CHAPTER XII
"THIS campaign will end the war," was the
opinion given by Riedesel; and through Lord Suffolk he solicited
the continued favor of the British king, who was in his eyes "the
adoration of all the universe." Flushed with expectations of
glory, Carleton employed the unusually mild winter in
preparations. On the last day of April he gave audience to the
deputies of the Six Nations, and accepted their services with
thanks and gifts. Other large bodies of Indians were engaged,
under leaders of their own approval. "Wretched colonies!" said
Riedesel, "if these wild souls are indulged in war."
To secure the Mohawks to the British side, Joseph Brant urged
them to abandon their old abode for lands more remote from
American settlements. To counteract his authority, Gates, near
the end of May, thus spoke to a council of warriors of the Six
Nations:
"The United States are now one people; suffer not any evil spirit to lead you into war. Brothers of the Mohawks, you will be no more a people from the time you quit your ancient habitations; if there is any wretch so bad as to think of prevailing upon you to leave the sweet stream so beloved by your forefathers, he is your bitterest enemy. Before many moons pass away, the pride of England will be laid low; then how happy will it make you to reflect that you have preserved the neutrality so earnestly recommended to you from the beginning of the war! Brothers of the Six Nations, the Americans well know your great fame and power as warriors; the only reason why they did not ask your help against the cruelty of the king was, that they thought it ungenerous to desire you to suffer in a quarrel in which you had no concern. Brothers, treasure all I have now said in your hearts; for the day will come when you will hold my memory in veneration for the good advice contained in this speech."
[157] The settlers in the land which this year took the name
of Vermont refused by a great majority to come under the
jurisdiction of New York; on the fifteenth of January 1777, their
convention declared the independence of their state. At Windsor,
on the second of June, they appointed a committee to prepare a
constitution; and they hoped to be received into the American
union. But, as New York opposed, congress, by an uncertain
majority against a determined minority, disclaimed the intention
of recognising Vermont as a separate state.
Gates charged Saint-Clair to "call lustily for aid of all
kinds, for no general ever lost by surplus numbers or over-
preparation;" and he then repaired to Philadelphia, to intrigue
for his reinstatement.
On the twelfth, Saint-Clair, the best of the brigadiers then
in the North, reached Ticonderoga. Five days later Schuyler
visited his army. Mount Defiance, which overhangs the outlet of
Lake George and was the "key of the position," was left
unoccupied. From the old French intrenchments to the
southeastern works on the Vermont side the wretchedly planned and
unfinished defences extended more than two miles and a half; and
from end to end of the straggling lines and misplaced block-
houses there was no spot which could be held against a superior
force. The British could reach the place by the lake more swiftly
than the Americans through the forest. A necessity for evacuating
the post might arise; but Schuyler shrunk from giving definite
instructions, and, returning to Albany, busied himself with
forwarding to Ticonderoga supplies for a long siege.
[158] On the sixth of May, Burgoyne arrived at Quebec.
Carleton received with amazement despatches censuring his conduct
in the last campaign, and ordering him, for "the speedy quelling
of the rebellion," to make over to an inferior officer the
command of the Canadian army as soon as it should cross the
boundary of the province of Quebec. Answering with passionate
recrimination the just reproaches of Germain and of his adviser
Lord Amherst, he at once yielded up the chief military authority,
and, as civil governor, paid a haughty but unquestioning
obedience to the requisitions of Burgoyne. Contracts were made
for fifteen hundred horses and five hundred carts; a thousand
Canadians, reluctant and prone to desertion, were called out as
road-makers and wagoners; and six weeks' supplies for the army
were crowded forward upon the one line of communication by the
Sorel. Burgoyne had very nearly all the force which he had
represented as sufficient. His officers were well chosen,
especially Phillips and Riedesel as major-generals and the
Highlander Fraser as an acting brigadier. A diversion, from which
great consequences were expected, was to proceed by way of Lake
Ontario to the Mohawk river. Sir William Howe was notified that
Burgoyne had orders to force a junction with his army.
On the fifteenth of June, Burgoyne advanced from St. John's,
as he thought, to easy victories and high promotion. Officers'
wives attended their husbands, promising themselves an agreeable
trip. On the twentieth some of the Indians, shedding the first
blood, brought in ten scalps and as many prisoners. The next
day, at the camp near the river Bouquet, a little north of Crown
Point, Burgoyne, the applauded writer of plays for the stage,
gathering round him the chief officers of his army in their gala
uniforms, met in congress about four hundred Iroquois, Algonkin,
and Ottawa savages, and thus appealed to what he called "their
wild honor":
[159] "Warriors, you are free; go forth in might of your
valor and your cause; strike at the common enemies of Great
Britain and America, disturbers of public order, peace, and
happiness, destroyers of commerce, parricides of the state. The
circle round you, the chiefs of his majesty's European forces,
and of those of the princes, his allies, esteem you as brothers
in the war; emulous in glory and in friendship, we will
reciprocally give and receive examples. Be it our task to
regulate your passions when they overbear. I positively forbid
bloodshed, when you are not opposed in arms. Aged men, women,
children, and prisoners must be held sacred from the knife and
the hatchet, even in the time of actual conflict. You shall
receive compensation for the prisoners you take, but you shall be
called to account for scalps. Your customs have affixed an idea
of honor to such badges of victory: you shall be allowed to take
the scalps of the dead, when killed by your fire in fair
opposition; but on no pretence are they to be taken from the
wounded or even dying. Should the enemy, on their part, dare to
countenance acts of barbarity toward those who may fall into
their hands, it shall be yours to retaliate."
An old Iroquois chief replied: "When you speak, we hear the
voice of our great father beyond the great lake. We have been
tried and tempted by the Bostonians; but we loved our father, and
our hatchets have been sharpened upon our affections. In proof
of sincerity, our whole villages, able to go to war, are come
forth. The old and infirm, our infants and wives, alone remain
at home. With one common assent we promise a constant obedience
to all you have ordered and all you shall order; and may the
Father of days give you many, and success."
Having feasted the Indians according to their custom,
Burgoyne published his speech, which reflected his instructions.
Edmund Burke, who had learned that the natural ferocity of those
tribes far exceeded the ferocity of all barbarians mentioned in
history, pronounced that they were not fit allies for the king in
a war with his people; that Englishmen should never confirm their
evil habits by fleshing them in the slaughter of British
colonists. In the house of commons Fox censured the king for
suffering them in his camp, when it was well known that
"brutality, murder, and destruction were ever inseparable from
Indian warriors." When Suffolk, before the lords, contended that
it was perfectly justifiable to use all the means which God and
nature had put into their hands, Chatham called down "the most
decisive indignation at these abominable principles and this more
abominable avowal of them."
[160] In a proclamation issued at Crown Point, Burgoyne,
claiming to speak "in consciousness of Christianity and the honor
of soldiership," enforced his persuasions to the Americans by
menaces like these: "Let not people consider their distance from
my camp; I have but to give stretch to the Indian forces under my
direction, and they amount to thousands, to overtake the hardened
enemies of Great Britain. If the frenzy of hostility should
remain, I trust I shall stand acquitted in the eyes of God and
man in executing the vengeance of the state against the wilful
outcasts."
On the last day of June, Burgoyne declared in general
orders: "This army must not retreat;" while Saint-Clair wrote to
Schuyler: "Should the enemy attack us, they will go back faster
than they came." On the first of July the invading army moved up
the lake. As they encamped at evening before Ticonderoga and
Mount Independence, the rank and file, exclusive of Indians,
numbered three thousand seven hundred and twenty-four British,
three thousand and sixteen Germans, two hundred and fifty
provincials, besides four hundred and seventy-three skilful
artillerists, with an excessive supply of artillery. On the
third, one of Saint-Clair's aids promised Washington "the total
defeat of the enemy." On that day Riedesel was studying how to
invest Mount Independence. On the fourth, Phillips seized the
mills near the outlet of Lake George, and hemmed in Ticonderoga
on that side. In the following night a party of infantry,
following the intimation of Lieutenant Twiss of the engineers,
took possession of Mount Defiance. In one day more, batteries
from that hill would play on both forts, and Riedesel complete
the investment of Mount Independence. "We must away," said
Saint-Clair; his council of war were all of the same mind, and
the retreat must be made the very next night. The garrison,
according to his low estimate, consisted of thirty-three hundred
men, of whom two thirds were effective, but with scarcely more
than one bayonet to every tenth soldier. One regiment, the
invalids, and such stores as there was time to lade, were sent in
boats up the lake to Whitehall, while the great body of the
troops, under Saint-Clair, took the new road through the
wilderness to Hubbardton.
