![Otis, James, Author, J. Watson Davis, and Publisher A.L. Burt Company. Corporal 'Lige's recruit: a story of Crown Point and Ticonderoga. [New York: A.L. Burt, publisher, ©, 1899] Pdf.](https://www.thenmusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-02-27-at-11.36.49 AM.png)
In late April 1775, a militia unit from Connecticut sent an urgent letter to Col. Ethan Allen, the commander a volunteer force known as the Green Mountain Boys who hailed from the rugged eastern part of New Hampshire colony. The Connecticut troops asked Allen for help in conducting a raid on Fort Ticonderoga, a British outpost in upstate New York that contained a large arsenal including dozens of cannon, mortars, and other artillery pieces that the colonial forces needed for the siege of Boston.
"“. . . directions were privately sent to me from the then colony (now state) of Connecticut to raise the Green Mountain Boys, and (if possible) with them to surprise and take the fortress Ticonderoga. This enterprise I cheerfully undertook; and, after first guarding all the several passes that led thither, to cut off all intelligence between the garrison and the country, made a forced march from Bennington and arrived at the lake opposite to Ticonderoga on the evening of the ninth day of May, 1775, with two hundred and thirty valiant Green Mountain Boys; and it was with the utomost difficulty that I procured boats to cross the lake.“"
Ethan Allen.Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, “The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as told by Participants” Vol. I (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1958) p. 102.