The Curse of Ticonderoga

Japhy

Banned
Excellent. Now for the next story update. (No pressure. ;))

I appreciate that. I'll admit between Grad School applications, work, and the project I'm working on for SPEC:1912 its hard to juggle this in. Its not that I'm abandoning the work, its just not something I can apparently prioritize to the extent of "No work on Tuesday, work on The Curse. Hopefully that can change eventually though, because this is a work that its very hard to get bored with considering its my backyard.

Excellent update!

Appreciate that. I can't wait to here what I get when we get to what actually is changing. :p

Heresy. We have good pies in Utica too. :p

Good TL. Keep it up!

Thank you for the second half. On the first half, note I said "one of the few". There are plenty of good places, that one in Saratoga Springs, that one in Halfmoon, This one place in Niskayuna, Rochester, Rome, Ithaca and New Paltz have good places, I'm sure Utica is good too.

Now, as a notice: I am working on the next segment of Chapter One. Which is an "Overview" Segment, that is going to cover the broader picture stuff, then we're going to move on to the first PoV segment.

And since I just did that whole bit with the last update this map a friend showed me would be a good thing to include right now. I know I bash Wikipeida a lot but I'll admit Wikimedia is good with photos like this, so here we are, a map of New York from 1777 that does very well in explaining where everything is. As I write this I'm located right near the bottom branch of the creek between "Halfmoon" and Round Lake. Albany is in the purple box near the center thats labeled Manor of Rensselaer if you need to find your bearings:

782px-NewYork1777MapRestoredSmall.png

That Came up a lot bigger than I wanted it too but this one has the best detail.
 
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Japhy

Banned


Part 1.2: Just A Bit More Overview, and the Academic Death of Arnold
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It had been a complicated road to Ticonderoga. In the aftermath of Lexington and Concord, New England had risen up in revolt against the North Ministry, and the other colonies found themselves following suit. The Continental Congress taking action, issued commissions to four Generals and sent one of their own, George Washington to assume command of the Army outside of Boston. Before he arrived though, actions were taken at once with the hopes of strengthening his position before he could even arrive. As it was, three forces converged on the fort.

The New York Government, or more accurately, the New York Committees of Correspondence found their hands full with the securing of the Hudson River Valley and New York at the start of the conflict to send troops North, and thus it fell to New Englanders to act.

The first of these was a Connecticut militia officer who approached the Massachusetts leadership as he brought his men to besiege Boston about his feelings on taking the Fort which he had visited previously as a merchant. Impressed by his plan, the Provisional Government would commission him a Massachusetts Colonel and send him North with a warrant to raise troops and take the Fort. Thus it was that Benedict Arnold began to move out.

In junction with him a member of the Committee of Correspondence was sent ahead to determine support for the Patriot Cause in the Grants and to see if Ethan Allen who had declared in 1774 that if war came he would stand against the crown could be brought into the operation. As Arnold raised men in Springfield, Stockbridge, and Pittsfield, this man would make contact with Allen, the Green Mountain Boy’s Leadership and the Bennington Committee of Correspondence, finding that other wheels were already in motion. After meeting Captain John Brown, Allen refused to accept Massachusetts leadership, but did invite the officer to partake in his operation as one of his Lieutenants, which Brown in the name of observation and in securing the fort agreed to.

The Second force was one dispatched by the Provisional Government of Connecticut. Captain Noah Phelps, dispatched by the Connecticut Committees of Correspondence with a similar goal to his Massachusetts counterpart, found Allen before his provinces forces, under the command of Major Silas Deane arrived. As it was, both Committees agents found the third force in Bennington. Allen had already decided that he was going to take Fort Ticonderoga, and all other garrisons on the lakes.

When Arnold received word about Allen’s plan from Brown, he rushed forward to Bennington, and meeting with the Green Mountain Boys. On finding as Phelps and Brown had that the men would not attack the fort unless Allen was in charge, and that Allen had no interest in waiting, compromised, forming a Committee of War for the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point and joined Allen on the march.

The main force reached Hand’s Cove on May 9th and awaited the arrival of transport. But while Arnold and the other sanctioned forces were aiming to capture Fort Ticonderoga, Arnold had dispatched other forces to strike at other targets on the lake. Twenty men trekked around South Bay to take the garrison of Fort George by surprise, an easy feat when one considered the old Seven Year’s War Fort near the ruins of Fort William Henry was guarded by three men on rotation from Ticonderoga. Another force of thirty was dispatched under Seth Warner to take the barracks at Crown Point from its nine man garrison and to seize the nearby village. A third force of thirty under Samuel Herrick was dispatched to Skenesborough with orders from the Committee of War to seize Skenes sloop and bateaux so as to provide transport for the attack on the Fort.

Skenesborough would thus be attacked on the 9th, in an action that proved to be more about settling scores for Allen than it was about helping the cause. While Skene was on a ship bound for England at the time, his family was present, and were dragged off as prisoners. The homes of the settlement were sacked and burned. Herrick at one point went down into the basement of the Skene house and ordered the digging up of Skene’s late wife, supposedly to secure lead from her coffin for bullets, but everything else buried with her was taken to, the 40 slaves at the settlement were marched off to Vermont as loot to be sold by the men. The furnace was destroyed with parts thrown into the South Bay. Under the claim that he was operating for the Continental Congress Allen sacked his rivals home and destroyed it, with Herrick sailing north on the schooner before the day was though.