[161] They left ample stores of ammunition, flour, salt meat,
and herds of oxen, more than seventy cannon, and a large number
of tents. Burgoyne, who came up in the fleet, sent Fraser with
twenty companies of English grenadiers, followed by Riedesel's
infantry and reserve corps, in pursuit of the army of Saint-
Clair; and, as soon as the channel between Ticonderoga and Mount
Independence could be cleared, the fleet, bearing Burgoyne and
the rest of his forces, chased after the detachment which had
escaped by water. The Americans, burning three of their vessels,
abandoned two others and the fort at Whitehall. Everything which
they brought from Ticonderoga was destroyed, or fell a prey to
their pursuers.
On the same day Burgoyne reported to his government that the
army of Ticonderoga was "disbanded and totally ruined." Germain
cited to General Howe this example of "rapid progress," and
predicted an early junction of the two armies. Men disputed in
England whether most to admire the sword or the pen of Burgoyne;
and were sure of the entire conquest of the confederate provinces
before Christmas.
Public opinion rose against Schuyler. Of the evacuation of
Ticonderoga, Hamilton reasoned rightly: "If the post was
untenable, or required a larger number of troops to defend it
than could be spared for the purpose, it ought long ago to have
been foreseen and given up. Instead of that, we have kept a
large quantity of cannon in it, and have been heaping up very
valuable magazines of stores and provisions, that in the critical
moment of defence are abandoned and lost." So judged the public
and congress. Schuyler had, as the condition of his reappointment
to the command, taken upon himself the responsibility of the
defence of Ticonderoga, and had claimed praise for having piled
up ample stores within its walls. He sought to escape from
condemnation by insisting that the retreat was made without the
least hint from himself, and was "ill-judged and not warranted by
necessity." With manly frankness Saint-Clair assumed as his own
the praiseworthy act which had saved to the country many of its
bravest defenders.
[162] On the second of July the convention of Vermont
reassembled at Windsor. The organic law which they adopted,
blending the culture of their age with the traditions of
Protestantism, assumed that all men are born free and with
inalienable rights; that they may emigrate from one state to
another, or form a new state in vacant countries; that "every
sect should observe the Lord's day, and keep up some sort of
religious worship;" that every man may choose that form of
religious worship "which shall seem to him most agreeable to the
revealed will of God." They provided for a school in each town,
a grammar-school in each county, and a university in the state.
All officers, alike executive and legislative, were to be chosen
annually and by ballot; the freemen of every town and all one-
year's residents were electors. Every member of the house of
representatives must declare "his belief in one God, the rewarder
of the good and the punisher of the wicked; in the divine
inspiration of the scriptures; and in the Protestant religion."
The legislative power was vested in one general assembly, subject
to no veto, though an advisory power was given to a board
consisting of the governor, lieutenant-governor, and twelve
councillors. Slavery was forbidden and forever; and there could
be no imprisonment for debt. Once in seven years an elective
council of censors was to take care that freedom and the
constitution were preserved in purity.
The marked similarity of this system to that of Pennsylvania
is ascribed in part to the influence of Thomas Young of
Philadelphia, who had punished an address to the people of
Vermont. After the loss of Ticonderoga, the introduction of the
constitution was postponed, lest the process of change should
interfere with the public defence, for which the Vermont council
of safety supplicated aid from the New Hampshire committee at
Exeter and from Massachusetts.
[163] On the night of the sixth, Fraser and his party made
their bivouac seventeen miles from the lake, with that of
Riedesel three miles in their rear. At three in the morning of
the seventh both detachments were in motion. The savages having
discovered the rear-guard of Saint-Clair's army, which Warner,
contrary to his instructions, had encamped for the night at
Hubbardton, six miles short of Castleton, Fraser, at five,
ordered his troops to advance. To their great surprise, Warner,
who was nobly assisted by Colonel Eben Francis and his New
Hampshire regiment, turned and began the attack. The English were
like to be worsted, when Riedesel with his vanguard and company
of yagers came up, their music playing, the men singing a battle-
hymn. Francis for a third time charged at the head of his
regiment, and held his enemies at bay till he fell. On the
approach of the three German battalions, his men retreated toward
the south. Fraser, taking Riedesel by the hand, thanked him for
the timely rescue. Of the Americans, few were killed, and most
of those engaged in the fight made good their retreat; but during
the day the British took more than two hundred stragglers,
wounded men, and invalids. Of the Brunswickers twenty-two were
killed or wounded, of the British one hundred and fifty-five.
The heavy loss stopped the pursuit; and Saint-Clair, with two
thousand continental troops, marched unmolested to Fort Edward.
The British regiment which chased the fugitives from
Whitehall took ground within a mile of Fort Ann. On the morning
of the eighth its garrison drove them nearly three miles, took a
captain and three privates, and inflicted a loss of at least
fifty in killed and wounded. Reinforced by a brigade, the
English returned only to find the fort burned down, and the
garrison beyond reach.
Burgoyne chose to celebrate these event by a day of
thanksgiving. Another disappointment awaited him. He asked
Carleton to hold Ticonderoga with a part of the three thousand
troops left in Canada; Carleton, pleading his instructions which
confined him to his own province, refused, and left Burgoyne "to
drain the life-blood of his army" for the garrison. Supplies of
provisions came tardily. Of the Canadian horses contracted for,
not more than one third arrived in good condition over the wild
mountain roads. The wagons were made of green wood, and were
deficient in number. Further, Burgoyne should have turned back
from Whitehall and moved to the Hudson river by way of Lake
George and the old road; but the word was: "Britons never
recede;" and after the halt of a fortnight he took the short cut
to Fort Edward, through a wilderness bristling with woods, broken
by numerous creeks, and treacherous with morasses. He reports
with complacency the construction of more than forty bridges, a
"log-work" over a morass two miles in extent, and the rein oval
of layers of fallen timber-trees. But this persistent toil in the
heat of midsummer, among myriads of insects, dispirited his
troops.
Early in July, Burgoyne confessed to Germain that, "were the
Indians left to themselves, enormities too horrid to think of
would ensue; guilty and innocent, women and infants, would be a
common prey." The general, nevertheless, resolved to use them as
instruments of "terror," and promised, after arriving at Albany,
to send them "toward Connecticut and Boston," knowing full well
that they were left to themselves by La Corne Saint-Luc, their
leader, who was impatient of control in the use of the scalping-
knife. Every day the savages brought in scalps as well as
prisoners. On the twenty-seventh, Jane Maccrea, a young woman of
twenty, betrothed to a loyalist in the British service and
esteeming herself under the protection of British arms, was
riding from Fort Edward to the British camp at Sandy Hill,
escorted by two Indians. The Indians quarrelled about the reward
promised on her safe arrival, and at a half-mile from Fort Edward
one of them sunk his tomahawk in her skull. The incident was not
of unusual barbarity; but this massacre of a betrothed girl on
her way to her lover touched all who heard the story. Burgoyne,
from fear of "the total defection of the Indians," pardoned the
assassin.
[165] Schuyler owed his place to his social position, not to
military talents. Anxious, and suspected of a want of personal
courage, he found everything go ill under his command. To the
continental troops of Saint-Clair, who were suffering from the
loss of their clothes and tents, he was unable to restore
confidence; nor could he rouse the people. The choice for
governor of New York fell on George Clinton; "his character,"
said Washington to the council of safety, "will make him
peculiarly useful at the head of your state." Schuyler wrote:
"His family and connections do not entitle him to so
distinguished a preeminence." There could be no hope of a
successful campaign but with the hearty co-operation of New
England. Of the militia of New England the British commander-in-
chief has left his testimony that, "when brought to action, they
were the most persevering of any in all North America;" yet
Schuyler gave leave for one half of them to go home at once, the
rest to follow in three weeks, and then called upon Washington to
supply their places by troops from the south of Hudson river,
saying to his friends that one southern soldier was worth two
from New England.
