page_title: Saratoga campaign
section_title: Attack on Ticonderoga
hierarchical_section_title: Saratoga campaign / Saratoga / Attack on Ticonderoga
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Benjamin Lincoln by Charles Willson Peale. Probably painted during Lincoln's term as Secretary of War before October 13, 1784. Listed in the 1795 Peale Museum catalog. Purchased by the City of Philadelphia at the 1854 Peale Museum sale.
context_page_description: The Saratoga campaign in 1777 was an attempt by the British high command for North America to gain military control of the strategically important Hudson River valley during the American Revolutionary War. It ended in the surrender of the British army, which historian Edmund Morgan argues, "was a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory."
  The primary thrust of the campaign was planned and initiated by General John Burgoyne. Commanding a main force of some 8,000 men, he moved south in June from Quebec, boated up Lake Champlain to middle New York, then marched over the divide and down the Hudson Valley to Saratoga. He initially skirmished there with the Patriot defenders with mixed results. Then, after losses in the Battles of Saratoga in September and October, his deteriorating position and the ever-increasing size of the American army forced him to surrender his forces to the American general Horatio Gates on October 17.
  In this critical British loss on the field of battle, the coordinated movements that had been drawn up in far away London did not materialize. Colonel Barry St.
context_section_description: Unknown to either side at Saratoga until after the battle, General Lincoln and Colonel John Brown had staged an attack against the British position at Fort Ticonderoga.  Lincoln had collected 2,000 men at Bennington by early September.  After marching north to Pawlet, they received word that the guard at Ticonderoga might be susceptible to surprise.  Lincoln sent three detachments of 500 men each to "annoy, divide, and distract the enemy."  One went to Skenesboro, which was found to be abandoned by the British.  The second went to capture Mount Independence on the east side of Lake Champlain, while the third, led by John Brown, made the approach to Ticonderoga.
  On the morning of September 18, Brown surprised the British defenders at the southern end of the portage trail connecting Lake George to Lake Champlain.  Rapidly moving up the trail his men continued to surprise British defenders and capture artillery pieces until they reached the height of land just before Ticonderoga, where they occupied the "old French lines" (so named because it was there that a French defense improbably held against a much larger British army in the 1758 Battle of Carillon).  On the way he rescued 100 American prisoners (thus increasing the size of his force) and captured nearly 300 British.  His demand for the fort's surrender was refused, and for the next four days Brown's men and the fort exchanged cannon fire, to little effect.  Since he had insufficient manpower to actually assault the fort, Brown then withdrew to Lake George, where he made an unsuccessful attempt to capture a storage depot on an island in the lake.
  General Gates wrote to Lincoln on the day of Freeman's Farm, ordering his force back to Saratoga and that "not one moment should be lost".  Lincoln reached Bemis Heights on September 22, but the last of his troops did not arrive until the 29th.
caption: General Benjamin Lincoln, portrait by Charles Willson Peale
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