It was after midnight when Herrick arrived with the sloop, the batteaux still far behind him. And thus it was that the raiding force at Hand’s Cove began to be ferried across the lake to seize the fort. The garrison, living a life more fit to a village than a military outpost were completely unaware of the events in Boston, and the gates were left open at night as a standard policy to allow refugees a safe haven in the face of danger. Half of the people living in the fort were families of the garrison or civilian sutters. With a single shot fired by a single guard on duty in the predawn hours, there was no way the Fort could have held out. Even if that private had been able to keep his cool enough to slam shut the doors of the fort and bought time to raise alarm.

Of course that single shot he fired did connect. And thus it was that in the first engagement after Lexington and Concord, and before the Battle of Bunker Hill, a Massachusetts Colonel was killed in action. Benedict Arnold died leading the men forward next to Allen, and secured for himself in the early years of the Republic a position as the first senior officer killed in the Revolution. Sadly the shortness of his service and his death in his first action would mean the gallant hero would slowly be forgotten, and while counties, towns and streets across the nation would be named after him, statues in his memory would be ill remembered, and he would secure for himself little more than postage stamps and footnotes, a far cry from his compatriots in that attack.

With his death though, a pair of questions would confront the combined forces of the Grants, Connecticut, and Massachusetts as they gathered at their captured forts. Who was in command, and what would they do next?


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Before I start posting the first less textbook segments of the story, at this point are there's any questions? With the exception of Arnold getting shot this is all still IOTL, but obviously we're at the end of that segment of the timeline, the rest of Part I and everything that follows is going to be straight AH, so now's the time to ask.
 
Interesting. I hadn't known much about the other raiding parties other than that they existed. And that also cleared up the matter of Benny's holding two different commissions from two different colonies. Good stuff.

Now that the forts on the lakes are in the rebels' hands, how long does the news take to reach interested parties? Canada, probably a couple of weeks for somebody from Skenesborough to make his way north; ditto for a messenger to reach Boston from the lakes, if the weather isn't too bad; a week or so to get the news to New York (navigable rivers are a great help in this regard), and then between two and six months for the news to get from there to Britain.

Which means that the next moves will come from the rebels surrounding Boston and from the meager forces holding Canada for the Crown. Will the news of Arnold's death change their responses?
 

Japhy

Banned
Can't believe I forgot that. Alas, these are the problems of posting at 3:30 AM EST.

I will admit, I may have over-minimized it in the opening, no problem though.

Interesting. I hadn't known much about the other raiding parties other than that they existed. And that also cleared up the matter of Benny's holding two different commissions from two different colonies. Good stuff.

Its rather interesting considering how little noted they are today. But the war party Herrick led to Skenesborough would be the thing most dramatically noted by both the leadership in New England, New York and Philadelphia, grave robbing being seen as beyond the pale by the Patriots. Of course after the war it didn't fit into the narrative and everything shifted towards Ticonderoga for Propaganda purposes.

Now that the forts on the lakes are in the rebels' hands, how long does the news take to reach interested parties? Canada, probably a couple of weeks for somebody from Skenesborough to make his way north; ditto for a messenger to reach Boston from the lakes, if the weather isn't too bad; a week or so to get the news to New York (navigable rivers are a great help in this regard), and then between two and six months for the news to get from there to Britain.

Which means that the next moves will come from the rebels surrounding Boston and from the meager forces holding Canada for the Crown. Will the news of Arnold's death change their responses?

The Committee of War has just knocked out everything on the lakes that is either Garrisoned or Clearly Pro-British, the nearest force at hand being another Part of the 26th Regiment (From which all these garrisons were drawn) up on the Richelieu. So yeah there's no easy way for the British in Canada to get word that the Forts have been attacked. Not only that, but the same day that Arnold and Allen attacked the Forts, word finally reached Quebec about the situation in Boston. So news is really hard to come by in all directions. We will see in the coming updates how Allen is going to use that for his own aims.

And as for Arnold's Death, its not something that will be that particularly shocking in developing responses, for the British in Canada its just one more leader of a band of rebels, and doesn't change the fact there are several hundred men at the Gates of Canada, for the Rebel leadership outside of Boston, in Albany, and in Congress its a dead hero, and question as to what authority and under whom the force they have in the North is now operating under. Before all else, that issue will need to be settled.
 

Japhy

Banned
Does this butterfly Eggs Benedict...:D:p

Yes and No, the meal was named after the first fellow to order it, Lemuel Benedict: Wall Street Banker, at the start of the 20th Century. On one hand the thing has nothing to do with General Arnold so the events have no direct impact on the naming of the meal. On the other the POD is 1775, there's no reason to assume anything from the 1900's is going to take place as per IOTL.
 

Japhy

Banned
What the hell have you even been doing?

Robot Unicorn Attack 2 Just Got an Update and Now I can play as the PAINDEER 2000.

Goddamnit.

O.K. Tonight or this weekend at some ungodly hour I'll get the next update up. I even have a fancy outline on this piece of paper.

All none of your fans hate you.

That means they hate you too other part of my shattered psyche.
 
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Nitpick time: In this TL Colonel Arnold is not a traitor, but a dead patriot/rebel (depending on your POV), among the first of many such, so your sig is somewhat misleading.

That you have an outline is good; now to put some flesh on those bones.
 

Japhy

Banned
Nitpick time: In this TL Colonel Arnold is not a traitor, but a dead patriot/rebel (depending on your POV), among the first of many such, so your sig is somewhat misleading.

And yet, in the real world, where the readers are, we all know him for what he did. I fail to see how it is remotely misleading.
 
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