On the twenty-second, long before Burgoyne was ready to
advance, Schuyler retreated to a position four miles below Fort
Edward. Here again he complained of his "exposure to immediate
ruin." His friends urged him to silence the growing suspicion of
his want of spirit; he answered: "If there is a battle, I shall
certainly expose myself more than is prudent." To the New York
council of safety he wrote on the twenty-fourth: "I mean to
dispute every inch of ground with Burgoyne, and retard his
descent as long as possible;" and in less than a week, without
disputing anything, he retreated to Saratoga, having his heart
set on a position at the junction of the Mohawk and Hudson. The
courage of the commander being gone, his officers and his army
became spiritless. From Saratoga, Schuyler, on the first of
August, wrote to the council of safety of New York: "I have been
on horseback all day reconnoitring the country for a place to
encamp on that will give us a chance of stopping the enemy's
career. I have not yet been able to find a spot that has the
least prospect of answering the purpose, and I believe you will
soon learn that we are retired still farther south. I wish that I
could say that the troops under my command were in good spirits.
They are quite otherwise. Under these circumstances the enemy
are acquiring strength and advancing."
On the fourth of August he sent word to congress that
"Burgoyne is at Fort Edward. He has withdrawn his troops from
Castleton and is bending his whole force this way. He will
probably be here in eight days, and, unless we are well
reinforced, as much farther as he chooses to go."
On the sixth, Schuyler writes to Governor Clinton of New
York: "The enemy will soon move, and our strength is daily
decreasing. We shall again be obliged to decamp and retreat
before them." And, as his only resource, he solicited aid from
Washington.
[166] The loss of Ticonderoga alarmed the patriots of New
York, gladdened the royalists, and fixed the wavering Indians as
enemies. Five counties were in the possession of the enemy;
three others suffered from disunion and anarchy; Tryon county
implored immediate aid; the militia of Westchester were absorbed
in their own defence; in the other counties scarcely men enough
remained at home to secure the plentiful harvest. Menaced on its
border from the Susquehannah to Lake Champlain, and on every part
of the Hudson, New York became the battle-field for the life of
the young republic; its council seconded Schuyler's prayers for
reinforcements.
The commander-in-chief, in the plan of the campaign, had
assigned to the northern department more than its share of troops
and resources; and had added one brigade which was beyond the
agreement and of which he stood in pressing need, for the army of
Howe was twice or thrice as numerous as that from Canada. In this
time of perplexity, when the country from the Hudson to Maryland
required to be guarded, the entreaties from Schuyler, from the
council of New York, and from Jay and Gouverneur Morris as
deputies of that council, poured in upon Washington. Alarmed by
Schuyler's want of fortitude, he ordered to the north Arnold, who
was fearless, and Lincoln, who was acceptable to the militia of
the eastern states, and, even though it weakened his own army
irretrievably, still one more brigade of excellent continental
troops under Glover. To hasten the rising of New England, he
wrote directly to the brigadier-generals of Massachusetts and
Connecticut, urging them to march for Saratoga with at least one
third part of the militia under their command. At the same time
he bade Schuyler "never despair," explaining that the forces
which might advance under Burgoyne could not much exceed five
thousand men; that they must garrison every fortified post left
behind them; that their progress must be delayed by their baggage
and artillery, and by the necessity of cutting new roads and
clearing old ones; that a party should be stationed in Vermont to
keep them in continual anxiety for their rear; that Arnold should
go to the relief of Fort Stanwix; that, if the invaders continued
to act in detachments, one vigorous fall upon some one of those
detachments might prove fatal to the whole expedition.
[167] In a like spirit he expressed to the council of New
York "the most sensible pleasure at the exertions of the state,
dismembered as it was, and under every discouragement and
disadvantage;" the success of Burgoyne, he predicted, would be
temporary; the southern states could not be asked to detail their
force, since it was all needed to keep Howe at bay; the
attachment of the eastern states to the cause insured their
activity when invoked for the safety of a sister state, of
themselves, of the continent; the worst effect of the loss of
Ticonderoga was the panic which it produced; calmly considered,
the expedition was not formidable; if New York should be
seasonably seconded by its eastern neighbors, Burgoyne would find
it equally difficult to advance or to retreat.
All this while Schuyler continued to despond. On the
thirteenth of August he could write from Stillwater to
Washington: "We are obliged to give way and retreat before a
vastly superior force, daily increasing in numbers, and which
will be doubled if General Burgoyne reaches Albany, which I
apprehend will be very soon;" and the next day he moved his army
to the first island in the mouth of the Mohawk river; and at
Albany accepted applause for "the wisdom of his safe retreat."
The first serious blow was struck by the husbandmen of Tryon
county.
Burgoyne, on his return to London in 1776, had censured
Carleton to Germain for not having sent by Lake Ontario and the
Oswego and Mohawk rivers an auxiliary expedition, which he had
offered to lead. Germain adopted the plan, and settled the
details for its execution chiefly by savages. To Carleton, whom
he accused of "avoiding to employ Indians," he announced the
king's "resolution that every means should be employed that
Providence had put in his majesty's hand for crushing the
rebellion." The detachment which was set apart for the service
under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Saint Leger, varying from
the schedule of Germain in its constituent parts more than in its
numbers, exceeded seven hundred and fifty white men. "The Six
Nations inclined to the rebels" from fear of being finally
abandoned by the king. The Mohawks could not rise unless they
were willing to leave their old hunting-grounds; the Oneidas were
friendly to the Americans; even the Senecas were hard to be
roused. Butler at Irondequat assured them that there was no
hindrance in the war-path; that they would have only to look on
and see Fort Stanwix fall; and for seven days he lavished
largesses on the fighting men and on their wives and children,
till "they accepted the hatchet." "Not much short of one
thousand Indian warriors," certainly "more than eight hundred,"
joined the white brigade of Saint-Leger. In addition to these,
Hamilton, the lieutenant-governor of Detroit, in obedience to
orders from the secretary of state, sent out fifteen several
parties, consisting in the aggregate of two hundred and eighty-
nine braves with thirty white officers and rangers, to prowl on
the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia.
[168] Collecting his forces as he advanced from Montreal by
way of Oswego, Saint-Leger on the third of August came near the
carrying-place, where for untold ages the natives had borne their
bark canoes over the narrow plain that divides the waters of the
St. Lawrence from those of the Hudson. Fort Stanwix proved to be
well constructed, safe by earthworks against artillery, and
garrisoned by six or seven hundred men under Lieutenant-Colonel
Gansevoort. A messenger from Brant's sister brought word that
General Nicholas Herkimer and the militia of Tryon county were
marching to its relief. A plan was made to lay for them an
ambush of savages.
During the evening the savages filled the woods with
yells. The next morning, having laid aside their blankets and
robes of fur, they all went out, naked, or clad only in hunting-
shirts, armed with spear, tomahawk, and musket, and supported by
Sir John Johnson and royal Yorkers, by Colonel Butler and
rangers, by Claus and Canadians, and by Lieutenant Bird and
regulars.
[169] The freeholders of the Mohawk valley, most of
them with the sons of Germans from the palatinate for officers,
seven or eight hundred in number, misinformed as to the strength
of the besieging party, marched carelessly through the wood.
About an hour before noon, when they were within six miles of the
fort, their van entered the ambuscade. They were surprised in
front by Johnson and his Yorkers, while the Indians attacked
their flanks with fury, and, after using their muskets, rushed in
with their tomahawks. The patriots fell back without confusion
to better ground, and renewed the fight against superior numbers.
There was no chance for tactics in this battle of the wilderness.
Small parties fought from be hind trees or fallen logs; or the
white man, born on the banks of the Mohawk, wrestled single-
handed with the Seneca warrior, like himself the child of the
soil. Herkimer was badly wounded below the knee; but he remained
on the ground, giving orders to the end. Thomas Spencer died the
death of a hero. The battle raged for at least an hour and a
half, when the Americans repulsed their assailants, but with the
loss of about one hundred and sixty, killed, wounded, or taken,
of the best men of western New York. The savages fought with
wild valor; three-and-thirty or more, among them the chief
warriors of the Senecas, lay dead beneath the trees; about as
many more were badly wounded. Of the Yorkers one captain, of the
rangers two were killed. What number of privates fell is not
told. The British loss, including savages and white men, was
probably about one hundred.
