On this day 250 years ago on Lake Champlain, the British fleet caught up with the American fleet fleeing south. The day before the crew of the gondola Spitfire abandoned the boat and it sunk from the damage it had received in the Battle of Valcour Island, and the crew of the cutter Lee ran it aground in the Onion River (now the Winooski River in Vermont) and set it on fire but the fire went out and the British later captured the cutter. Before the British could catch up, the crew of the gondola New Jersey abandoned their leaking boat on the New York shore and fled on foot, but the British found the boat at the end of the day and repaired it later. The British ships first captured the row galley Washington and its commander Brig. Gen. David Waterbury and crew of about 60 men. They then caught up with Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold on board the row galley Congress at Split Rock only twelve miles north of safety at the American outpost of Crown Point. For two and a half hours Arnold and his crew of 80 men armed with only 8 cannon and 10 swivel guns battled the much larger British ships Inflexible, Maria and Carleton and their heavier 44 cannons. During the running battle the Congress was surrounded by the British warships. The battle overtook the slower American gondolas Boston, Providence, New Haven and Connecticut and Arnold ordered all five boats into Ferris Bay (now called Arnold Bay, Vermont) which was too shallow for the larger British ships to follow, and there set them afire. With the American Grand Union flag still proudly flying on each boat, the Congress exploded and all four gondolas burned.
The Americans under Arnold returned to Fort Ticonderoga on foot and most of the other American soldiers who abandoned their boats also eventually made their way back to Ticonderoga although some were captured. Four American boats — the 12-gun sloop Enterprise carrying the wounded, the 10-gun row galley Trumbull, the 8-gun schooner Revenge, and only one of the 3-gun gondolas (the New York) — made it to Ticonderoga. The fierce fights of Arnold and the men under his command on October 11 and 13 enabled the escape of these men and boats and more importantly delayed the British invasion from Canada to the following year.
However, at least four Continental Army soldiers on board the Congress were killed in the naval battle on this day 250 years ago. Some sources record that 20 men of the Congress were killed in the battles on October 11 and 13, and that total American losses on those two days amounted to 200. But as I posted two days ago, I have identified the names of only three men killed on October 11, 1776 and none of those killed on October 13. All of these men should be honored for their sacrifice and I hope further research will reveal some of their names.
The wrecks of several of the American boats that fought at Valcour Island have been recovered and can be visited today. If you visit the remains of the Philadelphia, Royal Savage, Revenge, or take a virtual tour of the Spitfire ,please think of the men who bravely manned these vessels.
Sources: Nelson, Benedict Arnold’s Navy at 312-20; https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/10/recently-discovered-letters-shed-new-light-battle-valcour-island/;https://americanhistory.si.edu/press/fact-sheets/gunboat-philadelphia; https://www.history.navy.mil/news-and-events/news/2026/Royal_Savage-A_Legacy_Preserved.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Revenge_(1776); https://www.lcmm.org/archaeology/shipwrecks/revolutionary-war-gunboat-spitfire/
