Ethan Allen (January 21, 1738-February 12, 1789) was an American Revolutionary War leader and Commander of the Green Mountain Boys. On the morning of May 10, 1775, in a surprise attack, Allen's troops surrounded Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. Ethan Allen demanded that Captain de la Place surrender the fort instantly. The bewildered captain asked in whose name and in whose authority Allen was making such a demand. Ethan Allen responded:
<In the Name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.> 1738EA001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1738EA001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Ethan Allen. May 10, 1775, statement made in demanding that Captain de la Place surrender Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain to the Green Mountain Boys of the Continental Army. Ethan Allen, A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity (Burlington: 1779, 4th ed., 1846). Washington Irving, Life of Washington (1855-1859), Vol. 1, ch. 38. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 385. U.S. Senator and former Governor of Rhode Island, Henry Bowen Anthony (1815-1884), in a eulogy delivered January 9, 1872, at the dedication of the Statue of Roger Williams in the U.S. Capital Rotunda (Washington: F & J. Rives & Geo. A. Bailey, 1872). Charles Fadiman, ed., The American Treasury (NY: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1955), p. 371. Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds., The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six (NY: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1958; reprinted, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1967), p. 103. Burton Stevenson, The Home Book of Quotations-Classical & Modern (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1967), p. 61. Peter Beilenson, ed., Spirit of '76 (NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1974), p. 35. Boston Globe, June 8, 1975, p. 15. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1977), p. 276. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Glory of America (Bloomington, MN: Garborg's Heart'N Home, Inc., 1991), 2.11.