Three men having crossed the morass into Fort Stanwix
to announce the approach of Herkimer, by Gansevoort's order two
hundred and fifty men, half of New York, half of Massachusetts,
under Lieutenant-Colonel Marinus Willett, made a sally in the
direction of Oriska. They passed through the quarters of the
Yorkers, the rangers, and the savages, driving before them whites
and Indians, chiefly squaws and children, capturing Sir John
Johnson's papers, five British flags, the fur-robes and new
blankets and kettles of the Indians, and four prisoners.
Learning from them the check to Herkimer, the party of Willett
returned quickly to Fort Stanwix, bearing their spoils on their
shoulders. The five captured colors were displayed under the
continental flag; it was the first time that a captured banner
had floated under the stars and stripes of the republic. The
Indians were frantic at the loss of their chiefs and warriors;
they suffered in the chill nights from the loss of their clothes;
and not even the torturing and killing their captives in which
they were indulged could prevent their beginning to return home.
[170] Meantime, Willett, with Lieutenant Stockwell as
his companion, "both good woodsmen," made their way past the
Indian quarter, at the hazard of death by torture, and at their
request Schuyler charged Arnold with an expedition to relieve the
garrison. Long before its approach an Indian ran into Saint-
Leger's camp, reporting that a thousand men were coming against
them; another followed, doubling the number; a third brought a
rumor that three thousand men were close at hand; and, deaf to
remonstrances and entreaties from their superintendents and from
Saint-Leger, the wild warriors robbed the British officers of
their clothes, plundered the boats, and made off with the booty.
Saint-Leger in a panic, though Arnold was not within forty miles,
hurried after them before nightfall, leaving his tents,
artillery, and stores.
It was Herkimer who "first reversed the gloomy scene"
of the northern campaign. The pure-minded hero of the Mohawk
valley "served from love of country, not for reward. He did not
want a continental command or money." Before congress had
decided how to manifest their gratitude he died of his wound; and
they decreed him a monument. Gansevoort was rewarded by a vote
of thanks and a command; Willett, by public praise and "an
elegant sword."
The employment of Indian allies had failed. The king,
the ministry, and, in due time, the British parliament, were
informed officially that the red men "treacherously committed
ravages upon their friends;" that "they could not be controlled;"
that "they killed their captives;" that "there was infinite
difficulty to manage them;" that "they grew more and more
unreasonable and importunate." When the Seneca warriors,
returning to their lodges, told the story of the slaughter of
their chiefs, their villages rung with yells of rage and the
howls of mourners.
[171] Burgoyne, who on the thirtieth of July made his
head-quarters on the banks of the Hudson, had detachments from
seventeen savage nations. A Brunswick officer describes them as
"tall, warlike, and enterprising, but fiendishly wicked." On the
third of August they brought in twenty scalps and as many
captives; and Burgoyne approved their incessant activity. To
prevent desertions of soldiers, it was announced in orders to
each regiment that the savages were enjoined to scalp every
runaway. The Ottawas longed to go home; but, on the fifth of
August, Burgoyne took from all his red warriors a pledge to stay
through the campaign. On the sixth he reported himself to
General Howe as "well forward," "impatient to gain the mouth of
the Mohawk," but not likely to "be in possession of Albany"
before "the twenty-second or the twenty-third" of the month.
To aid Saint-Leger by a diversion, and fill his camp
with draught cattle, horses, and provisions from fabled magazines
at Bennington, Burgoyne on the eleventh of August sent out an
expedition on the left, commanded by Baum, a Brunswick
lieutenant-colonel of dragoons, and composed of more than four
hundred Brunswickers, Hanau artillerists with two cannon, the
select corps of British marksmen, a party of French Canadians, a
more numerous party of provincial royalists, and a horde of about
one hundred and fifty Indians. Burgoyne in his eagerness rode
after Baum, and gave him verbal orders to march directly upon
Bennington. After disposing of the stores at that place, he
might cross the Green Mountains, descend the Connecticut river to
Brattleborough, and enter Albany with Saint-Leger and the main
army. The night of the thirteenth, Baum encamped about four
miles from Bennington, on a hill that rises from the
Walloomscoick, just within the state of New York. When, early on
the morning of the fourteenth, a reconnoitring party of Americans
was seen, he wrote in high spirits for more troops, and
constructed strong intrenchments. Burgoyne sent him orders to
maintain his post; and, at eight o'clock on the fifteenth,
Breymann, a Brunswick lieutenant-colonel, with two Brunswick
battalions and two cannon, marched, in a constant rain, through
thick woods, to his support.
[172] The legislature of New Hampshire, in the middle
of July, receiving the supplicatory letter from Vermont, promptly
resolved to co-operate "with the troops of the new state," and
ordered Stark, with a brigade of militia, "to stop the progress
of the enemy on their western frontier." Uprising at the call,
the men of New Hampshire flew to his standard, which he set up at
Charlestown, on the Connecticut river. Schuyler ordered them to
join his retreating army, and, because they chose to follow their
own wise plans, Schuyler brought upon Stark the censure of
congress for disobedience. But the upright hero, consulting with
Seth Warner of Vermont, made his bivouac on the fourteenth of
August at the distance of a mile from the post of Baum, to whom
he vainly offered battle. The regiment of Warner came down from
Manchester during the rain of the fifteenth; and troops arrived
from the westernmost county of Massachusetts.
When the sun rose on the sixteenth, Stark concerted
with his officers the plan for the day. Baum, seeing small bands
of men, in shirt-sleeves and carrying fowling-pieces without
bayonets, steal behind his camp, mistook them for friendly
country people placing themselves where be could protect them;
and so five hundred men under Nichols and Herrick united in his
rear. While his attention was arrested by a feint, two hundred
more posted themselves on his right; and Stark, with two or three
hundred, took the front. At three o'clock Baum was attacked on
every side. The Indians dashed between two detachments and fled,
leaving their grand chief and other warriors lifeless on the
field. New England sharpshooters ran up within eight yards of
the loaded cannon, to pick off the cannoneers. When, after about
two hours, the firing of the Brunswickers slackened from scarcity
of powder, the Americans scaled the breastwork and fought them
hand to hand. Baum ordered his infantry with the bayonet, his
dragoons with their sabres, to force a way; but in the attempt he
fell mortally wounded, and his veteran troops surrendered.
Just then the battalions of Breymann, having taken
thirty hours; to march twenty-four miles, came in sight. Warner
now first brought up his regiment, of one hundred and fifty men,
into action; and with their aid Stark began a new attack, using
the cannon just taken. The fight raged till sunset, when
Breymann, abandoning his artillery and most of his wounded men,
ordered a retreat. The pursuit continued till night; those who
escaped owed their safety to the darkness. During the day less
than thirty of the Americans were killed, and about forty were
wounded; the loss of their enemy was estimated at full twice as
many, besides at least six hundred and ninety-two prisoners, of
whom more than four hundred were Germans.
[173] This victory, one of the most brilliant and
eventful of the war, was achieved spontaneously by the husbandmen
of New Hampshire, Vermont, and western Massachusetts. Stark only
confirms the reports of Hessian officers when he writes: "Had our
people been Alexanders or Charleses of Sweden, they could not
have behaved better."
At the news of Breymann's retreat, Burgoyne ordered his
army under arms; and at the head of the forty-seventh regiment he
forded the Battenkill, to meet the worn-out fugitives. The loss
of troops was irreparable. Canadians and Indians of the remoter
nations began to leave in disgust. For supplies, Burgoyne was
thrown back upon shipments from England, painfully forwarded from
Quebec by way of Lake Champlain and Lake George to the Hudson
river. Before he could move forward he must, with small means of
transportation, bring together stores for thirty days, and drag
nearly two hundred boats over two long carrying-places.
On the first of August congress relieved Schuyler from
command by a vote to which there was no negative; and on the
fourth eleven states elected Gates his successor. Before Gates
assumed the command, Fort Stanwix was safe and the victory of
Bennington achieved; yet congress hastened to vote him all the
powers and all the aid which Schuyler in his moods of despondency
had entreated. Touched by the ringing appeals of Washington,
thousands of the men of Massachusetts, even from the counties of
Middlesex and Essex, were in motion toward Saratoga. Congress,
overriding Washington's advice, gave Schuyler's successor plenary
power to make further requisitions for militia on New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Washington had culled from his troops
five hundred riflemen, and formed them under Morgan into a better
corps of skirmishers than had ever been attached to an army even
in Europe; congress directed them to be forthwith sent to assist
Gates against the Indians; and Washington obeyed so promptly that
the order might seem to have been anticipated.
