officers were well taken

(1) Chelsea is the English hospital for invalid or aged soldiers. The extract is from Conn. Hist. Soc. Collections, I, 205.

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care of. But what of the more helpless victims of the event, the fright, the hardships, the painful anxieties of the families of the common soldiers? In the long years of the war, how many of these people escaped or were exchanged? How many of the husbands or fathers would abandon their families? It is to be supposed that a large proportion of these prisoners never saw England again, but were absorbed in the Yankee population.

Other points in Feltham's story require little comment. His estimate of the .American force is fairly close to the American figures, for Allen's eighty-three is not far from Feltham's ''about ninety." Easton becomes a minor character. The journey to Hartford occurs, and we get a glimpse of one Brown, who is not John Brown of Pittsfield. Feltham drafts Delaplace's appeal for him, but does not seem to know that the captain left out some of it, particularly the request for the right to report to Gage. Next the lieutenant represents that his health is poor, and so he is permitted to come to the Jersies, hoping for a chance to write. In New York he pens his story. And he sends to the general a copy of his pass, in order to get Gage's opinion whether that and his parole prohibit him from taking some revenge on his captors. The copy of the pass is in the Gage Papers, but there is no draft of an answer in return.

There are two more letters from Feltham, written almost immediately after his reports. In one he informs Gage that Ensign Moland, suspected of having

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gained from Skene in Philadelphia  information that Carleton would like to have, had been seized and sent to Hartford. In the other Feltham warns Gage that one Angus McDonald has been seized, and that Captain McDonald of Staten Island, just then in Boston, had better not return unless he wants the same fate. And so Feltham, still busily plying his quill, fades out of sight.

Delaplace remains in view more than a year longer. In December, 1775, he wrote to General Schuyler, then military commandant at Albany, concerning his private property, " left at Ticonderoga, by the orders of Colonel Arnold and Allen." On the second of May, 1776, he further petitioned the Continental Congress as to his "many particular and severe hardships, to wit: his private stock at Ticonderoga, consisting of forty five sheep, eleven horned cattle, household and kitchen furniture, besides many other articles, such as three fusils, a silver-hilted sword, a silver mounted hanger, - the whole amounting to two hundred pounds sterling and upwards; for which no account has ever been made him, though assured 6y Colonels Allen and Arnold that he should be no loser 6y the leaving such property behind him. As to the second particular wherein he is a sufferer, that he must refund, from the time of his arrival at Hartford as a prisoner, being the 21st of May last, 1775), what has been allowed from the General Assembly for the maintaining him, his wife, two children, and a servant, amounting weekly to seven dollars per week."

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And poor Delaplace begged from their honours assistance in his sufferings. (1) 
The reply of the Congress was not very comforting. Delaplace's claim for damages was referred to Schuyler. As for thc expectation of relief from his expenses, Congress declared, " that the case of Captain Delaplace is not distinguishable from that of other Prisoners of War, who are to refund the expenses of their maintenance." (2)

Delaplace again appears in printed documents because of his further connection with the peppery Christopher French, who, imprisoned at Hartford, claimed the right to command, because of his rank. French kept everybody in hot water, complaining of much, until he found a real cause of controversy in the conduct of Delaplace. Delaplace doubtless irritated him because he "submitted implicitly to the determinations of the Committee." French wrote in his diary: "Capt. Delaplace of the 26th Regiment making it a common practice to go to meeting, (apparently to gain the favor of the people, notwithstanding he heard his Majesty called Tyrant daily, and the Honorable the Continental Congress, with success to the American arms prayed for,) I thought it my duty to condemn it in spite of all consequences.'' He therefore wrote to Delaplace a letter of remonstrance and received a tart reply. "Must inform you that I

(1) For this paragraph see Emmett Collection, New York Public Library, 4444; also IV Force, V, 1175.
(2) IV Force, Vl, 1669.

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think myself arrived to a time of life that by no means wants a preceptor. As to allegiance to my King, and love to my country, am when called upon as ready to stand forth as Major French."

