Who Won The Battle Of Fort Ticonderoga

The question sounds simple. Who won the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga?*

Here's the thing — there wasn't just one battle. There were three major ones, plus a handful of raids and skirmishes, spread across two different wars. Think about it: the answer depends entirely on which year you're asking about. And if you only know the 1775 version, you're missing half the story.

What Is Fort Ticonderoga

Before we get into who won what, let's place the fort itself. It sits at a narrows on Lake Champlain, where the lake meets Lake George. Control that spot, and you control the water highway between Canada and the Hudson River Valley. Worth adding: the French knew this. The British knew this. The Americans figured it out fast.

Originally built by the French as Fort Carillon in 1755, it was a star-shaped stone fortress — imposing on paper, but vulnerable to high ground. Which means the British captured it in 1759 and renamed it Ticonderoga. By 1775, it was a crumbling garrison with a few dozen redcoats and a lot of artillery.

That artillery is why anyone cared.

Why It Matters

The guns at Ticonderoga changed the Revolutionary War before a single shot was fired at Boston.

Henry Knox dragged 59 cannons and mortars 300 miles through winter snow and ice to Dorchester Heights. No Ticonderoga guns, no evacuation of Boston. Washington used them to force the British out of Boston in March 1776. Maybe no Continental Army survival through that first winter.

But the fort itself? It changed hands three times in four years. Each transfer tells you something about the war — logistics, leadership, terrain, and the gap between strategy on paper and reality on the ground.

How It Went Down: Three Battles, Three Different Winners

The 1775 Capture — American Victory (Sort Of)

May 10, 1775. In real terms, ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold — two men who barely tolerated each other — led about 80 men across Lake Champlain in the dark. They caught the British garrison completely asleep. Allen supposedly shouted "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!But the sentry's musket misfired. Dawn. Literally. " though he later admitted he said something closer to "Come out, you damned rascals!

Captain William Delaplace surrendered without a fight. Zero casualties on either side. The Americans walked away with 78 cannons, 6 mortars, 3 howitzers, and tons of shot and powder.

Winner: The Americans. But it wasn't a battle. It was a surprise raid against a skeleton crew that had no idea war had started at Lexington and Concord three weeks earlier.

Allen got the glory. Think about it: arnold got the paperwork. The Continental Congress got the artillery. And the fort? The Americans held it — barely — for two years.

The 1777 Siege — British Victory

Summer 1777. That's why his plan: split the colonies by controlling the Hudson corridor. General John Burgoyne marched south from Canada with 8,000 men. Ticonderoga was the first major obstacle.

The American commander, Arthur St. And clair, had maybe 3,000 fit men. The fatal flaw: Mount Defiance, a steep hill south of the fort that commanded the entire position. The fort's defenses were stronger on paper than in reality. The Americans hadn't fortified it — too steep, they thought, for artillery.

Burgoyne's engineers disagreed. Every officer voted to abandon the position. Also, by July 5, British cannon looked down into the fort's parade ground. St. They dragged guns up Mount Defiance in two nights. Clair held a council of war. That night, the garrison slipped away via a pontoon bridge and the lake road.

No siege lines. On top of that, no assault. The Americans evacuated. No surrender ceremony. The British walked in.

Winner: The British. But it was a hollow victory. Burgoyne's army got bogged down chasing the retreating Americans, lost men at Hubbardton and Bennington, and eventually surrendered at Saratoga three months later. Holding Ticonderoga didn't save his campaign — it just gave him a base he couldn't supply.

The 1777 Brown's Raid — American Raid, Not a Battle

September 1777. With Burgoyne stalled at Saratoga, Colonel John Brown led 500 men in a surprise attack on the British-held fort. That said, they captured the outer works, freed 100 American prisoners, and took 293 British prisoners — but couldn't take the main fort. They withdrew after four days.

Winner: Inconclusive. The British kept the fort. The Americans embarrassed them. Neither side shifted the strategic picture.

Want to learn more? We recommend how many days until nov 21 and are there any women navy seals for further reading.

