American History Hit - The Battle of Valcour Island

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

The first naval engagement of the American War of Independence took place on Lake Champlain, which straddles modern-day New York state and Vermont and extends into Canada. Marine archaeologist Art Cohn tells Don how the British and American forces raced to build their fleets in the summer of 1776 and ultimately clashed in October. Both sides knowing that control of the lake meant access to the heart of the colonies and would be key to the outcome of the entire war.Produced by Benjie Guy. Mixed by Anisha Deva. Senior Producer: Charlotte Long.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Today will mark their first naval engagement. Both sides understand the stakes at hand. It is the British strategy early in the war to divide and conquer, to attack from the north, and sever supply lines between New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. Whoever controls Lake Champlain, which borders New York State and present-day Vermont, extending north to Canada, then possesses clear passage to the Hudson River

and further south. For the Americans here on the water and their commander Benedict Arnold, losing Champlain could guarantee British victory. Throughout the summer, both sides worked feverishly constructing their respective forces, the British planning for invasion, the Americans for defense.

Now Arnold has chosen his field of engagement in the narrow strait between the mainland of New York and an island called Valkor. Here, they are sheltered from the strengthening autumn winds. For the moment, Arnold and his men can only hope that his strategy will give them advantage. But as the British gunboats round the southern tip of Valkor Island, they see the heavy guns drawing closer. This will be a battle on water that will have everything to do with the fate of the war on land. Hey everybody, welcome to American History Hit. I'm Don Wildman. Benedict Arnold. Though today, that name is virtually interchangeable with the word traitor. Benedict Arnold began the American Revolution as one of George Washington's most trusted and dynamic military leaders.

A fierce and courageous warrior known to follow his gut in the heat of battle. During the first years of the war, Arnold snatched notable victories from the jaws of defeat, when victories were few and far between for a continental army stretched to be. beyond its means, and being led by conservative generals, often more concerned with preserving their forces and their reputations. This determined and daring quality of Benedict Arnold made him a rising star in the ranks, while stirring contempt and derision among revolutionary leaders, some of whom considered him an obnoxious and egotistical upstart.

It was a reputation that dogged him throughout the war, despite the fact that his irascible personality was often what was needed when confronting the impossible odds. Americans faced. The questions of Benedict Arnold and his infamous treason later in the war, well, that's for a future episode, hotly debated stuff still two centuries on. For today, we're going back to his first heroic actions in the war in the autumn of 1776, when Benedict Arnold faced off against the British in one of the earliest engagements of a brand new American Navy in the placid waters of Lake Champlain at a place called Valkur Island. Let's welcome our expert for today's discussion, Art Cohn, a giant in the field of nautical archaeology,

lives up there in the great state of Vermont, overlooking Lake Champlain, where for many years, he has directed dozens of nautical archaeology projects. Today, he is an affiliated scholar with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M. Art, welcome to American History Hit. I'm delighted to be here. We're going to spend some time later in this episode talking about the fascinating underwater projects you've been doing over the years archaeologically in waters throughout the Northeast, some incredible discoveries. And one in particular that pertains directly to the subject at hand, the Battle of Valker Island. This is a conflict finally getting the attention it really deserves, yet so few people know about it. Why do you think? There's a couple of reasons, I think,

it has remained under the wrap, so to speak, historically. One is because it is directly associated with Benedict Arnold. And of course, after the war, Benedict Arnold was universally seen, and, and as a traitor to the cause. And so his exploits were not celebrated. They were erased to some extent. Also, it happened in a wilderness that did not have newspapers, where word of activities, even from the participants, took a lot of time to get to their families

and get out into the world. And also, there was a lot of other important stuff going on. Washington was now at New York City and trying to figure out just what he was going to do about that. And that really took, I think, center stage in the writings and annals of the time. I think it's important to orient everyone as to where we are in the revolution at this moment. I mean, these are early days. The battle itself will happen on October 11th, 1776, only three months out from the Declaration of Independence. So far, fighting has been happening.

