Analysis Of The Capture Of Fort Ticonderoga

The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga:
British Failures in Intelligence The paper is a battle analysis of the American colonists’ capture of Fort Ticonderoga in the northern New York colony on 10 May, 1775. Colonels Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys captured the fort from Captain William De Laplace and Lieutenant Jocelyn Feltham of the 26th Regiment of Foot (Ward, 1952). It also discuss where the British forces failed to use their contemporary intelligence capabilities to thwart the attack. The “battle” was the first American victory of the American Revolution. The lack of British intelligence capabilities like human intelligence, counterintelligence, Calvary Scouts and key assumptions analysis at Fort Ticonderoga, led

The fort allowed the travel of troops from Canada into the American colonies with no resistance. John Brown, another American patriot who carried messages between American sympathizers in Montreal and those in Boston, also commented on both the importance the fort and it condition saying “one thing I must mention to be kept as a profound Secret, the Fort at Tyconderogo must be seised as soon as possible should hostilities be committed by the kings Troops (Phillips, 2012, p. 21).” The colonists were not the only ones who noted that Ticonderoga was of importance. British General Thomas Gage realized after the battles at Lexington and Concord that the fort would be important to the colonists, and wrote to Quebec’s governor, General Guy Carleton, to fortify the fort and make improvements. Unfortunately the letter arrive after the fort was already taken into control by the American colonists. (Gage,

He noted that the fort was in disarray as well as the armaments of the fort and its garrison and he took this information to comrade of his (Randall, 1990). The comrade told this information to the Connecticut Committee of Correspondence who commissioned a force to take possession of the fort and its contents. The Massachusetts Committee of Safety later commissioned Arnold as a Colonel and ordered him to take the fort (Nelson, 2000). All while this was happening, Ethan Allen had recruited more than 150 men, known as the Green Mountain Boys, to undertake the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and was nominated as Colonel (Smith, 1907). Arnold met Allen and his Green Mountain Boys at Castleton in the Hampshire Grants, a day’s ride southeast from the opposite shore of Ticonderoga. One of the officers, Captain Noah Phelps performed recon on Ticonderoga. He reported that the fort walls were battered and broken-down, that the garrison commander had informed him they would have reinforcements soon (Randall, 1990). Wanting to beat the reinforcements there, Allen and Arnold formed a plan immediately to take the fort the very next day. Allen had already sent men to commandeer boats for the crossing to Ticonderoga. The British failed to note the indications of an attack on the