The 1758 Battle of Carillon — French Victory (Different War)

Worth mentioning because it's the bloodiest fight ever at this location. On the flip side, july 8, 1758. French and Indian War. General James Abercrombie threw 16,000 British and colonial troops against 4,000 French defenders behind log breastworks on the heights of Carillon. No artillery preparation. Just frontal assaults into musket fire.

The British lost nearly 2,000 men. Abercrombie retreated. The French lost around 400. The French held the fort for another year.

Winner: The French. But they blew up the powder magazine and abandoned it in 1759 when Amherst arrived with a proper siege train.

Common Mistakes / What Most People Get Wrong

Mistake 1: Thinking there was only one battle.
Most people know the 1775 capture. They don't know the 1777 evacuation, and they definitely don't know the 1758 slaughter. The name "Battle of Fort Ticonderoga" is ambiguous by itself.

Mistake 2: Assuming the 1775 capture was a major military engagement.
It wasn't. It was a coup de main against a peacetime garrison. The real military achievement was Knox's haul — moving that artillery across mountains in winter. That's the part that mattered.

Mistake 3: Believing the fort was impregnable.
It never was. The French lost it. The British lost it. The Americans lost it. The terrain around it — especially Mount Defiance and Mount Independence — made the fort itself a death trap if the enemy had time and artillery. Every commander who tried to hold it against a serious siege failed.

Mistake 4: Confusing Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold's roles.
Allen led the Green Mountain Boys. Arnold had a commission from Massachusetts. They argued the whole way.

They argued the whole way. In practice, " — a line he almost certainly never said — while Arnold's contribution gets reduced to a footnote. Plus, allen's men did the fighting; Arnold provided the paperwork. Both men claimed credit. Even so, history remembers Allen's "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress! Neither commanded the other.

Mistake 5: Overlooking Mount Independence.
Across the lake on the Vermont shore, the Americans built a massive fortified complex in 1776–77 — batteries, hospitals, storehouses, a bridge connecting it to Ticonderoga. It was the real defensive anchor. When St. Clair evacuated Ticonderoga, he tried to hold Mount Independence too. The British outflanked both. The peninsula's ruins today are more extensive than the fort's, yet visitors rarely cross the water to see them.

Mistake 6: Treating the fort as a static monument.
Ticonderoga was rebuilt, renamed, blown up, abandoned, and reconstructed multiple times. The stone walls tourists walk today are largely a 20th-century restoration by the Pell family, begun in 1909. The original French masonry survives only in fragments. The fort you see is a museum, not a survivor.

Why It Matters

Strip away the myths and Ticonderoga reveals the war's central truth: geography dictates strategy, but logistics decides outcomes.

Here's the thing about the French built Carillon to control the portage between Lake George and Lake Champlain — the invasion route between Canada and the Hudson Valley. That's why the British retook it but couldn't supply it from the north. The British seized it to deny that route. The Americans captured it for its guns, then lost it because they couldn't defend the high ground around it. Every power that held it faced the same problem: a fortress at the end of a 100-mile wilderness supply line, dominated by heights they didn't have the men to occupy.

The artillery Knox dragged to Boston forced the British evacuation of that city — the Continental Army's first strategic victory. In real terms, the 1777 evacuation saved St. Clair's army to fight at Saratoga. That said, brown's raid distracted British forces during the Saratoga campaign. Even the 1758 slaughter taught the British Army lessons about frontal assaults they forgot and relearned at Bunker Hill.

Ticonderoga was never the decisive battle. In practice, it was the decisive terrain — a choke point that shaped every campaign in the northern theater. The fort itself changed hands six times in twenty years. The ground beneath it decided the war.

Today, the reconstructed walls stand quiet above Lake Champlain. The strategic logic remains visible to anyone who climbs the heights and looks north and south along the lake: whoever holds the high ground controls the water. Mount Independence's earthworks sleep under Vermont forest. The portage path is a hiking trail. Mount Defiance looms west, still unfortified. Whoever controls the water controls the continent.

The fort was just the building in the middle. The ground was the weapon.