Chapter III
URGOYNE and his army are at Wilbur's Basin, prepared to retreat toward Lake Champlain, but lingering to pay a last sad tribute of affectionate regard to the remains of the accomplished Fraser. Night has drawn its veil over the scene, and we will turn away for a moment from the sorrowful contemplation of war and its horrid retinue, to glance at a picture lovely to the eye, ennobling to the spirit, and fruitful of pleasant impressions upon the heart and memory.
Like a "dissolving view," the smoking ruins, the sodden field, the trailing banner, the tent and breast-work and abatis, and slaughtered hundreds, and wailing families, painted in gore by the hand of human discord; and the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, the roll of drums, the hiss and detonation of bombs, the savage yell, the loud huzza, the shriek and groan, the prayer and curse made audible by the boastful voice of physical strength, have all passed away with the darkness, and a bright summer's sunlight is upon the landscape. Turning the eye northward from the American camp, there are the same gentle slopes, and deep ravines, and clustering hills, and flowing river; and the heights of Saratoga in the far distance loom up as of yore. But herds are grazing upon the lowlands, and flocks are dotting the hills; the ring of the mower's scythe is heard in the meadow, and the merry laugh goes up from the russet harvest-field. Art, with its strong arm of industry, has dug another river along the plain for the use of commerce; the forest has been reaped by agriculture, habitations of prosperity are on every hand, and the white wing of peace is spread out over all. It is a pleasant sight; therefore let us enjoy it, and, for a while, forget the dark picture of the past which we have been contemplating.July 27, 1848
It was excessively warm, although a strong breeze from the south constantly prevailed. As early as ten o'clock dark clouds began to rise in the west, and the rumbling of distant thunder was audible. All day long, shower after shower arose threateningly, sometimes approaching so near that sharp claps of thunder would startle us; but they all swept along the horizon west and north, and disappeared behind the eastern hills. Not a drop of rain fell at Bemis's. I remarked the phenomenon, and was told that showers never reached there from the west. Their birth-place seems to be Saratoga Lake, about six miles westward from the Hudson, and the summer rain-clouds which rise there generally pass up the lake to its outlet, the Fish Creek, and, traversing that stream until it falls into the Hudson, cross the valley and pass on to the Green Mountains, or spend their treasures upon the intervening country.
About half past three in the afternoon a canal packet arrived from the south, and we embarked for Schuylerville, nine miles above Bemis's. As usual, the boat was crowded to excess, and, the sun being veiled by the clouds in the west, the passengers covered the deck. As we passed quietly along the base of the hills whereon was Gates's camp, crossed Mill Creek or Middle Ravine, and approached Wilbur's Basin, it required but small exercise of the imagination, while listening to the constant roll of thunder beyond the heights, to realize the appalling sounds of that strife of armies which shook those hills seventy years before, as it fell upon the eager ears of wives, and sisters, and children whose cherished ones were in the midst of the storm.
Proceeding northward, we approached the track of the showers, and, just before we
Approach of a Tempest.--A violent Gale.--Misfortunes of an Irish Way- passenger
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reached Wilbur's Basin, a cloud, black as Erebus, and so low that it seemed to rest upon the hill-tops, spread out above us like the wings of a monster bird; and in its wake huge masses of vapor, wheeling like the eddies of a whirlpool, came hastening on. The experienced boatmen understood these portents, and covering the baggage with strong canvas, lashed it tightly to the vessel. The breeze was still, and a hot, suffocating calm ensued. The passengers, warned by the helmsman, retreated into the cabin, and the windows were closed. The cattle in the fields huddled in groups, and every bird and fowl, conscious of impending danger, sought shelter. A flash of lightning, followed instantly by a crashing thunder-peal, broke over the valley, and seemed to sever the fetters of the wind. A sullen roar was heard in the distance, like the rush of great waters; the trees of the forest began to rock, and from the roads behind us clouds of dust arose and filled the air. In a few moments a tornado was upon us in its strength. It lasted only two minutes, but in its track the results of the labor of the farmer for many days were destroyed. Hay-cocks and wheat sheaves were scattered like thistle-down, and the standing grain was laid upon the earth as by the tread of a giant footstep. As the wind passed by, the rain came down gently, and continued to fall until we reached Schuylerville.
There came on the boat at Bemis's "a poor exile from Erin," with a patched coat and pair of thin pantaloons hanging over one arm. He was immediately introduced to the captain by the attentive steward, when he pleaded poverty, and declared that he hadn't a "cint in the world." He was ordered ashore, and the boat was guided accommodatingly near the bank. The poor fellow urged fatigue, and the weight of his brogans testified to the truth of the appeal, if he had walked a mile. It was cruel to doubt the honesty of that hard-favored face, and fifty cents were soon collected for him as a peace-offering to the captain. When the gust came on, he refused to go into the cabin. He had been in a three days' gale upon the Atlantic, and was not to be frightened by a squall on land. The first blast of the hurricane wheeled him several times around upon deck, and came very near putting him ashore, willing or not willing. While he was endeavoring to seize a support, the wind grasped his extra pantaloons, and, in utter dismay, he saw them gyrating, like a spread eagle, high in air, and becoming "small by degrees and beautifully less" in the distance. The loss distressed him greatly--far more than the helmsman thought necessary, and he ordered him to be quiet. "Indade," said the poor fellow, "do ye think a man can be quiet when the wind is rolling him like a bag o' feathers tied fast at one end, and all he has in the world snatched from him by the blackguard gale?" and he looked agonizingly toward the point where his pantaloons had vanished.
"Precious small estate," answered the amused helmsman, "if a pair of old pantaloons is all you have in the world. I'll give you a better pair than that if you'll stop your noise."
"An' wid three Vickeys sowed up in the waistbands?" eagerly inquired the exile.
His cautiousness was here at fault. He hadn't a "cint in the world," but he had three sovereigns sewed up in the waistbands of the pantaloons which had gone a-ballooning. As soon as the gale passed by, a child of the Green Isle was a foot-passenger upon the tow-path, bearing sorrowful testimony to the truth of the ethical maxim, that retributive justice is always swift to punish offenders against truth and honesty. No doubt his thoughts were all with his absconded sub-treasurer, and the prose of Holmes's poem evidently engrossed his mind:
"I saw them straddling through the air,
Alas! too late to win them;
I saw them chase the clouds as if
The devil had been in them.
They were my darlings and my pride,
They carried all my riches:
'Farewell, farewell!' I faintly cried,
'My breeches! O my breeches!'"
It was about four o clock when we passed the burial-place of General Fraser. It had been my intention to stop there for an hour, and visit the last earth-home of the illustrious
Fraser's Grave--Do-ve-gat or Coveville.--Colonel Van Vechten.-- Origin of "Whig" and "Tory".--Arrival at Schuylerville.
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dead. But the rain fell fast, and the day was so far consumed that I was obliged to forego the melancholy pleasure. The canal is so near the base of the hill, that I easily made the sketch of it (printed on page 67) from the cabin-window. Many years ago a distant relative of the general proposed to remove his remains to Scotland, and lay them beside those of his mother; but they are still undisturbed where his sorrowing comrades laid them.
We reached the little settlement of Coveville at half past four, the rain still falling gently. This was formerly Do-ve-gat, or Van Vechten's Cove, as it was sometimes called, the place where the British tarried from the 15th till the 17th of September, while a working party repaired the roads and bridges in advance to Wilbur's Basin. Here was the residence of Colonel Van Vechten, of the Saratoga militia, one of General Gates's staff. He was a zealous Whig, and the active Tories, whose plans his vigilance often frustrated, were greatly imbittered against him politically, while they honored him as a brave man and good neighbor. * Burgoyne, on his retreat to Saratoga after the battle of the 7th of October, ordered the dwellings of several Whigs to be destroyed; and at Do-ve-gat the buildings of Colonel Van Vechten were the first to which the torch of the invader was laid. His family fled to Albany on the approach of Burgoyne from Fort Edward; and when they returned, late in October, their fine estate was a perfect wreck, and they had no shelter for their heads.
Colonel Van Vechten was at Albany, on public business, at the time of the first battle on Bemis's Heights. He had received an order from the Committee of Safety at that city, when Burgoyne marched from Fort Edward, to remove every Tory or disaffected person from his vicinage into Connecticut. This order touched his excellent heart with grief, for many of those included in the proscription were his neighbors, and some were his personal friends, who honestly differed from him in relation to the momentous political questions at issue. Within six hours after receiving the order he was in Albany, and procured its recall. The humanity, policy, and sound wisdom of that step were soon illustrated by the firm support which some of these disaffected ones gave to the American cause.
We landed at Schuylerville in the midst of "sun and shower," for the sky was clear in the west, yet the rain-drops came glittering down profusely. The Fish Creek, which here has a succession of falls and rapids for nearly a mile, affording fine water-power for several mills, was brimful with the showers of the day, and poured its flood, roaring and foaming, under the canal viaduct with such force as to shake the solid masonry. It empties its waters into the Hudson about one hundred rods east of the canal, at the southeast angle of Old Fort Hardy, now among the buried things of the past. Upon the plain north of the creek, near the old fort, the forces of Burgoyne laid down their arms; and on every side of that pleasant village scenes of historic interest lie scattered. The earth was too wet to invite a sunset ramble, and we contented ourselves with viewing the beauty of the scene that spread out before us eastward while loitering upon the upper piazza of the Schuylerville House.
* I have already had occasion to use the terms Whig and Tory, and shall do so often in the course of this work. They were copied by us from the political vocabulary of Great Britain, and were first used here, to distinguish the opposing parties in the Revolution, about 1770. The term originated during the reign of Charles II., or about that time. Bishop Burnet, in his History of his own Times, gives the following explanation: "The southwest counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough to serve them round the year: and the northern parts producing more than they need, those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith the stores that come from the north; and, from a word, whiggmi, used in driving their horses, all that drove were called whiggamores, and shorter, whiggs. Now in that year, after the news came down of Duke Hamilton's defeat, the ministers animated their people to rise and march to Edinburgh, and then came up marching at the head of their parishes, with unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came. The Marquis of Argyle and his party came and headed them, they being about six thousand. This was called the Whiggamore's inroad, and ever after that all that opposed the courts came, in contempt, to be called Whigg; and from Scotland the word was brought into England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms of distinction." Subsequently all whose party bias was democratic were called Whigs. The origin of the word Tory is not so well attested. The Irish malcontents, half robbers and half insurgents, who harassed the English in Ireland at the time of the massacre in 1640, were the first to whom this epithet was applied. It was also applied to the court party as a term of reproach.-See, also, Macaulay's History of England, i., 240.
Beautiful Evening Scene.--Commencement of Burgoyne's Retreat toward Saratoga.--His Retreat anticipated by Gates.
072
It was, indeed, a charming scene, enhanced by the associations of the vicinity. The face of nature was washed clean by the drenching showers; the trees and shrubs were brilliant green; and from the clustering knolls or loftier hills beyond the Hudson, once bristling with bayonets or wreathed by the smoke of cannon, the evening sunlight was reflected back by the myriad rain-drops lying upon trees, and grass, and blooming corn. Nor was this all. Upon the dark background of the hills was Iris,
"That beautiful one,
Whose arch is refraction, whose keystone the sun;
In the hues of its grandeur sublimely it stood
O'er the river, the village, the field, and the wood."
Charles Swain.
Springing from the plain, its double arch spanned the whole ground where British pride was humbled and American valor acknowledged. I never gazed upon the "bow of promise" with so much interest, for thought unconsciously bridged over the chasm of seventy buried years, and it seemed for a moment as if the dark hours of our rebellious conflict had returned, and that in the covenant seal before me the eye of hope read prophetically the history of the happy present. As the sun went down and the bow faded, the Spirit of Beauty left traces of its pencil on my thoughts, and I felt, with "Amelia," that
"There are moments, bright moments, when the spirit receives
Whole volumes of thought on its unwritten leaves,
When the folds of the heart in a moment unclose,
Like the innermost leaves from the heart of the rose;
And thus, when the rainbow had passed from the sky,
The thoughts it awoke were too deep to pass by;
It left my full soul like the wings of a dove,
All flutt'ring with pleasure, and flutt'ring with love."
In the evening I visited the son of Colonel Van Vechten just named, a man of three score and ten years. His memory is unclouded, and extends back to the closing scenes of the Revolution. His father stored that memory with the verbal history of his times, and every noteworthy locality of Saratoga is as familiar to him as the flower-beds of his beautiful garden. He kindly offered to be my guide in the morning to all the places here made memorable by the events connected with the surrender of Burgoyne.
While awaiting the dawn, let us turn to the past, and view occurrences from the burial of Fraser to the closing scenes of the drama.
October, 1777 As soon as the funeral ceremonies at Fraser's burial were ended on the evening of the 8th, Burgoyne, fearing that the Americans (whose forces constantly increased, and whose activity denoted preparations for some bold movement) might succeed in turning his right and surrounding him, commenced a night march toward Saratoga. A retreat was anticipated by General Gates, and, previous to the action on the 7th, he sent General Fellows with a detachment of fourteen hundred men to occupy the high grounds east of the Hudson, opposite the Saratoga ford, intending, in case the enemy retreated, to follow so closely in pursuit as to be able to re-enforce that officer from the ranks of the main army. He also sent another detachment, after the action, to occupy ground higher up near Fort Miller, and ordered a selected corps of two thousand men to push forward and occupy the heights beyond Saratoga, in the direction of Lake George. But the retreat of Burgoyne was at a time when Gates least expected it. The troops of the former had been in motion all the night before, and under arms all day on the 8th, and he supposed that they would tarry for rest until the morning of the 9th.
At sunset on the 8th a lurid haziness in the west indicated an approaching storm, and before midnight the rain began to fall. The enemy felt that his situation was too perilous to be maintained, and the whole British army commenced its march at nine o'clock in the evening. The loss of Fraser was now severely felt, for he had always showed as consummate skill in managing a retreat as bravery in leading to an attack. General Riedesel
Melancholy Condition of the British Army.--Gates's Kindness to the Invalids.--Destruction of Schuyler's Mills and Mansion.
073
commanded the van-guard and General Phillips the rear-guard. The night was so dark, the rain so incessant in the morning, and the roads were so bad, that the royal army did not reach Saratoga until the evening of the 9th. They made a halt about six o'clock in the morning, and General Riedesel, exhausted by fatigue, went into the caleche in which his wife and children were, and slept soundly for about three hours. Wet and weary, and harassed by the Americans all the way, the poor soldiers were too much exhausted even to cut wood for fires, and they lay down upon the cold, wet ground and slept. The generals reposed in the open air, upon mattresses, with no other covering than oil-cloth. The Baroness Reidesel and other women of the British camp were obliged to submit to these privations. "My dress," the former says, "was wet through and through with rain, and in this state I had to remain the whole night, having no place to change it; I, however, got close to a large fire, and at last lay down on some straw. At this moment General Phillips came up to me, and I asked him why he had not continued our retreat, as my husband had promised to cover it and bring the army through. 'Poor dear woman,' he said, 'I wonder how, drenched as you are, you have the courage still to persevere, and venture further in this kind of weather. I wish,' he continued, 'you were our commanding general; General Burgoyne is tired, and means to halt here to-night and give us our supper.'" * No doubt there was more sincerity than compliment in General Phillips's wish, for the frequent halts and great delays of Burgoyne had dissatisfied his officers, and were, doubtless, chief causes of his misfortunes. His ambition and his love of ease were often wrestling, and the latter too frequently gained the mastery.
The retreat of Burgoyne was so sudden, that he left all his sick and wounded in the hospital behind him, together with a great number of wheel carriages and other things collected at Wilbur's Basin. The invalids, amounting to about three hundred, were treated by General Gates with the utmost humanity, which Burgoyne afterward gratefully acknowledged. On retiring, the English burned the houses they had occupied, and many other things which they could not carry away with them. They also wantonly set fire to several buildings on the way, by order of Burgoyne himself; and among others, when they crossed the Fish Creek, the mansion of General Schuyler, his mills and other property, amounting in value to twenty thousand dollars, were destroyed by them.