Following up the dispute, French pointed out that he was not preceptor but senior officer, and threatened to take the matter before General Howe, who was then commander in chief. Delaplace weakened at the prospect of such a dispute when once he was freed, and admitted that he had agreed with other officers as to the impropriety of going to meeting in Hartford; nevertheless he declared that he should go to church in Wethersfield until he saw the same impropriety there. French then exerted his authority, and issued orders, by which Delaplace, whether intentionally or not, got him into trouble. He answered, "In obedience to your orders dated August. 26th 1776, have sent them to the officers of the 26th Regt." But one of these officers was Ensign Moland, and he being under special restraint, the order came into the hands of his guards. Wherefore French was called before the committee which evidently still had control over the prisoners, and took part in one of those sharp disputes in which evidently his soul delighted. The abrupt end of the diary leaves the affair unfinished! (1)
In the following December Delaplace thought he saw his opportunity to obtain his freedom, and

(1) Connecticut Historical Society Collections, I, 206, and :216 ff. French made his escape, leaving his diary behind him.

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accordingly wrote to Governor Trumbull, asking for leave to go to New York to effect an exchange. He wrote, "as this indulgence has been allowed Lieutenant McDermott, flatter myself with the same liberty. I must further add, that I was the first prisoner brought here, and can safely say, with a good conscience, that I have treated laws and people with the greatest respect.'' l

That in writing the last sentence he had in mind the difference of his conduct from that of Major French, we may feel fairly sure. That either now or later he received his permission, and secured his exchange, we may safely surmise. But of our officers of the 26th Regiment I have found no further trace, except the negative evidence of the disappearance of their names from the arms lists. They explain nothing, those disappearances: a name is on the lists, year after year, and one can follow a man's promotions; but when he is gone, he is gone, and only some other evidence explains the vanishing. In 1775 and 1776 Delaplace is in the list, but in 1777 his name is missing. What we learn of his quitting the army we glean from a footnote in Stedman. "Captain de la Place, notwithstanding his shameful conduct [that is, in being captured] was not brought to a court martial, but was suffered to sell out." (2)

Of Feltham's vanishing we have no such explanation. In the list of 1777 he has become "Captain -

(1) V Force, III, 1500.
(2) Stedman's American War, I, 148, footnote.

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Lieutenant and Captain," with a commission of the 7th October, 1777. In 1778, with the same date of commission, he is captain only, and also in 1779. But in 1780 Feltham's name is gone, and curiously enough, in the same year likewise disappears .Anstruther, his old antagonist.
Enough in the same year likewise disappears Anstruther, his old antagonist
There is left only conjecture. Perhaps, once free of his captivity, Feltham might have been as ready with his accusations of Delaplace as he was of Anstruther. Iapses of discipline, careless guarding of the fort: complaints of that sort might have been prepared in that still unbroken silence, but so far as we know, they never came to the point of Feltham's pen. Of him nothing more has yet appeared, and Jocelyn Feltham, lieutenant of the 26th regiment, who emerged from the darkness of the past to shed the temporary gleams of his little candle on its obscurity, is snuffed out.

Nevertheless, Lieutenant Feltham said his say, and set his indelible mark on the pages of history. Not perhaps as he intended. The day of his importance, when he pressed his charges against his captain, and held the center of his little stage, amounts to nothing now. His losses, his complaints, his marchings in the wilderness, perhaps his battles, all are insignificant today. But his report on the capture of Ticonderoga is not to be forgotten. Feltham has made it clear that the old controversy as to whether Arnold was admitted to equal command with Allen'

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should now cease. For it would seem to be proved that Ticonderoga was surrendered not merely to two, bold adventurers, nor upon a bombastic demand, but to the authority Massachusetts and Connecticut, exercised jointly.

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APPENDICES
A LIST OFCONTEMPORY SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF THE CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA IN MAY 1775.

Gage Papers. Box 1775. .According to the present bundling and numbering, consult bundles 29,32,35

C.O. 5,91 (i.e.: Colonial Office Records, Class 5, volume 91), in the Public Record Office, London.

Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, pp. 695 ff. Contains reprints of Massachusetts papers Concerning Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Some of the originals are in the Massachusetts Archives.

Connecticut Historical Society Collections, vol. 1. Contains reprints of Connecticut papers relating to the Ticonderoga expedition, also Journal of Major French.

