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How a Lost Battle Won the War

Wars take on, and have taken on, many different forms throughout history. In some instances, an overwhelming, bombarding display of military superiority is inevitable for the victory, as it was in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. In other circumstances, simply buying time may be enough. And that is precisely how, Benedict Arnold, Naval Commander and soon to be the infamous traitor of the US militia, was able to defeat seemingly insurmountable odds and win over the revolution to the American side through a single lost battle in Lake Champlain in the winter of 1776. 

 America in 18th century scarcely resembled the great superpower it is today. Being a mere colony of less than 2 million mostly Puritan escapees of religious prosecution, the thirteen colonies on the east of the continent had no trained army, navy or solid central governance barring a mere gathering of dozen or so landowners to discuss articles regarding their revolt. And in 4th of July 1776 these inconsequential congregation of colonies effectively declared war on their colonisers, Europe's superpower of their time harbouring world's most disciplined, well-equiped soldiers, armadas of state-of-the-art vessels and battle-hardened marines whom have experienced the treacherous waters of the Seven Year's War. American's in unison had begun to bang their heads against the wall in efforts to win an impossible war. 

 Virtually everything about the warfare was against the Americans: the size of fleets, number of soldiers, their expertise, equipment, war vessels and much more. Britain also boasted the richest, most stable economy in the world stemming from its intricate and vast global trading network centred around their colonies worldwide. Americans, on the other hand, were mostly farmers and the colonies' economies were dependent on cotton export to the UK. As one may expect from such one-sided affairs, the British army had every potential and mean to seize a quick, sweeping victory. 

 After a devastating failed attempt at annexing British Quebec in December of 1775, American forces, lead by General Benedict Arnold, were in the course of retreat down back into New England. But British forces had now landed in Canada and lead a joint expedition headed to Boston, the heart of the rebellion. Land routes were virtually non-existent. Lake Champlain, an Ice Age lake in what is now northern New York that flowed into navigational parts of the upper Hudson River, was the only route the British could embark upon to reach New England. If successful, the British troops would reach New York then Boston virtually unchallenged and the rebellion would be over before it even had a proper kick-off. 

 Benedict Arnold, strategically, burned and destroyed all naval vessels in Lake Champlain amidst his retreat to prevent them being used against him by the Redcoats. After a council on July of 1776, it was wisely decided that Crown Point, an American fort on the west shore of the Lake, would be abandoned and forces would withdraw south to Fort Ticonderoga, and as their last line of defence, a then non-existent fleet would barricade the British at Lake Champlain. Again the Americans were outmatched. On top of the pre-existing fleet, British had twelve gunboats shipped over from Europe, disassembled, transported, and by late September reassembled and ready for battle at the Lake. Arnold and the American navy that was yet to have a fleet were lacking not only shipwrights but building materials, food and weapons. Furthermore, practically the entire American troop had no seafaring experience. The general had to hire and bring over shipwrights from all coastal corners of the thirteen colonies, cut down trees in the nearby woodlands for timber and train his army of neal naval experience for the very first and most pivotal naval warfare of the revolution. 

By October Arnold had at his dispensation sixteen improvised rudimentary warships and a little over 500 sailors. Impressive feat in the short time he had, but definitely no match for the 2200 Canadian-British force. To overcome the lack of manpower, battleships, guns, cannons and everything that wins you naval battles, Arnold skilfully placed his flotilla in a narrow stretch of water fended off by Valcour Island and the west shore of Lake Chaplain. The slender passage would allow the Americans to best combat larger ships with their makeshift counterparts. 

 The British, under the command of Quebec Governor Carleton, set sail on the 11th of October, somewhat couple months later than they would have liked to. Carleton sailed into the east coast of Valcour Island unaware of the impending encounter—the confrontation was devastating for the Americans. The Royal Savage one of the flagships, unlike its name, accomplished little and ran aground and went up in flames almost immediately. Three gunboats were sunk and The Carleton, a one of the bigger schooners, had almost all of its crew killed. Arnold and the rest of the crew, however, managed to escape the shattering cannon-fire and set sail south. The American crew kept their feet steady until the third day, 13th October, then Arnold ran his very own ship aground and marched away on foot back to Fort Ticonderoga. 

