Battle of Valcour Island

The Battle of Valcour ( "Battle of Valcour Iceland ", also called " Battle of Valcour Bay ") was a naval battle that in the constriction between the island of Valcour and the mainland of New York in Lake Champlain, between the British on October 11, 1776 and American was discharged naval forces.

It is generally regarded as the first naval battle of the United States Navy. Although the result of the battle was the destruction of most American ships, they delayed the attempt of the British to divide the Thirteen Colonies within one year in two, and eventually led to the military defeat of the British in 1777 at the end of the Saratoga campaign.

The strategic situation was such that the British had to attack the colonial fortifications Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga first to attack the settlers in the Hudson River Valley can. They forced their troops and their supplies to be transported 150 km from Saint Lawrence River valley away. Because the condition of the roads varied between impassable and nichtexistend, the supply on the water of Lake Champlain had to be transported. The few small ships on Lake Champlain were all in the hands of the colonists; even if they were only lightly armed, they made the British to transport troops and goods impossible. Therefore, both sides began to build fleets. The British in Saint -Jean -sur -Richelieu and the Americans in Skenesborough, now Whitehall, New York. The British had enough supplies, experienced workers and prefabricated ships that had been antransportiert from England. They also dismantled a 180 -ton warship and put it in the lake back together. All in all, the British fleet of 30 ships about twice as large and had twice as much firepower as the Americans, who possessed 16 ships.

The American commander Benedict Arnold came from a seafaring family from Connecticut. He wisely decided to force the British to attack his inferior forces in a narrow with rocky ground, where the British fleet difficulties would have to play to their superior firepower and where the inferior seamanship skills of its unskilled sailors would affect not excessive. Nevertheless, the battle was not going well for the Americans, as the sun went down. Arnold ordered his fleet during the night at the British fleet over ( and through them ) to slip and to go into the fire of the shore batteries of the American fort at the southern end of the lake. However, the weather did not play along and the Americans were caught just before its destination. Arnold drove his ships into the shallow waters of the Bay Buttonmold, whereas the heavier British ships could not follow. The ships guns, powder and anything else usable removed and Arnold's men were then subjected to walk to Crown Point back.

Although the British had freed the lake from American ships, already snow fell, as Arnold and his men set out for Crown Point. The British commander Guy Carleton had no other choice than the attacks on Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga to the next year to move.