Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History

06/03/2026

05/31/2026

June 1, 1776 — Benedict Arnold and the Fight for Lake Champlain

Two hundred and fifty years ago today, Benedict Arnold stood at a critical crossroads in the northern war—shifting from a bold campaign into Canada to the urgent defense of New York.

The previous year had made Arnold one of the Revolution’s early heroes. He had marched through the Maine wilderness in a grueling expedition toward Quebec, led American forces in the assault on the city, and been wounded in the attack. When Richard Montgomery was killed on December 31, 1775, Arnold assumed temporary command of the shattered American army outside Quebec.

But the campaign unraveled. Disease spread, supplies failed, and British reinforcements arrived. Though others were given formal command, Arnold remained deeply involved as the army withdrew south in disorder.

By June 1776, his role had shifted again.

At Lake Champlain, Arnold was now overseeing the American position at one of the most strategic corridors in North America. The lake formed a natural highway from Quebec to the Hudson River. If the British controlled it, they could drive south, split New England from the rest of the colonies, and isolate the heart of the rebellion.

Arnold understood the stakes.

With few resources and little time, he began organizing the construction of a makeshift fleet—boats, galleys, and armed vessels—designed not to dominate the lake, but to contest it. Control of Lake Champlain would not be decided by land alone. It would be fought on the water.

His task was as urgent as it was difficult: build a navy where none existed, hold a line that could not easily be held, and prepare for a British advance that was already in motion.

On June 1, 1776, the northern war was no longer about taking Canada. It was about stopping the road south.

And that’s the way it was, June 1, 1776.

05/31/2026

05/28/2026

On this date in 1819 Commodore Abraham Whipple died at age 85 in Marietta, Ohio, having been one of the founders of that town on the Ohio River. A native of Rhode Island, Whipple first won fame as the leader of the group of Rhode Islanders who captured and burned the British revenue cutter “Gaspee,” the subject of an earlier Dose.

During the war, commanding the ship Providence, Whipple carried important dispatches to France and in June 1779 led a three-ship squadron in a daring raid on a British convoy off the coast of Newfoundland, taking 11 lucrative prizes, without suffering any losses or casualties. His wartime career ended in Charleston, South Carolina, where the ships under his command were bottled up in the harbor and captured when the city fell to the British. He was surrendered along with the rest of the American forces and remained a prisoner of war for the rest of the war.

Impoverished by the war and by Congress’s delay in reimbursing him for funds he had advanced personally, Whipple was forced to sell his farm in Rhode Island and move to what would become Marietta, where his son-in-law Colonel Ebenezer Sprout was living. In 1800 he sailed a newly constructed ship designed for use on the ocean, down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, then on to Havana. The success of that challenging feat enabled Marietta to establish a robust shipbuilding industry.

The inscription on his gravestone in Marietta reads: “Sacred to the memory of Commodore Abraham Whipple whose naval skill and courage will ever remain the pride and boast of his country. In the revolution he was the first on the seas to hurl defiance at proud Britain, gallantly leading the way to wrest from the mistress of the ocean her scepter, and there to wave the star spangled banner. He also conducted to the sea the first square rigged vessel built on the Ohio, opening to commerce resources beyond calculation.”

Three American navy warships have been named USS Whipple in the commodore’s honor, including a destroyer that earned two battle stars in World War II.

The portrait is by Edward Savage (1786).

05/27/2026

May 27, 1754 and 1776 — Washington’s First Shot—An Unintended Fuse to Revolution

Two decades after a young officer first tasted war on the edge of empire, George Washington stood at the head of the Continental Army in New York, preparing to defend it from British invasion.

But the path to that moment began far from the Hudson—deep in the woods of the Ohio Valley.

On May 27, 1754, a 22-year-old Washington led a small force of Virginia militia and Native allies near present-day Pittsburgh. He had ambition and courage, but little experience in command—learning in real time how to direct men, coordinate allies, and act on uncertain intelligence.

When his force encountered a French detachment, shots were fired—accounts differ on who fired first—but by the end, the French commander, Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, was dead.

The clash helped ignite the French and Indian War, part of the wider Seven Years’ War—a war that would decide control of North America.

Washington’s campaign quickly exposed his inexperience. Within weeks, he was forced to surrender at Fort Necessity—a hard lesson in war, logistics, and leadership.

But Britain would ultimately win. By 1763, it had driven France from mainland North America and secured vast new territory, including the Ohio Valley. The victory opened the door to American settlement and westward expansion—but it also came at a cost.

Defending this enlarged empire required troops, forts, and money.

London turned to the colonies.

Taxes followed—the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and others—justified as necessary to protect the lands Washington had helped bring into British hands by inadvertently triggering a world war. But colonists saw something different: they had fought as British subjects, yet were now taxed without representation.

Tension grew. Resistance followed.

What began as an uncertain command in the wilderness set off a chain reaction—war, expansion, taxation, and protest. It lit a fuse for revolution.

When it reached its end, he stood again in the field—no longer inexperienced, but shaped by failure, disciplined by experience, and ready to lead.

He had learned well from his mistakes—and from his experience in building the Revolutionary Army.

And that’s the way it was, May 27, 1754 and May 27, 1776.

05/26/2026

October 25, 1781 — just days after the British surrender at Yorktown — the Battle of Johnstown erupted in New York’s Mohawk Valley during one of the final violent campaigns of the American Revolution.

British Major John Ross and Loyalist commander Walter Butler led more than 700 British troops, Loyalists, and Native allies through the frontier settlements, burning homes and raiding farms across the valley.

American militia commander Colonel Marinus Willett rapidly gathered around 400 local militia and raced through the night to intercept them near Johnstown, New York.

The fighting exploded around open fields, forests, and Johnson Hall as Willett attempted a risky flanking maneuver against the larger British force.

At one point the American right flank collapsed into retreat, nearly handing victory to the British.

But Major Aaron Rowley’s hidden flanking force slammed into the British rear at the critical moment, stopping the advance and throwing the battlefield into chaos.

The battle devolved into brutal close-range fighting as militia units, Loyalists, and frontier fighters clashed across the countryside.

By nightfall the British force withdrew northward under pressure while Willett pursued them through snow and rough terrain for days afterward.

During the retreat, Loyalist commander Walter Butler was killed near West Canada Creek, ending the career of one of the most feared frontier raiders in the region.

The American victory at Johnstown effectively secured the Mohawk Valley and marked one of the final major battles in the northern theater of the Revolutionary War.

The battle became symbolic of the brutal frontier warfare that defined much of the conflict in upstate New York, where raids, burned settlements, and militia warfare devastated entire communities throughout the war.

05/25/2026

Memorial Day events in Missoula; RMMMH open 12-5.

05/25/2026

- May 22, 1781, The Siege of Ninety Six – A siege in western South Carolina late in the American Revolutionary War lasting from May 22 to June 18, 1781. Continental Army Major General Nathanael Greene led 1,000 troops in a siege against the 550 Loyalists in the fortified village of Ninety Six, South Carolina. The 28-day siege centered on an earthen fortification known as Star Fort. Despite having more troops, Greene was unsuccessful in taking the town, and was forced to lift the siege when Lord Rawdon approached from Charleston with British troops.