As for Schuyler, he proffered his services to the
general by whom he was superseded, heartily wished him success,
and soon learned to "justify congress for depriving him of the
command, convinced that it was their duty to sacrifice the
feelings of an individual to the safety of the states when the
people who only could defend the country refused to serve under
him."
CHAPTER XIII
JULY-OCTOBER 20, 1777
A DOUBT arose whether Washington retained authority over
the new chief of the northern department till congress declared
that "they never intended to supersede or circumscribe his
power;" but, from all unwillingness to confess their own
mistakes, from the pride of authority and jealousy of his
superior popularity, they slighted his advice and neglected his
wants. They remodelled the commissary department in the midst of
the campaign on a system which no competent men would undertake
to execute. Washington, striving for an army, raised and
officered by the United States, "used every means in his power to
destroy state distinction in it, and to have every part and
parcel of it considered as continental;" congress more and more
reserved to the states the recruiting of men, and the appointment
of all but general officers. Political and personal
considerations controlled the nomination of officers; and
congress had not vigor enough to drop the incapable. "The
wearisome wrangles for rank," and the numerous commissions given
to foreign adventurers of extravagant pretensions, made the army
"a just representation of a great chaos." A reacting "spirit of
reformation" was at first equally undiscerning; Kalb and
Lafayette, arriving at Philadelphia near the end of July, met
with a repulse. When it was told that Lafayette desired no more
than leave to risk his life in the cause of liberty without
pension or allowance, congress gave him the rank of major-
general, and Washington received him into his family; but at
first the claim of Kalb was rejected.
[175] On the fifth of July, General Howe, leaving more than
seven regiments in Rhode Island, and about six thousand men under
Sir Henry Clinton at New York, began to embark the main body of
his army for a joint expedition with the naval force against
Philadelphia. The troops, alike foot and cavalry, were kept
waiting on shipboard till the twenty-third. The fleet of nearly
three hundred sail spent seven days in beating from Sandy Hook to
the capes of Delaware. Finding the Delaware river obstructed, it
steered for the Chesapeake, laboring against the southerly winds
of the season August was half gone when it turned Cape Charles;
and on the twenty-fifth, after a voyage of thirty-three days, it
anchored in Elk river, six miles below Elktown and fifty-four
miles from Philadelphia.
Expressing the strange reasoning and opinions of many
of his colleagues, John Adams, the head of the board of war,
could write: "We shall rake and scrape enough to do Howe's
business; the continental army under Washington is more numerous
by several thousands than Howe's whole force; the enemy give out
that they are eighteen thousand strong, but we know better, and
that they have not ten thousand. Washington is very prudent; I
should put more to risk, were I in his shoes; I am sick of Fabian
systems. My toast is, a short and violent war." Now at that time
the army of Howe, apart from the corps of engineers, counted, at
the lowest statements, seventeen thousand one hundred and sixty-
seven men, with officers amounting to one fifth as many more, all
soldiers by profession and perfectly equipped.
Congress gave itself the air of efficiency by calling
out the militia of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New
Jersey; but New Jersey had to watch the force on the Hudson; the
slaveholders on the Maryland eastern shore and in the southern
county of Delaware were disaffected; the Pennsylvania militia
with Washington did not exceed twelve hundred men, and never
increased beyond twenty-five hundred.
[176] On the twenty-fourth of August, Washington led
the continental army, decorated with sprays of green, through the
crowded streets of Philadelphia; the next day he reached
Wilmington just as the British anchored in the Elk with the
purpose of marching upon Philadelphia by an easy inland route
through an open country which had no difficult passes, no rivers
but fordable ones, and was inhabited chiefly by royalists and
Quakers. When Sullivan, who had just lost two hundred of the
very best men in a senseless expedition to Staten Island, brought
up his division, the American army, which advanced to the
highlands beyond Wilmington, was not more than half as numerous
as the British; but Howe, from the waste of horses on his long
voyage, was compelled to wait till others could be provided.
On the third of September the two divisions under
Cornwallis and Kuyphausen began the march toward Philadelphia;
Maxwell and the light troops, composed of drafts of one hundred
men from each brigade, occupied Iron Hill, and, after a sharp
skirmish in the woods with a body of German yagers and light
infantry, withdrew slowly and in perfect order. For two days
longer Howe waited, to provide for his wounded men in the
hospital-ship of the fleet, and purchase still more means of
transportation. Four miles from him, Washington took post behind
Red Clay creek, and invited an attack. On the eighth, Howe sent
a strong column in front of the Americans to feign an attack,
while his main army halted at Milltown. The British and Germans
went to rest in full confidence of turning Washington's right on
the morrow, and cutting him off from the road to Lancaster. But
Washington had divined their purpose, and, by a masterly and
really secret movement, took post on the high grounds above
Chad's ford on the north side of the Brandywine, directly in
Howe's path.
The baggage of the army was sent forward to Chester. A
battery of cannon with a good parapet guarded the ford The
American left, resting on a thick, continuous forest along the
Brandywine, which below Chad's ford becomes a rapid, encumbered
by rocks and shut in by abrupt high banks, was sufficiently
defended by Armstrong and the Pennsylvania militia. On the right
the river was hidden by thick woods and the unevenness of the
country; to Sullivan was assigned the duty of taking "every
necessary precaution for the security of that flank;" and the six
brigades of his command, consisting of the divisions of Stirling,
of Stephen, and his own, were stationed in echelons along the
river.
[177] On the tenth the two divisions of the British, led
respectively by Knyphausen and Cornwallis, formed a junction at
Kennet Square. At five the next morning more than half of Howe's
forces, leaving their baggage even to their knapsacks behind
them, and led by trusty guides, marched under the general and
Cornwallis up the Great Valley road to cross the Brandy wine at
its forks. About ten o'clock Knyphausen with his column, coming
upon the river at Chad's ford, seven miles lower down, halted and
began a long cannonade, manifesting no purpose of forcing the
passage. Washington had "certain" information of the movement of
Howe, and resolved to strike at once at the division in his
front, which was less than half of the British army, and was
encumbered with the baggage of the whole. As Washington rode up
and down his lines the shouts of his men witnessed their
confidence, and as he spoke to them in cheering words they
clamored for battle. Sending orders to Sullivan to cross the
Brandywine at a higher ford, prevent the hasty return of the body
with Howe and Cornwallis, and threaten the left flank of
Knyphausen, Washington put his troops in motion. Greene with the
advance was at the river's edge and about to begin the attack,
when a message came from Sullivan announcing that he had
disobeyed his orders, that the "information on which these orders
were founded must be wrong."
[178] The information on which they rested was
precisely correct; but the failure of Sullivan overthrew the
design, which for success required swiftness of execution. After
the loss of two hours, word was brought that the division of
Cornwallis had passed the forks and was coming down with the
intent to turn the American right. On the instant Sullivan was
ordered to confront the advance. Lord Stirling and Stephen
posted their troops in two lines on a rounded eminence south-west
of Birmingham meeting-house, while Sullivan, who should have
gone' to their right, marched his division beyond their extreme
left, leaving a gap of a half-mile between them, so that he could
render no service, and was exposed to be cut off. The general
officers, whom he "rode on to consult," explained to him that the
right of his wing was unprotected. Upon this, he began to march
his division to his proper place. The British troops, which
beheld this movement as they lay at rest for a full hour after
their long march in the hot day, were led to the attack before he
could form his line. His division, badly conducted, fled without
their artillery, and could not be rallied. Their flight exposed
the flank of Stirling and Stephen. These two divisions, only half
as numerous as their assailants, in spite of the "unofficerlike
behavior" of Stephen, fought in good earnest, using their
artillery from a distance, their muskets only when their enemy
was within forty paces; but under the charge of the Hessians and
British grenadiers, who vied with each other in fury as they ran
forward with the bayonet, the American line continued to break
from the right. Conway's brigade resisted well; Sullivan showed
personal courage; Lafayette, present as a volunteer, though
wounded in the leg while rallying the fugitives, bound up the
wound as he could, and kept the field till the close of the
battle. The third Virginia regiment, commanded by Marshall and
stationed apart in a wood, held out till both its flanks were
turned and half its officers and one third its men were killed or
wounded.