The house of General Schuyler was elegant for the times, and was very pleasantly situated upon the south bank of the Fish Kill or Fish Creek. It was rebuilt after the war, but in a style much inferior in beauty and expense. It is still standing, and in the present possession of George Strover, Esq. The broad lawn in front is beautifully shaded with venerable trees; and the falls of the Fish Creek close by contribute, by their music and wild beauty, much to the interest of the scene. The mill was also rebuilt in the same style. In the engraving is given a correct representation of it. Many of the logs in the dam are the same that curbed the stream in the time of the Revolution; and I was told that little was wanted to make the whole appear as at that r period, but that the surrounding hills should be covered with dense woods.
The rain was so heavy on the 9th, that General Gates did not commence his pursuit until nearly noon on the tenth. The
* Letters of the Baroness Riedesel
Situation of Fellows's Detachment.--Conduct of the American Militia.-- Burgoyne's Attempt to Retreat
074
detachment under Fellows was unconsciously in a perilous situation for want of re-enforcements. Resting in supposed security on the night of the 9th, his camp was left so entirely unguarded that an officer, who had been sent forward by Burgoyne to reconnoiter, marched all around it without meeting a sentinel! This neglect would have been fatal if Burgoyne had known the exact position of his enemies around him. The officer urged him to allow him to surprise Fellows, but misfortune had made the British general wary and suspicious, and, fortunately for the Americans, the request was denied.
The main army of Gates reached the high ridge between Saratoga Church and the Fish Creek at about four in the afternoon of the 10th. The British had crossed over the creek, and were encamped upon the high grounds on the slope of which Schuylerville is now built. The two armies were within the sound of each other's music. The boats of Burgoyne, with his baggage and provisions, were at the mouth of the creek. A fatigue party began to carry the stores from the boats to the heights, but Fellows constantly played upon them with two field pieces stationed on the flats beyond the river, and they were obliged to retreat to the camp. Several of the bateaux of the enemy, with their provisions, were captured, and immediately became objects of plunder for the raw militia and motley followers of the army. Even the Continental troops were implicated in taking "pay and rations" for services, directly from the enemy, instead of receiving them through the paymaster. These irregularities became so extensive that General Gates issued an order on the 12th, in which he declared that he "saw so many scandalous and mean transactions committed by persons who sought more after plunder than the honor of doing their duty, that it was his unalterable resolution to have the first person who should thereafter be detected in pillaging the baggage and stores taken from the enemy, tried and punished with the utmost severity of the military law." **
Finding the ford across the Hudson strongly guarded by the Americans, Burgoyne resolved to continue his retreat up the right bank of the river to the front of Fort Edward, force his way across, and take possession of that fortress. He sent forward a working party, consisting chiefly of loyalists, guarded by Fraser's marksmen, to repair the bridges and open the roads, and also a detachment of troops to take possession of the fort. The Americans, who were spreading out in small detachments upon every height, on all sides, soon drove the workmen back into the camp; and the British troops found the fort in the possession of two hundred Americans, under Colonel Cochrane. The militia were flocking to the fort to strengthen the garrison, and the enemy, believing the Americans to be as numerous in front as in rear, hastily retreated back to their lines.
* The village of Schuylerville is on the north bank of the Fish Creek. Old Saratoga, with its church, was on the south side. The church was about eight hundred yards south of the creek, on the road to Albany.
** It is said that when Burgoyne proposed in council, on the 13th, to retreat precipitately, he mildly reproached Major Skene, a stanch loyalist, with having brought him into this difficulty by injudicious advice, particularly with regard to the expedition to Bennington. "You have brought me into this difficulty," he said; "now advise me how to get out of it."
"Scatter your baggage, stores, and every thing else that can be spared, at proper distances," replied the major, "and the militia will be so engaged in collecting and securing the same, that the troops will have an opportunity of getting clear off."
*** The two victories on Bemis's Heights greatly inspirited the Americans, and when, after the last battle, General Gates, in order to make victory secure, applied to the Legislature of New Hampshire for more troops, the militia turned out with alacrity. The speaker of the Assembly, John Langdon, Esq., upon receiving the application, immediately proposed an adjournment, and that as many members as could should set off directly as volunteers for the cause, taking with them all the men they could collect. It was agreed to, and done by himself and others.-Gordon, ii., 262.
Unsuccessful Stratagem of Burgoyne.--Perilous Situation of two American Brigades.--Deserters from the British Army.
075
Thus the cloud of perils thickened around Burgoyne. He now abandoned all idea of saving his artillery and baggage, and saw no other mode of escape than a precipitate retreat. The provisions and other stores in his bateaux were captured or destroyed by the republicans, and from every direction he was galled by a desultory fire from cannon and small arms. So overwhelming was the number of the Americans, that to fight would be madness, and Burgoyne lost all hope of saving his doomed army.
But in the midst of all these perils and despondencies, a stratagem of the British commander, suggested by an erring apprehension on the part of General Gates, aided by the occurrence of a natural phenomenon, came very near being successful, and for a time greatly cheered the drooping spirits of the enemy. Rumor reached General Gates that the whole British army had moved toward Fort Edward, leaving only a small detachment, as a rearguard, in defense of the camp. This rumor originated from the march of the detachment already mentioned, which was sent forward to Fort Edward. General Gates, therefore, determined to cross the Fish Creek on the morning of the 11th, fall in full force upon and crush the British rear-guard, and make a vigorous pursuit after the main body.
By some means this determination of Gates's became known to Burgoyne, and he resolved to profit by the false rumor. He left a strong guard at the battery on the creek, and concealed his troops in the thicket, a few rods in the rear. In the morning the sky was cloudless, but a thick fog rested upon the whole country and obscured every object. This was hailed as a favorable event by both generals, Gates supposing that it would veil his movements from the British rear-guard, and Burgoyne confidently believing that it would conceal his ambush, and that victory was now certain.
The brigades of Generals Nixon and Glover, and Morgan's corps, were ordered to cross the creek and fall upon the enemy's camp. Morgan advanced at about daylight, the fog being so thick that he could see but a few rods around him. He at once fell in with the British pickets, who poured in a volley upon him and killed a lieutenant and several privates. Morgan instantly conceived that the rumor was false, and that the enemy was in force near. At that moment Deputy Adjutant-general Wilkinson, who had been sent by Gates to reconnoiter, rode up, and, coinciding in opinion with Morgan, hastened to report to his commander the supposed peril of his corps. The brigades of Patterson and Learned were immediately dispatched to its support. Nixon and Glover were at the same time pressing forward to attack the camp, while the whole army advanced to the heights immediately south of the creek. Nixon crossed the creek to the plain, and surprised a picket guard at Fort Hardy; and Glover was about to follow him, when a British soldier was seen hastily fording the stream. He was captured, and professed to be a deserter. Glover questioned him, and was informed that the entire British army were in their camp, drawn up in order of battle. The general suspected him of untruth, and threatened him with instant death if he should deceive him. The soldier declared that he was an honest deserter, and solemnly affirmed the truth of his tale, which was soon confirmed by a German deserter, and by the capture of a reconnoitering party, consisting of a subaltern and thirty-five men, by the advance guard, under Captain Goodale, of Putnam's regiment. The deserter was immediately sent with one of Glover's aids to General Gates, and information was forwarded to General Nixon, with urgent advice to halt. Satisfied of the deserter's truth, Gates revoked all the orders of the evening previous, and directed the troops to return to their respective positions. His headquarters were nearly a mile in the rear of his army, and his order came almost too late to save the troops, who had General Gates's Headquarters at Saratoga. *
* This house is still standing. The view is taken from the road, a few rods southwest of the building. It is of wood, and has been somewhat enlarged since the Revolution. It was used by General Gates for his quarters from the 10th of October until after the surrender of Burgoyne on the 17th. It belonged to a Widow Kershaw, and General Gates amply compensated her for all he had, on leaving it. It is now well preserved. It stands on the east side of the Albany and Whitehall turnpike, about a mile and a half south of the Fish Creek. The Champlain Canal passes immediately in the rear of it; and nearly half a mile eastward is the Hudson River.
Retreat of the Americans to their Camp.--Perplexity of Burgoyne.--A scattered Retreat proposed
076
The fog soon passed away and discovered them to the enemy, then in full view, and under arms upon the heights. Nixon, however, had retreated, and the cannonade opened upon him by the British took effect only upon the rear of his brigade. *
General Learned, in the mean while, with his own and Patterson's brigades, had reached Morgan's corps, and was pressing on rapidly to the attack when Wilkinson came up, not with a counter order from Gates, but with the intelligence that the right wing of the Americans had given way. The brave veteran disliked the idea of retreating, preferring to carry out the standing order of the previous day to the very letter;** but, on counseling with Colonels Brooks and Tupper, and some other officers, a retreat was deemed advisable. As they turned, the British, who were awaiting an attack, opened a fire upon them; but the Americans were soon masked by the woods, and Morgan took post upon the flank and rear of the enemy.
Thus, by the providential circumstance of a deserter flying to our camp, our army was saved from a terrible, perhaps fatal, loss; for, had the several brigades of Nixon, Glover, Learned, and Patterson been cut off, Burgoyne might have so much weakened the American army, and strengthened his own by the adherence of the now wavering loyalists and Indians, as to scatter the remainder of the Continental forces and reach Albany, the darling object of all his efforts. But the breath of the deserter blasted all his hopes, and the incident was, to use his own words, "one of the most adverse strokes of fortune during the campaign." ***
Burgoyne now saw no way of escape. He sent out scouts toward the north, who reported the roads impassable and the woods swarming with republicans. The few Indians who had remained now left him, utterly disheartened; and the loyalists, feeling that their personal security would be jeoparded in case of a surrender, left the army every hour. It was proposed to make a scattered retreat, each soldier carrying in his knapsack provisions enough for two or three days, Fort George being the place of rendezvous; but such a step would be perilous in the extreme, for the Americans, apparently as numerous as the leaves upon the trees, and ever on the alert, would cut them off in detail. In battle, a fortunate circumstance might occur in their favor; but General Gates, assured that he had his enemy in his power, could not be induced to jeopard the lives of his troops by an engagement. Burgoyne's only hope rested upon aid from Clinton below. Not a word, however, could he get from that general; yet, clinging with desperation to every hope, however feeble, he resolved to await that succor quietly in his strong camp as long as his exhausted stores and a powerful enemy would allow.
Burgoyne's camp, upon the heights near the Fish Creek, was fortified, and, extending more than half a mile in the rear, was strengthened by artillery. On an elevated plain, northwest of the village of Schuylerville, his heavy guns were chiefly posted. Directly in his rear Morgan and his corps were stationed. In front, on the east side of the Hudson,
* John Nixon was born at Framingham, Massachusetts, March 4th, 1726. He was at the siege of Louisburg in 1745, was captain in the provincial troops under Abercrombie at Ticonderoga, and was esteemed a valiant soldier during the whole of the French and Indian war. He took the patriot side when our Revolution broke out. He was one of the minute men at the Lexington battle, was at the head of a regiment in the battle of Bunker Hill, and was made a brigadier in the Continental army in August, 1776. He was then placed in command at Governor's Island, near New York. In the battle of Bemis's Heights a cannon-ball passed so near his head it impaired the sight of one eye and the hearing of one ear. On account of ill health, he resigned his commission in 1780. He died March 24th, 1815, aged 90 years.
** The standing order was, "In case of an attack against any point, whether front, flank, or rear, the troops are to fall on the enemy at all quarters."
*** Letter to Lord George Germain, dated Albany 20th, 1777.
Relative Position of the two Camps.--Exposed Condition of the British Camp.--Burgoyne determines to Surrender
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Fellows, with three thousand troops, was strongly intrenched. The main body of the American army, under Gates, was on the south side of the Fish Creek; and in every direction small detachments of Continentals or republican militia were vigorously watching the enemy at bay. * Fort Edward was in possession of the Americans, and upon high ground in the vicinity of Glenn's Falls they had a fortified camp.
Burgoyne was completely environed, and every part of the royal camp was exposed to the fire of cannon and musketry. The soldiers slept under arms continually. There was not a place of safety for the sick, wounded, and dying, or for the women and children of the officers and soldiers. There was no secure place for a council. None dared go to the river for water, and thirst began to distress the camp.2 The desertions of the Indians and Canadians, the cowardice and disaffection of the loyalists, and the losses in killed and wounded, had so thinned Burgoyne's ranks, that his army was reduced one half, and a large proportion of those who remained were not Englishmen. There was not bread for three days in store, and of course none could be obtained. Not a word came from General Clinton, and Burgoyne was totally ignorant of his having made any movement up the Hudson. The last ray of hope faded away, and toward the evening of the 12th the British commander held a council with Generals Reidesel, Phillips, and Hamilton. It was decided to retreat before morning, if possible; but returning scouts brought only hopeless intelligence respecting the roads and the strength of the enemy.
On the morning of the 13th Burgoyne called a general council of all officers, including captains of companies. Their deliberations were held in a large tent, which was several times perforated by musket-balls from the Americans. Several grape-shot struck near the tent, and an eighteen pound cannon-ball swept across the table at which sat Burgoyne and the other generals. Their deliberations were short, as might be expected, and it was unanimously resolved to open a treaty with General Gates for an honorable surrender. It was a bitter pill for the proud lieutenant general, but there was no alternative.
* By reference to the above map, the position of the two armies at this juncture will be more clearly understood. They held the same relative position until the surrender on the 17th.
** The consideration of Americans for women was conspicuously displayed at this time. While every man who went to the river for water became a target for the sure marksmen of the Americans, a soldier's wife went back and forth as often as she pleased, and not a gun was pointed at her.
Proposition of Burgoyne to surrender his Troops.--Terms proposed by Gates.--Terms finally agreed upon.
078
Toward evening a flag was sent to General Gates, with a note, intimating that General Burgoyne was desirous of sending a field officer to him upon a matter of great moment to both armies, and wishing to know at what hour the next morning it would suit General Gates to receive him. The reply was, "At ten o'clock, at the advanced post of the army of the United States." Accordingly, Lieutenant Kingston, Burgoyne's adjutant general, appeared at the appointed hour and delivered the following note from his commander: "After having fought you twice, Lieutenant-general Burgoyne has waited some days in his present position, determined to try a third conflict against any force you could bring against him. He is apprized of your superiority of numbers, and the disposition of your troops to impede his supplies, and render his retreat a scene of carnage on both sides. In this situation, he is impelled by humanity, and thinks himself justified by established principles and precedents of state and war, to spare the lives of brave men upon honorable terms. Should Major general Gates be inclined to treat upon that idea, General Burgoyne would propose a cessation of arms during the time necessary to communicate the preliminary terms by which, in any extremity, he and his army mean to abide."
General Gates had already prepared a schedule of terms upon which he was willing to treat. It enumerated the distresses of the British army, and declared that they could only be allowed to surrender as prisoners of war, and that they must lay down their arms in their camp. Burgoyne replied, with spirit, that he would not admit that the retreat of his army was cut off while they had arms in their hands, and that the degrading act of laying down their arms within their own camp would not be submitted to. The latter condition was waived, and in the afternoon General Gates ordered a cessation of hostilities till sunset. Negotiations continued until the 16th, when every thing was agreed upon and adjusted, ready for the signatures of the contracting parties. This last act was to be performed on the morning of the 17th.
