Carillon Battlefield
The Carillon Battlefield is located a half-mile west of the Fort. On this site in July 1758 the British army attacked the French at Ticonderoga attempting to capture the Fort and take control of the portage between Lake George and Lake Champlain. On the 7th of July the French at Ticonderoga constructed a half mile-long log wall protected in front by a dense tangle of treetops and sharpened branches to serve as a barrier against the British attackers. This fortification was known as the French Lines. On July 8th, the British attacked. At the end of the day-long battle, the British had suffered casualties of nearly 2,000 men killed and wounded. Broken and dismayed, the British retreated back to their camp at the southern end of Lake George. The French won the battle and achieved what would prove to be France’s greatest victory of the French & Indian War.
The British returned for a second attack in July 1759. This time, as the British advanced, the French army abandoned the lines enabling the British to use them to besiege the Fort. A few days later the French exploded the powder magazine in the Fort and evacuated. The British captured it without firing a single shot.
By the American Revolution, the log walls of the French Lines had decayed. Throughout 1776 and 1777 American troops rebuilt and strengthened the Lines.
After the Revolution, the French Lines gradually fell into ruin. The logs rotted away leaving the low earthen banks visible today. Preserved on the Carillon Battlefield is the largest series of untouched 18th-century earthworks surviving in North America.
