Battle of Valcour Island - Prelude

Prelude

During their retreat from Quebec, the Americans carefully took or destroyed all ships on Lake Champlain that might prove useful to the British. When Arnold and his troops, making up the rear guard of the army, abandoned Fort Saint-Jean, they burned or sank all the boats they could not use, and set fire to the sawmill and the fort. These actions effectively denied the British any hope of immediately moving onto the lake.

The two sides set about building fleets: the British at Saint-Jean and the Americans at the other end of the lake in Skenesborough (present-day Whitehall, New York). While planning Quebec's defenses in 1775, General Carleton had anticipated the problem of transportation on Lake Champlain, and had requested the provisioning of prefabricated ships from Europe. By the time Carleton's army reached Saint-Jean, ten such ships had arrived. These ships and more were assembled by skilled shipwrights on the upper Richelieu River. Also assembled there was HMS Inflexible, a 180-ton warship they disassembled at Quebec City and transported upriver in pieces. In total, the British fleet (25 armed vessels) had more firepower than the Americans' 15 vessels, with more than 80 guns outweighing the 74 smaller American guns. Two of Carleton's ships, Inflexible (18 12-pounders) and HMS Thunderer (six 24-pound guns, six 12-pound guns, and two howitzers), by themselves outgunned the combined firepower of the American fleet. In addition to Inflexible and Thunderer, the fleet included the schooners Maria (14 guns), Carleton (12 guns), and Loyal Convert (6 guns), and 20 single-masted gunboats each armed with two cannons.

The American generals leading their shipbuilding effort encountered a variety of challenges. Shipwright was not a common occupation in the relative wilderness of upstate New York, and the Continental Navy had to pay extremely high wages to lure skilled craftsmen away from the coast. The carpenters hired to build boats on Lake Champlain were the best-paid employees of the navy, excepting only the Navy's Commodore, Esek Hopkins. By the end of July there were more than 200 shipwrights at Skenesborough. In addition to skilled help, materials and supplies specific to maritime use needed to be brought to Skenesborough, where the ships were constructed, or Fort Ticonderoga, where they were fitted out for use.

The shipbuilding at Skenesborough was overseen by Hermanus Schuyler (possibly a relation of Major General Philip Schuyler), and the outfitting was managed by military engineer Jeduthan Baldwin. Schuyler began work in April to produce boats larger and more suitable for combat than the small shallow-draft boats known as bateaux that were used for transport on the lake. The process eventually came to involve General Arnold, who was an experienced ship's captain, and David Waterbury, a Connecticut militia leader with maritime experience. Major General Horatio Gates, in charge of the entire shipbuilding effort, eventually asked Arnold to take more responsibility in the effort, because "I am intirely uninform'd as to Marine Affairs."

Arnold took up the task with relish, and Gates rewarded him with command of the fleet, writing that " has a perfect knowledge in maritime affairs, and is, besides, a most gallant and deserving officer." Arnold's appointment was not without trouble; Jacobus Wynkoop, who had been in command of the fleet, refused to accept that Gates had authority over him, and had to be arrested. The shipbuilding was significantly slowed in mid-August by an outbreak of disease among the shipwrights. Although the army leadership had been scrupulous about keeping smallpox sufferers segregated from others, the disease that slowed the shipbuilding for several weeks was some kind of fever.

While both sides busied themselves with shipbuilding, the growing American fleet patrolled the waters of Lake Champlain. At one point in August, Arnold sailed part of the fleet to the northern-most end of the lake, within 20 miles (32 km) of Saint-Jean, and formed a battle line. A British outpost, well out of range, fired a few shots at the line without effect. On September 30, expecting the British to sail soon, Arnold retreated to the shelter of Valcour Island. During his patrols of the lake Arnold had commanded the fleet from the schooner Royal Savage, carrying 12 guns and captained by David Hawley. When it came time for the battle, Arnold transferred his flag to Congress, a row galley. Other ships in the fleet included Revenge and Liberty, also two-masted schooners carrying 8 guns, as well as Enterprise, a sloop (12 guns), and 8 gundalows outfitted as gunboats (each with three guns): New Haven, Providence, Boston, Spitfire, Philadelphia, Connecticut, Jersey, New York, the cutter Lee, and the row galleys Trumbull and Washington. Liberty was not present at the battle, having been sent to Ticonderoga for provisions.

Arnold, whose business activities before the war had included sailing ships to Europe and the West Indies, carefully chose the site where he wanted to meet the British fleet. Reliable intelligence he received on October 1 indicated that the British had a force significantly more powerful than his. Because his force was inferior, he chose the narrow, rocky body of water between the western shore of Lake Champlain and Valcour Island (near modern Plattsburgh, New York), where the British fleet would have difficulty bringing its superior firepower to bear, and where the inferior seamanship of his relatively unskilled sailors would have a minimal negative effect. Some of Arnold's captains wanted to fight in open waters where they might be able to retreat to the shelter of Fort Crown Point, but Arnold argued that the primary purpose of the fleet was not survival but the delay of a British advance on Crown Point and Ticonderoga.