Force's American Archives.

Series IV, vol. II Material is numbered not by pages but by columns. See Appendix III for proper columns, containing much of the Massachusetts and Connecticut material, listed above, with other documents.

Series IV, vol. II, 698 and 1087; Series IV, vol. V, 1175; Series IV, vol. VI, 1669; and Series V, vol. III, 1500: letters concerning Delaplace.

Emmett Collection, New York Public Library, 4444 Autograph letter of Delaplace, concerning; his property at Ticonderoga.

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Pennsylvania Magazine of History, VIII, 363. Arnold's memorandum book.Historical Magazine, XV, 126. Allen's relations with his brother.Ethan Allen. Ethan Allen's Narrative of the Capture of Ticonderoga, and of His captivity and Treatment by the British. Written by himself. (1779.) (Quotations are from fifth edition, 1849.)

Ethan Allen. ~ Vindication of the Opposition of the lnhabitants of Vermont to the Government of New York, and of their Right to form into an Independent State. Humbly submitted to the Consideration of the impartial World. By Ethan Allen. 1779.

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APPENDIX II

A LIST OF THE MORE IMPORTANT LATER BOOKS ON THE CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA.

1.   Earlier generation. Combine original sources with later tradition and the claims of old men.

A. 	  Rev. Josiah F. Goodhue. History of the Town of Shoreham,  Vermont.  1861
B   Zadock Thompson.  Gazetteer of Vermont, part 2. (see also his historical novel, The Green Mountain Boys).
C.	Jared Sparks. Life of Ethan Allen.
D.	Ira Allen. History of Vermont.
E.	Jared Sparks.  Life of Benedict Arnold.
F.	Isaac N Arnold. Life of Benedict Arnold.

2.	Later generations. Controversial, and strongly in favor of Allen's claims to sole command and chief credit.
A   "The Capture of Ticonderoga in 1775."  A Paper read before the Vernont Historical Society, at Montpelier, October 19, 1869.   By Hiland Hall.  In Proceedings of the Society.  1869. 32 pages.
B.	The Capture of Ticonderoga in 1775.  Annual Address before the Vermont Historical Society, at Montpelier, October 8, 1872.  By Hon. Lucius E Chittenden.  Separately printed , with copious notes, Montpelier, 1872.
C.	 Ethan Allan at Ticonderoga.  By John Spargo.  Rutland, Vt., 1926.

2.	Modern and impartial, and though somewhat inclined to dramatise and to accept tradition, altogether the best.   Julian H Smith.  Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony.  Putnam's. 1907.  Volume 1.

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APPENDIX lll

COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY OF OMPORTANT EVENTS AND SOURCES DEALING WITH THE TICONDEROGA STORY AS TREATED IN THIS MONOGRAPH.

1773
April 21   Burning of Crown Point

November  Court of Inquiry on the same.  C.O. 5.91.57 ff

July to following February.  Anstruther-Feltham, Templer-Gage correspondence.  Gage Papers, box 1775.

1774
February 2  Haldimand to Dartmouth, on the Court of Inquiry.  C.O. 5.91.

March 2.  Same to same.  Recommends abandoning Ticonderoga.  C.O. 5.91.225.

May 13.  Montresor's report.  C.O. 5.91.309.  Also in Gage Papers.

May 15.  Haldimand to Dartmouth; suggests sending two regiments to Ticonderoga.  C.O. 5.91.287.

May 20.  Haldimand to Gage, making the same suggestion.  Gage Papers..

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September 1.  Delaplace to gage.  Collapse of the Commissary's room.  Gage Papers.

October  5.  Gage's reply.  To go to as little expense as possible.  Gage Papers.

October 21 & 22.   Massachusetts Provincial Congress considers improving relationships with Canada.  Journals, p.24.  Also Force, l, 839-840 (in Appendix lll all references to Force's archives are to Series lV).

October 26.  Continental Congress, Address to the Inhabitants of Quebec.  Force, l, 930.

November 2.   Dartmouth to Gage:  to put both Ticonderoga and Crown Point in a state of defence.  C.O. 5.91.323.

