Few people know the real story of the birth of the United States Navy. Like many tales from Revolutionary days, it is one of ingenuity, courage against overwhelming odds, suffering, and terror.

In July of 1776, Benedict Arnold was ordered by the newly appointed commander-in-chief George Washington to build a fleet of ships on Lake Champlain to delay the advance of the British. The invasion plan of the British was to advance through Lake Champlain down the Hudson River to join General Howe's forces in New York. This would divide the colonies, the British reasoned, and the American Revolution would be lost.

At this time, the Americans had two schooners and a sloop at Skenesboro, on the south end of the lake. One of the schooners, named. Liberty, had been seized from Philip Skene, a Tory, who also had a sawmill and ironworks there. The second schooner, Royal Savage, and the sloop Enterprize were spoils captured from the British earlier in the year as the Americans retreated from an unsuccessful invasion of Canada, where they had been soundly beaten, as much by starvation and smallpox as by strategy.

Arnold had suffered through this sad experience, yet his brilliant leadership proved equal to the task of inspiring his discouraged men to build this crude fleet. Arnold was not the embodiment of a born leader. He had a rather plain physical appearance, short stature, a swarthy complexion, hooked nose, and light blue eyes, but his drive and energy were contagious. He was an able general and an excellent seaman who feared nothing, and his men respected him and obeyed his orders.

It was this motley crew that landed with General Arnold at Skenesboro to find a sawmill with no lumber and a forge with no iron. Undaunted, Arnold and his men went to work, constructing the first American fleet in spite of the hot, humid, swampy area, infested with ravenous mosquitoes. They were joined by hundreds more men who filed out of the forest to this crude shipyard, dressed in homespun and buckskin, each carrying a flintlock and axe. They had heard of the newly written Declaration of Independence, and had enlisted and left their families, each ready to give his life to help save the free independent colonies of America.

The crack of axes, the thunderous crash of falling timber and the whine of mill saws biting into oak were sweet music to the men laying keelsons on the stocks. Ribs were formed and covered with planking. Ships' carpenters and sailors traveled nearly two hundred miles from seacoast towns. They brought tools, rope, canvas, and food by wagons and ox carts through the wildreness.

In July, four gondolas were completed and rowed to Fort Ticonderoga to be fitted with cannon, masts and rigging. These were 57 feet long, with a beam of 17 feet,and had a twelve pound cannon in the bow and two nine pounders amidships. Each carried 45 men. In an innovative move, Arnold designed row galleys which were more maneuverable than the gondolas. These were 72 feet long with a beam of 19 feet and could carry 80 men. They had more cannons and sails, and could be rowed by 28 oarsmen. The stark accommodations for these crews consisted of wooden benches, a canvas awning and a small brick hearth for cooking. There was little protection from rain, fog, chilling winds, and more importantly, the enemy's guns and cannon.

North of the lake, the British had a much larger ship- building operation, located above the rapids of the Richelieu River at St. John. Here they built and assembled two schooners, ten gunboats and one warship that had been brought in sections from the St. Lawrence River, by wagon. Several hundred smaller craft were hauled intact up the rapids.

On Arnold's small fleet of three schooners, one sloop, five galleys and eight gondolas rested the hope of America. They sailed North in late summer to fight England, the greatest sea power in the world.

General Arnold realized his only chance of inflicting serious damage on the British fleet was to outwit them and fight a defensive battle which would cause as much damage and delay as possible. He stationed his small fleet at Valcour Island, about a mile from the New York shore. Midway off the island, a hogback or ridge juts out toward the west. South of this is a perfect cup-shaped bay, where the fleet was invisible from the North. The ships were stretched in a half-moon formation around the bay toward the opposite shore.

On October 11, 1776 the huge British flotilla under the command of Captain Thomas Pringle and Governor General Carlton of Canada, on the flagship Maria, came up the lake on the east side of the island, toward Grand Isle. They were so confident of success that they failed to send scouts ahead. Sailing down before a strong north wind, they did not discover Arnold's position until they were south of Valcour. This meant their fleet had to come about and tack back upwind to the American position. This was the chance the Americans had hoped for. While the British were in this state of confusion, the Americans attacked with full force, and volley after volley ripped the British fleet at close range.

Early in the action the Americans suffered a heavy loss when Arnold's flagship The Royal Savage, with twelve cannons, ran aground and was abandoned. It was later set fire by the British. Arnold transferred his command to the galley Congress. In the hottest part of the action, he aimed the guns of the Congress himself, with such extreme accuracy that he inspired his men to greater feats of daring and violence. Arnold was an example of absolute fearlessness and undaunted courage.