mostly around Boston, Lexington Concord, all that, the Battle of Bunker Hill. Then it all sort of shifts down to New York, where things go south in more ways than one for American forces. Where is Benedict Arnold at this point in the scheme of things? I think you asked the right question. And when we look at the Battle of Alcor Island, one of the ways that I get to understand it is really as a centerpiece of a three-year episode in the early American Revolution. You really have to understand that in 1775, Benedict Arnold shows up, as did thousands of other patriots, militiamen, to support the cause that had been instigated at Concord in Lexington.

He gets Massachusetts to give him a commission to come to Lake Champlain, to seize the cannon that he believes are here and easily accessible. If you're going to fight a war, you need war materials. And he joins with Ethan Allen in a very shaky alliance to do that. And then being a mariner and understanding basic principles of warfare, he realizes that he has to try to seize the only large vessels on Lake Champlain. If you control Lake Champlain, everybody now is beginning to realize you control the invasion route, either to stop the enemy or to facilitate your own activities.

That's crucial to understanding where this battle comes from, because in the early days of the revolution, Americans viewed Canada as this sort of prime target. It was, of course, you know, the landing spot for British military forces. They have Quebec. They have Montreal up there. Naturally, the Americans fear what could be coming down from the north, but it's also a lightly defended post. So this is easy pickings for them. So once Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold have taken Fort Taekondrauga, everybody's thinking, let's go up and get this Canadian place.

And Philip Schuyler, now famous from the Hamilton musical, is one of those as well. So there becomes this sort of pincor action through the late part of 1775, in which the American forces try to go up there. Benedict Arnold is a central figure in that. That's correct. This is Arnold's greatest time period, 1775 through 1777, with the Battle of Alcon, Corr Island, really the pivot point. And so you're right, in 1775, he really is responsible for seizing control of Lake Champlain, even writes that to Congress. And so in addition to fearing what might come down from it, Arnold being bold and the fledgling United States trying to figure out how they get the best

result from this revolution, which is largely undefined, the idea. comes out, hey, look, we've got Lake Champlain. It is an invasion route. We can use it to either stop the British or we can use it to try to seize British Canada. And in fact, that became the centerpiece of the American plan in 1775. And Benedict Arnold, once again, is in the middle of that. It's kind of a preemptive action because if the British come down from Canada with forces into the Hudson Valley, as they do occupy in New York, they basically have severed off New England from the rest of the colonies and are going to win the war. I mean, that becomes a strategy that's a dangerous thing all the way throughout the entire war. The Hudson River is very

important and figures later in Benedict Arnold's story, of course. But this is the whole general strategy to prevent that from happening. And this is done by a preemptive action. So Arnold is up there having created a siege against Quebec, which also, ultimately fails in May of 1776. It fails because the British Navy has finally come over. So much of this story, so much of wartime in those days was about seasons. You know, you couldn't do anything in the winter, especially up there with the frozen lakes and so forth. You certainly had no roads through those wildernesses up there.

So things are fought in the campaigns of the spring in the summertime. So the British finally send over their Navy and break the siege against Quebec. And suddenly there is the imperative need to evacuate the American forces, those that are up there, having had been there for months and months. And Arnold and his group are responsible for that. That's how this whole battle develops, because they need to get those soldiers out, and Lake Champlain is the waterway to do it on. Well, Lake Champlain was, if you think about it, you talk about no roads. The greatest road they had were the navigable waterways. And so that Lake Champlain Hudson River Corridor,

as you so accurately suggest, was really the cherry on the top of the cake from the British strategy point of view. If we can divide the colonies in that corridor, we can stop communication, we can stop cooperation. We can really end the war very quickly if we can pull that off. And so that became the British objective early on. And so in the midst of this failed Canadian campaign, which is well worthy of a discussion of its own at some point, the American army that has been up there starving and getting sick with smallpox, falls back to Saint John, which is at the northern end of navigation in the Champlain Corridor. And they are being chased by this 10,000 man, fresh British force, British and Hessian, that got every way.