The substance of the "Convention between Lieutenant-general Burgoyne and Major-general Gates," as the British commander superscribed it, was, 1st. That Burgoyne's troops were to march out of their camp with all the honors of war, the artillery to be moved to the verge of the Hudson, and there left, together with the soldiers' arms-the said arms to be piled by word of command from their own officers; 2d. That a free passage should be granted the troops to Great Britain, on condition of their not serving again during the war; 3d. That if any cartel should take place by which Burgoyne's army, or any part of it, should be exchanged, the foregoing article should be void as far as such exchange should extend; 4th. That the army should march to the neighborhood of Boston by the most expeditious and convenient route, and not be delayed when transports should arrive to receive them, 5th. That every care should be taken for the proper subsistence of the troops till they should be embarked; 6th. That all officers should retain their carriages, horses, bat-horses, &c., and their baggage, and be exempt from molestation or search; 7th. That on the march, and while the army should remain at Boston (the port selected for their embarkation), the officers should not be separated from their men; 8th. That all corps whatsoever, whether composed of sailors, bateaux-men, artificers, drivers, independent companies, or followers of the army, of whatever country they might be, should be included in the fullest sense and to the utmost extent of the articles, and comprehended in every respect as British subjects, whose general had capitulated for them; 9th. That all Canadians and persons belonging to the Canadian establishment should be permitted a free return to Canada, should be conducted by the shortest route to the British posts on Lake George, should be treated in all respects like the rest of the army, and should be bound by the same conditions not to serve during the war, unless exchanged; 10th. That passports should be immediately granted for three officers, to carry Burgoyne's dispatches to General Howe at Philadelphia, to Sir Guy Carleton in Canada, and to the government of Great Britain by way of New York; 11th. That all officers, during their stay in Boston, should be admitted to parole, and from
* This was to afford protection to the loyalists or Tories.
Message to Burgoyne from General Clinton.--Disposition of Burgoyne to withhold his Signature.--Laying down of Arms.
079
first to last be permitted to wear their side-arms; 12th. That if the army found it necessary to send for their clothing and other baggage from Canada, they should be permitted to do so, and have the necessary passports granted them; 13th. That these articles should be signed and exchanged on the following morning at nine o'clock, the troops to march out of their intrenchments at three o'clock in the afternoon.
Appended October 17. to these articles was an addendum or postscript, signed by General Gates, declaring that General Burgoyne, whose name was not mentioned in the above treaty, was fully comprehended in it. *
During the night of the 16th Captain Campbell succeeded in eluding the American sentinels, and reached the British camp with dispatches from Sir Henry Clinton announcing his capture of the forts among the Hudson Highlands, and the expedition of Vaughan and Wallace as far up the river as Esopus. Here was a ray of hope, and Burgoyne felt disposed to withhold his signature from the "convention." General Gates was apprized of this, and of the cause which had excited new hopes in the British commander. He was better acquainted, too, with the threatening aspect below than Burgoyne, and he knew that "delays are dangerous." He drew up his army on the morning of the 17th in order of battle, and then sent a peremptory message to Burgoyne, that if the articles were not signed by him immediately, he should open a fire upon him. Under the circumstances, the terms were exceedingly humane and honorable; far more so than might be expected if the negotiation should be here broken off and again commenced. With reluctance Burgoyne subscribed his name, and preparations were immediately made for the ceremonies of surrender.
The British army left their camp upon the hills, and marched sorrowfully down upon the "green" or level plain in front of old Fort Hardy, ** where the different companies were drawn up in parallel lines, and, by order of their several commanders, grounded their arms and emptied their cartridge-boxes. They were not subject to the mortification of thus submitting under the gaze of an exulting foe, for General Gates, with a delicacy and magna-
* A copy of these articles, said to be in the handwriting of General Gates, and signed by the two commanders, is in the possession of the New York Historical Society, from which the above fac-similes were copied.
** Fort Hardy was situated at the junction of the Fish Creek with the Hudson River, on the north side of the former. It was built of earth and logs, and was thrown up by the French, under Baron Dieskau, in 1755, when Sir William Johnson was making preparations at Albany to march against the French on Lakes Champlain and George. It was abandoned by the French, and named by the English Fort Hardy, in honor of Sir Charles Hardy, who was that year appointed Governor of New York. The lines of the intrenchments of the fort inclosed about fifteen acres, bounded south by the Fish Creek and east by the Hudson River. This fort was a ruin at the time of the Revolution; yet, when I visited it (July, 1848), many traces of its outworks were still visible. Its form may be seen by reference to the map, page 77. Many military relics have been found near the fort, and I was told that, in excavating for the Champlain Canal, a great number of human skeletons were found. The workmen had, doubtless, struck upon the burial-place of the garrison.
Courtesy of General Gates. The Place of Surrender. First personal Meeting of Gates and Burgoyne
080
nimity of feeling which drew forth the expressed admiration of Burgoyne and his officers, had ordered all his army within his camp, out of sight of the vanquished Britons. * Colonel Wilkinson, who had been sent to the British camp, and, in company with Burgoyne, selected the place where the troops were to lay down their arms, was the only American officer present at the scene. **
The sketch here presented, of the place where the British army surrendered, was made from one of the canal bridges at Schuylerville, looking east-northeast. The stream of water in the fore-ground is Fish Creek, and the level ground seen between it and the distant hills on the left is the place where the humiliation of the Britons occurred. The tree by the fence, in the center of the picture, designates the north-st angle of Fort Hardy, and the other three trees on the right stand nearly on the line of the northern breast-works. The row of small trees, apparently at the foot of the distant hills, marks the course of the Hudson, and the hills that bound the view are those on which the Americans were posted. This plain is directly in front of Schuylerville, between that village and the Hudson. General Fellows was stationed upon the high ground seen over the barn on the right, and the eminence on the extreme left is the place whence the American cannon played upon the house wherein the Baroness Reidesel and other ladies sought refuge.
As soon as the troops had laid down their arms, General Burgoyne proposed to be introduced to General Gates. They crossed Fish Creek, and proceeded toward headquarters, Burgoyne in front with his adjutant general, Kingston, and his aids-de-camp, Captain Lord Petersham and Lieutenant Wilford, behind him. Then followed Generals Phillips, Riedesel, and Hamilton, and other officers and suites, according to rank. General Gates was informed of the approach of Burgoyne, and with his staff met him at the head of his camp, about a mile south of the Fish Creek, Burgoyne in a rich uniform of scarlet and gold, and Gates in a plain blue frock-coat. "When within about a sword's length, they reined up and halted. Colonel Wilkinson then named the gentlemen, and General Burgoyne, raising his hat gracefully, said, "The fortune of war, General Gates, has made me your prisoner." The victor promptly replied, "I shall always be ready to bear testimony that it has not
* Letter of Burgoyne to the Earl of Derby. Stedman, i., 352. Botta, ii., 21.
** See Wilkinson.
Humiliating Review of the British Prisoners.--Burgoyne's Surrender of his Sword.--The Spoils of Victory.--Yankee Doodle.
081
been through any fault of your excellency."
The other officers were introduced in turn, and the whole party repaired to Gates's headquarters, where a sumptuous dinner was served. *
After dinner the American army was drawn up in parallel lines on each side of the road, extending nearly a mile. Between these victorious troops the British army, with light infantry in front, and escorted by a company of light dragoons, preceded by two mounted officers bearing the American flag, marched to the lively tune of Yankee Doodle. *** Just as they passed, the two commanding generals, who were in Gates's marquee, came out together, and, fronting the procession, gazed upon it in silence a few moments. What a contrast, in every particular, did the two present! Burgoyne, though possessed of coarse features, had a large and commanding person; Gates was smaller and far less dignified in appearance. Burgoyne was arrayed in the splendid military trappings of his rank; Gates was clad in a plain and unassuming dress. Burgoyne was the victim of disappointed hopes and foiled ambition, and looked upon the scene with exceeding sorrow; Gates was buoyant with the first flush of a great victory. Without exchanging a word, Burgoyne, according to previous understanding, stepped back, drew his sword, and, in the presence of the two armies, presented it to General Gates. He received it with a courteous inclination of the head, and instantly returned it to the vanquished general. They then retired to the marquee together, the British army filed off and took up their line of march for Boston, and thus ended the drama upon the heights of Saratoga.
The whole number of prisoners surrendered was five thousand seven hundred and ninety-one, of whom two thousand four hundred and twelve were Germans and Hessians. The force of the Americans, at the time of the surrender, was, according to a statement which General Gates furnished to Burgoyne, thirteen thousand two hundred and twenty-two, of which number nine thousand and ninety-three were Continentals, or regular soldiers, and four thousand one hundred and twenty-nine were militia. The arms and ammunition which came into the possession of the Americans were, a fine train of brass artillery, consisting of 2 twenty- four pounders, 4 twelve pounders, 20 sixes, 6 threes, 2 eight inch howitzers, 5 five and a half inch royal howitzers, and 3 five and a half inch royal mortars; **** in all forty-two
* See Wilkinson.
** This view is taken from the turnpike, looking south. The old road was where the canal now is, and the place of meeting was about at the point where the bridge is seen.
*** Thatcher, in his Military Journal (p. 19), gives the following account of the origin of the word Yankee and of Yankee Doodle; "A farmer of Cambridge, Massachusetts, named Jonathan Hastings, who lived about the year 1713, used it as a favorite cant word to express excellence, as a yankee good horse or yankee good cider. The students of the college, hearing him use it a great deal, adopted it, and called him Yankee Jonathan; and as he was a rather weak man, the students, when they wished to denote a character of that kind, would call him Yankee Jonathan. Like other cant words, it spread, and came finally to be applied to the New Englanders as a term of reproach. Some suppose the term to be the Indian corruption of the word English-Yenglecs, Yangles, Yankles, and finally Yankee. "A song, called Yankee Doodle, was written by a British sergeant at Boston, in 1775, to ridicule the people there, when the American army, under Washington, was encamped at Cambridge and Roxbury." See "Origin of Yankee Doodle," page 480, of this volume.
**** Two of these, drawings of which will be found on page 700, are now in the court of the laboratory of the West Point Military Academy, on the Hudson.
The Germans and Hessians.--Their Arrival at Cambridge and wretched Appearance.--Kindness of the People.
082
pieces of ordnance. There were four thousand six hundred and forty-seven muskets, and six thousand dozens of cartridges, besides shot, carcasses, cases, shells, &c. Among the English prisoners were six members of Parliament. *
Cotemporary writers represent the appearance of the poor German and Hessian troops as extremely miserable and ludicrous. They deserved commiseration, but they received none. They came not here voluntarily to fight our people; they were sent as slaves by their masters, who received the price of their hire. They were caught, it is said, while congregated in their churches and elsewhere, and forced into the service. Most of them were torn reluctantly from their families and friends; hundreds of them deserted here before the close of the war; and many of their descendants are now living among us. Many had their wives with them, and these helped to make up the pitiable procession through the country. Their advent into Cambridge, near Boston, is thus noticed by the lady of Dr. Winthrop of that town, in a letter to Mrs. Mercy Warren, an early historian of our Revolution: "On Friday we heard the Hessians were to make a procession on the same route. We thought we should have nothing to do but view them as they passed. To be sure, the sight was truly astonishing. I never had the least idea that the creation produced such a sordid set of creatures in human figure-poor, dirty, emaciated men. Great numbers of women, who seemed to be the beasts of burden, having bushel baskets on their backs, by which they were bent double. The contents seemed to be pots and kettles, various sorts of furniture, children peeping through gridirons and other utensils. Some very young infants, who were born on the road; the women barefooted, clothed in dirty rags. Such effluvia filled the air while they were passing, that, had they not been smoking all the time, I should have been apprehensive of being contaminated." **
The whole view of the vanquished army, as it marched through the country from Saratoga to Boston, a distance of three hundred miles, escorted by two or three American officers and a handful of soldiers, was a spectacle of extraordinary interest. Generals of the first order of talent; young gentlemen of noble and wealthy families, aspiring to military renown; legislators of the British realm, and a vast concourse of other men, lately confident of victory and of freedom to plunder and destroy, were led captive through the pleasant land they had coveted, to be gazed at with mingled joy and scorn by those whose homes they came to make desolate. "Their march was solemn, sullen, and silent; but they were every where treated with such humanity, and even delicacy, that they were overwhelmed with astonishment and gratitude. Not one insult was offered, not an opprobrious reflection cast; and in all their long captivity **** they experienced the generous kindness of a people warring only to be free.
* Gordon, ii., 267.
** Women of the Revolution, i., 97
*** Mercy Warren, ii., 40.
**** Although Congress ratified the generous terms entered into by Gates with Burgoyne in the convention at Saratoga, circumstances made them suspicious that the terms would not be strictly complied with. They feared that the Britons would break their parole, and Burgoyne was required to furnish a complete roll of his army, the name and rank of every officer, and the name, former place of abode, occupation, age, and size of every non-commissioned officer and private soldier. Burgoyne murmured and hesitated. General Howe, at the same time, was very illiberal in the exchange of prisoners, and exhibited considerable duplicity. Congress became alarmed, and resolved not to allow the army of Burgoyne to leave our shores until a formal ratification of the convention should be made by the British government. Burgoyne alone was allowed to go home on parole, and the other officers, with the army, were marched into the interior of Virginia, to await the future action of the two governments. The British ministry charged Congress with positive perfidy, and Congress justified their acts by charging the ministers with meditated perfidy. That this suspicion was well founded is proved by subsequent events. In the autumn of 1778, Isaac Ogden, a prominent loyalist of New Jersey, and then a refugee in New York, thus wrote to Joseph Galloway, an American Tory in London, respecting an expedition of four thousand British troops which Sir Henry Clinton sent up the Hudson a week previous: "Another object of this expedition was to open the country for many of Burgoyne's troops that had escaped the vigilance of their guard, to come in. About forty of these have got safe in. If this expedition had been a week sooner, greater part of Burgoyne's troops probably would have arrived here, as a disposition of rising on their guard strongly prevailed, and all they wanted to effect it was some support near at hand."
Relative Condition and Prospect of the Americans before the Capture of Burgoyne.--Effect of that Event
083
The surrender of Burgoyne was an event of infinite importance to the struggling republicans. Hitherto the preponderance of success had been on the side of the English, and only a few partial victories had been won by the Americans. The defeat on Long Island had eclipsed the glory of the siege of Boston; the capture of Fort Washington and its garrison had overmatched the brilliant defense of Charleston; the defeat at Brandywine had balanced the victory at Trenton; White Plains and Princeton were in fair juxtaposition in the account current; and at the very time when the hostile armies at the north were fighting for the mastery, Washington was suffering defeats in Pennsylvania, and Forts Clinton, Montgomery, and Constitution were passing into the hands of the royal forces. Congress had fled from Philadelphia to York, and its sittings were in the midst of loyalists, ready to attack or betray. Its treasury was nearly exhausted; its credit utterly so. Its bills to the amount of forty millions of dollars were scattered over the country. Its frequent issues were inadequate to the demands of the commissariat, and distrust was rapidly depreciating their value in the public mind. Loyalists rejoiced; the middlemen were in a dilemma; the patriots trembled. Thick clouds of doubt and dismay were gathering in every part of the political horizon, and the acclamations which had followed the Declaration of Independence, the year before, died away like mere whispers upon the wind.
All eyes were turned anxiously to the army of the north, and upon that strong arm of Congress, wielded, for the time, by Gates, the hopes of the patriots leaned. How eagerly they listened to every breath of rumor from Saratoga! How enraptured were they when the cry of victory fell upon their ears! All over the land a shout of triumph went up, and from the furrows, and workshops, and marts of commerce; from the pulpit, from provincial halls of legislation, from partisan camps, and from the shattered ranks of the chief at White Marsh, it was echoed and re- echoed. Toryism, which had begun to lift high its head, retreated behind the defense of inaction; the bills of Congress rose twenty per cent, in value; capital came forth from its hiding-places; the militia readily obeyed the summons to the camp, and the great patriot heart of America beat strongly with pulsations of hope. Amid the joy of the moment, Gates was apotheosized in the hearts of his countrymen, and they
* The engraving exhibits a view of both sides of the medal, drawn the size of the original. On one side is a bust of General Gates, with the Latin inscription, "Horatio Gates Duci Strenuo Comitia Americana;" The American Congress, to Horatio Gates, the valiant leader. On the other side, of reverse, Burgoyne is represented in the attitude of delivering up his sword; and in the background, on either side of them, are seen the two armies of England and America, the former laying down their arms. At the top is the Latin inscription, "Safety of the northern region or department. Below is the inscription, "Enemy at Saratoga surrendered October 11th, 1777.
