TICONDEROGA - Standing on the wind-swept ramparts of Fort Ticonderoga, not far from where hundreds of his countrymen are buried, British author Stephen Brumwell explains why this particular place is hallowed ground for Scotland's most revered military regiment.
“They go in 1,000 strong and lose 500,” said Brumwell, referring to the casualties suffered by the 42nd Highland Regiment, the famed Black Watch, during a bloody battle fought here 250 years ago this summer during the French and Indian War (1754-1763).
“They still haven't forgotten,” Brumwell, author of several books on the 18th century British military in North America, said during a recent history conference. “For them it's a very poignant moment, this massive shedding of blood. The British are great fans of these glorious defeats.”
Built by the French, the fort was France's southernmost outpost in a region bloodied by set-piece battles, sieges and forest ambushes involving redcoats, rangers, colonial Americans, French regulars, Canadian militia and numerous Indian tribes between 1755 and 1760. During the Revolutionary War, the fort changed hands twice between the British and Americans without any shots being fired.
Ticonderoga, according to author and historian Fred Anderson, has been a storied place since before white men began fighting over this vital piece of real estate between the northern end of Lake George and the southern end of Lake Champlain. Indians camped here while using the region's system of lakes and rivers to trade and wage war long before the first Europeans arrived in the early 1600s.
“It's one of those spots that draws our attention to the importance not only of these colliding empires but to the people between them,” Anderson, professor of history at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said during the fort's annual French and Indian War symposium.
Ticonderoga is a name that still resonates among the Black Watch, which has been merged with other British military units after nearly three centuries as an independent regiment. A British unit serving in Iraq named its desert base camp Ticonderoga, and Black Watch veterans will join British, Canadian and American active military personnel here in July for a memorial service marking the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Carillon, also known as the Battle of Ticonderoga.
Fought on July 8, 1758, the battle would remain the bloodiest on American soil until the Civil War's Battle of Antietam in 1862.
Almost 2,000 British troops, including several hundred of the Black Watch, were killed wounded or captured at Ticonderoga, along with some 440 Frenchmen.
The Ticonderoga battle will be re-enacted over two days - June 28 to 29 - during the fort's Grand Encampment of the French and Indian War.
About 2,000 re-enactors from across the U.S., Canada, Britain and France are expected to participate, about twice as many as usually take part in the annual re-enactment weekend, said Nicholas Westbrook, executive director of Fort Ticonderoga.
The descendants of several key figures in the fort's history are also expected to attend, including those of the French commander during the 1758 battle, the Canadian-born engineer who designed the fortifications and a British general who served at Ticonderoga.
The mock battles will be held on a glen where volunteers have erected a 350-yard-long log barricade similar to the one the French hastily built about three-quarters of a mile from the fort's northwest wall as a 15,000-strong British army sailed up Lake George in early July 1758.
“They still haven't forgotten,” Brumwell, author of several books on the 18th century British military in North America, said during a recent history conference. “For them it's a very poignant moment, this massive shedding of blood. The British are great fans of these glorious defeats.”
Built by the French, the fort was France's southernmost outpost in a region bloodied by set-piece battles, sieges and forest ambushes involving redcoats, rangers, colonial Americans, French regulars, Canadian militia and numerous Indian tribes between 1755 and 1760. During the Revolutionary War, the fort changed hands twice between the British and Americans without any shots being fired.
Ticonderoga, according to author and historian Fred Anderson, has been a storied place since before white men began fighting over this vital piece of real estate between the northern end of Lake George and the southern end of Lake Champlain. Indians camped here while using the region's system of lakes and rivers to trade and wage war long before the first Europeans arrived in the early 1600s.
“It's one of those spots that draws our attention to the importance not only of these colliding empires but to the people between them,” Anderson, professor of history at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said during the fort's annual French and Indian War symposium.
Ticonderoga is a name that still resonates among the Black Watch, which has been merged with other British military units after nearly three centuries as an independent regiment. A British unit serving in Iraq named its desert base camp Ticonderoga, and Black Watch veterans will join British, Canadian and American active military personnel here in July for a memorial service marking the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Carillon, also known as the Battle of Ticonderoga.
Fought on July 8, 1758, the battle would remain the bloodiest on American soil until the Civil War's Battle of Antietam in 1862.
Almost 2,000 British troops, including several hundred of the Black Watch, were killed wounded or captured at Ticonderoga, along with some 440 Frenchmen.
The Ticonderoga battle will be re-enacted over two days - June 28 to 29 - during the fort's Grand Encampment of the French and Indian War.
About 2,000 re-enactors from across the U.S., Canada, Britain and France are expected to participate, about twice as many as usually take part in the annual re-enactment weekend, said Nicholas Westbrook, executive director of Fort Ticonderoga.
The descendants of several key figures in the fort's history are also expected to attend, including those of the French commander during the 1758 battle, the Canadian-born engineer who designed the fortifications and a British general who served at Ticonderoga.
The mock battles will be held on a glen where volunteers have erected a 350-yard-long log barricade similar to the one the French hastily built about three-quarters of a mile from the fort's northwest wall as a 15,000-strong British army sailed up Lake George in early July 1758.
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