weapon of war with them to accomplish this division of the colonies. And the only thing that's stopping them is that when they get to Saint-Jean, when the Americans finally abandon British Canada, they declare that they have failed in their effort to seize British Canada. The only thing in the British path to stop them is the gunboats and warships captured the previous season that control Lake Champlain for the Americans. And so 1776 from the spring on is going to be a naval race to see who can build the biggest, most powerful fleet of warships to control that strategic waterway.

And that's where Benedict Arnold once again becomes the centerpiece of the story. Just to clarify for people who don't know this part of the world at all, Lake Champlain is a sort of north-south. It's virtually a great lake. I mean, it's a huge lake. And then above it, at the very end of it, there's a river called the Richelieu River, right? That's the outlet for Lake Champlain? Correct. And this leads directly to the St. Lawrence River. But there are obstacles in the pathway. Exactly. It would later become an interstate highway of inland transportation. But in the time of the revolution, they had not tamed the 12-months. miles of shallow rapids that existed between Saint-Jean and Chambly. And so you could take a warship from the St. Lawrence as far as Chambly or on the Lake Champlain side as far as Saint-Jean. But that 12 miles of rapids was not navigable.

And so the idea of the British simply sailing down with their already existing naval fleet was essentially impossible because of that obstruction. And so one of the things we have to give the British great credit for is the engineering design of how do we build a fleet at St. John to contest Lake Champlain when we can't actually bring our boats directly there. We have to build it essentially at St. John. And their solution to that complicated challenge is one of the, the great stories of this larger story of the Battle of Valcore Island. It features a character we have

to bring in Guy Carlton. He's the commander of forces in Canada at the time. Quite an ambitious, quite a brilliant guy, actually. And he comes up with a plan that you're referring to, which is to bring over prefabbed ships, ships built in pieces over in, I guess, England, right? That's correct. The British had been the most powerful and accomplished Navy in the world. And they showed it in some of their planning. Before that convoy was sent from Europe to relieve the forces in Quebec, they had already designed and built two classes of gunboats that were built in England, knocked down to their component parts, kits, if you will, loaded onto those transports and brought to Quebec, knowing that there was going to be fighting for control of the lakes.

And then it was actually, Carlton did the right thing. He picked the right people. He had Captain Douglas of the Navy, who was a brilliant naval strategist. And he had in his ranks, Lieutenant John Shank, who was considered, you know, amongst his peers, this mechanical genius. And he is placed in actual charge of making this happen. And one of the things he realized is he could stop at Chambly with medium-sized warships. and begin to take them apart, literally, take the planks off, take the frames off,

until they were down to their lower hulls and transport them on axles 12 miles around those rapids and then rebuild the structure to be that warship that he always wanted. And the three larger vessels of the fleet were brought into the Lake Champlain battle through that really complicated mechanical process, and the British really deserve credit for that. That's amazing. Simultaneously, the Americans are doing kind of the same thing, not on that scale, but all the way at the other end of the lake, down to what is today Whitehall, New York, in those days, Skeinsboro, I believe.

And Benedict Arnold is involved in that operation of quickly building this. A fascinating sidebar of that story is that there were no shipwrights hanging around in Vermont in those days, or very few of them anyway. The real skilled ones were from the coast, of course, and there were a lot of them. American shipping was a big deal in those days. Those guys had to be recruited, brought up to Whitehall, to Skeensboro, and paid very well to hang out for that summer and build those ships. But they do. And during this time, Arnold and his like are going up and scouting around the lake, keeping track of what the British are doing all during this summer of 1776. That's exactly right. And it's not. fair to say that Arnold was in the middle of the shipbuilding effort. He was a mariner. He had mariner skills and he had, as you've suggested, the personality in the drive that was so desperately