Wilkinson before Congress.--Gold Medal awarded to Gates. --Proceedings of the British Parliament.--Speech of Chatham.
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generously overlooked the indignity offered by him to the commander-in- chief when he refused, in the haughty pride of his heart in that hour of victory, to report, as in duty hound, his success to the national council through him. Congress, too, overjoyed at the result, forgot its own dignity, and allowed Colonel Wilkinson, * the messenger of the glad tidings, to stand upon their floor and proclaim, "The whole British army have laid down their arms at Saratoga; our own, full of vigor and courage, expect your orders; it is for your wisdom to decide where the country may still have need of their services." Congress voted thanks to General Gates and his army, and decreed that he should be presented with a medal of gold, to be struck expressly in commemoration of so glorious a victory.
This victory was also of infinite importance to the republicans on account of its effects beyond the Atlantic. The highest hopes of the British nation, and the most sanguine expectations of the king and his ministers, rested on the success of this campaign. It had been a favorite object with the administration, and the people were confidently assured that, with the undoubted success of Burgoyne, the turbulent spirit of rebellion would be quelled, and the insurgents would be forced to return to their allegiance.
Parliament was in session when the intelligence of Burgoyne's defeat reached England; December 3, 1777, and when the mournful tidings were communicated to that body, it instantly aroused all the fire of opposing parties. ** The opposition opened anew their eloquent batteries upon the ministers. For several days misfortune had been suspected. The last arrival from America brought tidings of gloom. The Earl of Chatham, with far-reaching comprehension, and thorough knowledge of American affairs, had denounced the mode of warfare and the material used against the Americans. He refused to vote for the laudatory address to the king. Leaning upon his crutch, he poured forth his vigorous denunciations against the course of the ministers like a mountain torrent. "This, my lords," he said, "is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is no time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery can not now avail-can not save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth..... You can not. I venture to say it, you can not conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns we have suffered much and gained nothing, and perhaps at this moment the northern army (Burgoyne's) may be a total loss..... You may swell every expense, and every effort, still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign power; your efforts are forever vain and impotent; doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely, for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your enemies. To overrun with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms--never, never, never!" ***
The Earl of Coventry, Earl Temple Chatham's brother-in-law, and the Duke of Richmond, all spoke in coincidence with Chatham. Lord Suffolk, one of the Secretaries of State, undertook the defense of ministers for the employment of Indians, and concluded by saying, "It is perfectly justifiable to use all the means that God and nature have put into our hands." This sentiment brought Chatham upon the floor. "That God and nature put
* James Wilkinson was born in Maryland about 1757, and, by education, was prepared for the practice of medicine. He repaired to Cambridge as a volunteer in 1775. He was captain of a company in a regiment that went to Canada in 1776. He was appointed deputy adjutant general by Gates, and, after the surrender of Burgoyne, Congress made him a brigadier general by brevet. At the conclusion of the war he settled in Kentucky, but entered the army in 1806, and had the command on the Mississippi. He commanded on the northern frontier during our last war with Great Britain. At the age of 56 he married a young lady of 26. He died of diarrhea, in Mexico, December 28th, 1825, aged 68 years.
** Pitkin, i., 399.
*** Parliamentary Debates.
The Opposition in the House of Commons.--Policy of Lord North.-- Exalted Position of the American Commissioners at Paris.
085
into our hands!" he reiterated, with bitter scorn. "I know not what idea that lord may entertain of God and nature, but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife, to the cannibal and savage, torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating-literally, my lords, eating-the mangled victims of his barbarous battles.....These abominable principles, and this most abominable avowal of them, demand most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench (pointing to the bishops), those holy ministers of the Gospel and pious pastors of the Church-I conjure them to join in the holy work, and to vindicate the religion of their God."
In the Lower House, Burke, Fox, and Barré were equally severe upon the ministers; and on the 3d of December, when the news of Burgoyne's defeat reached London, the latter arose in his place in the Commons, and, with a severe and solemn countenance, asked Lord George Germain, the Secretary of War, what news he had received by his last expresses from Quebec, and to say, upon his word of honor, what had become of Burgoyne and his brave army. The haughty secretary was irritated by the cool irony of the question, but he was obliged to unbend and to confess that the unhappy intelligence had reached him, but added it was not yet authenticated. *
Lord North, the premier, with his usual adroitness, admitted that misfortune had befallen the British arms, but denied that any blame could be imputed to ministers themselves, and proposed an adjournment of December, 1778 Parliament on the 11th (which was carried) until the 20th of January. ** It was a clever trick of the premier to escape the castigations which he knew the opposition would inflict while the nation was smarting under the goadings of mortified pride.
The victory over Burgoyne, unassisted as our troops were by foreign aid, placed the prowess of the United States in the most favorable light upon the Continent. Our urgent solicitations for aid, hitherto but little noticed except by France, were now listened to with respect, and the American commissioners at Paris. Dr. Franklin, Silas Deane,3 and Arthur Lee,4 * * occupied a commanding position among the diplomatists of Europe. France, Spain, the States General of Holland, the Prince of Orange, and even Catharine of Russia and Pope Clement XIV. (Ganganelli), all
* History of the Reign of George III., i., 326.
** Pitkin, i., 397. Annual Register, 1778, p| 74.
*** Silas Deane was a native of Groton, Connecticut. He graduated at Yale College, 1758, and was a member of the first Congress, 1774. He was sent to France Early in 1776, as political and commercial agent for the United Colonies, and in the autumn of that year was associated with Franklin and Lee as commissioner. He seems to have been unfit, in a great degree, for the station he held, and his defective judgment and extravagant promises greatly embarrassed Congress. He was recalled at the close of 1777, and John Adams appointed in his place. He published a defense of his character in 1778, and charged Thomas Paine and others connected with public affairs with using their official influence for purposes of private gain. This was the charge made against himself, and he never fully wiped out all suspicion. He went to England toward the close of 1784, and died in extreme poverty at Deal, 1789.
**** Dr. Lee was born in Virginia in 1740-a brother to the celebrated Richard Henry Lee. He was educated at Edinburgh, and, on returning to America, practiced medicine at Williamsburgh about five years. He went to London in 1766, and studied law in the Temple. He kept his brother and other patriots of the Revolution fully informed of all political matters of importance abroad, and particularly the movements of the British ministry. He wrote a great deal, and stood high as an essayist and political pamphleteer. He was colonial agent for Virginia in 1775. In 1776 he was associated with Franklin and Deane, as minister at the court of Versailles. He and John Adams were recalled in 1779. On returning to the United States, he was appointed to offices of trust. He died of pleurisy, December 14th, 1782, aged nearly 42.
Our relative Position to the Governments of Europe.--Policy of Vergennes.--Beaumarchais's Commercial Operations
086
of whom feared and hated England because of her increasing potency in arms, commerce, diplomacy, and the Protestant faith, thought kindly of us and spoke kindly to us. We were loved because England was hated; we were respected because we could injure England by dividing her realm and impairing her growing strength beyond the seas. There was a perfect reciprocity of service; and when peace was ordained by treaty, and our independence was established, the balance-sheet showed nothing against us, so far as the governments of continental Europe were concerned.
In the autumn of 1776, Franklin and Lee were appointed, jointly with Deane, November resident commissioners at the court of Versailles, to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce with the French king. They opened negotiations early in December with the Count De Vergennes, the premier of Louis XVI. He was distinguished for sound wisdom, extensive political knowledge, remarkable sagacity, and true greatness of mind. He foresaw that generous dealings with the insurgent colonists at the outset would be the surest means of perpetuating the rebellion until a total separation from the parent state would be accomplished-an event eagerly coveted by the French government. France hated England cordially, and feared her power. She had no special love for the Anglo- American colonies, but she was ready to aid them in reducing, by disunion, the puissance of the British empire. To widen the breach was the chief aim of Vergennes. A haughty reserve, he knew, would discourage the Americans, while an open reception, or even countenance, of their deputies might alarm the rulers of Great Britain, and dispose them to a compromise with the colonies, or bring on an immediate rupture between France and England. A middle line was, therefore, pursued by him. *
While the French government was thus vacillating during the first three quarters of 1777, secret aid was given to the republicans, and great quantities of arms and ammunition were sent to this country, by an agent of the French government, toward the close of the year, ostensibly through the channel of commercial operations. **
* Ramsay, ii., 62, 63.
** In the summer of 1776, Arthur Lee, agent of the Secret Committee of Congress, made an arrangement by which the French king provided money and arms secretly for the Americans. An agent named Beaumarehais was sent to London to confer with Lee, and it was arranged that two hundred thousand Louis d'ors, in arms, ammunition, and specie, should be sent to the Americans, but in a manner to make it appear as a commercial transaction. Mr. Lee assumed the name of Mary Johnson, and Beaumarchais that of Roderique, Hortales, & Co. Lee, fearing discovery if he should send a written notice to Congress of the arrangement, communicated the fact verbally through Captain Thomas Story, who had been upon the continent in the serviee of the Secret Committee. Yet, after all the arrangements were made, there was hesitation, and it was not until the autumn of 1777 that the articles were sent to the Americans. They were shipped on board Le Henreux, in the fictitious name of Hortales, by the way of Cape François, and arrived at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the 1st of November of that year. The brave and efficient Baron Steuben was a passenger in that ship.
Unmasking of thE French King.--Independence of the United States acknowledged by France.--Letter of Louis XVI.
087
This arrangement, under the disguise of a mercantile operation, subsequently produced a great deal of trouble, a more minute account of which is given in the Supplement to this work.
Beaumarehais was one of the most active business men of his time, and became quite distinguished in the literary and political world by his "Marriage of Figaro," and his connection with the French Revolution in 1793. Borne, in one of his charming Letters from Paris, after describing his visit to the house where Beaumarchais had lived, where "they now sell kitchen salt," thus speaks of him: "By his bold and fortunate commercial undertakings, he had become one of the richest men in France. In the war of American liberty, he furnished, through an understanding with the Freneh government, supplies of arms to the insurgents. As in all such undertakings, there were captures, shipwrecks, payments deferred or refused, yet Beaumarchais, by his dexterity, succeeded in extricating himself with personal advantage from all these difficulties.
"Yet this same Beaumarchais showed himself, in the (French) revolution, as inexperienced as a child and as timid as a German closet-scholar. He contracted to furnish weapons to the revolutionary government, and not only lost his money, but was near losing his head into the bargain. Formerly he had to deal with the ministers of an absolute monarchy. The doors of great men's cabinets open and close softly and easily to him who knows how to oil the locks and hinges. Afterward Beaumarchais had to do with honest, in other words with dangerous people; he had not learned to make the distinction, and accordingly he was ruined." He died in 1799, in his 70th year, and his death, his friends suppose, was voluntary.
Burgoyne and his army (intelligence of which arrived at Paris by express on the 4th of December) reached Versailles, and the ultimate success of the Americans was hardly problematical, Louis cast off all disguise, and informed the American commissioners, through M. Gerard, one of his Secretaries of State, that the treaty of alliance and commerce, already negotiated, would be ratified, and "that it was decided to acknowledge the independence of the United States." He wrote to his uncle, Charles IV. of Spain, urging his co-operation; for, according to the family compact of the Bourbons, made in 1761, the King of Spain was to be consulted before such a treaty could be ratified. * Charles refused to cooperate, but Louis persevered, and in February, 1778, he acknowledged the independence of the United States, and entered into treaties of alliance and February 6 commerce with them on a footing of perfect equality and reciprocity. "War against England was to be made a common cause, and it was agreed that neither contracting party should conclude truce or peace with Great Britain without the formal consent of the other first obtained; and it was mutually covenanted not to lay down their arms until the independence of the United States should be formally or tacitly assured by the treaty or treaties that should terminate the war. *** Thus allied, by treaty, with the ancient and powerful French nation, the Americans felt certain of success.
* This letter of Louis was brought to light during the Revolution of 1793. It is a curious document, and illustrates the consummate duplicity practiced by that monarch and his ministers. Disclosing, as it does, the policy which governed the action of the French court, and the reasons which induced the king to accede to the wishes of the Americans, its insertion hero will doubtless be acceptable to the reader. It was dated January 8th, 1778. "The sincere desire," said Louis, "which I feel of maintaining the true harmony and unity of our system of alliance, which must always have an imposing character for our enemies, induces me to state to your majesty my way of thinking on the present condition of affairs. England, our common and inveterate enemy, has been engaged for three years in a war with her American colonies. We had agreed not to intermeddle with it, and, viewing both sides as English, we made our trade free to the one that found most advantage in commercial intercourse. In this manner America provided herself with arms and ammunition, of which she was destitute; I do not speak of the succors of money and other kinds which we have given her, the whole ostensibly on the score of trade. England has taken umbrage at these succors, and has not concealed from us that she will be revenged sooner or later. She has already, indeed, seized several of our merchant vessels, and refused restitution. We have lost no time on our part. We have fortified our most exposed colonies, and placed our fleets upon a respectable footing, which has continued to aggravate the ill humor of England. "Such was the posture of affairs in November last. The destruction of the army of Burgoyne and the straitened condition of Howe have lately changed the face of things. America is triumphant and England cast down; but the latter has still a great, unbroken maritime force, and the hope of forming a beneficial alliance with the colonies, the impossibility of their being subdued by arms being now demonstrated. All the English parties agree on this point. Lord North has himself announced in full Parliament a plan of pacification for the first session, and all sides are assiduously employed upon it. Thus it is the same to us whether this minister or any other be in power. From different motives they join against us, and do not forget our bad offices. They will fall upon us in as great strength as if the war had not existed. This being understood, and our grievances against England notorious, I have thought, after taking the advice of my council, and particularly that of M. D'Ossune, and having consulted upon the propositions which the insurgents make, to treat with them, to prevent their reunion with the mother country. I lay before your majesty my views of the subject. I have ordered a memorial to be submitted to you, in which they are presented in more detail. I desire eagerly that they should meet your approbation. Knowing the weight of your probity, your majesty will not doubt the lively and sincere friendship with which I am yours," &c.--Quoted by Pitkin (i., 399) from Histoire, &c., de la Diplomatique Française, vol. vii.
** Sparks's Life of Franklin, 430, 433.
A Lady of the Revolution.--Sufferings of herself and Family.--.Her Husband's Pension allowed her
088
Chapter IV
"The sun has drunk
The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me. All is silent save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee,
Sitting on the sick flowers, and then again
Instantly on the wing. The plants around
Feel the too potent fervors; the tall maize
Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills,
With all their growth of woods, silent and stern,
As if the scorching heat and dazzling light
Were but an element they loved."
Bryant.
It was early in the morning of such a day as the poet refers to that we commenced a ride and a ramble over the historic grounds of Saratoga near Schuylerville, accompanied by the friendly guide whose proffered services I have already mentioned. We first rode to the residence of Mrs. J-n, one of the almost centenarian representatives of the generation cotemporary with our Revolution, now so few and hoary. She was in her ninety-second year of life, yet her mental faculties were quite vigorous, and she related her sad experience of the trials of that war with a memory remarkably tenacious and correct. Her sight and hearing were defective, and her skin wrinkled; but in her soft blue eye, regular features, and delicate form were lingering many traces of the beauty of her early womanhood. She was a young lady of twenty years when Independence was declared, and was living with her parents at Do-ve-gat (Coveville) when Burgoyne came down the valley. She was then betrothed, but her lover had shouldered his musket, and was in Schuyler's camp.
