The former commander, General Anthony Wayne left Fort Ticonderoga in April.
General St. Clair (a Scotland-born veteran of the British army from the French and Indian War, who joined the Continental Army in January 1776) arrived with 2500 men in three brigades under Generals Alexis Roche de Fermoy, John Paterson, and Enoch Poor.
However, more manpower (a garrison with 10 000 men) was needed. Also, a strengthened fort against a possible enemy attack from the surrounding mountains, especially Mount Defiance, from where later, early July, the British started bombarding Fort Ticonderoga.
It is with astonishment that we find the enemy have taken possession of an eminence called Sugarloaf Hill, or Mount Defiance, which, from its height and proximity, completely overlooks and commands all our works at Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. This mount it is said ought long since to have been fortified by our army, but its extreme difficulty of access, and the want of a sufficient num-ber of men are the reasons assigned for its being neglected. The situation of our garrison is viewed as critical and alarming; a few days, it is expected, will decide our fate. We have reason to apprehend the most fatal effects from their battery on Sugarloaf Hill.
– wrote Dr James Thacher in his Military Journal about the seriousness of the situation on the same day, when the evacuation of Fort Ticondroga started.
At about 12 o’clock, in the night of the 5th instant, I was urgently called from sleep, and informed that our army was in motion, and was instantly to abandon Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, I could scarcely believe that my informant was in earnest, but the confusion and bustle soon convinced me that it was really true, and that the short time allowed demanded my utmost industry.
– he wrote a few day later.
After the controversal retreat from Fort Ticonderoga, St.Clair, was court-martialed. The court exonerated him and he returned to duty, but he was no longer given any battlefield commands. He became an aid-de-camp to General Washington, and was at Yorktown when Lord Cornwallis surrendered his army.
After the war,in 1787 he served as the President of Continental Congress, and between 1788 and 1802 as the Governor of the Northwest Territory.
Arthur St. Clair is mentioned several times in Diana Gabaldon’s An Echo in the Bone (Outlander 7), during Claire and Jamie Fraser’s time in Fort Ticonderoga.