Howe seemed likely to get in the rear of the
continental army and complete its overthrow. But, at the sound
of the cannon on the right, Washington, taking with him Greene
and the two brigades of Muhlenburg and Weedon, which lay nearest
the scene of action, moved swiftly to the support of the wing
that had been confided to Sullivan, and in about forty minutes
met them in full retreat. His approach checked the pursuit.
Cautiously making a new arrangement of his forces, Howe again
pushed forward, driving the party with Greene till they came upon
a strong position, chosen by Washington, which completely
commanded the road and which a regiment of Virginians under
Stevens and another of Pennsylvanians under Stewart were able to
hold till nightfall.
In the heat of the engagement the division with
Knyphausen crossed the Brandywine in one body at Chad's ford.
`The left wing of the Americans, under the command of Wayne,
defended their intrenchments against an attack in front; but
when, near the close of the day, a strong detachment threatened
their rear, they made a well-ordered retreat, and were not
pursued.
[179] Night was falling, when two battalions of British
grenadiers under Meadow and Monckton received orders to occupy a
cluster of houses on a hill beyond Dilworth. They marched
carelessly, the officers with sheathed swords. At fifty paces
from the first house they were surprised by a deadly fire from
Maxwell's corps, which lay in ambush to cover the American
retreat. The British officers sent for help, but were nearly
routed before General Agnew could bring relief. The Americans
then withdrew, and darkness ended the contest.
At midnight, Washington from Chester seized the first
moment of respite to report to congress his defeat, making no
excuses, casting blame on no one, not even alluding to the
disparity of forces, but closing with cheering words. His
losses, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, were about one
thousand, less rather than more. Except the severely wounded,
few prisoners were taken. A howitzer and ten cannon, among them
two Hessian field-pieces captured at Trenton, were left on the
field. Several of the French officers behaved with great
gallantry: Mauduit Duplessis; Lewis de Fleury, whose horse was
shot under him and whose merit congress recognised by vote;
Lafayette, of whom Washington said to the surgeon: "Take care of
him as though he were my son." Pulaski the Pole, who on that day
showed the daring of adventure rather than the qualities of a
commander, was created a brigadier of cavalry.
The loss of the British army in killed and wounded was
at least five hundred and seventy-nine, of whom fifty-eight were
officers. Of the Hessian officers, Ewald and Wreden received
from the elector a military order. Howe showed his usual courage
under fire; but nightfall, the want of cavalry, and the extreme
fatigue of his army, forbade pursuit.
[180] When congress heard of the defeat at the
Brandywine, it directed Putnam to send fifteen hundred
continental troops to the commander-in-chief with all possible
expedition, and summoned continental troops and militia from
Maryland and Virginia. The militia of New Jersey were kept at
home by a triple raid of Sir Henry Clinton. The assembly of
Pennsylvania, rent by faction, chose this moment to change nearly
all its delegates in congress. The people along Howe's route,
being largely Quakers, were friendly or passive. Negro slaves
prayed for his success, hoping "that, if the British power should
be victorious, all the negro slaves would become free."
Washington, who had marched from Chester to Germantown,
after having supplied his men with provisions and forty rounds of
cartridges, recrossed the Schuylkill to confront once more the
army of Howe, who had been detained near the Brandywine till he
could send his wounded to Wilmington. The two chiefs marched
toward Goshen. On the sixteenth, Donop and his yagers, who
pressed forward too rapidly, were encountered by Wayne; but,
before the battle became general, a furious rain set in, which
continued all the next night; and the American army, as, from the
poor quality of their accoutrements, their cartridges were
drenched, were obliged to retire to replenish their ammunition.
It was next the purpose of the British to turn
Washington's right, so as to shut him up between the rivers; but
he took care to hold the roads to the south as well as to the
north and west. Late on the eighteenth Alexander Hamilton, who
was ordered to Philadelphia to secure military stores, gave
congress notice of immediate danger; and its members, few in
number, fled in the night to meet at Lancaster.
When, on the nineteenth, the American army passed
through the Schuylkill at Parker's ford, Wayne was left with a
large body of troops to fall upon any detached party of Howe's
army. On the night following the twentieth, just as he had
called up his men to make a junction with another American party,
Major-General Grey of the British army, with three regiments,
broke in upon them by surprise, and, using the bayonet only,
killed, wounded, or took at least three hundred. Darkness and
Wayne's presence of mind saved his cannon and the rest of his
troops.
[181] The loss opened the way to Philadelphia. John
Adams, the head of the board of war, blamed Washington without
stint for having crossed to the eastern side of the Schuylkill:
"If he had sent one brigade of his regular troops to have headed
the militia, he might have cut to pieces Howe's army in
attempting to cross any of the fords. Howe will wait for his
fleet in Delaware river. Heaven grant us one great soul! One
leading mind would extricate the best cause from that ruin which
seems to await it."
While John Adams was writing, Howe moved down the
valley and encamped along the Schuylkill from Valley Forge to
French creek. There were many fords on the rapid river, which in
those days flowed at its will. On the twenty-second a small
party of Howe's army forced the passage at Gordon's ford. The
following night and morning the main body of the British army
crossed at Fatland ford near Valley Forge, and encamped with its
left to the Schuylkill. Congress disguised its impotence by
voting Washington power to change officers under brigadiers, and
by inviting him to support his army upon the country around him.
He could not by swift marches hang on his enemy's rear, for more
than a thousand of his men were barefoot. Rejoined by Wayne, and
strengthened by a thousand Marylanders under Smallwood, he sent a
peremptory order to Putnam, who was wildly planning attacks on
Staten Island, Paulus Hook, New York, and Long Island, to forward
a detachment of twenty-five hundred men "with the least possible
delay," and to draw his remaining forces together, so that with
aid from the militia of New York and Connecticut "the passes in
the Highlands might be perfectly secure." He requested Gates to
return the corps of Morgan, being resolved, if he could but be
seconded, to force the army of Howe to retreat or capitulate
before winter.
On the twenty-fifth that army encamped at Germantown;
and the next morning Cornwallis, with the grenadiers, after
thirty days had been consumed in a march of fifty-four miles,
entered Philadelphia. But it was too late for Howe to send aid
to Burgoyne.
On the nineteenth of August, Gates assumed the command
of the northern army, which lay nine miles above Albany, near the
mouths of the Mohawk. After the return of the battalions with
Arnold and the arrival of the corps of Morgan, his continental
troops, apart from continental accessions of militia, outnumbered
the British and German regulars whom he was to meet. Artillery
and small arms from France arrived through Portsmouth, New
Hampshire; and New York brought out its resources with exhaustive
patriotism.
[182] The war of America was a war of ideas more than of
material power. On the ninth of September, Jay, the first chief
justice of the new commonwealth of New York, as he opened its
supreme court in Kingston, charged the grand jury in these words:
" Free, mild, and equal government begins to rise. Divine
Providence has made the tyranny of princes instrumental in
breaking the chains of their subjects. Whoever compares our
present with our former constitution will admit that all the
calamities incident to this war will be amply compensated by the
many blessings flowing from this glorious revolution. Thirteen
colonies immediately become one people, and unanimously determine
to be free. The people of this state have chosen their
constitution under the guidance of reason and experience. The
highest respect has been paid to those great and equal rights of
human nature which should forever remain inviolate in every
society. You will know no power but such as you create, no laws
but such as acquire all their obligation from your consent. The
rights of conscience and private judgment are by nature subject
to no control but that of the Deity."
Gates, after twenty days of preparation, moved his army
to Stillwater, and on the twelfth of September encamped on
Behmus's Heights, a spur of hills jutting out nearly to the
Hudson, which Kosciuszko had selected as the ground on which
their enemy was to be waited for. The army counted nine thousand
effectives, eager for action.
For the army of Burgoyne a hundred and eighty boats
were hauled by relays of horses over the two portages between
Lake George and the river at Saratoga, and laden with provisions
for one month. Then calling in all his men, he gave up his
connections, and with less than six thousand rank and file he
proceeded toward Albany. On the thirteenth his army crossed the
Hudson at Schuylerville by a bridge of boats, and encamped within
six miles of the American army.
