Fort Ticonderoga

The most famous fort in America had already had two famous moments (a British army wrecked itself against its French defenders in 1758, the American Ethan Allen at its gate in 1775). Now the British general Burgoyne's 8,000 were coming down the lake at an American garrison of 2,500, and the one hill that overlooked everything still had no guns on it.

British engineers cut a road up Mount Defiance and hauled two cannon to the summit; they never had to fire. A night evacuation lit up by a burning house, a flotilla destroyed at Skenesborough, and the real battle fought by the rearguard at Hubbardton, where the German troops came in singing.

Congress stunned, two generals vilified and both acquitted, a king (the story goes) crowing that he had beat all the Americans. And the inversion underneath it all: the "disaster" saved the garrison for Saratoga, while every mile of Burgoyne's march stretched the rope behind his army.