While Burgoyne was pressing onward toward Fort Edward from Skenesborough, the people of the valley below, who were attached to the patriot cause, fled hastily to Albany. Mrs. J-n and her parents were among the fugitives. So fearful were they of the Indian scouts sent forward, and of the resident Tories, not a whit less savage, who were emboldened by the proximity of the invader, that for several nights previous to their flight they slept in a swamp, apprehending that their dwelling would be burned over their heads or that murder would break in upon their repose. And when they returned home, after the surrender of Burgoyne, all was desolation. Tears filled her eyes when she spoke of that sad return. "We had but little to come home to," she said. "Our crops and our cattle, our sheep, hogs, and horses, were all gone, yet we knelt down in our desolate room and thanked God sincerely that our house and barns were not destroyed." She wedded her soldier soon afterward, and during the long widowhood of her evening of life his pension has been secured to her, and a few years ago it was increased in amount. She referred to it, and with quiver ing lip-quivering with the emotions of her full heart-said, "The government has been very kind to me in my poverty and old age." She was personally acquainted with General Schuyler, and spoke feelingly of the noble-heartedness of himself and lady in all the relations of life. While pressing her hand in bidding her farewell, the thought occurred that we
Remains of the Fortifications of Burgoyne's Camp.--The Riedesel House.-- Narrative of the Baroness Riedesel.
089
represented the linking of the living, vigorous, active present, and the half-buried, decaying past; and that between her early womanhood and now all the grandeur and glory of our Republic had dawned and brightened into perfect day.
From Mrs. Jn's we rode to the residence of her brother, the house wherein the Baroness Riedesel, with her children and female companions, was sheltered just before the surrender of Burgoyne. It is about a mile above Schuylerville, and nearly opposite the mouth of the Batten Kill. On our way we paused to view the remains of the fortifications of Burgoyne's camp, upon the heights a little west of the village. Prominent traces of the mounds and ditches are there visible in the woods. A little northwest of the village the lines of the defenses thrown up by the Germans, and Hessians of Hanau may be distinctly seen. (See map, page 77.)
The house made memorable by the presence and the pen of the wife of the Brunswick general is well preserved. At the time of the Revolution it was owned by Peter Lansing, a relative of the chancellor of that name, and now belongs to Mr. Samuel March 1848who has the good taste to keep up its original character. It is upon the high bank west of the road from Schuylerville to Fort Miller, pleasantly shaded in front by locusts, and fairly embowered in shrubbery and fruit trees.
We will listen to the story of the sufferings of some of the women of Burgoyne's camp in that house, as told by the baroness herself: "About two o'clock in the afternoon we again heard a firing of cannon and small arms; instantly all was alarm, and every thing in motion. My husband told me to go to a house not far off. I immediately seated myself in my caleche, with my children, and drove off; but scarcely had we reached it before I discovered five or six armed men on the other side of the Hudson. Instinctively I threw my children down in the caleche, and then concealed myself with them. At this moment the fellows fired, and wounded an already wounded English soldier, who was behind me. Poor fellow! I pitied him exceedingly, but at this moment had no power to relieve him.
"A terrible cannonade was commenced by the enemy against the house in which I sought to obtain shelter for myself and children, under the mistaken idea that all the generals were in it. Alas! it contained none but wounded and women. We were at last obliged to resort to the cellar for refuge, and in one corner of this I remained the whole day, my children sleeping on the earth with their heads in my lap; and in the same situation I passed a sleepless night. * Eleven cannon-balls passed through the house, and we could distinctly hear them roll away. One poor soldier, who was lying on a table for the purpose of having his leg amputated, was struck by a shot, which carried away his other; his comrades had left him, and when we went to his assistance we found him in a corner of the room, into which he had crept, more dead than alive, scarcely breathing. ** My reflections on the danger to which my husband was exposed now agonized me exceedingly, and the thoughts of my children, and the necessity of struggling for their preservation, alone sustained me.
* The cellar is about fifteen by thirty feet in size, and lighted and ventilated by two small windows only.
** The place where this ball entered is seen under the window near the corner, and designated in the picture by a small black spot.
Companions in Misery of the Baroness Riedesel.--Wounded Soldiers.-- Kindness of General Schuyler.
090
"The ladies of the army who were with me were Mrs. Harnage, a Mrs. Kennels the widow of a lieutenant who was killed, and the lady of the commissary. Major Harnage, his wife, and Mrs. Kennels made a little room in a corner with curtains to it, and wished to do the same for me, but I preferred being near the door, in case of fire. Not far off my women slept, and opposite to us three English officers, who, though wounded, were determined not to be left behind; one of them was Captain Green, an aid-de-camp to Major-general Phillips, a very valuable officer and most agreeable man. They each made me a most sacred promise not to leave me behind, and, in case of sudden retreat, that they would each of them take one of my children on his horse; and for myself one of my husband's was in constant readiness..... The want of water distressed us much; at length we found a soldier's wife who had courage enough to fetch us some from the river, an office nobody else would undertake, as the Americans shot at every person who approached it; but, out of respect for her sex, they never molested her.
"I now occupied myself through the day in attending the wounded; I made them tea and coffee, and often shared my dinner with them, for which they offered me a thousand expressions of gratitude. One day a Canadian officer came to our cellar, who had scarcely the power of holding himself upright, and we concluded he was dying for want of nourishment; I was happy in offering him my dinner, which strengthened him, and procured me his friendship. I now undertook the care of Major Bloomfield, another aid-de-camp of General Phillips; he had received a musket-ball through both cheeks, which in its course had knocked out several of his teeth and cut his tongue; he could hold nothing in his mouth, the matter which ran from his wound almost choked him, and he was not able to take any nourishment except a little soup or something liquid. We had some Rhenish wine, and, in the hope that the acidity of it would cleanse his wound, I gave him a bottle of it. He took a little now and then, and with such effect that his cure soon followed; thus I added another to my stock of friends, and derived a satisfaction which, in the midst of sufferings, served to tranquilize me and diminish their acuteness.
"One day General Phillips accompanied my husband, at the risk of their lives, on a visit to us. The general, after having beheld our situation, said to him, 'I would not for ten thousand guineas come again to this place; my heart is almost broken.'
"In this horrid situation we remained six days; a cessation of hostilities was now spoken of, and eventually took place."
The baroness, in the simple language of her narrative, thus bears testimony to the generous courtesy of the American officers, and to the true nobility of character of General Schuyler in particular: "My husband sent a message to me to come over to him with my children. I seated myself once more in my dear caleche, and then rode through the American camp. As I passed on I observed, and this was a great consolation to me, that no one eyed me with looks of resentment, but they all greeted us, and even showed compassion in their countenances at the sight of a woman with small children I was, I confess, afraid to go over to the enemy, as it was quite a new situation to me. When I drew near the tents a handsome man approached and met me, took my children from the caleche, and hugged and kissed them, which affected me almost to tears. 'You tremble,' said he, addressing himself to me; 'be not afraid.' 'No,' I answered, 'you seem so kind and tender to my children, it inspires me with courage.' He now led me to the tent of General Gates, where I found Generals Burgoyne and Phillips, who were on a friendly footing with the former. Burgoyne said to me, 'Never mind; your sorrows have now an end.' I answered him that I should be reprehensible to have any cares, as he had none; and I was pleased to see him on such friendly footing with General Gates. All the generals remained to dine with General Gates.
"The same gentleman who received me so kindly now came and said to me, 'You will be very much embarrassed to eat with all these gentlemen; come with your children to my tent, where I will prepare for you a frugal dinner, and give it with a free will' I said, 'You are certainly a husband and a father, you have shown me so much kindness.'
* General Burgoyne boasted at Fort Edward that he should eat a Christinas dinner in Albany, surrounded by his victorious army.
Arrival of the British Officers and Women at Albany.--Courtesy of General Schuyler and Family.
091
I now found that he was General Schuyler. He treated me with excellent smoked tongue, beef-steaks, potatoes, and good bread and butter! Never could I have wished to eat a better dinner; I was content; I saw all around me were so likewise; and, what was better than all, my husband was out of danger.
"When we had dined he told me his residence was at Albany, and that General Burgoyne intended to honor him as his guest, and invited myself and children to do so likewise. I asked my husband how I should act; he told me to accept the invitation. As it was two days' journey there, he advised me to go to a place which was about three hours' ride distant.
"Some days after this we arrived at Albany, where we so often wished ourselves; but we did not enter it as we expected we should-victors! * We were received by the good General Schuyler, his wife, and daughters, not as enemies, but kind friends; and they treated us with the most marked attention and politeness, as they did General Burgoyne, who had caused General Schuyler's beautifully-finished house to be burned. In fact, they behaved like persons of exalted minds, who determined to bury all recollections of their own injuries in the contemplation of our misfortunes. General Burgoyne was struck with General Schuyler's generosity, and said to him, 'You show me great kindness, though I have done you much injury.' 'That was the fate of war,' replied the brave man; 'let us say no more about it.'"
General Schuyler was detained at Saratoga when Burgoyne and suite started for Albany.
British Officers at Schuyler's House.--Execution-place of Lovelace.-- Active and Passive Tories.--Rendezvous of Lovelace.
092
He wrote to his wife to give the English general the very best reception in her power. "The British commander was well received," says the Marquis de Chastellux, * in his Travels in America, "by Mrs. Schuyler, and lodged in the best apartment in the house. An excellent supper was served him in the evening, the honors of whieh were done with so much grace that he was affected even to tears, and said, with a deep sigh, ' Indeed, this is doing too much for the man who has ravaged their lands and burned their dwellings.' The next morning he was reminded of his misfortunes by an incident that would have amused any one else. His bed was prepared in a large room; but as he had a numerous suite, or family, several mattresses were spread on the floor for some officers to sleep near him. Schuyler's second son, a little fellow about seven years old, very arch and forward, but very amiable, was running all the morning about the house. Opening the door of the saloon, he burst out a laughing on seeing all the English collected, and shut it after him, exclaiming, 'You are all my prisoners!' This innocent cruelty rendered them more melancholy than before."
We next visited the headquarters of General Gates, south of the Fish Creek, delineated on page 75. On our way we passed the spot, a few rods south of the creek, where Lovelaee, a prominent Tory, was hung. It is upon the high bluff seen on the right of the road in the annexed sketch, which was taken from the lawn in front of the rebuilt mansion of General Schuyler.
Lovelaee was a fair type of his class, the bitterest and most implacable foes of the republicans. There were many Tories who were so from principle, and refused to take sides against the parent country from honest convictions of the wrongfulness of such a course. They looked upon the Whigs as rebels against their sovereign; condemned the war as unnatural, and regarded the final result as surely disastrous to those who had lifted up the arm of opposition. Their opinions were courteously but firmly expressed; they took every opportunity to dissuade their friends and neighbors from participation in the rebellion; and by all their words and acts discouraged the insurgent movement. But they shouldered no musket, girded on no sword, piloted no secret expedition against the republicans. They were passive, noble-minded men, and deserve our respect for their consistency and our commiseration for their sufferings at the hands of those who made no distinction between the man of honest opinions and the marauder with no opinions at all.
There was another elass of Tories, governed by the footpad's axiom, that "might makes right." They were Whigs when royal power was weak, and Tories when royal power was strong. Their god was mammon, and they offered up human sacrifices in abundance upon its altars. Cupidity and its concomitant vices governed all their acts, and the bonds of consanguinity and affection were too weak to restrain their fostered barbarism. Those born in the same neighborhood; educated (if at all) in the same school; admonished, it may be, by the same pastor, seemed to have their hearts suddenly closed to every feeling of friendship or of love, and became as relentless robbers and murderers of neighbors and friends as the savages of the wilderness. Of this elass was Thomas Lovelaee, who, for a time, became a terror to his old neighbors and friends in Saratoga, his native district.
At the commencement of the war Lovelace went to Canada, and there confederated with five other persons from his own county to come down into Saratoga and abduct, plunder, or betray their former neighbors. He was brave, expert, and cautious. His quarters were in a large swamp about five miles from the residence of Colonel Van Vechten at Do-ve-gat, but his place of rendezvous was cunningly concealed. Robberies were frequent, and several inhabitants were carried off. General Schuyler's house was robbed, and an attempt was
* A French officer, who served in the array in this country during a part of the Revolution.
Capture and Death of Lovelace.--Daring Adventure of an American Soldier.--Departure from Schuylerville
093
made by Lovelace and his companions to carry off Colonel Van Vechten; but the active vigilance of General Stark, then in command of the barracks north of the Fish Creek, * in furnishing the colonel with a guard, frustrated the marauder's plans. Intimations of his intentions and of his place of concealment were given to Captain Dunham, who commanded a company of militia in the neighborhood, and he at once summoned his lieutenant, ensign, orderly, and one private to his house. * At dark they proceeded to the "Big Swamp," three miles distant, where two Tory families resided. They separated to reconnoiter, but two of them, Green and Guiles, were lost. The other three kept together, and at dawn discovered Lovelace and his party in a hut covered over with boughs, just drawing on their stockings. The three Americans crawled cautiously forward till near the hut, when they sprang upon a log with a shout, leveled their muskets, and Dunham exclaimed, "Surrender, or you are all dead men!" There was no time for parley, and, believing that the Americans were upon them in force, they came out one by one without arms, and were marched by their captors to General Stark at the barracks. They were tried by a court-martial as spies, traitors, and robbers, and Lovelace, who was considered too dangerous to be allowed to escape, was sentenced to be hung. He complained of injustice, and claimed the leniency due to a prisoner of war; but his plea was disallowed, and three days afterward he was hung upon the brow of the hill at the place delineated, during a tremendous storm of rain and wind, accompanied by vivid lightning and clashing thunder-peals. These facts were communicated to me by the son of Colonel Van Vechten, who accompanied me to the spot, and who was well acquainted with all the captors of Lovelace and his accomplices.
The place where Gates and Burgoyne had their first interview (delineated on page 81) is about half way between the Fish Creek and Gates's headquarters. After visiting these localities, we returned to the village, and spent an hour upon the ground where the British army laid down their arms. This locality I have already noted, and will not detain the reader longer than to mention the fact that the plain whereon this event took place formed a part of the extensive meadows of General Schuyler, and to relate a characteristic adventure which occurred there.
While the British camp was on the north side of the Fish Creek, a number of the officers' horses were let loose in the meadows to feed. An expert swimmer among the Americans who swarmed upon the hills east of the Hudson, obtained permission to go across and capture one of the horses. He swam the river, seized and mounted a fine bay gelding, and in a few moments was recrossing the stream unharmed, amid a volley of bullets from a party of British soldiers. Shouts greeted him as he returned; and, when rested, he asked permission to go for another, telling the captain that he ought to have a horse to ride as well as a private. Again the adventurous soldier was among the herd, and, unscathed, returned with an exceedingly good match for the first, and presented it to his commander. ***
Bidding our kind friend and guide adieu, we left Schuylerville toward evening, in a private carriage, for Fort Miller, six miles further up the Hudson. The same beautiful and diversified scenery, the same prevailing quiet that charmed us all the way from Waterford, still surrounded us; and the river and the narrow alluvial plain through which it flows, bounded on either side by high undulations or abrupt pyramidal hills, which cast lengthened shadows in the evening sun across the meadows, presented a beautiful picture of luxurious repose. We crossed the Hudson upon a long bridge built on strong abutments, two miles and a half above Schuylerville, at the place where Burgoyne and his army crossed on the 12th of September, 1777. The river is here quite broad and shallow, and broken by frequent rifts and rapids.
We arrived at Fort Miller village, on the east bank of the river, between five and six o'clock; and while awaiting supper, preparatory to an evening canal voyage to Fort Edward, nine miles above, I engaged a water-man to row me across to the western bank, to
* The place-where these barracks were located is just within the northern suburbs of Schuylerville.
** Davis, Green, Guiles, and Burden.
*** Neilson, 223
Visit to the Site of old Fort Edward.--Tragedy of "Bloody Run."-- Daring Feat by Putnam.--Fort Miller Fording-place.