needed to create a fleet from the forest, essentially. And so he is charged to be the guy to provide the energy to make that effort happen. And it is Arnold who designs and specks out the gun the flat-bottom gunboats, eight of which are going to be built on his plan, and then later the rogue alleys, which are even larger vessels, that he also designs and specks out for the shipbuilders. So in a really remarkable amount of time, it's just as impressive what the Americans are able to do at Skeinsborough that the British were doing up in St. John. It's really a wonderful component of the study is to see how well,

and effective people can be when everything's on the line. You referred to this before. In this time period, not only are the Americans building these ships, but they're also going up and they're seizing ships, their sinking ships, they're attacking these existing ships that are British at the top end of the lake. Essentially, that begins to form the force that Arnold is going to command as he conducts this evacuation,

a mixture of seized British ships and new ships that they've built. around in September 1776, this whole effort really begins and the race is on. You're right, and not just the race, but Arnold now takes these finished warships, and they are built as warships. They carry heavy cannon. They're designed to be a deterrent. And Arnold gets on the lake first and begins to patrol with his warships and is really quite confident that they have succeeded in building a strong.

strong enough fleet that there would be no way that the British could possibly come down this year. So it's delayed and delayed the British invasion. And yet, by September, when the wind is starting to blow on Lake Champlain, he begins to look for a protected place to maintain his presence, but keep his boats safe from the fall winds that can be terrible. And he picks the inside of Valcourt Island. content and believing that the British will not come down this season. While he is writing that same point to Horatio Gates, his supreme commander,

the British are actually getting ready to embark with a fleet that has been miraculously built at St. John. And so the stage is being set for the actual military contest that is going to determine who controls Lake Shia. plane at that moment. So tell us how this unfolds. Arnold knows this lake at this point, like the back of his hand, and he's already chosen his battlefield, if you will, which is a straight of water. How big is this water art that we're talking about between Valcor Island and the mainland? Yeah, Valcor Island sits about a half a mile offshore and creates a rather large channel.

As it turns out, dual advantage of that channel was it provided a relatively protected place. to anchor warships that had no auxiliary engines in a way that when the wind blew, they still had some leeward protection. The wind and the seas were not able to build up directly in that spot. Lake Champlain can be a terrifying body of water when the wind blows. And so this was a very practical mariners consideration that Arnold came up with. And also there has been some writings about, and it was hoped that if the British did come down, that they would sail on the outside of Valcore Island,

which they would have needed to do, and therefore maybe Arnold would be invisible being protected by the island. I'm not at all sure that that was the case, but the reality is, and what actually happened is when the British came down, they came down with a north wind. Everything was dependent on the wind for these sailing vessels. And so Carlton having accomplished his goal and creating this large accomplished fleet with Royal Navy officers to create the officer ranks, comes down from Canada searching for Arnold. And he finds him behind Valcourt Island with his 15 warships. And that's the stage that is set for the Battle of Valcour Island, which actually is a three-day. event that takes place over about 70 miles of navigable Lake Champlain. But it's an interesting point to make that this was an intentional act on Arnold's point.

What if he was hoping they'd miss him or not? He was still going to have to deal with them. So one can assume, I agree with you, one can assume that he had intended them to come in and find him there. This gave him a strength. Shallower waters, I suppose. Tricy winds to deal with in that channel, in that straight. all kinds of things that would make an open sea battle.

You know, it wouldn't be an open sea battle, therefore he might have some advantages. I want to clarify, though, Arthur, you said Arnold's fleet is 15 ships. How big is the British fleet? The British fleet got a smaller number of large vessels, but they have these prefabricated gunboats. There's somewhere between 20 and 24 of those. The exact number is not fully known. they are 31 or 37 feet long and they carry a single cannon. But the cannon is a heavy cannon.

