Today, the Old House Chamber is better known as National Statuary Hall – titled this because this room now houses the bulk of the statues found at the Capitol. One of those statues is of Ethan Allen, an officer in the American Revolution who became famous for his capture of the British stronghold of Ticonderoga in northern New York in 1775.
Even though the Declaration of Independence was not signed until the year after Allen’s exploit, Great Britain was already warring against her American colonies. In 1774, she had laid siege to Boston and erected a naval blockade. The battles of Charleston, Breed’s (or Bunker’s) Hill, Lexington, and Concord followed soon after – all long before the Declaration of Independence.
As the conflicts spread from Massachusetts into Virginia and other areas, Connecticut, fearing for her own safety, secretly contacted Ethan Allen and requested that he capture Fort Ticonderoga. Even though Ticonderoga was still far away from the scene of any military activity at that time, it was hoped that by this action the British would be forced to pull troops away from their offensive actions against the Americans in order to defend their own forts.
Ethan Allen gathered his Vermont Green Mountain Boys, and late on the night of May 10, 1775, they surrounded the unsuspecting British fort and captured the guards. Having secured the perimeter, Ethan Allen told what occurred next:
One of the sentries made a pass at one of my officers with a charged bayonet, and slightly wounded him: My first thought was to kill him with my sword; but, in an instant, I altered the design and fury of the blow to a slight cut on the side of the head; upon which he dropped his gun, and asked quarter, which I readily granted him, and demanded of him the place where the commanding officer kept; he showed me a pair of stairs in the front of a barrack, on the west part of the garrison, which led up to a second story in said barrack, to which I immediately repaired, and ordered the commander, Captain de la Place, to come forth instantly, or I would sacrifice the whole garrison; at which the Captain came immediately to the door, with his breeches in his hand; when I ordered him to deliver to me the fort instantly; he asked me by what authority I demanded it: I answered him, “In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress.” . . . [H]e began to speak again; but I interrupted him, and with my drawn sword over his head, again demanded an immediate surrender of the garrison; with which he then complied.
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