[Illustration: _Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne, Commander of the British Army which surrendered at Saratoga._ Courtesy U. S. Army Signal Corps.]
[Illustration: _Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler, first commander of the American troops opposing Burgoyne._]
With 3 large vessels, 20 gunboats, and 200 flat-bottomed transports, Burgoyne sailed boldly along the 200-mile length of Lake Champlain to attack his first objective, Fort Ticonderoga, the American guardian of northern New York and New England. On July 1, the British Army reached Fort Ticonderoga and began the siege of this fortress, which was considered by British and Americans alike to be the strongest in North America. A number of factors, unknown to the British and most Americans, however, had caused the strength of Ticonderoga to be greatly overestimated. The lines of the fort had been laid out to be held by an army of at least 10,000 men; the American commander, Gen. Arthur St. Clair had only some 3,000 men on hand with which to defend these vast works. Due to the shortage of men, and perhaps also to neglect, the Americans had failed to fortify steep Sugar Hill (Mount Defiance) which dominated the fort from the southwest. It was the belief of the American leader that the slopes of this mountain were so steep that they would prevent the British from dragging cannon to its top. Burgoyne's engineers soon dispelled this American illusion, for on the afternoon of July 5 the Americans were horrified to see the Royal Army constructing batteries on the mountaintop. Once these cannon were in position, the American Army was in immediate danger of being completely encircled.
General St. Clair at once made plans to abandon the fortress. That night, under cover of darkness, the American Army began retreating across the bridge of boats which ran from the fort to the east shore of Lake Champlain. Here the American Army split--half of it retreated by land and the other half, with the sick, wounded, and supplies, embarked on the small American fleet and sailed down South Bay to Skenesboro (Whitehall). As the secret retreat was being successfully carried out, one of the buildings in the fort caught fire, and the flames revealed to the British on the summit of Mount Defiance the events that were taking place below.