It's a 12, 18 or 24 pounder mounted in the bow. And a very effective gun, the whole purpose of the men who are aboard is to service that gun. When you get right down to it and you want to imagine what it was like. everything about these boats and everything about the overloading of men aboard these boats was designed to get heavy cannon into a place where it could fire its projectiles at the enemy. And so that is clearly evident when the battle begins. It is a classic 18th century, broadside-to-broadside, wooden ship, heavy cannon engagement that inflicted horrific casualties on both sides, as it was intended to do.

Inflexible has many guns on them. I mean, these are serious vessels of war. The Americans don't stand a chance against this fleet, and yet they put up quite a battle. The battle itself extended over five and a half hours. The Americans at anchor in the inside of Valcour Island, the British rounding the south end of Valcour Island, and attempting to beat up to engage them. The wind being from the north, they could only do that one ship at a time. But the gunboats, which could be rowed, those British gunboats, manned by British and Hessian Artilleries, they were brought very, very close.

And they formed a line just south of the American line. And those two fleets banged away at each other for the next five and a half hours. As fast as those cannons could be loaded, they were fired. One cannon, in fact, on the American side, we know, got so hot and impacted by the intensity of the engagement that it exploded during the course of the actual contest. And so the only reason the fighting stopped at the end of that five and a half hours was because it became too dark to see each other. And so Arnold pulled back his fleet and took stock of the casualties. the amount of powder he had left, and realized there was no way he could sustain another engagement. The British, meanwhile, realized, hey, look, now that we've seen them and they've seen us,

we have the edge. We've got the bigger ships. We've got the more professional sailors. Let's form a blockade just south of where their line is and we'll hold them in position so that tomorrow we can finish this off because there's no question, what the eventual outcome will be, we have built a better fleet. In the middle of that reality check, Benedict Arnold seizes on a plan to save his fleet. He's going to row them single file with greased and wrapped oars to make no sound that can be heard by the British blockade. He's going to put a lantern shrouded on three sides in the back of each vessel so it can only be seen by the vessel directly behind it.

And he is going to stealthily row his fleet, single file, past the British blockade that has been set up to stop him from doing just that. I'll be right back with more from Mark Cohn, right after this short break. They were medieval priests so worried that women were going to seduce men with fish that they'd kept in their pants. Who was the first gay activist? And what on earth is the expression, sneezing in the the cabbage meme. I'll tell you, it's not a cookery technique, that's for sure. Join me, Kate Lister on Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast where we will be bed-hopping

throughout time and civilisation to bring you the quirkiest and kinkiest stories from history. As promised, there will be sex. Anne has said that Henry is not skillful in copulating with a woman and has neither vigour nor potency. And scandal. Everybody just descends onto this crime scene, and it's being pulled apart by members of the public sort of as quickly as they can excavate the bodies. And moments which shaped society. Pointy boobs then became a thing and was still a thing into the 1950s.

What more could you possibly want? Listen to betwixt the sheets today wherever it is that you get your podcasts. A podcast by History Hit. Art, this is one of the great movie moments of the American Revolution that many people don't realize happened. And it's very real and it's very real

and it's a very bold endeavor that takes place. And really, one of in his resume of unlikely and determined achievements, this is one of the big ones for Benedict Arnold, as night falls, he comes up with a new plan to rescue his ships. Take me through this nighttime endeavor. Benedict Arnold, he has 750 men under his command. 10% of them have been killed or wounded in the day's engagement. So it's horrific effect is all.

