USS Revenge ( 1776 ) The first USS " Revenge " was a sloop - of - war in the Continental Navy . " Revenge " was built in the summer of 1776 by Colonel Jeduthan Baldwin at Fort Ticonderoga , New York . The schooner , commanded by a Captain Seaman , joined the flotilla commanded by General Benedict Arnold at Crown Point . She got underway at sunset on 24 August and headed north along the New York shore of Lake Champlain . Two days later , when " Connecticut " lost a mast during a storm , " Revenge " towed the damaged gundalow out of danger of grounding . In the weeks that followed , the ships maneuvered on the lake enabling the green crews , for the most part made up of landsmen , to learn the ways of the sea . Meanwhile , the British were building a fleet farther north , and were preparing to challenge Arnold for control of the lake . Naval supremacy would enable the King ' s troops assembled in Canada to drive down the strategic Lake Champlain - Hudson River corridor to New York . Success of this British strategy would cut the American colonies in two , beginning a dismemberment process by which the " redcoats " could defeat the " rebels " in detail and restore Royal authority in North America . The two forces met on 11 October in the Battle of Valcour Island , fought in the strait between Valcour Island and the lake ' s western shore where Arnold had stationed his ships . In the action , the outgunned Americans suffered a tactical defeat , but won a great strategic victory by delaying the British advance for a year - a year in which the Americans strengthened their Army enough to capture General Burgoyne ' s expeditionary force at Saratoga . After the battle of Valcour Island , " Revenge " and the other remaining American ships retired farther up the lake . Only " Revenge " , another schooner , two galleys , and a sloop reached the protection of Fort Ticonderoga . She remained on the upper lake until she was taken early in July 1777 when a British force under General Burgoyne captured Fort Ticonderoga . However , some sources indicate that the schooner may have been burned and sunk to prevent capture . Disposition . The August / September 1909 issue of " The Vermonter " magazine ( page 238 ) includes a photo of the remains of a ship with a caption , " The Revenge , one of the battleships of Benedict Arnold ' s fleet . - This vessel , with two others , escaped to shelter of Fort Ticonderoga , after a running battle with a superior British force in 1776 . In January 1909 , it was recovered from the lake bottom and is now on exhibition near the lake shore at Fort Ticonderoga . " Included is also this short description , excerpted from a tercentenary tour of the lake by dignitaries aboard the steamboat " Ticonderoga " ( now on display at the Shelburne Museum ) , which says , " Ashore in the shadow of Ti ' s high bluff - we come upon a curious relic - a water - beaten hulk , some fifty feet long , ribs and planking quite intact , set on piers and surrounded by a fence . This is placarded as the schooner Revenge , one of Arnold ' s fleet escaped to shelter of the Fort in ' 76 , to be burned and sunk by Col . Brown the following year . " That reference in " The Vermonter " presumably refers to the Col . John Brown , whose destruction of ships is mentioned in a plaque honoring him , erected in 1935 by the Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America and located in Fort Ticonderoga , which reads , " Col . John Brown of Pittsfield , Mass . killed October 19th , 1780 at Stone Arabia , N . Y . on his thirty - fifth birthday . Was with Ethan Allen , May 10th , 1775 . Made a gallant attempt to retake the fort September 17th to 22nd , 1777 but failed owing to the sturdy defence of Brig . Gen . Henry W . Powell . Colonel Brown destroyed the shipping and outer works , captured 225 British and Germans and released 100 American prisoners . "