Captain William Delaplace

William Delaplace was a British army officer whose career followed the ordinary pattern of mid-eighteenth-century imperial garrison service, far from the major theaters of European and colonial warfare. He had served in various postings before being assigned command of the small garrison at Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, a posting that reflected the strategic importance of the position as a sentinel on the northern frontier rather than any anticipation of imminent danger. In the months leading up to May 1775, Ticonderoga's garrison had been allowed to dwindle to a skeletal force, as British military administrators saw no immediate threat from the colonial interior.

The pre-dawn assault on May 10, 1775, caught Delaplace completely unprepared. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold led a mixed force of Green Mountain Boys and Massachusetts volunteers across the lake and through the fort's unguarded postern gate before the alarm could be raised. Delaplace was awakened by the commotion and appeared in his quarters to find Allen demanding the fort's surrender in terms that left him no military option. With a garrison of fewer than fifty men, no artillery prepared for service, and armed men already inside the walls, Delaplace had no realistic choice but to comply. He surrendered the fort, the garrison, and most importantly the considerable store of heavy artillery that the Americans desperately needed for operations against Boston.

Delaplace was taken prisoner and transported to Connecticut, where he and his garrison were held for a period before being eventually exchanged or released. He returned to British service and continued his military career, though he never commanded another significant position. His name survived in American memory chiefly as the foil to Ethan Allen's dramatic demand, an unwitting participant in one of the Revolution's most colorful early scenes. The artillery he surrendered, hauled across the mountains by Henry Knox during the winter of 1775-1776, gave Washington the firepower to force the British evacuation of Boston in March 1776, making Delaplace's surrender one of the more consequential moments of the war's opening phase.