December. 6. Massachusetts Provincial Congress appoints a committee to correspond with the inhabitants of Canada. Force, 1, 999. .Also Journals, p. 59.

February 10.. Delaplace reports to Gage on suspicious strangers. Gage Papers.

Feb. 13, 14, 15. Massachusetts Provincial Congress takes further action, to appoint an agent and establish correspondence. Force, I, 1338, 1339. Also Journals, pp. 98-100; and writings of Samuel Adams, III, I82 ff.

March. 8. Gage to Delaplace. A mild warning. Gage Papers.

March. 16. Gage to Carleton. To rebuild Crown Point. Gage Papers.

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March. 29. John Brown in Montreal writes Samuel Adams and others, Boston. Mass: Archives, 193.44 printed: Force, ll, 243.April 19. Outbreak in Massachusetts: Lexington and Concord. Gage to Carleton. Gage Papers.April 24. .Agreement of Benedict Arnold and his company on starting for Cambridge Force, ll, 383,  Also Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., ll, 214-215.

About the same time. Colonel Samuel H. Parsons starts from Cambridge for Hartford. Their discussion on the road. Parsons' letter. Conn. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, l, 18T ff.

April 27. Parsons, arriving at Hartford, plans with Col. Wyllys and Silas Deane to take Ticonderoga. Same source.

April 28. They procure money and send off Noah Phelps and Bernard Romans. Same source. Also Mott's Journal, Conn. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1, 165 ff.

Same day. Edward Mott arrives at Hartford. After similar consultation, (Mott's Journal),

April 29. He starts with six others for Ticonderoga. Mott's Journal. Same day. Arnold, arriving at Cambridge reports to Committee of Safety, on state of Ticonderoga. Force ll, 748-749, 450.  Also, Journals, p 695.  Cf also Mass Archives, 146.30

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Same day. Samuel Adams, arriving at Hartford, is too late to consult personally on the Ticonderoga plan, as has been claimed. Cf. Force, 11, 507, and Wells' Life of Samuel Adams, with dates above, and Chittenden, pp. 28 ff.; 101-102

May 1 Mott's party, at Pittsfield, joins Easton and John Brown. Mott's Journal.

Same day. Massachusetts Committee of Safety writes New York Committee. Force, II, 450.

Same day. Massachusetts Committee of Safety vote supplies for Arnold. Force, II, 750.

May 3. They commission Arnold and give him his orders. Force, II, 485.

May 3‑7. Mott's party arrive at Bennington. Send Romans to Albany. Raise men and stop the roads. Mott's Journal.

Same dates. Arnold travelling towards Ticonderoga sends out recruiting officers. Letter of Thomas Allen, Field, History of Pittsfield, p. 75; cf. Chittenden, pp. 115 ff. Also Something About Ticonderoga, Sheldon. 1884.

May 8. Mott's Committee at Castleton, with Allen evidently there. Plan to take Skenesboro, and to meet at Shoreham with boats. Allen departs. Arnold arrives and claims command. Mott's Journal; also his Letter, Mass. Archives, 193.179; printed in Force, ll, 557 ff., and journals, pp. 696-697.

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May 9. The Skenesboro party starts. Arnold starting to overtake Allen, the soldiers hurry after. Mott reluctantly follows. At meeting, a violent discussion. Mott's Journal. Query: Was there a joint command? Force, ll, 606, 734, 557, 1086. 
Dawson, Journals, p. 698.
Thompson, Gazetteer of Vermont, ll, 33 ff.
Goodhue, History of Shoreham, p.13.
J. Smith, 0ur Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony. L, 132
Historical Magazine of Pennsylvania, Vlll, 366-367.
Same day. Tradition, of Journey of Gershom Beach, to gather men.  History of Shoreham, p. 13.
Same day. Tradition of Noah Phelp's visit to the fort The same, pp. 12-13.

Same day. Attempt to get boats. Force II, 558;
Traditions as to same.
Gazetteer of Vermont, ll, 33.
History of Shoreham, pp, 13-16.
Modern historians on same.
Chittenden, Capture of Ticonderoga, pp. 41-42.
J. Smith, l, 133.