094
view the site of the old fort. He was a very obliging man, and well acquainted with the localities in the neighborhood, but was rather deficient in historical knowledge. His attempts to relate 'the events connected with the old fort and its vicinity were amusing; for Putnam's ambush on Lake Champlain, and the defeat of Pyles by Lee, in North Carolina, with a slight tincture of correct narrative, were blended together as pans of an event which occurred at Fort Miller.
We crossed the Hudson just above the rapids. A dam for milling purposes spans the stream, causing a sluggish current and deeper water for more than two miles above. Here was the scene of one of Putnam's daring exploits. While a major in the English provincial army, nearly twenty years before the Revolution, he was lying in-a bateau on the east side of the river, and was suddenly surprised by a party of Indians. He could not cross the river swiftly enough to escape the balls of their rifles, and there was no alternative but to go down the foaming rapids. In an instant his purpose was fixed, and, to the astonishment of the savages, he steered directly down the current, amid whirling eddies and over shelving rocks. In a few moments his vessel cleared the rush of waters, and was gliding upon the smooth current below, far out of reach of the weapons of the Indians. It was a feat they never dared attempt, and superstition convinced them that he was so favored by the Great Spirit that it would be an affront to Manitou to attempt to kill him with powder and ball.
Other Indians of the tribe, however, soon afterward gave practical evidence of their unbelief in such interposition.
There is not a vestige of Fort Miller left, and maize, and potatoes, and pumpkin vines were flourishing where the rival forces of Sir William Johnson and the Baron Dieskau alternately paraded. At the foot of the hill, a few rods below where the fort stood, is a part of the trench and bank of a redoubt, and this is all that remains even of the outworks of the fortification.
An eighth of a mile westward is Bloody Run, a stream which comes leaping in sparkling cascades from the hills, and affords fine trout fishing. It derives its name from the fact that, while the English had possession of the fort in 1759, a party of soldiers from the garrison went out to fish at the place represented in the picture. The hills, now cultivated, were then covered with dense forests, and afforded the Indians excellent ambush. A troop of savages, lying near, sprang silently from their covert upon the fishers, and bore off nine reeking scalps before those who escaped could reach the fort and give the alarm.
This clear mountain stream enters the Hudson a little above Fort Miller, where the river makes a sudden curve, and where, before the erection of the dam at the rapids, it was quite shallow, and usually fordable. This was the crossing-place for the armies; and there are still to be seen some of the logs and stones upon the shore which formed a part of the old "King's Road" leading to the fording-place. They are now sub-
* This view is taken from the site of the fort, looking northward. The fort was in the town of Northumberland. It was built of logs and earth, and was never a post of great importance
Canal Voyage to Fort Edward.--Scene on Board.--Fort Edward.--National Debt of England.
095
merged, the river having been made deeper by the dam; but when the water is limpid they can be plainly seen. It was twilight before we reached the village on the eastern shore.
We supped and repaired to the packet office, where we waited until nine o'clock in the evening before the shrill notes of a tin horn brayed out the annunciation of a packet near. Its deck was covered with passengers, for the interesting ceremony of converting the dining-room into a dormitory, or swinging the hammocks or berths and selecting their occupants, had commenced, and all were driven out, much to their own comfort, but, strange to say, to the dissatisfaction of many who lazily preferred a sweltering lounge in the cabin to the delights of fresh air and the bright starlight. Having no interest in the scramble for beds, we enjoyed the evening breeze and the excitement of the tiny tumult. My companion, fearing the exhalations upon the night air, did indeed finally seek shelter in one end of the cabin, but was driven, with two other young ladies, into the captain's state-room, to allow the "hands" to have full play in making the beds. Imprisoned against their will, the ladies made prompt restitution to themselves by drawing the cork of a bottle of sarsaparilla and sipping its contents, greatly to the consternation of a meek old dame, the mother of one of the girls, who was sure it was "bed-bug pizen, or something a pesky sight worse." We landed at Fort Edward at midnight, and took lodgings at a small but tidily-kept tavern close by the canal.
Fort Edward was a military post of considerable importance during the French and Indian wars and the Revolution. * The locality, previous to the erection of the fortress, was called the first carrying-place, being the first and nearest point on the Hudson where the troops, stores, &c., were landed while passing to or from the south end of Lake Champlain, a distance of about twenty-five miles. The fort was built in 1755, when six thousand troops were collected there, under General Lyman, waiting the arrival of General Johnson, the commander-in-chief of an expedition against Ticonderoga and Crown Point. It was at first called Fort Lyman, in Fort Edward.* honor of the general who superintended its erection. It
* I refer particularly to the war between England and France, commonly called, in Europe, the Seven Years' War. It was declared on the 9th of June, 1756, and ended with the treaty at Paris, concluded and signed February 10th, 1763. It extended to the colonies of the two nations in America, and was carried on with much vigor here until the victory of Wolfe at Quebec, in 1759, and the entire subjugation of Canada by the English. The French managed to enlist a large proportion of the Indian tribes in their favor, who were allied with them against the Britons. It is for that reason that the section of the Seven Years' War in America was called by the colonists the "French and Indian War." I would here mention incidentally that that war cost Great Britain five hundred and sixty millions of dollars, and laid one of the largest foundation stones of that national debt under which she now groans. It was twenty millions in the reign of William and Mary, in 1697, and was then thought to be enormous; in 1840 it was about four thousand millions of dollars!
** Explanation: a a a a a a, six cannons; A, the barracks; B, the store- house; C, the hospital; D, the magazine; E, a flanker; F, a bridge across Fort Edward Creek; and G, a balm of Gilead tree which then overshadowed the massive water-gate. That tree is still standing, a majestic relic of the past, amid the surrounding changes in nature and art. It is directly upon the high bank of the Hudson, and its branches, heavily foliated when I was there, spread very high and wide. At the union below its three trunks it measures more than twenty feet in circumference.
Daring Feat of Putnam at Fort Edward.--Jane M'Crea Tree.--Sir William Johnson and his Title.--Fortifications.
096
was built of logs and earth, sixteen feet high and twenty-two feet thick, and stood at the junction of Fort Edward Creek and the Hudson River. From the creek, around the fort to the river, was a deep fosse or ditch, designated in the engraving by the dark dotted part outside of the black lines.
There are still very prominent traces of the banks and fosse of the fort, but the growing village will soon spread over and obliterate them forever. Already a garden was within the lines; and the old parade- ground, wherein Sir William Johnson strutted in the haughty pride of a victor by accident, * was desecrated by beds of beets, parsley, radishes, and onions.
Fort Edward was the theater of another daring achievement by Putnam. In the winter of 1756 the barracks, then near the northwestern bastion, took fire. The magazine was only twelve feet distant, and contained three hundred barrels of gunpowder. Attempts were made to batter the barracks to the ground with heavy cannons, but without success. Putnam, who was stationed upon Rogers's Island, in the Hudson, opposite the fort, hurried hither, and, taking his station on the roof of the barracks, ordered a line of soldiers to hand him water. But, despite his efforts, the flames raged and approached nearer and nearer to the magazine. The commandant, Colonel Haviland, seeing his danger, ordered him down; but the brave major did not leave his perilous post until the fabric began to totter. He then leaped to the ground, placed himself between the falling building and the magazine, and poured on water with all his might. The external planks of the magazine were consumed, and there was only a thin partition between the flames and the powder. But Putnam succeeded in subduing the flames and saving the ammunition. His hands and face were dreadfully burned, his whole body was more or less blistered, and it was several weeks before he recovered from the effects of his daring conflict with the fire.
The first place of historic interest that we visited at Fort Edward was the venerable and blasted pine tree near which, tradition asserts, the unfortunate Jane M'Crea lost her life while General Burgoyne had his encampment near Sandy Hill. It stands upon the west side of the road leading from Fort Edward to Sandy Hill, and about half a mile from the canal-lock in the former village. The tree had exhibited unaccountable signs of decadence for several years, and when we visited it, it was sapless and bare. Its top was torn off by a November gale, and almost every breeze diminishes its size by scattering its decayed twigs. The trunk is about five feet in diameter, and upon the bark is engraved, in bold letters, Jane M'Crea, 1777. The names of many ambitious visitors are intaglioed upon it, and reminded me of the line "Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree." I carefully sketched all its branches, and the engraving is a faithful portraiture of the interesting relic, as viewed from the opposite side of the road. In a few years this tree, around which history and romance have clustered so many associations, will crumble and pass away forever. **
The sad story of the unfortunate girl is so interwoven in our history that it has become a component part; but it is told with so many variations, in essential and non-essential par-
* Sir William Johnson had command of the English forces in 1755, destined to act against Crown Point. He was not remarkable for courage or activity. He was attacked at the south end of Lake George by the Freneh general, Deiskau, and was wounded at the outset. The command then devolved on Major-general Lyman, of the Connecticut troops, who, by his skill and bravery, secured a victory over the French and Indians. General Johnson, however, had the honor and reward thereof. In his mean jealousy he gave General Lyman no praise; and the British king (George II.) made him a baronet, and a present of twenty thousand dollars to give the title becoming dignity.Note.--As I shall have frequent occasion to employ technical terms used in fortifications, I here give a diagram, which, with the explanation, will make those terms clear to the reader. The figure is a vertical section of a fortification. The mass of earth, ab c d ef g h, forms the rampart with its parapet; ab is the interior slope of the rampart; b c is the terre-plein of the rampart, on which the troops and cannon are placed; d e is the banquette, or step, on which the soldiers mount to fire over the parapet; ef g is the parapet; g h is the exterior slope of the parapet-, hi is the revetment, or wall of masonry, supporting the rampart; h 1c, the exterior front covered with the revetment, is called the escarp; i hi the ditch; l m is the counterscarp; m n is the covered way, having a banquette nop; s r is the glacis. When there are two ditches, the works between the inner and the outer ditch are called ravelins, and all outside of the ditches, outworks.-See Brande's Cyc., art. Fortification.
** It was cut down in 1853, and converted into canes, boxes, &c.
The Fort Edward Romance.--Mrs. M'Neil and her Grand-daughter.--Narrative of the latter
097
ticulars, that much of the narratives we have is evidently pure fiction; a simple tale of Indian abduction, resulting in death, having its counterpart in a hundred like occurrences, has been garnished with all the high coloring of a romantic love story. It seems a pity to spoil the romance of the matter, but truth always makes sad havoc with the frost-work of the imagination, and sternly demands the homage of the historian's pen.
All accounts agree that Miss M'Crea was staying at the house of a Mrs. M'Neil, near the fort, at the time of the tragedy. A granddaughter of Mrs. M'Neil (Mrs.F--n) is now living at Fort 1848. Edward, and from her I received a minute account of the whole transaction, as she had heard it a "thousand times" from her grandmother. She is a woman of remarkable intelligence, about sixty years old. When I was at Fort Edward she was on a visit with her sister at Glenn's Falls. It had been my intention to go direct to Whitehall, on Lake Champlain, by way of Fort Ann, but the traditionary accounts in the neighborhood of the event in question were so contradictory of the books, and I received such assurances that perfect reliance might be placed upon the statements of Mrs. F-n, that, anxious to ascertain the truth of the matter, if possible, we went to Lake Champlain by way of Glenn's Falls and Lake George. After considerable search at the falls, I found Mrs. F-n, and the following is her relation of the tragedy at Fort Edward.
Jane M'Crea was the daughter of a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman of Jersey City, opposite New York; and while Mrs. M'Neil (then the wife of a former husband named Campbell) was a resident of New York City, an acquaintance and intimacy had grown up between Jenny and her daughter. After the death of Campbell (which occurred at sea) Mrs. Campbell married M'Neil. He, too, was lost at sea, and she removed with her family to an estate
Residence of Jane M'Crea at Fort Edward.--Her Betrothal.--Abduction of Mrs. M'Neil and Jane.
098
owned by him at Fort Edward. Mr. M'Crea, who was a widower, died, and Jane went to live with her brother near Fort Edward, where the intimacy of former years with Mrs. M'Neil and her daughter was renewed, and Jane spent much of her time at Mrs. M'Neil's house. Near her brother's lived a family named Jones, consisting of a widow and six sons, and between Jenny and David Jones, a gay young man, a feeling of friendship budded and ripened into reciprocal love. When the war broke out the Joneses took the royal side of the question, and David and his brother Jonathan went to Canada in the autumn of 1776. They raised a company of about sixty men, under pretext of re-enforcing the American garrison at Ticonderoga, but they went further down the lake and joined the British garrison at June l, 1777 Crown Point. When Burgoyne collected his forces at St. John's, at the foot of Lake Champlain, David and Jonathan Jones were among them. Jonathan was made captain and David a lieutenant in the division under General Fraser, and at the time in question they were with the British army near Sandy Hill. Thus far all accounts nearly agree.
The brother of Jenny was a Whig, and prepared to move to Albany; but Mrs. M'Neil, who was a cousin of General Fraser (killed at Stillwater), was a stanch loyalist, and intended to remain at Fort Edward. When the British were near, Jenny was at Mrs. M'Neil's, and lingered there even after repeated solicitations from her brother to return to his house, five miles further down the river, to be ready to flee when necessity should compel. A faint hope that she might meet her lover doubtless was the secret of her tarrying. At last her brother sent a peremptory order for her to join him, and she promised to go down in a large bateau * which was expected to leave with several families on the following day.
Early the next morning a black July 27, 1777 servant boy belonging to Mrs. M'Neil espied some Indians stealthily approaching the house, and, giving the alarm to the inmates, he fled to the fort, about eighty rods distant. Mrs. M'Neil's daughter, the young friend of Jenny, and mother of my informant, was with some friends in Argyle, and the family consisted of only the widow and Jenny, two small children, and a black female servant. As usual at that time, the kitchen stood a few feet from the house; and when the alarm was given the black woman snatched up the children, fled to the kitchen, and retreated through a trap-door to the cellar. ** Mrs. M'Neil and Jenny followed, but the former being aged and very corpulent, and the latter young and agile, Jenny reached the trap- door first. Before Mrs. M'Neil could fully descend, the Indians were in the house, and a powerful savage seized her by the hair and dragged her up. Another went into the cellar and brought out Jenny, but the black face of the negro woman was not seen in the dark, and she and the children remained unharmed.
With the two women the savages started off, on the road toward Sandy Hill, for Bur-goyne's camp; and when they came to the foot of the ascent on which the pine tree stands, where the road forked, they caught two horses that were grazing, and attempted to place their prisoners upon them. Mrs. M'Neil was too heavy to be lifted on the horse easily, and as she signified by signs that she could not ride, two stout Indians took her by the arms and hurried her up the road over the hill, while the others, with Jenny on the horse, went along the road running west of the tree.
The negro boy who ran to the fort gave the alarm, and a small detachment was imme-
* Bateaux were rudely constructed of logs and planks, broad and without a keel. They had small draught, and would carry large loads in quite shallow water. In still water and against currents they were propelled by long driving-poles. The ferry-scows or flats on the southern and western rivers are very much like the old bateaux. They were sometimes furnished with a mast for lakes and other deep water, and had cabins erected on them.
** Traces of this cellar and of th: foundation of the house are still visible in the garden of Dr. Norton, in Fort Edward village, who is a relative of the family by marriage.
Flight of the Indians toward Sandy Hill.--Treatment of Mrs. M'Neil.-- Indian Account of the Death of Jane.--The Spring.
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diately sent out to effect a rescue. They fired several volleys at the Indians, but the savages escaped unharmed. Mrs. M'Neil said that the Indians, who were hurrying her up the hill, seemed to watch the flash of the guns, and several times they threw her upon her face, at the same time falling down themselves, and she distinctly heard the balls whistle above them. When they got above the second hill from the village the firing ceased; they-then stopped, stripped her of all her garments except her chemise, and in that plight led her into the British camp. There she met her kinsman, General Fraser, and reproached him bitterly for sending his "scoundrel Indians" after her. He denied all knowledge of her being away from the city of New York, and took every pains to make her comfortable. She was so large that not a woman in camp had a gown big enough for her, so Fraser lent her his camp-coat for a garment, and a pocket-handkerchief as a substitute for her stolen cap.