[183] At once Lincoln, carrying out a plan concerted
with Gates, sent from Manchester five hundred light troops
without artillery, under Colonel John Brown of Massachusetts, to
distress the British in their rear. In the morning twilight of
the eighteenth Brown surprised the outposts of Ticonderoga,
including Mount Defiance; and, with the loss of not more than
nine killed and wounded, he set free one hundred American
prisoners, captured four companies of regulars and others who
guarded the new portage between Lake Champlain and Lake George,
in all two hundred and ninety-three men with arms and five
cannon, and destroyed an armed sloop, gunboats, and other boats
to the number of one hundred and fifty below the falls of Lake
George, and fifty above them.
The British army, stopping to rebuild bridges and
repair roads, advanced scarcely four miles in as many days. The
right of the well-chosen camp of the Americans touched the Hudson
and could not be assailed; their left was a high ridge of hills;
their lines were protected by a breastwork. To get forward,
Burgoyne must dislodge them. His army moved on the nineteenth, as
on former days, in three columns: the artillery, protected by
Riedesel and Brunswick troops, took the road through the meadows
near the river; the general led the centre across a deep ravine
to a field on Freeman's farm; while Fraser, with the right, made
a circuit upon the ridge to occupy heights from which the left of
the Americans could be assailed. Indians, Canadians, and tories
hovered on the front and flanks of the several columns.
[185] In concurrence with the advice of
Arnold, Gates ordered out Morgan's riflemen and the light
infantry. They put a picket to flight at a quarter past one, but
retired before the division with Burgoyne. Leading his force
unobserved through the woods, and securing his right by thickets
and ravines, Morgan next fell unexpectedly upon the left of the
British central division. To support him, Gates, at two o'clock,
sent out three New Hampshire battalions, of which that of Scammel
met the enemy in front, that of Cilley took them in flank. Morgan
with his riflemen captured a cannon, but could not bring it off;
his horse was shot under him in the warm engagement. From half-
past two there was a lull of a half-hour, during which Phillips
brought more artillery against the Americans, and Gates ordered
out two regiments of Connecticut militia under Cook. At three
the battle became general, and it raged till after sundown.
Fraser sent to the aid of Burgoyne such detachments as he could
spare without endangering his own position, which was the object
of the day. At four, Gates ordered out the New York regiment of
Cortlandt, followed in a half-hour by that of Henry Livingston.
The battle was marked bye the obstinate courage of the Americans,
but by no manoeuvre; man fought against man, regiment against
regiment. An American party would capture a cannon, and drive
off the British; the British would rally and recover it with the
bayonet, but only to fall back before the deadly fire from the
wood. The Americans used no artillery; the British employed it
with effect; but the commander of their principal battery was
killed, and some of his officers and thirty-six out of forty-
eight matrosses were killed or wounded. At five, all too late in
the day, Brigadier Learned was ordered with his brigade and a
Massachusetts regiment to the enemy's rear. Before the sun went
down Burgoyne was in danger of a rout; the troops about him
wavered, when Riedesel, with a single regiment and two cannon,
struggling through the thickets, across a ravine, climbed the
hill and charged the Americans on their right flank. Evening was
at hand, and those of the Americans who had been engaged for more
than three hours had nearly exhausted their ammunition; they
withdrew within their lines, taking with them their wounded and a
hundred captives. On the British side three major-generals came
on the field; on the American side not one, nor a brigadier till
near its close. The glory of the day was due to the several
regiments of husbandmen, who fought with one spirit and one will,
and needed only proper support and an able general to have
utterly routed the army of Burgoyne. Of the Americans, praise
justly fell upon Morgan of Virginia and Scammel of New Hampshire;
none offered their lives more freely than Cilley's continental
regiment and the Connecticut militia of Cook. The American loss,
including the wounded and missing, proved less than three hundred
and twenty; distinguished among the dead was Lieutenant-Colonel
Andrew Colburn of New Hampshire. This battle crippled the
British force irretrievably. Their loss exceeded six hundred.
Of the sixty-second regiment, which left Canada five hundred
strong, there remained less than sixty men and four or five
officers. "Tell my uncle I died like a soldier," were the last
words of Hervey, one of its lieutenants, a boy of sixteen, who
was mortally wounded. A shot from a rifle, meant for Burgoyne,
struck an officer at his side.
The British army passed the night in bivouac under
arms; the division of Burgoyne on the field of battle. Morning
revealed to them their desperate condition; to former
difficulties was added the encumbrance of their wounded. Their
dead were buried promiscuously, except that officers were thrown
into holes by themselves, in one pit three of the twentieth
regiment, of whom the oldest was not more than seventeen.
An attack upon the remains of Burgoyne's division,
while it was still disconnected and without intrenchments, was
urged by Arnold; but Gates waited for ammunition and more troops.
The quarrel between them grew more bitter; and Arnold demanded
and received a passport for Philadelphia. Repenting of his
rashness, he lingered in the camp, but could not obtain access to
Gates, nor a command.
During the twentieth the British general encamped his
army on the heights near Freeman's house, so near the American
lines that he could not make a movement unobserved. On the
twenty-first he received from Sir Henry Clinton a promise of a
diversion on Hudson river; and answered that he could maintain
his position until the twelfth of October.
[186] Spies of the British watched the condition of
Putnam, and he had not sagacity to discover theirs. In his easy
manner he suffered a large part of the New York militia to go
home; so that he now had but about two thousand men. Sir Henry
Clinton, with four thousand troops, feigned an attack upon
Fishkill by landing troops at Verplanck's Point. Putnam was
duped; and, just as the British wished, retired out of the way to
the hills in the rear of Peekskill. George Clinton, the governor
of New York, knew the point of danger. With such force as he
could collect he hastened to Fort Clinton, while his brother
James took command of Fort Montgomery. Putnam should have
reinforced their garrisons; instead of it, he ordered troops away
from them, and left the passes unguarded. At daybreak on the
sixth of October the British and Hessians disembarked at Stony
Point; Vaughan, with more than one thousand men, advanced toward
Fort Clinton, while a corps of about a thousand occupied the pass
of Dunderberg, and, by a difficult, circuitous march of seven
miles, at five o'clock came in the rear of Fort Montgomery.
Vaughan's troops were then ordered to storm Fort Clinton with the
bayonet. A gallant resistance was made by the governor; but at
the close of twilight the British, by the superiority of numbers,
forced the works. In like manner Fort Montgomery was carried;
but the two commanders and almost all of both garrisons escaped
into the forest. A heavy iron chain with a boom had been
stretched across the river from Fort Montgomery to Anthony's
Nose. Overruling the direction of Governor Clinton, Putnam
ordered down two continental frigates for the defence of the
chain; but, as they were badly manned, one of them could not be
got off in time; the other grounded opposite West Point; and both
were set on fire in the night. Fort Constitution, on the island
opposite West Point, was abandoned, so that the river was open to
Albany. Putnam, receiving large reinforcements from Connecticut,
did nothing with them. On the seventh he wrote to Gates: "I
cannot prevent the enemy's advancing; prepare for the worst; "
and on the eighth: " The enemy can take a fair wind and go to
Albany or Half Moon with great expedition and without any
opposition." But Sir Henry Clinton, who ought a month sooner to
have gone to Albany, garrisoned Fort Montgomery and returned to
New York, leaving Vaughan with a large marauding expedition to
ascend the Hudson. Vaughan did no more than plunder and burn the
town of Kingston and the mansions of patriots along the river.
[187] After the battle of the nineteenth of September
the condition of Burgoyne rapidly grew more perplexing. The
Americans in his rear broke down the bridges which he had built,
and so swarmed in the woods that he could gain no just idea of
their situation. His foraging parties and advanced posts were
harassed; horses grew thin and weak; the hospital was cumbered
with at least eight hundred sick and wounded men. One third part
of the soldier's ration was retrenched. While the British army
declined in number, Gates was constantly reinforced. On the
twenty-second Lincoln arrived, and took command of the right
wing; he was followed by two thousand militia. The Indians
melted away from Burgoyne, and by the zeal of Schuyler, contrary
to the wiser policy of Gates, a small band, chiefly of Oneidas,
joined the American camp. In the evening of the fourth of
October, Burgoyne called Phillips, Riedesel, and Fraser to
council, and proposed to them by a roundabout march to turn the
left of the Americans. To do this, it was answered, the British
must, for three days, leave their boats and provisions at the
mercy of the Americans. Riedesel advised a swift retreat to Fort
Edward; but Burgoyne still continued to wait for a co-operating
army from below. On the seventh he agreed to make a grand
reconnoissance, and, if the Americans could not be attacked, he
would think of a retreat. At eleven o'clock on the morning of
that day seven hundred men of Fraser's command, three hundred of
Breymann's, and five hundred of Riedesel's, were picked out for
the service. The late hour was chosen, that in case of disaster
night might intervene for their relief. They were led by
Burgoyne, who took with him Phillips, Riedesel, and Fraser. The
fate of the army hung on the issue, and not many more than
fifteen hundred men could be spared without exposing the camp.