 On whole, Americans lost 200 men, either killed or captured. Eleven of their sixteen impromptu vessels were sunk. It's plain and simple. They lost. They clearly suffered an indiscriminate loss at battle. The British Captain was made a Baronet and the Commander a Knight of Bath. But this battle, the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain, that the British won so decisively, lost them the revolution, handed severely outnumbered, less-equipped Americans their independence. 

 Go back three months, British, like the Americans, have realised the strategic importance of controlling Lake Champlain. But they were stopped in their tracks when intelligence of Americans building ships to form a line of defence came through. They too spent time reassembling ships and preparing their forces. By the time the Americans were defeated and Carleton started his journey down the Hudson into New York, first making his base at Ticonderoga, Winter had fast approached. It began snowing and the river began to freeze; Carleton had no choice but to retreat back to Canada as he had no viable way of managing a supply line during harsh North American winter. British invasion from the north into New England, by far the most threatening notion, was now virtually impossible until the Spring of 1777. In the time bought, the Americans were not only able to regather and equip, they drafted and received more soldiers, properly organised their militia and planned out their course of attack and defence. 

Had the British carried on with their original timeline, they would have set up their base in New York by late October and by December that year, the entire rebel force in New England would have been crushed. Through a tactical loss but a strategic victory, Benedict Arnold and the Continental army was able to keep their ground and ultimately write one of the greatest underdog history as the mere union of colonies snatch their independence from the world's greatest military and economic superpower.

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First Americans were Not Asian Migrants, They Were European Diaspora - Alexander Jeong

The first Americans were not Asians, rather, they were white Europeans. I know. It sounds just like another racially-charged, poorly-researched, pseudoscientific claims made by uneducated activists around the world: "we were Kings of Egypt," "Jesus was Anglo-Saxon," "Mesopotamians were Chinese," etc etc. However, the Soultrean Hypothesis, which claims that the fist Americans came across the Atlantic from South Europe, is a theory that enjoys some popular and academic support, with its grounds backed up by archaeological, circumstantial and scientific evidences.

Traditional and mainstream theory suggests that circa 15,000 years ago, over the course of a millennia or so, whilst the Bering Strait still had a land bridge across it, people of East Asian descendent crossed over from Russia to the Western tip of North America, becoming the starting pieces to a chain of migration that saw the eventual occupation of every corner of North, Central, South Americas and the Caribbean islands. Then why is it that a third of Native American genotypes are Eurasian? It is obviously post-Columbian genetic mixing, one may say. Then what about pre-Colombian burial skeletons showing Caucasian features? The utter lack of similar stone tools between North America and Siberia? Pre-Clovis burial sites? All these complications are answered for if the first Native Americans crossed the Atlantic Ocean and not the Bering Strait.

The theory first came to place when archaeologists noticed an uncanny resemblance between Soultrean stone tools and early Native American stone tools. Soultrean culture flourished 21,000 to 17,000 years ago in what is today France, Spain and Portugal. Their stone tools were distinguished by bifacial, percussion and pressure-flaked points. Artefacts from sites of Clovis culture, what is believed to be the first Native American settlements, also share these characteristics in their stone tools. Clovis points and axes discovered date back to circa 13,000 years ago. Had this technology been individually invented by Native Americans or transferred from Asia as their people crossed into America, similar stone tools should have been discovered in archaeological sites

throughout their proposed paths. However, no such tools have been found in Siberia, Alaska or Northern Canada. Pressure-flaked Clovis points are found only in Clovis sites, heavily centred in the East Coast of America, not the Northwest as intuition would tell had they really come from Asia.

To backup this strong circumstantial archaeological consideration, science steps in too. The skull of Kennewick Man, a skeleton of an ancient, pre-Columbian Native American, when reconstructed, had distinctly Caucasian features and "resembled the English actor Patrick Stewart." The prevalence of Haplogroup X, a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup, among Native Americans and South Europeans also reaffirms the Soultrean hypothesis from a geneticist perspective. Radiocarbon dating on recently discovered Pennsylvanian sites also potentially present a human settlement almost 5000 years older than when mainstream history and archaeology suggests human migration into Americas started. Is it mere coincidence that an ancient, pre-Clovis human settlement has been found in Northeast America, an ocean away from South Europe, home to the Soultrean culture?

We will never know for sure how exactly the Americas were settled, but the Soultrean Hypothesis, and its evidences, present to us a compelling revisionist case involving multiple facets of historical research, from bare-bone (pun intended) archaeology to state-of-the-art genetic analysis —it is an ever fascinating topic for sure.

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