May 10. The number of men at Shoreham
"270 men in all, 230 of which were Green Mountain Boys."  History of Shoreham, p 13. "With two hundred and thirty valiant Green Mountain Boys," Ethan Allen, in his Narrative, p. 3: but cf. His two statements of 1775, below.

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May 10.  "About two hundred and forty," Easton. Force, II, 624."One hundred and fifty men," Arnold to Massachusetts Committee of Safety. Force, Il, 557.
"270 men, of whom 230 were Green Mountain Boys."Thompson, Gazetteer of Vermont, pt. 2, p.34.

The number that crossed.
Ethan Allen makes three statements:
1.  " I landed eighty three men." Narrative, p. 3.
2.  "I took the fortress of Ticonderoga, with about one hundred and thirty Green Mountain Boys. Colonel Easton with about forty-seven valiant soldiers distinguished themselves in the action." Force, ll, 606. May 11, 1775.

3.." About one hundred Green Mountain Boys, and near fifty veteran soldiers from the Province of the Massachusetts Bay." Force, ll, 556. May 11, 1779.

Brown's statement: "Eighty-five men." Force, II, 623.

Easton's statement: "Eighty of them crossed." Force, II, 624.

Tradition: "Only eighty three." History of Shoreham, p. 13 . 
"Allen embarked with eighty three men." Gazetteer of Vermont.

Note: there is no agreement in contemporary figures. It must be understood that the larger numbers include those who did not

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cross. Allen in 1779 says 83 crossed. Tradition settles on this, but even then is not clear as to whether the number includes the leaders. Justin Smith says, " the two Colonels and about eighty five men." L,134.

But Easton and Brown were also, present, and possibly Douglass. .See Force, ll, 556,, 1250.

May 10  On landing, did Arnold again claim command? This appears in no contemporary narrative,  but is found (first?) in History of Shoreham, p. 14.
Accepted by Justin Smith.:
Allen: "Shall…I put him under guard?"
Amos Callender: "Better go side by side." L, 134.
Allen's harangue to his men. Only in Narrative, p.3.
Young Nathan Beaman the guide. Appears in
no contemporary history, but first [?] in History of Shoreham, p. 14.
See Beaman's letter, 1835, in Historical Magazine, lll, 273.
Is printed as example of historic fable, easily discredited by its statement that Arnold was not at the capture.

The gate. Main gate shut; wicket open.
"The wicket gate aforesaid, where l found a centry posted, who [after encounter] retreated through the covered way into the parade.'' Allen's Narrative, p 3.  -cf also Browns account, Force ll, 623-624.

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The time. All accounts agree on dawn or daybreak: Allen's Narrative, and Force, II, 556, 560, 606, 624, 1086,
Except: "About four o'clock." Arnold in Force, II, 734."About half an hour after three." Feltham.Who entered first?Arnold to Mass. Comm. Safety,
"I have . . . been the first person who entered and took possession of the fort." Force, II, 557.

Letter of "Veritas."
"Colonel Arnold, who was the first person that entered the fort, [pursuing sentry] and Colonel Allen about five yards behind." [Note that Allen in his Narrative claims to be the one that pursued the sentry, and therefore to be first.] Force, II, 1087.

May 10. The encounter with the sentries.

General.
Allen to Albany Committee: " The guard did not fire on us, but fled." Force, II, 606.

Contrast with Mott (who was not there): "But two had time to snap their firelocks at us." Force, II, 560.

Brown: "Instantly secured and disarmed the sentries." Force, II, 623.

The story next separates into: (Note Allen's change from the above.)

First Sentry.

Allen: At wicket "a centry posted, who instantly snapped his fusee at me." Retreats,

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Allen pursuing. Narrative, p.3.  (cf. Veritas, above.)Easton: "The sentry . . . snapped his piece at them; our men . . . seized and confined" him. Force, ll, 624.

Second sentry.
Allen: When within the parade "one of thc centries made a pass at one of my officers with a charged bayonet, and slightly wounded him: My first thought was to kill him with my sword; but, in an instant, altered the design and fury of the blow to, a slight cut on the side of the head." Sentry, asks quarter. Narrative, pp. 3-4
Goodhue, with but one sentry,, uses this story,, adding a comb in the sentry's hair which saved his life. This " from . . . Noah Callender.... who ... saw the wound."  History of Shoreham. P. 14.
Smith and Chittenden both combine Allen and Goodhue.

