Battle of Valcour Island

The Battle of Valcour Island was a brilliant strategic delay engineered by Benedict Arnold that may have saved the American cause. Following the American retreat from Canada, the British planned a combined land and lake offensive down Lake Champlain to capture Fort Ticonderoga and drive south to Albany. Arnold commanded hastily constructed American lake vessels and devised a plan to delay the British advance as long as possible.

Arnold chose his position carefully, anchoring his small fleet in the narrow channel between Valcour Island and the western shore of Lake Champlain where the British would have to fight against the wind. On October 11, Carleton's vastly superior fleet — including the 180-ton Inflexible mounting eighteen guns — attacked. The fighting was fierce. The Americans were heavily outgunned but Arnold used the difficult fighting conditions effectively. He then led his fleet through the British line in a daring night escape, using fog to conceal the maneuver.

Two days later British ships caught the crippled American fleet. Arnold's flagship Congress fought alone for hours before he ran her aground and personally put a torch to her, watching from shore to ensure the British could not capture the ship. Of the American fleet, only four vessels survived. Yet the campaign was a strategic American victory. Arnold's delay forced Carleton to conclude it was too late in the season to successfully capture Ticonderoga, and the British withdrew to Canada for the winter.

The delay gave Americans exactly the time they needed to prepare the Saratoga defenses that would destroy Burgoyne's army the following year. Historians have argued that Arnold's actions at Valcour Island may have been the most strategically important engagement of the entire war in terms of its consequences.