around him. He holds a council of war with his senior commanders, and they realize they've expended three quarters of their ammunition. There is no way they can stay there and survive as a fleet in the next engagement. So Benedict Arnold actually comes up with a plan, since his boats were designed to be sailed or rowed. He can row them past the British fleet. which is so unlikely because the British have set up a blockade to prevent him from doing just that. And yet by taking these oars and wrapping greased rags around them so they make no noise, and by putting a shrouded stern light in the back of each vessel, so it can only be seen by the vessel directly behind it,

he begins a motion to row his fleet stealthily, past the British blockade. On paper, it is unlikely to succeed. But in fact, by the next morning, the American fleet is miles to the south, heading for the safety of Ticonderoga, and the British wake up expecting to finish off the Americans, and they are by their own language mortified to find out that Arnold and his fleet have escaped them. The fog has a lot to do with this. I mean, the drama of them being able to get away, but never mind the morning as the British await the fog to rise so they can get on with the battle, and there's no American vessels there. I mean, talk about a dramatic climax to this moment. Well, I think it was pretty

demoralizing for them to realize that they had been outmaneuvered by the rebels. One of the things I've determined is that the British created their own diversion in favor of the Americans, unwittingly. They set fire to the Royal Savage, which was one of Arnold's vessels that had run aground on Valcour Island very early in the engagement. And by setting fire to that boat at night, so everybody now is looking, anytime you go into a room with a fireplace, you're drawn to the fire. And so on an end of the supply line lake, cold fall weather, nightfall, and you've got a fire burning on the island. Undoubtedly, all of his guardboats, the people in them, their attention was drawn to the fire while Arnold was slipping past them on the opposite side. I'm convinced that

that was a big factor in his success. So thus begins the run for daylight, literally, as Arnold and his remaining vessels are charging down the path. They're going to be chased at this point by faster ships. The British come looking for them. does he eventually make his way down to Taekaranooga? Well, he does it in pieces, actually, and not always successfully. So the Americans, the next real written vision we get of this is from Benedict Donald writing on the retreat that he has stopped briefly at Schuyler Island to mend his ships. Because remember, they're battered and broken and bloody from this engagement. And so he's got to stop their leaks and mend their safe.

and deal with the wounded. In the meantime, we also know, because Arnold writes it, that by that location, by Skylar Island, he is already lost the Royal Savage. The Philadelphia is sunk at its anchor at Valcour Island. And on the retreat, he intentionally abandons two gunboats that he can't keep floating anymore. They're so badly damaged.

One is the jersey, which is picked up, by the British on their advance. And the other, we now know, is a boat called the Spitfire, which goes to the bottom successfully by its crew, which gets off onto the surviving vessels, and continues this flight for life to the south. And so the winds being what they are on Lake Champlain in the fall, they kind of work against Arnold's fleet going to the south, but support the British a little further north and move them along. You're right. The British vessels are better boats. They're better sailors. And they're far less damaged than the American fleet from the battle. And so they actually begin to catch up with Arnold's straggly line of escaping vessels.

The rearmost vessel, the Galley Washington, in the vicinity of a place identified as Split Rock Mountain. And that's where the British vessels, the more powerful, vessels surround General Waterbury in his Galley, Washington, fire some broadsides, and he's forced to strike his colors and give up. They then continue on to get to Arnold. Arnold has five vessels with him, his now flagship the Galley Congress and four gunboats, which he now realizes he can't get back to Ticonderoga. So he crosses the lake to the eastern side. the Vermont side, and he intentionally grounds them in a place called Ferris's Bay. He orders them set a fire and blown up so that the British cannot use them.

The British catch up with him there at the head of the bay firing on him as Arnold is setting fire to those boats and then escaping overland with 200 of his men who live to fight again. It's really quite an extraordinary drama. You talk about what it would look like in the movie. That's a pretty dramatic scene. So, Art, when do the British give up the chase? That's really the point of all of this. So Arnold gets back overland with his men.

When the inventory is taken, Arnold's original 15 ships have been reduced to four. Four vessels escape intact from the Battle of Alcor Island. There are two vessels at times. Ticonderoga that didn't engage. So he's got this small fleet. But what he's also got is he's got Ticonderoga and a new fort on the eastern shore in Vermont that they christen Mount Independence. So he's got this land defensive position that now becomes the centerpiece of the American strategy because they've lost their Navy. Sir Guy Carlton comes down. He tests their defenses. They have been pulling up the militia.