May 10: Allen finds his way to the captain's quarters.
(The use of Beaman, as a guide, discredited, above.)
The only definite statement is Allen's. Note its agreement with Feltham's.
Allen granted quarter to second sentry, "and demanded of him the place where the commanding officer kept; he shewed me a pair of stairs in the front of a barrack . . . which led up to a second story." Narrative, p. 4.

Feltham: " on opening this door the bottom of the stairs was filled with the rioters and many were forcing their way up."

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The demand to open.Allen: "and ordered the commander (captain Delaplace) to come forth instantly."Narrative, p. 4."The suffix to this demand" was "by God." Supplied Lossing by Isaac Rice at age of eighty. Pictorial Field Book, I, 125.
Vermont tradition has further decorations: "old rat" (used by Justin Smith),"old skunk," and "old bastard." Commonly with the word "damned."

The demand to surrender. Four versions. . 
1.Easton's story. Never accepted. Force, II, 624.

2. Allen's. " In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress."  Narrative, p. 4.

3. "Veritas," putting the demand in Arnold's mouth. "And went himself, with Colonel Allen, to the commanding officer, Captain Delaplace, and desired him to deliver up his arms, and he might expect to be treated like a gentleman; which he immediately complied with." Force, ll, 1087.

4. Feltham's. Varies much from Allen's. In its statement that Allen and Arnold were together, and in its "Mr. Arnold begged it in a genteel manner," Feltham's story comes nearest to that of "Veritas."

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APPENDIX lV

COMPARATIVE VALUE OF THE TESTIMONY OF ALLEN AND ARNOLD.

Had there been agreement in the testimony of these two, the story of the capture of Ticonderoga would be easy to decipher. But the two disagree, either by differing statements or by implication. Studying their statements, it is difficult not to believe that, had not Arnold turned out to be a traitor, and Allen the hero of Vermont, the statements of Arnold would have been accepted rather than those of Allen, for the reason that Arnold's statements are the more consistent with each other, and give credit to his rival, whereas the statements of Allen vary widely, and except in one instance completely ignore Arnold. Note that:

1. Arnold steadily either claims or implies a joint command.

A. Letter to Continental Congress, in Force, II, 734. " I met one Colonel Allen, with about one hundred men, raised at the instance of some gentlemen from Connecticut, who [Qy: .Allen, or the Connecticut men?] agreed we should take a joint command of the troops."

B. Letter to Mass. Committee of .Safety. Force,   II, 557. "On and before our taking possession here, I had agreed with Colonel Allen to issue further orders jointly.'' .After capture, Allen "positively insisted I should have no command, as I had forbidden the soldiers plundering and destroying private property.'

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Statement in regimental memorandum book, Historical Magazine of Pennsylvania, III, 366-367.
"May 10th. When Mr. Allen, finding he had a strong party, and being impatient of control, and taking umbrage at my forbidding the people to plunder, he assumed the entire command, and I was not consulted for four days."

D. The letter of " Veritas," written to contradict Easton's vainglorious story, may be regarded as coming either from Arnold or from someone very close to him. (Dated Ticonderoga, June 25. Arnold was there at that time, in the thick of controversy with everyone. See Force, ll, 1591, 1596-1599.) The letter gives the chief credit to Arnold, makes him joint commander and chief negotiator, but does not deny credit to Allen. See Appendix V.

2. Allen's figures vary very widely.
A. Report to Massachusetts Congress, in Force, II, 556.  150 men.

B. Letter to Albany committee, in Force, II, 606. 178 men. (In both A and B, about 50 men were from Massachusetts.) These two letters were of May 11, 1775.

C. Narrative, p. 3. "Two hundred and thirty valiant Green Mountain Boys." No mention of any but Vermonters.

3. In giving credit to others, Allen changes his mind

A. In report to Massachusetts Congress, May 11, he praises Easton and Brown.

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B. In 1etter to the Albany committee, the same day, he mentions Easton and says, "Colonel Arnold entered the fortress with me side by side."

