ill be
completed. We shall have a little promenade of eight days, to Albany.

On June 29 the army was near Ticonderoga. This day Burgoyne made a
stirring address to his soldiers, in which he gave out the memorable
watchword, "_This army must not retreat._"

The next day, Frazer's corps landed in full view of the fortress. The
rest of the army was posted on both sides of the lake, which is nowhere
wider than a river as the fortress is approached. The fleet kept the
middle of the channel. With drums beating and bugles sounding, the
different battalions took up their allotted stations in the woods
bordering upon the lake. When night fell, the watch-fires of the
besiegers' camps made red the waters that flowed past them. But as yet
no hostile gun boomed from the ramparts of Ticonderoga.

What was going on behind those grim walls which frowned defiance upon
the invaders? General Gates was no longer there to direct. General St.
Clair[18] was now in command of perhaps four thousand effective men,
with whom, nevertheless, he hoped to defend his miles of intrenchments
against the assaults of twice his own numbers. His real weakness lay in
not knowing what point Burgoyne would choose for attack, and he had been
strangely delinquent in not calling for reenforcements until the enemy
was almost at the gates of the fortress itself.

Burgoyne knew better than to heedlessly rush upon the lines that had
proved Abercromby's destruction.[19] He knew they were too strong to be
carried without great bloodshed, and meant first to invest the fortress,
and after cutting off access to it on all sides, then lay siege to it in
regular form.

[Sidenote: July 2, Mount Hope seized.]

To this end, Frazer's corps was moved up to within cannon-shot of the
works. His scouts soon found a way leading through old paths,[20] quite
round the rear of the fortress, to the outlet of Lake George. This was
promptly seized. After a little skirmishing, the enemy planted
themselves firmly, on some high ground rising behind the old French
lines, on this side; thus making themselves masters of the communication
with Lake George, and enclosing the fortress on the rear or land side.
While this was going on, on the west shore, Riedesel's Germans were
moved up still nearer Mount Independence, on the Vermont shore, thus
investing Ticonderoga on three sides.

A more enterprising general would never have permitted his enemy to
seize his communications with Lake Georg