They've been building redoubts and cannon emplacement. The defensive line is really strong. And so Guy Carlton takes stock of the weather, take stop of what he's accomplished already, and decides, hey, you know, winter's coming on, it's cold. We've already captured the lake so we can use it next year if we want to invade. Why don't I go back to Montreal and celebrate my victories and call it good enough.

And that's exactly what he does. And so by the end of October, he's abandoned Lake Champlain, now that he's in control of it, with his warships, goes back to Montreal, and that decision costs him his command of those forces

in 1777 because the British High Command didn't like it. And so they appoint General John Bergoin to lead the invasion the following year in 1777. And that's where it all comes together for Benedict Donald and the Americans. When you want to try to understand why the Battle of Alcor Island was so important in the Annals of American history, I've searched and read everything that I can find written about it. And this is the most profound observation I have located in 40 years of trying.

It's by Alfred Thayer Mahan, who was a naval historian writing in the early 20th century. So this was written in 1913. He wrote, The Little Navy on Lake Champlain was wiped out, but never had any force, large or small, lived to better purpose, or died more gloriously, that the Americans were strong enough to impose a capitulation on the British Army at Saratoga was due to the invaluable year of delay secured by their little navy on Lake Champlain.

I don't think we can understand the virtues of the Battle of Alcor Island without recognizing the advantage it gave us through that full year of delay. Everything depended on it. And in fact, in hindsight, it's why the Americans were able to be victorious that year. And in addition, it heightens the dilemma of Benedict Arnold.

It's just yet one more element of this man's enigmatic career. I think that's right. I think if you study Arnold's career from early 1775 in the seizing of Lake Champlain and Fort Tycondoroga, his march to Quebec, his retreat into Lake Champlain, his work building the American fleet, and then commanding the American fleet, and then his action. fleet. And then his activities, not just at Saratoga, you look at what he did fooling the British that were coming in from the West, Barry St. Ledger. And then his activities at Saratoga, you get a window of a warrior that is extraordinary and unparalleled. Unfortunately, it does not

absolve him of his later sins. The incredible fact of this to me, and this is my moment of full disclosure. Art, you taught me to scuba dive 40 years ago in Lake Champlain. I remember our dive, our open water certification dive, was to go around, I don't know, some old 19th century skeleton of a ship down there. But that's because of the freshwater preserves these boats. And that's a big factor in the archaeology of this battle and others. Yeah, cold fresh water, we now know a very relatively preserving environment for wooden ships held with iron fastenings. And so if you have a place that's seen a lot of history,

you're going to have an archaeological collection that is directly related to that historical activity. And Lake Champlain, because of its long navigable north-south character, has been both an extraordinary military environment and in commercial environment, canal enhanced environment. And so it has one of the best preserved collections. of shipwrecks in North America. Two vessels in particular I want to talk about,

one of which was found in 1935, and that was the Philadelphia. That was one of Arnold ships that was discovered back in the day, next to Valker Island, where it had gone down on that fateful night. But another was always a mystery as to where it was, and you had every part in finding it later on. Oh, that's correct. And, you know, one of the things we've learned through these studies is that where history happens,

people leave their stuff behind. That stuff in a nautical environment creates a tangible record of objects and ships and other objects that are the material culture of that historical event. And so early on, I became fascinated with Arnold, the Revolutionary War, the contribution made through the activities on and around Lake Champlain. and I began to search and survey for tangible remains of that great national history. Early on, and probably today still one of the most extraordinary things, my team was able to locate was the remnants of the American-built Great Bridge

that spanned between Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence that was built in the winter of 1777 using the ice. as the building platform. We located all 22 log cabin-style casons still on the bottom of Lake Champlain where the American forces originally placed them. We've also found objects and remnants of watercraft in Ferris's now Arnold's Bay, where Arnold had that last action with the British, where he burned his five vessels. There is a material record still in. in that bay, even though it has been heavily mined for souvenirs over the last 200 years. But you're right, probably the two most important vessels, and I would add actually a third to that,

