It is 1776. The first battles of the American Revolution have just been fought and a large British army has just landed at Montreal and means to push down the chain of lakes to split the colonies. The only thing standing in their way is General Benedict Arnold's ragtag bunch of Continentals, militia and seaman at the bottom of Lake Champlain. Although this book is listed as the sixth volume of the series, it is a prequel and takes us back to Kinkaid's first assignment as a Continental naval officer, when he is sent up to the New York woods to advise Arnold in the building and fighting of an inland fleet of gunboats to stop the British advance.