In the Narrative of 1779 he gives credit to no leader but himself.

See, on the point of Ethan Allen's honesty of statement, his relations with his brother, Historical Magazine, XV (Feb. 1869), p. 126.

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APPENDIX VTHE VALUE OF "VERITAS" AS A SOURCE
An interesting question is raised by the letter signed "Veritas," dated at Ticonderoga, June 25, 1775, and controverting the claim of Easton to the chief glory in capturing the fort. Who wrote the letter, and how trustworthy are its statements? Similarly, who wrote the letter addressed to Arnold, July 3d, 1775, and purporting to be signed "by a number of the principal inhabitants," presumably of the Ticonderoga neighborhood? These, to the number of about six hundred families, addressed and thanked Arnold for his enterprise and humanity. Arnold wrote a fitting reply, and the whole was sent to the printer accompanied by an introductory note, signed "A. B." (In IV Force, American Archives, II, 1087‑ 1088.)

It is difficult to believe that six hundred families felt so indebted to Arnold (as against the claim to gratitude of the Green Mountain Boys, likewise inhabitants of that sparsely settled region) that they would address him in such fashion. It is therefore not beyond probability that "Veritas," a devoted follower of Arnold, wrote both letters. It is even conceivable that, lacking a follower of such devotion combined with literary skill, Arnold wrote the letters for the other to sign, or that he concocted the whole himself, even to the use of "A. B.," his initials reversed, appended to the introductory note. The newspapers of those days were full of communications signed with initials, and particularly of those signed with some Latin word or

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Roman name. Whether or not Arnold wrote the whole, he is very likely to, have been in close touch with the writer or writers, for the following reasons.
At Ticonderoga, through late May and June, there was plenty of controversy' between Arnold and those about him, whether they were the original group who took the forts, or those who later were sent up from Connecticut or Massachusetts. He had gathered a little party round himself: and when finally he was relieved from his command, and commissioners were sent up from Massachusetts to look; into, his conduct of affairs, his resentment was intense, and his actions insubordinate. A future biographer of Arnold, wishing to, trace the development of his later treachery, could very well point to, this period of his life, to show what he could do when his anger was roused by what he conceived be ingratitude and unfairness. It is true that most of the statements made at the time came from those opposed to him; and also true that his letter of resignation, of June 24, is not intemperate. (See IV Force, II, 1592, 1598.) But Arnold conceived himself to be badly treated, and while he may not have written the Ietters in question, he may very well have inspired them, partly to defend himself, partly to strike at Easton, who in addition to trying try take to himself the glory of the capture of Ticonderoga, was again in the region, high in favor with those who were against Arnold. In fact, on the 3rd of July, Easton was appointed second in command, under the new commander, Hinman. (IV Force, II, 1596).

Letters written under such circumstances would naturally belittle Easton, and give to Arnold as much glory as possible. Accordingly, it is not surprising to, find that the letter of "Veritas" makes Arnold joint commander at the capture, makes him cross the lake first (which is very difficult to believe) makes him enter the fort first, and makes him the chief negotiator at Delaplace's surrender. In addition

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to thus making sure that Easton's story should not be believed, the letter tells the tale of the kicking, a story which is likewise found in Arnold's so-called "regimental memorandum book," earlier referred to.

The letter signed "A. 13." makes no reference to Easton, but it gives Arnold the credit of concerting the capture of Ticonderoga when on his march from New Haven to Cambridge, it makes the claim that he reduced the fortress, and it states that his enemies have been misrepresenting him.

All this is interesting as speculation, to which a reasonable conclusion is that whether Arnold wrote the letters himself, or whether they were written under his influence by some unknown follower, their truth is not affected. Making allowances for personal feeling, if the statements are reasonable in themselves, and if they are, in whole or in part, borne out by other evidence, they have in themselves value as evidence. As regards the capture of the fort, the letter of "Veritas," corroborating Feltham's report in the particulars of the joint command and Arnold's conciliatory bearing, is itself corroborated in return, and cannot entirely lose standing as giving proof as to the events of the capture. Moreover the reasonableness of the joint command is in itself the cause of a belief in Arnold's claim, in the face of controversy against it for many years.

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The End.