Defiance & Independence Battle Re-enactment

Description

Join Fort Ticonderoga for a two-day battle re-enactment highlighting the climactic summer of 1777 as its American garrison was outflanked by a British invasion force descending from Canada. The event takes place Saturday and Sunday, July 23 & 24. Highlighted programming featured throughout the weekend brings to life the surprising American retreat and British capture of Fort Ticonderoga in early July 1777. Experience the fog of war and smoky haze of battle as the American and British armies maneuver across this historic landscape. This two-day battle re-enactment will dramatically show how General Arthur St. Clair decided to evacuate Ticonderoga set the stage for British General John Burgoyne. Reprieved from a siege in 1776 by the onset of winter, the twin Forts Ticonderoga and Independence faced General John Burgoyne’s northern army of British, Loyalist, and German soldiers in July 1777. General St. Clair’s rearguard of Massachusetts and New Hampshire regulars and militia put up a vigorous defense, skirmishing in the hills and valleys around Ticonderoga. Artillery batteries built into the old French Lines seemed to keep the British army at bay. Concealed by forest cover on the back slope of Mount Defiance, British cannon were dragged to the summit. By July 6th British cannon high up on Mount Defiance, aimed at the pontoon bridge between the two Forts, forced the withdrawal of General St. Clair’s rearguard into the Hampshire Grants (Vermont). In this living history event we re-enact this careful chess game between the British Army and an entrenched Continental Army at Ticonderoga.