They entered a field about half a mile from the Americans, where
they formed a line, and sat down in double ranks, offering
battle. Their artillery, consisting of eight brass pieces and
two howitzers, was well posted; their front was open; the
grenadiers under Ackland, stationed in the forests, protected the
left; Fraser, with the light infantry and an English regiment,
formed the right, which was skirted by a wooded hill; the
Brunswickers held the centre. While Fraser sent foragers into a
wheat-field, Canadians, provincials, and Indians were to get upon
the American rear.
[189] Gates, having in his camp ten or eleven
thousand men eager for battle, resolved to send out a force
sufficient to overwhelm the detachment. By the advice of Morgan,
a simultaneous attack was ordered to be made on both flanks. A
little before three o'clock the column of the American right,
composed of Poor's brigade, followed by the New York militia
under Ten Broeck, unmoved by the well-served grape-shot from two
twelve-pounders and four sixes, marched on to engage Ackland's
grenadiers; while the men of Morgan were seen making a circuit,
to reach the flank and rear of the British right, upon which the
American light infantry under Dearborn impetuously descended. In
danger of being surrounded, Burgoyne ordered Fraser with the
light infantry and part of the twenty-fourth regiment to form a
second line in the rear, so as to secure the retreat of the army.
While executing this order, Fraser was bit by a ball from a
sharpshooter, and, fatally wounded, was led back to the camp.
Just then, within twenty minutes from the beginning of the
action, the British grenadiers, suffering from the sharp fire of
musketry in front and flank, wavered and fled, leaving Major
Ackland, their commander, severely wounded. These movements
exposed the Brunswickers on both flanks, and one regiment broke,
turned, and fled. It rallied, but only to retreat in less
disorder, driven by the Americans. Sir Francis Clarke,
Burgoyne's first aid, sent to the rescue of the artillery, was
mortally wounded before he could deliver his message; and the
Americans took all the eight pieces. In the face of the hot
pursuit, no second line could be formed. Burgoyne exposed
himself fearlessly; a shot passed through his hat, and another
tore his waistcoat; but he was compelled to give the word of
command for all to retreat to the camp of Fraser, which lay to
the right of head-quarters. As he entered, he betrayed his sense
of danger, crying out: "You must defend the post till the very
last man!" The Americans pursued with fury. Arnold, who had
ridden upon the field without orders, without command, without a
staff, and beside himself, like one intoxicated, yet carrying
some authority as the highest officer present in the action, gave
orders which argued thoughtlessness rather than courage. By his
command an attack was made on the strongest part of the British
line, and continued for more than an hour, though in vain.
Meantime, the brigade of Learned made a circuit and assaulted the
quarters of the regiment of Breymann, which flanked the extreme
right of the British camp, and was connected with Fraser's
quarters by two stockade redoubts, defended by Canadian
companies. These intermediate redoubts were stormed by a
Massachusetts regiment headed by John Brooks, afterward governor
of that state, and with little loss. Arnold, who had joined in
this last assault, lost his horse and was himself badly wounded
within the works. Tone and the loss of blood restored his
senses. The regiment of Breymann was now exposed in front and
rear. Its colonel, fighting gallantly, was mortally wounded;
some of his troops fled; and the rest, about two hundred in
number, surrendered. Colonel Speth, who led a small body of
Germans to his support, was taken prisoner. The position of
Breymann was the key to Burgoyne's camp; but the directions for
its recovery could not be executed. Night ended the battle.
During the fight, neither Gates nor Lincoln appeared on
the field. In his report of the action, Gates named Arnold with
Morgan and Dearborn; and congress restored Arnold to the rank
which he had claimed. The action was the battle of husbandmen,
in which men of the valley of Virginia, of Maryland, of
Pennsylvania, of New York, and of New England fought together
with one spirit for the common cause. The army of Burgoyne was
greatly outnumbered, its cattle starving, its hospital cumbered
with sick, wounded, and dying. At ten o'clock in the night he
gave orders to retreat; but at daybreak he had only transferred
his camp to the heights above the hospital. Light dawned, to
show the hopelessness of his position.
Fraser questioned the surgeon eagerly as to his wound,
and, when he learned that he must die, he cried out in agony:
"Damned ambition!" At sunset of the eighth his body, attended by
the officers of his family, was borne by soldiers of his corps to
the great redoubt above the Hudson where he had asked to be
buried; the three major-generals, Burgoyne, Phillips, and
Riedesel, and none beside, followed as mourners; and, under the
fire of the American artillery, the order for the burial of the
dead was strictly observed over his grave.
[190] In the following hours Burgoyne, abandoning the
wounded and sick in his hospital, continued his retreat; but, the
road being narrow and heavy from rain and the night dark, he made
halt two miles short of Saratoga. In the night before the tenth
the British army, finding the passage of the Hudson too strongly
guarded, forded the Fishkill, and in a very bad position at
Saratoga made their last encampment. On the tenth Burgoyne sent
out a party to reconnoitre the road on the west of the Hudson;
but Stark, who after the battle of Bennington had been received
at home as a conqueror, had returned with more than two thousand
men of New Hampshire and held the river at Fort Edward.
At daybreak of the eleventh an American brigade,
favored by a thick fog, broke up the British posts at the mouth
of the Fishkill and captured all their boats and all their
provisions except a short allowance for five days. On the
twelfth the British army was completely invested, and every spot
in its camp was exposed to rifle shot or cannon. On the
thirteenth, Burgoyne for the first time called the commanders of
the corps to council, and they were unanimous for treating on
honorable terms.
The American army and the freeholders of New York and
New England, who had voluntarily risen up to resist the invasion
from Canada, had, by their unanimity, courage, and energy, left
the British no chance of escape. "The great bulk of the
country," wrote Burgoyne, "is undoubtedly with the congress in
principle and zeal." When the general who should have directed
them remained in camp, their common zeal created a harmonious
correspondence of movement, and baffled the officers and veterans
opposed to them. Gates, who had never appeared in the field
during the campaign, took to himself the negotiation, and
proposed that they should surrender as prisoners of war.
Burgoyne replied by the proposal that his army should pass from
the port of Boston to Great Britain upon the condition of not
serving again in North America during the present contest; and
that the officers should retain their carriages, horses, and
baggage free from molestation or search, Burgoyne "giving his
honor that there are no public stores secreted therein." Gates,
uneasy at the news of British forces on the Hudson river, closed
with these "articles of convention," and on the seventeenth "the
convention was signed." A body of Americans marched to the tune
of Yankee Doodle into the lines of the British, who marched out
and in mute astonishment laid down their arms with none of the
American soldiery to witness the spectacle. Bread was then
served to them, for they had none left, nor flour.
[191] Their number, including officers, was five thousand
seven hundred and ninety-one, among whom were six members of
parliament. Previously there had been taken eighteen hundred and
fifty-six prisoners of war, including the sick and wounded who
had been abandoned. Of deserters from the British ranks there
were three hundred; so that, including the killed, prisoners, and
disabled at Hubbardton, Fort Ann, Bennington, Orisca, the
outposts of Ticonderoga, and round Saratoga, the total loss of
the British in this northern campaign was not far from ten
thousand.
The Americans acquired thirty-five pieces of the best ordnance then known, beside munitions of war, and more than four thousand muskets. Complaints reached congress that the military chest of the British army, the colors of its regiments, and arms, especially bayonets, had been kept back; and that very many of the muskets which were left behind had been purposely rendered useless.
During the resistance to Burgoyne, Daniel Morgan, from the time of his transfer to the northern army, never gave other than the wisest counsels, and stood first for conduct, effective leadership, and unsurpassable courage on the field of battle; yet Gates did not recommend him for promotion, but asked and soon obtained the rank of brigadier for James Wilkinson, an undistinguished favorite of his own.