ss of which
distressed the Americans long after; had annihilated their naval
armament on the lake, and had sown dismay among the neighboring colonies
broadcast. It was even a question whether there was any longer a force
in his front capable of offering the least resistance to his march.

[Illustration: BLOCK HOUSE, FORT ANNE.]

With these exploits, the first stage of the invasion may be said to have
ended. If ever a man had been favored by fortune, Burgoyne was that man.
The next stage must show him in a very different light, as the fool of
fortune, whose favors he neither knew how to deserve when offered him,
nor how to compel when withheld.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER, one of the four major-generals first
created by Congress, June, 1775. Had seen some service in the French
War; was given command of the Northern Department, including
Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Fort Stanwix, etc., February, 1777, as the one
man who could unite the people of New York against the enemy. Gates
declined to serve under him.

[23] OBSTRUCTIONS AT THE BRIDGE. The Americans had stretched a boom of
logs, strongly chained together, across the strait.

[24] SETH WARNER was on the way to Ticonderoga when he met St. Clair
retreating. The rearguard, which Colonel Francis had previously
commanded, was then increased, and put under Warner's orders.

[25] COLONEL EBENEZER FRANCIS of Newton, Mass., colonel, 11th
Massachusetts Regiment. His bravery was so conspicuous that the British
thought he was in chief command of the Americans.

[26] FORT ANNE, one of the minor posts built during the French War to
protect the route from Albany to Lake Champlain. It consisted of a log
blockhouse surrounded by a palisade. Boat navigation of Lake Champlain
began here, fourteen miles from Skenesborough, by Wood Creek flowing
into it.

V.

FACING DISASTER.

One of Washington's most trusted generals said, and said truly, that it
was only through misfortune that the Americans would rise to the
character of a great people. Perhaps no event of the Revolution more
signally verified the truth of this saying, than the fall of
Ticonderoga.

Let us see how this disaster was affecting the Northern States. In that
section, stragglers and deserters were spreading exaggerated accounts of
it on every side. In Vermont, the settlers living west of the mountains
were now practically defenceless. Burgoyne's agents were undermining
their loyalty; the f