Very soon after Mrs. M'Neil was taken into the British camp, two parties of Indians arrived with scalps. She at once recognised the long glossy hair of Jenny, * and, though shuddering with horror, boldly charged the savages with her murder, which they stoutly denied.
They averred that, while hurrying her along the road on horseback, near the spring west of the pine tree, a bullet from one of the American guns, intended for them, mortally wounded the poor girl, and she fell from the horse. Sure of losing a prisoner by death, they took her scalp as the next best thing for them to do, and that they bore in triumph to the camp, to obtain the promised reward for such trophies. Mrs. M'Neil always believed the story of the Indians to be true, for she knew that they were fired upon by the detachment from the fort, and it was far more to their interest to carry a prisoner than a scalp to the British commander, the price for the former being much greater. In fact, the Indians were so restricted by Burgoyne's humane instructions respecting the taking of scalps, that their chief solicitude was to bring a prisoner alive and unharmed into the camp. ** And the probability that Miss M'Crea was killed as they alleged is strengthened by the fact that they took the corpulent Mrs. M'Neil, with much fatigue and difficulty, uninjured to the British lines, while Miss M'Crea, quite light and already on horseback, might have been carried off with far greater ease.
It was known in camp that Lieutenant Jones was betrothed to Jenny, and the story got abroad that he had sent the Indians for her, that they quarreled on the way respecting the reward he had offered, and murdered her to settle the dispute. Receiving high touches of coloring as it went from one narrator to another, the sad story became a tale of darkest horror, and produced a deep and wide-spread indignation. This was heightened by September 2, 1777 a published letter from Gates to Burgoyne, charging him with allowing the In-
* It was of extraordinary length and beauty, measuring a yard and a quarter. She was then about twenty years old, and a very lovely girl; not lovely in beauty of face, according to the common standard of beauty, but so lovely in disposition, so graceful in manners, and so intelligent in features, that she was a favorite of all who knew her.
** "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 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. In conformity and indulgence of your customs, which 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 and in fair opposition; but on no account, or pretense, or subtilty, or prevarication are they to be taken from the wounded, or even the dying; and still less pardonable, if possible, will it be held to kill men in that condition on purpose, and upon in supposition that this protection to the wounded would be thereby evaded."-Extract from the Speech of Burgoyne to the Indians assembled upon the Bouquet River, June 21, 1777.
*** This is a view of a living spring, a few feet below the noted pine tree, the lower portion of which is seen near the top of the engraving. The spring is beside the old road, traces of which may be seen.
Massacre of the Allen Family.--Gates's Letter.--Inquiry respecting the Death of Miss M'Crea.--Desertion of Lieutenant Jones
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dians to butcher with impunity defenseless women and children. "Upward of one hundred men, women, and children," said Gates, "have perished by the hands of the ruffians, to whom, it is asserted, you have paid the price of blood." Burgoyne flatly denied this assertion, and declared that the case of Jane M'Crea was the only act of Indian cruelty of which he was informed. His information must have been exceedingly limited, for on the same day when Jenny lost her life a party of savages murdered the whole family, of John Allen, of Argyle, consisting of himself, his wife, three children, a sister-in-law, and three negroes. The daughter of Mrs. M'Neil, already mentioned, was then at the house of Mr. Allen's father- in-law, Mr. Gilmer, who, as well as Mr. Allen, was a Tory. Both were afraid of the savages, nevertheless, and were preparing to flee to Albany. On the morning of the massacre a younger daughter of Mr. Gilmer went to assist Mrs. Allen in preparing to move. Not returning when expected, her father sent a negro boy down for her. He soon returned, screaming, "They are all dead-father, mother, young missus, and all!" It was too true. That morning, while the family were at breakfast, the Indians burst in upon them and slaughtered every one. Mr. Gilmer and his family left in great haste for Fort Edward, but proceeded very cautiously for fear of the savages. When near the fort, and creeping warily along a ravine, they discovered a portion of the very party who had plundered Mrs. M'Neil's house in the morning. They had emptied the straw from the beds and filled the ticks with stolen articles. Mrs. M'Neil's daughter, who accompanied the fugitive family, saw her mother's looking-glass tied upon the back of one of the savages. They succeeded in reaching the fort in safety.
Burgoyne must soon have forgotten this event and the alarm among the loyalists because of the murder of a Tory and his family; forgotten how they flocked to his camp for protection, and Fraser's remark to the frightened loyalists, "It is a conquered country, and we must wink at these things;" and how his own positive orders to the Indians, not to molest those having protection, caused many of them to leave him and return to their hunting-grounds on the St. Lawrence. It was all dark and dreadful, and Burgoyne was willing to retreat behind a false assertion, to escape the perils which were sure to grow out of an admission of half the truth of Gates's letter. That letter, as Sparks justly remarks, was more ornate than forcible, and abounded more in bad taste than simplicity and pathos; yet it was suited to the feelings of the moment, and produced a lively impression in every part of America. Burke, in the exercise of all his glowing eloquence, used the story with powerful effect in the British House of Commons, and made the dreadful tale familiar throughout Europe.
Burgoyne, who was at Fort Ann, instituted an inquiry into the matter. He summoned the Indians to council, and demanded the surrender of the man who bore off the scalp, to be punished as a murderer. Lieutenant Jones denied all knowledge of the matter, and utterly disclaimed any such participation as the sending of a letter to Jenny, or of an Indian escort to bring her to camp. He had no motive for so doing, for the American army was then retreating; a small guard only was at Fort Edward, and in a day or two the British would have full possession of that fort, when he could have a personal interview with her. Burgoyne, instigated by motives of policy rather than by judgment and inclination, pardoned the savage who scalped poor Jenny, fearing that a total defection of the Indians would be the result of his punishment. *
Lieutenant Jones, chilled with horror and broken in spirit by the event, tendered a resignation of his commission, but it was refused. He purchased the scalp of his Jenny, and with this cherished memento deserted, with his brother, before the army reached Saratoga, and retired to Canada. Various accounts have been given respecting the subsequent fate of Lieutenant Jones. Some assert that, perfectly desperate and careless of life, he rushed into the thickest of the battle on Bemis's Heights, and was slain; while others allege that he died within three years afterward, heart-broken and insane. But neither assertion is true. While searching for Mrs. F----n among her friends at Glenn's Falls, I called at the
* Earl of Harrington's Evidence in Burgoyne's "State of the Expeditions. 66.
Effect of Miss M'Crea's Death on Lieutenant Jones.--Attack of Indians upon American Troops.--Reinterment of Miss M'Crea
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house of Judge R--s, whose lady is related by marriage to the family of Jones. Her aunt married a brother of Lieutenant Jones, and she often heard this lady speak of him. He lived in Canada to be an old man, and died but a few years ago. The death of Jenny was a heavy blow, and he never recovered from it. In youth he was gay and exceedingly garrulous, but after that terrible event he was melancholy and taciturn. He never married, and avoided society as much as business-would permit. Toward the close of July in every year, when the anniversary of the tragedy approached, he would shut himself in his room and refuse the sight of any one; and at all times his friends avoided any reference to the Revolution in his presence.
At the time of this tragical event-the American army under General Schuyler was encamped at Moses's Creek, five miles below Fort Edward. One of its two divisions was placed under the command of Arnold, who had just reached the army. His July 03, 1777 division included the rear- guard left at the fort. A picket-guard of one hundred men, under Lieutenant Van Vechten, was stationed on the hill a little north of the pine tree; and at the moment when the house of Mrs. M'Neil was attacked and plundered, and her self and Jenny were carried off, other parties of Indians, belonging to the same expedition, came rushing through the woods from different points, and fell upon the Americans. Lieutenant Van Vechten and several others were killed and their scalps borne off. Their bodies, with that of Jenny, were found by the party that went out from the fort in pursuit. She and the officer were lying near together, close by the spring already mentioned, and only a few feet from the pine tree. They were stripped of clothing, for plunder was the chief incentive of the savages to war. They were borne immediately to the fort, which the Americans at once evacuated, and Jane did indeed go down the river in the bateau in which she had intended to embark, but not glowing with life and beauty, as was expected by her fond brother. With the deepest grief, he took charge of her mutilated corse, which was buried at the same time and place with that of the lieutenant, on the west bank of the Hudson, near the mouth of a small creek about three miles below Fort Edward.
Mrs. M'Neil lived many years, and was buried in the small village cemetery, very near the ruins of the fort. In the summer of 1826 the remains of Jenny were taken up and deposited in the same grave with her. They were followed by a long train of young men and maidens, and the funeral ceremonies were conducted by the eloquent but unfortunate Hooper Cummings, of Albany, at that time a brilliant light in the American pulpit, but destined, like a glowing meteor, to go suddenly down into darkness and gloom. Many who were then young have a vivid recollection of the pathetic discourse of that gifted man, who on that occasion "made all Fort Edward weep," as he delineated anew the sorrowful picture of the immolation of youth and innocence upon the horrid altar of war.
A plain white marble slab, about three feet high, with the simple inscription Jane M'Crea, marks the spot of her interment. Near by, as seen in the picture, is an antique brown stone slab, erected to the memory of Duncan Campbell, a relative of Mrs. M'Neil's first husband, who was mortally wounded at Ticonderoga in 1758. * Several others of the same name lie near, members of the family of Donald Campbell, a brave Scotchman who was with Montgomery at the storming of Quebec in 1775.
"We lingered long in the cool shade at the spring before departing for the village burial-ground where the remains of Jenny rest. As we emerged from the woods we saw two or
* The following is the inscription: Here Lyes The Body of Duncan- Campbell, of Inversaw. Esqr., Major to the Old Highland Regt., Aged 55 Years, Who Died The 17th July, 1758. of The Wounds He Received in the Attack of The Retrenchments of Ticonderoga or Carillon the 8th July, 1758.
Young Girl struck by Lightning.--Village Burial-ground.--Colonel Cochran and his Adventures.--Rogers's Island.
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three persons with a horse and wagon, slowly ascending the hill from the village. In the wagon, upon a mattress, was a young girl who had been struck by lightning, two days before while drawing water from a well. * Although alive, her senses were all paralyzed by the shock, and her sorrowing father was carrying her home, perhaps to die. With brief words of consoling hope, we stepped up and looked upon the stricken one. Her breathing was soft and slow-a hectic glow was upon each cheek; but all else of her fair young face was pale as alabaster except her lips. It was grievous, even to a stranger, to look upon a young life so suddenly prostrated, and we turned sadly away to go to the grave of another, who in the bloom of young womanhood was also smitten to the earth, not by the lightning from Heaven, but by the arm of warring man.
The village burial-ground is near the site of the fort, and was thickly strewn with wild flowers. We gathered a bouquet from the grave of Jenny, and preserved it for the eye of the curious in an impromptu herbarium made of a city newspaper. A few feet from her "narrow house" is the grave of Colonel Robert Cochran, whom I have already mentioned as commanding a detachment of militia at Fort Edward at the time of Burgoyne's surrender. He was a brave officer, and was warmly attached to the American cause. In 1778 he was sent to Canada as a spy. His errand being suspected, a large bounty was offered for his head. He was obliged to conceal himself, and while doing so at one time in a brush-heap, he was taken dangerously ill. Hunger and disease made him venture to a log cabin in sight. As he approached he heard three men and a woman conversing on the subject of the reward for his head, and discovered that they were actually forming plans for his capture. The men soon left the cabin in pursuit of him, and he immediately crept into the presence of the woman, who was the wife of one of the men, frankly told her his name, and. asked her protection. That she kindly promised him, and gave him some nourishing food and a bed to rest upon. The men returned in the course of a few hours, and she concealed Cochran in a cupboard, where he overheard expressions of their confident anticipations that before another sun they would have the rebel spy, and claim the reward. They refreshed themselves, and set off again in search of him. The kind woman directed him to a place of concealment, some distance from her cabin, where she fed and nourished him until he was able to travel, and then he escaped beyond the British lines. Several years afterward, when the war had closed, the colonel lived at Ticonderoga, and there he accidentally met his deliverer, and rewarded her handsomely for her generous fidelity in the cause of suffering humanity.
Colonel Cochran died in 1812, at Sandy Hill, and was buried at Fort Edward.
It was hot noon when I left the village cemetery, and took shelter under the shadow of the venerable balm of Gilead tree at the place of the water-gate of the fort. A few rods below is the mouth of Fort Edward Creek, on the south of which the British army were encamped when Burgoyne tarried there to send an expedition to Bennington, and, after that disastrous affair, to recruit and discipline his forces. Dividing the waters of the Hudson in front of the fort is Rogers's Island, a beautiful and romantic spot, which was used as a camp-ground by the English and French alternately during the French and Indian war. Almost every year the
* This mournful event occurred in the village, very near the same spot where, a year before, five men in a store were instantly killed by one thunder-bolt.
** This sketch is taken from within the intrenchments of Fort Edward, near the magazine, looking southwest. On the left, just beyond the balm of Gilead tree, is seen the creek, and on the right, across the water, Rogers's Island.
Relics found on Rogers's Island.--A remarkable Skull.--Silver Coin found at Fort Edward.
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plow turns lip some curious relics of the past upon the island, such as bayonets, tomahawks, buttons, bullets, cannon-balls, coin, arrow-heads, &c.
Dr. Norton, of Fort Edward, gave me a skull that had been exhumed there, which is remarkable for its excessive thickness; not so thick, however, as to resist the force of a musket-ball which penetrated it, and doubtless deprived its owner of life. It is three eighths of an inch thick where the bullet entered in front, and, notwithstanding its long inhumation, the sutures are perfect. Its form is that of the negro, and it probably belonged to the servant of some officer stationed there.
The silver coin found in the vicinity of Fort Edward is called by the people "cob money."
The derivation of this name I could not learn. I obtained two pieces of it, both of which are Spanish coin. The larger one is a cross-pistareen, of the value of sixteen cents; the other is a quarter fraction of the same coin. They are very irregular in form, and the devices and dates are quite imperfect. The two in my possession are dated respectively 1741, 1743 These Spanish small coins composed the bulk of specie circulation among the French in Canada at that time
Ride from Fort Edward to Glenn's Falls.--Appearance of the Country.-- Interesting Character of the Region.
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Chapter V
"Though of the past from no carved shrines,
Canvass, or deathless lyres, we learn,
Yet arbor'd streams and shadowy pines
Are hung with legends wild and stern:
In deep dark glen-on mountain side,
Are graves whence stately pines have sprung,
Naught telling how the victims died,
Save faint tradition's faltering tongue."
Street.
E dined at three, and immediately left the pleasant little village of Fort Edward in a barouche for Glenn's Falls, by the way of Sandy Hill, a distance of six miles. The latter village is beautifully situated upon the high left bank of the Hudson, where the river makes a sudden sweep from an easterly to a southerly course. Here is the termination of the Hudson Valley, and above it the river courses its way in a narrow channel, among rugged rocks and high, wooden bluffs, through as wild and romantic a region as the most enthusiastic traveler could desire.
It was early in the afternoon when we reached the Mansion House at Glenn's Falls, near the cataract. All was bustle and confusion, for here is the brief tarrying-place of fashionable tourists on their way from Saratoga Springs to Lake George. There was a constant arrival and departure of visitors. Few remained longer than to dine or sup, view the falls at a glance, and then hasten away to the grand summer lounge at Caldwell, to hunt, fish, eat, drink, dance, and sleep to their heart's content. We were thoroughly wearied by the day's ramble and ride, but time was too precious to allow a moment of pleasant weather to pass by unimproved. Comforted by the anticipation of a Sabbath rest the next day, we brushed the dust from our clothes, made a hasty toilet, and started out to view the falls, and search for the tarrying-place of Mrs. F-n, of Fort Edward.
