page_title: Battle of Valcour Island
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Valcour Island / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. See Copyright. Note: This only applies to works of the Federal Government and not to the work of any individual U.S. state, territory, commonwealth, county, municipality, or any other subdivision. English: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. See Copyright. Note: This only applies to works of the Federal Government and not to the work of any individual U.S. state, territory, commonwealth, county, municipality, or any other subdivision.
context_page_description: The Battle of Valcour Island, also known as the Battle of Valcour Bay, was a naval engagement that took place on October 11, 1776, on Lake Champlain. The main action took place in Valcour Bay, a narrow strait between the New York mainland and Valcour Island. The battle is generally regarded as one of the first naval battles of the American Revolutionary War, and one of the first fought by the United States Navy. Most of the ships in the American fleet under the command of Benedict Arnold were captured or destroyed by a British force under the overall direction of General Guy Carleton. However, the American defense of Lake Champlain stalled British plans to reach the upper Hudson River valley.
  The Continental Army had retreated from Quebec to Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Crown Point in June 1776 after British forces were massively reinforced. They spent the summer of 1776 fortifying those forts and building additional ships to augment the small American fleet already on the lake. General Carleton had a 9,000 man army at Fort Saint-Jean, but needed to build a fleet to carry it on the lake. The Americans, during their retreat, had either taken or destroyed most of the ships on the lake.
context_section_description: In the 1930s, Lorenzo Hagglund, a veteran of World War I and a history buff, began searching the strait for remains of the battle. In 1932 he found the remains of Royal Savage's hull, which he successfully raised in 1934. Stored for more than fifty years, the remains were sold by his son to the National Civil War Museum. As of March 2009, the remains were in a city garage in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The city of Plattsburgh, New York, has claimed ownership of the remains and would like them returned to upstate New York.
  In 1935 Hagglund followed up his discovery of Royal Savage with the discovery of Philadelphia's remains, sitting upright on the lake bottom. He raised her that year; she is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated a National Historic Landmark.  The site of the battle, Valcour Bay, was declared a National Historic Landmark on January 1, 1961, and added to the National Register on October 15, 1966.
  In 1997 another pristine underwater wreck was located during a survey by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. Two years later it was conclusively identified as the gundalow Spitfire; this site was listed on the National Register in 2008, and it has been named as part of the U.S. government's Save America's Treasures program.
caption: Philadelphia was raised in 1935. It is on display at the National Museum of American History
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