Fort Ticonderoga

The Connecticut soldiers who garrisoned Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 were initially raised to help defend Boston but when the Continental Congress informed Governor Jonathon Trumbull on May 31, 1775 to send a strong reinforcement to the recently captured forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, Trumbull assigned Colonel Benjamin Hinman's Fourth Connecticut Regiment to take charge and protect the vulnerable fortresses. Hinman brought with him not only men from his own regiment but also companies of other Connecticut Regiments then stationed around Boston. With these various regiments and companies dispatched to Ticonderoga the Connecticut troops, serving along Lake Champlain in 1775, were from all over Connecticut. Hinman's own Fourth Connecticut Regiment was largely drawn from New Haven, while Wooster and Waterbury's regiments who would later be assigned to Ticonderoga in 1775 were raised in and around Hartford and Litchfield counties.

While Fort Ticonderoga was captured by Benedict Arnold as well as Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, the Green Mountain Boys left four days after the capture of the fort and Arnold's regiment from Massachusetts was slow to arrive and in no way strong enough to repair and defend the Fort. At the request of Arnold and others, the Continental Congress instructed Connecticut to send  soldiers to garrison Ticonderoga and Crown Point. When they arrived, Connecticut troops went to work repairing Fort Ticonderoga, which had become dilapidated through years of inattention. In order to repair the fort as well as achieve naval superiority on Lake Champlain, the Connecticut men were ordered to rebuild the saw mill along the La Chute River and assist in the construction of batteaux and oars capable of hauling men and supplies. As more reinforcements arriving at the fort to prepare to invade Canada, Major-General Philip Schuyler ordered these newly raised soldiers, in desperate need of proper discipline, to spent much of their time drilling and perfecting guard rotations. The threat of attacks from Indians and British regulars kept the Connecticut men scouting for these forces along the Lake.

Connecticut soldiers were some of the first to respond when hostilities broke out in Boston in April of 1775. The colony mobilized six regular regiments of soldiers based on drafting one in four men from the existing militia. The April 26^th law that created these regiments required anyone who joined to bring the personal firearms they carried for militia duty. Fowlers, a civilian hunting gun designed for birds, were one of the most popular firearms in New-England and allowed for loose shot or solid round ball to be loaded and fired. Fowlers, often modified to accept a bayonet, as well as old military muskets were quite common for these militiamen drafted into these new regular regiments. At the same time the Colony of Connecticut ordered muskets fitted with bayonets to be made up locally based on contemporary British military muskets.

By the Connecticut Assembly Resolves of April 1775, Connecticut soldiers stationed at Fort Ticonderoga were supposed to receive pork or beef daily, with fresh beef twice a week, bread or flour, beans, rice or corn meal called “indian meal,” butter, peas or beans, and rum when on fatigue. They also were supposed to receive milk, molasses, vinegar, coffee, chocolate, sugar, tobacco, onions (when in season), and vegetables at the discretion of their commanding officers. This appears today to be quite a substantial amount of food as it did in 1775. Provisioning every soldier enough to fulfill the Connecticut requirements was a hefty task and appeared to be excessive to some of the Connecticut officers. When Connecticut soldiers were ordered to Fort Ticonderoga, the Congress also ordered that New York be responsible for providing them with provisions. Keeping up with the demand of food as well as the transportation of those provisions up to Fort Ticonderoga was difficult. The food that the Connecticut soldiers actually received while at Ticonderoga seems to follow along the initial list from the Connecticut resolves, but curtailed by a severe drought in 1775 as well as financial and supply shortages in New York. A uniform ration for the entire Continental Army would be adopted later that year and followed along a similar format as the Connecticut rations.