I know battles are not great because of the numbers engaged in them, or because of the heaps of slain. Some of the greatest have been between small bodies of men, but are great because of deciding matters of moment to the world. I know the battle we fought at Valcour Island was momentous indeed, and that no force, great or small, ever lived to better purpose or died more gloriously than the force that manned Arnold’s fleet on Lake Champlain. It had saved the lake for that year; and it had done more: it had won the delay that brought us the chance to fight at Saratoga—a chance that otherwise must have been forever lost. All of that was due to Arnold. Every last bit of credit goes to Arnold; for no other man could have effected the building of even the small fleet we did build; nor could any two—or ten—others have planned the fight that Arnold planned, or held our untrained forces to a resistance as dogged and heroic as any in all naval history.

… When the wounded were safe ashore, Doc Means and Verrieul came to help me with Nathaniel. Doc’s ragged tow-cloth smock was belted around him, its back bulging with the bundles of his profession. He peered near-sightedly at Nathaniel; then nodded encouragingly.

“No,” Doc said, “he ain’t dead, but he’s been pretty close to it. I shouldn’t wonder if a cannon ball come past his head and pushed the air against him so hard it was kind of like being kicked by two-three mules all together. That’s how it looks to me. If we don’t jolt him, and if we can get him laid down in a quiet place, where there ain’t somebody tripping over us every minute, or falling dead on us, I’d prob’ly have him up and walking in half an hour, lively as a chipmunk.”

The two enemy schooners and the ship maneuvered at the entrance to the bay. Streamers of white smoke drifted down wind from their black hulls as they threw shot at us—shot that passed overhead, wailing, to smash among the pines.

I kept an eye on the British vessels, fearing they might attempt what I, under the circumstances, would have tried to do: come into the bay on a long slant, so to be closer—so to capture these beached hulks of ours, and their guns, with boarding parties. To this day I cannot say why they held off, firing uselessly, when they might have scudded to Crown Point in pursuit of the Trumbull galley and the four smaller craft still afloat. But hold off they did; and it was to the angry roaring of their distant guns that Doc and I swung Nathaniel down into Verrieul’s outstretched arms.