II.

Service in the Continental Army

As a militia colonel, Arnold joined with Ethan Allen to take Fort Ticonderoga in New York from the British at the start of the American Revolution in 1775. Military supplies from the fort helped George Washington's ill-equipped American forces, who were besieging Boston. Later the same year Arnold led a brave but unsuccessful assault on British Québec and was promoted to brigadier general; enemy reinforcements subsequently forced his retreat to Lake Champlain.

On the lake Arnold was defeated (1776) by a British naval attack, but his delaying tactics thwarted an enemy drive to New York City, which would have divided the colonies. His leadership in the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut (April 1777), won him a belated promotion to the rank of major general. During the crucial Saratoga campaigns in New York in the summer and fall of 1777, his relief of Fort Stanwix and his courageous and imaginative battlefield leadership contributed decisively to an American victory (see Saratoga, Battles of).