I mentioned the Royal Savage earlier on. The Royal Savage was recovered in 1934, and the pieces and parts of that vessel are now at the Navy History and Heritage Command in Washington being preserved and studied. In 1935, Colonel Lorenzo Haglin found the fully intact. Gunboat Philadelphia, Arnold tells us, sank one hour after the fighting stopped from damage in its hull from British cannon fire. That boat was found sitting upright on the bottom with its mass still standing, all its cannons in place, and all of its objects still within it. That was found. in 1935, recovered by Colonel Hagland, and through a wonderful series of lucky circumstances, ended up at the new National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian, in Washington,

in the early 1960s, where it has been conserved and put on permanent public exhibition and is seen by literally millions of people a year. We did our research, and we determined there was probably one still unaccounted boat from Benedict Arnold's fleet still on the bottom of Lake Champlain. And we set out to go and find that. And I'm happy to say that in 1997, during what was a 10-year entire whole lake survey, we located in very deep water, the Spitfire, which I'd mentioned had been abandoned on Arnold's retreat. We found it in very deep water like the Philadelphia, on its bottom, as if it was sailing, with its mass still standing, and infilled with mud that is, we think, we know, protecting the thousands of objects that were on that boat that were abandoned

by its crew in the middle of the night on October 12, 1776. That boat is the proverbial time capsule. Amazing. So it's still down there. That history is still down there. You're going to bring it Well, we've spent the last 25 years trying to write a management plan, identifying the options for the boat. We generally speaking have advocated and believed in-situ preservation. Keep it where it is unless it's under some direct threat or issue that would argue to recover it. Recovery is time-consuming expensive. And so we now believe because of the invasion of the zebra muscles, which is a non-native species that is infesting Lake Champlain is going to encruss this boat under its colonies,

more rapidly see this boat degrade. And so because of the negative impact and threat that this boat is under from these invasive species and because of the positive impact we think this boat could have for the American people. For the first time in 40 years, I have recommended recovery, conservation, and long-term exhibition of this boat in a public museum that interprets the history of the Battle of Alcor Island and becomes a touchstone to the formative years of the American system. I'm doing some real-time research here, and I can see the length of the USS Spitfire is 53 feet long. This is a very large vessel. If you look at the Philadelphia in the Smithsonian, it's a clone, they're sister ships.

There are some idiosyncrasies because each was built by a different gang of shipwrights. It's a large vessel. It will have thousands of objects. It will be a big conservation project. But we know how to do that. And the reward of being able to study this boat as a document that the archaeological record gives us is an extraordinary opportunity, especially when we realize we are just coming into the 250th anniversary of the American Revolutionary War period. And where periodic reexamination of where this nation came from is therapeutic and helpful.

And you know the secret rule among divers is that the man who teaches you to dive has to take you to his greatest discovery. That's the way it works. Well, there you go. I look forward to that day. Art Cohn. I found you, Art, after years and years, on YouTube. There are so many things to watch of yours online about nautical archaeology in different lakes. Never mind, Lake Champlain.

There's also Seneca Lake, the Finger Lakes, all kinds of work you do all around the country. Also invite people to go to Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, good place to see all kinds of history up there. You're working on a book about Benedict Arnold. I look forward to reading that. I am so grateful for you joining us today with this story. That is an important element of American history, certainly in understanding Benedict Arnold's confusing story. Thanks for joining us, Art. Really grateful. I'm delighted. Thank you for the opportunity. Thanks for listening to this episode of American History Hit. I hope you enjoyed it. Please don't forget to like, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you next time.

This podcast includes music from Epidemic Sound. Thank you.