The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1875-05-15
The Ticonderoga Centennial.

The celebration on Monday the 10th at
Ticonderoga of the hundredth anniversary
of the surrender of the fort to Ethan Allen
was by no means sensational one. The
crowd was not very great, the orations very
long, nor the orators very distinguished.
Though the scene of the celebration was in
New York the triumph commemorated was
achieved by the men of Vermont,
Possibly if we were to consider the sur
render of Ticonderoga with a strict regard
to historical exactness or in a popular as
pect we might come to the conclusion-and
the same test applied to Bunker Hill might
involve our arriving at that conclusion too
that a celebration of the event could
hardly be expected to evoke more than a
localinterest and enthusiasm. The three
cardinal events of Revolutionary history,
according to the popular appreciation, are
the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord,
the Declaration of Independence and the
surrender of CORVALLIS. The Boston Tea
Party, the capture of Ticonderoga, the as
sault on Quebec, these are episodes COM
manding more or loss attention, but not an
abiding and general appreciation. Read
ing at this remote date the completed histo-
ry OF the struggle, we can weigh with &C
curacy the consequences and influence of
such events as that commemorated on Mon
day, and that is process inevitably fatal
to illusion and enthusiasm. Granting the
gallantry Of the little band from the New
Hampshire Grants and the importance of
Tho tba,v aHaokol - 10
ded that the carelessnesss of their enemy
contributed quite as much as their own
courage and devotion to the result of their
enterprise. What the material effect OF
the one hundred and odd guns taken there
may have been in our subsequent sieges
and battles, and what the moral effect of
De La Places surprise and surrender, it
would not be very easy to determine-per-
haps not over profitable to inquire An
effective and fanciful analogy between this
surrender at the beginning of the
Revolution of English troops to a
body of Continentals, and the capitula-
ton Of the larger body at Yorktown
at its close. might be run by an ambitious
local orator, but after all it is our habit to
dwarf our Revolutionary fore-fathers' so
as to increase their merit, and, consequent
ly, our own. A hardy frontier population,
descended from a people eminently war
like, accustomed to the use of arms, many
OF its members veterans of the French
war, fighting for its homes and on ground
with which it was thoroughly acquainted -
it is in violation Of historical fact TO assume
that such population required particu-
lar share OF human virtue or divine assist
ance to enable it to conquer its independ-
ence. If the history of Ticonderago in
this particular case shows more of the
matter-of.fact and less of the miraculous
than some enthusiasts would fam have us
admit, that, however, does not impair its
Importance.
Ticonderaga's was q history of sieges
and fights. There in 1909, eleven years
before the landing of the Pilgrims, Cham
plain engaged the lroquois in battle. AS
one OF the chain of posts, stretching from
the Mississippi to the st. Lawrence, de-
signed to hem the English settlements in
between the Alleghanies and the sea-
coast, it was a military position to be
fought for, and after much effusion of
blood and treasure was yielded to the En-
glish IN 1859, falling naturally with the
fall of Quebec, Sixteen years later it
passed into American hands, to be yielded
without blow-was there anything in its
air fatal to the courage and capacity of its
commanders that they always surrendered
Tito Burgoyne, in l777, to be abandon
ed by its garrison after his defeat, and f.
nally to be once more occupied by the En-.
glish under Haldeman, in 1880.
Ethan Aliens enterprise is familiar to
every American. The Provincial Legisla-
ture OF Connecticut, it is true, commission
ed him to capture it, just as the Com
mittee Of Safety of Massachusetts author.
lied Arnold to surprise Ticonderaga and
Crown Point, but Vermont-then the New
Hampshire Grants-furnished the man
and great majority of the men, all those
actually engaged, so what of success and
triumph there were fell legitimately to the
share of the Green Mountain State. His
force reduced to eighty or eighty three men
by the absence of detachments sent out to
seize boats upon the lake, Allen announc-
ed his intention to attempt the place. All
his men volunteered to follow him. He
led them in person to the gate; the sentinel
snapped his gun and ran away; the
Americans ran iu and gave three cheers,
which was the first intimstion that the