The fighting became so fierce that the flash and smoke of cannon fire, the thud and cracking of ships' timbers and the screams of wounded men were horrifying. Ships' crews fired at each other at close musket range and the heavy cannons took a terrible toll. Indians fired a constant rain of bullets from the forest, but fortunately were poor marksmen. The barricades of spruce saplings staked in the gunwales of the American ships on Arnold's order gave considerable protection. All of the officers on the gondola New York were killed except one. The gondola Philadelphia was holed and sank. The savage fighting raged for five hours.

At five in the afternoon, the British commander gave orders to withdraw. The British had suffered paralysis of their big warship and flagship, two gun boats were sunk, and a third blown up. The sloop was towed away before it was completely demolished. The British ships withdrew without the victory which had seemed so certain. The miracle of the battle was that Arnold's fleet had escaped complete destruction from such a superior force.

British ships lined up to guard the channel, as Pringle and Carlton were positive the remaining continental ships would be captured early the next morning. The situation looked desperate for the Americans, as their squadron was seriously crippled and bottled up on the lake by a stronger fleet, while a large number of hostile Indians lurked in the woods, blocking escape by land. Three-fourths of Arnold's ammunition was gone; his ships were badly riddled; all seemed lost.

Nothing less than a miracle could save them, and then suddenly, as darkness fell, the wind died and a heavy mist settled over the lake. General Arnold recognized his opportunity. The desperately needed clothing was stripped from the dead and their bodies slid overboard. Arnold ordered the ships to muffle their oars and to extinguish all lights except a dim stern lantern that could be seen only by the ship immediately following. They slipped single file through the British fleet in the dead of night, gliding undetected near the New York shore with ARnold's ship, the Congress, the last to escape.

The next morning, as the mist began to clear, the British were prepared to capture the rebel fleet. Imagine their surprise and rage to find that the American ships had disappeared! In the early morning fog of October 13, a British ship opened fire on an object to the south of Providence Island, thinking it was one of Arnold's ships. After wasting many rounds of ammunition, much to their embarrassment, they found it to be a small rock island. To this day, in derision, the island is called Carleton's Prize.

The Continental fleet was overtaken ten miles north of Crown Point near noon on October 13th. The galley Washington, under the command of General Waterbury, was so shattered, with most of her crew killed, that she had to strike her colors and surender along with the galley Jersey. Later Arnold wrote, "They kept up an incessant fire on us for about five glasses (hours) with round and grape-shot, which we returned as briskly. The sails, rigging and hull of the Congress were shattered and torn in pieces. .when to prevent her falling into the enemy's hands, who had seven sails around me, I ran her ashore in a small creek ten miles from Crown Point on the east side. After saving our small-arms, I set her on fire along with four gondolas with whose crews I reached Crown Point through woods that evening and very luckily escaped savages, who waylaid the road in two hours after we passed." It is said that Arnold was the last man to abandon the burning ship, and that he dropped to the ground from the bowsprit with the ship's flags still flying.

Five ships escaped, and survived to fight again the following year in a battle in Skenesboro Harbor, July 6, l777, against General Burgoyne's forces. Arnold's tactics of delay, and sell each ship as dearly as possible, paid off. The Battle of Valcour Island put off the planned English invasion for so long that the snow-crested mountains and chilling winds which foretold the winter ahead discouraged the British from attacking until the following year. Wrote one naval history authority, "Considering its raw material and the recency of its organization, words can scarcely exaggerate the heroism of the resistance which undoubtedly depended chiefly upon the personal military qualities of the leader. The little American navy on Lake Champlain was wiped out, but never had any force, big or small, lived to a better purpose or died more gloriously -- for it had saved the lake for that year. Whatever deductions may be made for blunders and for circumstances of every character, which made the British campaign of 1777 abortive and disastrous, and so led directly to the American alliance with France in 1778, the delay, with all that it involved, was obtained by the lake campaign of 1776."

The Continental gunboat Philadelphia, sunk at the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776, was salvaged from ten fathoms of water in 1935 by Captain L.F. Hagglund and Commodore Rupert SchaIk. It is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and is the oldest intact man-of-war on exhibition in North America. The ship bears eloquent witness to the ingenuity and devotion of these Americans who helped to win the nation's independence, and is a lasting monument to Benedict Arnold and the other heroes of the Battle of Valcour Island.