The Battle of Valcour Island was one of the first naval battles of the American Revolutionary War. Most of the ships in the American fleet under the command of Benedict Arnold were captured or destroyed by a British force. The American defense of Lake Champlain stalled British plans to reach the upper Hudson River valley. Valcour Bay, the site of the battle, is now a National Historic Landmark, as is Philadelphia, which sank shortly after the October 11 battle.
About Battle of Valcour Island in brief
The Battle of Valcour Island was one of the first naval battles of the American Revolutionary War. 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. The American defense of Lake Champlain stalled British plans to reach the upper Hudson River valley. Valcour Bay, the site of the battle, is now a National Historic Landmark, as is Philadelphia, which sank shortly after the October 11 battle, and was raised in 1935. The underwater site of Spitfire, located in 1997, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The British fleet included four officers who later became admirals in the Royal Navy: Thomas Pringle, James Dacres, Edward Pellew, and John Schank. The Continental Army had retreated from Quebec to Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Crown Point in June 1776 after British forces were massively reinforced. On October 11, Arnold drew the British fleet to a position he had carefully chosen to limit their advantages. In the battle that followed, many of theAmerican ships were damaged or destroyed. Unfavorable weather hampered the American retreat, and more of the fleet was either captured or grounded and burned before it could reach Crown Point. Upon reaching Crown Point Arnold had the fort’s buildings burned and retreated to Ticondoga. The Battle of Quebec began in April 1775 with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and widened in September 1775 when the Continental Army embarked on an invasion of the British Province of Quebec.
The province was viewed by the Second Continental Congress as a potential avenue for British forces to attack and divide the rebellious colonies. The invasion reached a peak on December 31, 1775, when the Battle ofQuebec ended in disaster for the Americans. The only ships on the lake following the retreat were a small American fleet of ships that Benedict Arnold had assembled following the capture of Fort Tonderoga in May 1775. This fleet, even if it had been in British hands, was too small to transport troops and supplies from the British-controlled St. Lawrence Valley to the north. This strategy would separate the American colonies of New England from those farther south and potentially quash the rebellion. The U.S. Navy’s first ship, the USS Philadelphia, was built in 1776 and launched in 1777. It was the first ship to be commissioned by the United States Navy. The USS Philadelphia was sunk in 1935, and is now on the National Register of Historic Places, as was the British battleship, HMS Spitfire. The battle is one of only a handful of naval battles that took place in the Revolutionary War, and it is considered to be the first to be fought by the American Navy. It took place on October 10, 1776, in a narrow strait between the New York mainland and Val Cour Island. The Americans, during their retreat, had either taken or destroyed most of the Ships on theLake Champlain, but the British had built a fleet to carry it on the Lake.
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This page is based on the article Battle of Valcour Island published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