Here the whole aspect of things is changed. Hitherto our journey had been among the quiet and beautiful; now every thing in nature was turbulent and grand. The placid river was here a foaming cataract, and gentle slopes, yellow with the ripe harvest, were exchanged for high, broken hills, some rocky and bare, others green with the oak and pine or dark with the cedar and spruce. Here nature, history, and romance combine to interest and please, and geology spreads out one of its most wonderful pages for the scrutiny of the student and philosopher. All over those rugged hills Indian warriors and hunters scouted for ages before the pale face made his advent among them; and the slumbering echoes were often awakened in the last century by the crack of musketry and the roar of cannon, mingled with the loud war-hoop of the Huron, the Iroquois, the Algonquin, the Mohegan, the Delaware, the Adirondack, and the Mohawk, when the French and English battled for mastery in the vast forests that skirted the lakes and the St. Lawrence. Here, amid the roar of this very cataract, if romance may be believed, the voice of Uncas, the last of the Mohegans, was heard and heeded; here Hawk Eye kept his vigils; here David breathed his nasal melody; and here Duncan Heyward, with his lovely and precious wards, Alice and Cora Monroe, fell into the hands of the dark and bitter Mingo chief. *
* See Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans."
Scenery about the Falls.--"Indian Cave" and "Big Snake".--Departure for Lake George.
105
The natural scenery about the falls is very picturesque, but the accompaniments of puny art are exceedingly incongruous, sinking the grand and beautiful into mere burlesque. How expertly the genius of man, quickened by acquisitiveness, fuses the beautiful and useful in the crucible of gain, and, by the subtle alchemy of profit, transmutes the glorious cascade and its fringes of rock and shrub into broad arable acres, or lofty houses, or speeding ships, simply by catching the bright stream in the toils of a mill-wheel. Such meshes are here spread out on every side to ensnare the leaping Hudson, and the rickety buildings, the clatter of machinery, and the harsh grating of saws, slabbing the huge black marble rocks of the shores into city mantels, make horrid dissonance of that harmony which the eye and ear expect and covet where nature is thus beautiful and musical.
A bridge, nearly six hundred feet long, and resting in the center upon a marble island, spans the river at the foot of the falls, and from its center there is a fine view of the cataract. The entire descent of the river is about sixty feet. The undivided stream first pours over a precipice nine hundred feet long, and is then separated into three channels by rocks piled in confusion, and carved, and furrowed, and welled, and polished by the rushing waters.
Below, the channels unite, and in one deep stream the waters flow on gently between the quarried cliffs of fine black marble, which rise in some places from thirty to seventy feet in height, and are beautifully stratified. Many fossils are imbedded in the rocks, among which the trilobite is quite plentiful. Here the heads (so exceedingly rare) are frequently found.
By the contribution of a York shilling to an intelligent lad who kept "watch and ward" at a flight of steps below the bridge, we procured his permission to descend to the rocks below, and his services as guide to the "Big Snake" and the "Indian Cave." The former is a petrifaction on the surface of a flat rock, having the appearance of a huge serpent; the latter extends through the small island from one channel to the other, and is pointed out as the place where Cooper's sweet young heroines, Cora and Alice, with Major Heyward and the singing-master, were concealed. The melody of a female voice, chanting an air in a minor key, came up from the cavern, and we expected every moment to hear the pitch- pipe of David and the "Isle of Wight." The spell was soon broken by a merry laugh, and three young girls, one with a torn barege, came clambering up from the narrow entrance over which Uncas and Hawk Eye cast the green branches to conceal the fugitives. In time of floods this cave is filled, and all the dividing rocks below the main fall are covered with water, presenting one vast foaming sheet. A long drought had greatly diminished the volume of the stream when we were there, and materially lessened the usual grandeur of the picture.
We passed the Sabbath at the falls. On Monday morning I arose at four, and went down to the bridge to sketch the cascade. The whole heavens were overcast, and a fresh breeze from the southeast was driving portentous scuds before it, and piling them in dark masses along the western horizon. Rain soon began to fall, and I was obliged to retreat under the bridge, and content myself with sketching the more quiet scene of the river and shore below the cataract.
We left Glenn's Falls in a "Rockaway" for Caldwell, on Lake George, nine miles northward, at nine in the morning, the rain falling copiously. The road passes over a wild, *
* This view was taken from under the bridge, looking down the river. The noted cave opens upon the river just below where the figures stand.
Williams's Rock.--Approach of Dieskau.--Hendrick, the Mohawk Sachem.
106
broken, and romantic region. Our driver was a perfect. Jehu. The plank road (since finished) was laid a small part of the way, and the speed he accomplished thereon he tried to keep up over the stony ground of the old track, to "prevent jolting!"
On the right side of the road, within four miles of Lake George, is a huge boulder called "Williams's Rock." It was so named from the fact that near it Colonel Ephraim Williams was killed on the 8th of September, 1755, in an engagement with the French and Indians under Baron Dieskau. Major-general (afterward Sir William) Johnson was at that time at the head of Lake George, with a body of provincial troops, and a large party of Indians under Hendrick, the famous Mohawk sachem. Dieskau, who was at Skenesborough, marched along the course of Wood Creek to attack Fort Edward, but the Canadians and Indians were so afraid of cannon that, when within two miles of the fort, they urged him to change his course, and attack Johnson in his camp on Lake George. To this request he acceded, for he ascertained by his scouts that Johnson was rather carelessly encamped, and was probably unsuspicious of danger.
Information of his march was communicated to the English commander at midnight, September 7th, and early in the morning a council of war was held. It was determined to send out a small party to meet the French, and the opinion of Hendrick was asked. He shrewdly said, "If they are to fight, they are too few; if they are to be killed, they are too many." His objection to the proposition to separate them into three divisions was quite as sensibly and laconically expressed. Taking three sticks and putting them together, he remarked, "Put them together, and you can't break them. Take them one by one, and you can break them easily." Johnson was guided by the opinion of Hendrick, and a detachment of twelve hundred men in one body, under Colonel Williams, was sent out to meet the approaching enemy.
Before commencing their march, Hendrick mounted a gun-carriage and harangued his warriors in a strain of eloquence which had a powerful effect upon them. He was then about sixty-five years old. His head was covered with long white locks, and every warrior loved him with the deepest veneration. *** President Dwight, referring to this speech, says, "Lieutenant-colonel
* This view is taken from the road, looking northward. In the distance is seen the highest point of the French Mountain, on the left of which is Lake George. From this commanding height the French scouts had a fine view of all the English movements at the head of the lake.
** The portrait here given of the chief is from a colored print published in London during the lifetime of the sachem. It was taken while he was in England, and habited in the full court dress presented to him by the king. Beneath the picture is engraved, "The brave old Hendrick, the great sachem or chief of the Mohawk Indians, one of the six nations now in alliance with, and subject to, the King of Great Britain."
*** Hendrick (sometimes called King Hendrick) was born about 1680, and generally lived at the Upper Castle, upon the Mohawk. He stood high in the estimation of Sir William Johnson, and was one of the most active and sagacious sachems of his time. When the tidings of his death were communicated to his son, the young chief gave the usual groan upon such occasions, and, placing his hand over his heart, exclaimed, "My father still alive here. The son is now the father, and stands here ready to fight."--Gentlemen's Magazine. Sir William Johnson obtained from Hendrick nearly one hundred thousand acres of choice land, now lying chiefly in Herkimer county, north of the Mohawk, in the following manner: The sachem, being at the baronet's house, saw a richly- embroidered coat and coveted it. The next morning he said to Sir William, "Brother, me dream last night." "Indeed," answered Sir William; "what did my red brother dream?" "Me dream that coat be mine." "It is yours," said the shrewd baronet. Not long afterward Sir William visited the sachem, and he too had a dream. "Brother," he said, "I dreamed last night." "What did my pale-faced brother dream?" asked Hendrick. "I dreamed that this tract of land was mine," describing a square bounded on the south by the Mohawk, on the east by Canada Creek, and north and west by objects equally well known. Hendrick was astonished. He saw the enormity of the request, but was not to be outdone in generosity. He sat thoughtfully for a moment, and then said, "Brother, the land is yours, but you must not dream again." The title was confirmed by the British government, and the tract was called the Royal Grant.-Simms's Schoharie County, p. 124.
Speech of Hendrick.--Fight with the French, and Death of Colonel Williams and Hendrick.--Bloody Pond.
107
Pomeroy, who was present and heard this effusion of Indian eloquence, told me that, although he did not understand a word of the language, such were the animation of Hendrick, the fire of his eye, the force of his gestures, the strength of his emphasis, the apparent propriety of the inflections of his voice, and the natural appearance of his whole manner, that himself was more deeply affected with this speech than with any other he had ever heard."
The French, advised by scouts of the march of the English, approached with their line in the form of a half moon, the road cutting the center. The country was so thickly wooded that all correct observation was precluded, and at Rocky Brook, four miles from Lake George, Colonel Williams and his detachment found themselves directly in the hollow of the hall moon. A heavy fire was opened upon them in front and on both flanks at the same moment, and the slaughter was dreadful. Colonel Williams was shot dead near the rock before mentioned, and Hendrick fell, mortally wounded by a musket-ball in the back. This circumstance gave him great uneasiness, for it seemed to imply that he had turned his back upon his enemy. The fatal bullet came from one of the extreme flanks. On the fall of Williams, Lieutenant-colonel Whiting succeeded to the command, and effected a retreat so judiciously that he saved nearly all of the detachment who were not killed or wounded by the first onslaught. *
So careless and apathetic was General Johnson, that he did not commence throwing up breast-works at his camp until after Colonel Williams had marched, and Dieskau was on the road to meet him. The firing was heard at Lake George, and then the alarmed commander began in earnest to raise defenses, by forming a breast-work of trees, and mounting two cannon which he had fortunately received from Fort Edward the day before, when his men thus employed should have been sent out to reenforce the retreating regiment. Three hundred were, indeed, sent out, but were totally inadequate. They met the flying English, and, joining in the retreat, hastened back to the camp, closely pursued by the French.
A short distance from Williams's Rock is a small, slimy, bowl-shaped pond, about three hundred feet in diameter, and thickly covered with the leaves of the water-lily. It is near the battle-ground where Williams and his men were slain, and the French made it the sepulcher for the slaughtered Englishmen. Tradition avers that for many years its waters bore a bloody hue,
* Colonel Ephraim Williams was born in 1715, at Newton, Massachusetts. He made several voyages to Europe in early life. Being settled at Stockbridge when the war with France, in 1740, commenced, and possessed of great military talent, he was intrusted with the command of the line of Massachusetts forts on the west side of the Connecticut River. He joined General Johnson, at the head of a regiment, in 1755, and, as we have seen, fell while gallantly leading his men against the enemy. By his will, made before joining Johnson, he bequeathed his property to a township west of Fort Massachusetts, on the condition that it should be called Williamstown, and the money used for the establishment and maintenance of a free school. The terms were complied with, and the school was afterward incorporated (1793) as a college. Such was the origin of Williams's College. Colonel Williams was forty years old at the time of his death.
Arrival at Caldwell. Indian and French Names of Lake George. Fort William Henry. Attack upon Johnson's Camp, 1755
108
and it has ever since been called Bloody Pond. I alighted in the rain, and made my way through tall wet grass and tangled vines, over a newly- cleared field, until I got a favorable view for the sketch here presented, which I hope the reader will highly prize, for it cost a pair of boots, a linen "sack" ruined by the dark droppings from a cotton umbrella, and a box of cough lozenges.
It was almost noon when we reined up at the Lake House at Caldwell. We had anticipated much pleasure from the first sight of Horicon, but a mist covered its waters, and its mountain frame-work was enveloped in fog; so we reserved our sentiment for use the next fair day, donned dry clothing, and sat quietly down in the parlor to await the sovereign pleasure of the storm.
Lake George is indeed a beautiful sheet of water, and along its whole length of thirty-six miles almost every island, bay, and bluff is clustered with historic associations. On account of the purity of its waters, the Indians gave it the name of Horicon, or Silver Water. They also called it Canideri-oit, or The Tail of the Lake, on account of its connection with Lake Champlain. * It was visited by Samuel Champlain in 1609, and some suppose that he gave his name to this lake instead of the one which now bears it. It is fair to infer, from his own account, that he penetrated southward as far as Glenn's Falls; and it is not a little remarkable that in the same year, and possibly at the same season, Hendrick Hudson was exploring below the very stream near the head-waters of which the French navigator was resting. Strange that two adventurers, in the service of different sovereigns ruling three thousand miles away, and approaching from different points of the compass, so nearly met in the vast forests of wild America. The French, who afterward settled at Chimney Point, on Lake Champlain, frequently visited this lake, and gave it the name of Sacrament, its pure waters suggesting the idea. **
The little village of Caldwell contains about two hundred inhabitants, and is situated near the site of Fort William Henry, at the head of the lake, a fortress erected by General Johnson toward the close of 1755, after his battle there with the French under Dieskau. That battle occurred on the same day when Colonel Williams and his detachment were routed at Rocky Brook. The French pursued the retreating English vigorously, and about noon they were seen approaching in considerable force and regular order, aiming directly toward the center of the British encampment. When within one hundred rods of the breast-works, in the open valley in front of the elevation on which Fort George (now a picturesque ruin) was afterward built, Dieskau halted and disposed his Indians and Canadians upon the right and left flanks. The regular troops, under the immediate command of the baron, attacked the English center, but, having only small arms, the effect was trifling. The English reserved their fire until the Indians and Canadians were close upon them, when with sure aim they poured upon them a volley of musket- balls which mowed them down like grass before the
* Spafford's Gazetteer of New York.
** The bed of the lake is a yellowish sand, and the water is so transparent that a white object, such as an earthen plate, may be seen upon the bottom at a depth of nearly forty feet. The delicious salmon trout, that weigh from five to twenty pounds, silver trout, pike, pickerel, and perch are found here in great abundance, and afford fine sport and dainty food for the swarms of visitors at the Lake House during the summer season.
*** The extent of the embankments and fosse of this fort was fourteen hundred feet, and the barracks were built of wood upon a strong foundation of lime-stone, which abounds in the neighborhood. This plan is copied from a curious old picture by Blodget, called a "Prospective Plan of the Battles near Lake George 1755."
Battle of Lake George, and Death of Dieskau.--Weakness of British Commanders.--The Six Nations.--Hendrick's Rebuke.
109
scythe. At the same moment a bomb-shell was thrown among them by a howitzer, while two field pieces showered upon them a quantity of grape- shot. The savage allies, and almost as savage colonists, greatly terrified, broke and fled to the swamps in the neighborhood. The regulars maintained their ground for some time, but, abandoned by their companions, and terribly galled by the steady fire from the breast- works, at length gave way, and Dieskau attempted a retreat. Observing this, the English leaped over their breast-works and pursued them. The French were dispersed in all directions, and Dieskau, wounded and helpless, was found leaning upon the stump of a tree. As the provincial soldier * who discovered him approached, he put his hand in his pocket to draw out his watch as a bribe to allow him to escape. Supposing that he was feeling for a pocket pistol, the soldier gave him a severe wound in the hip with a musket-ball. He was carried into the English camp in a blanket and tenderly treated, and was soon afterward taken to Albany, then to New York, and finally to England, where he died from the effects of his wounds. Johnson was wounded at the commencement of the conflict in the fleshy part of his thigh, in which a musket-ball lodged, and the whole battle was directed for five consecutive hours by General Lyman, the second in command. **
Johnson's Indians, burning with a fierce desire to avenge the death of Hendrick, were eager to follow the retreating enemy; and General Lyman proposed a vigorous continuation of efforts by attacking the French posts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, on Lake Champlain. But Johnson, either through fear, a love of ease, or some other inexplicable cause, withheld his consent, and the residue of the autumn was spent in erecting Fort William Henry.
In the colonial wars, as well as in the war of our Revolution, the British government was often unfortunate in its choice of commanders. Total inaction, or, at best, great tardiness, frequently marked their administration of military affairs. They could not comprehend the elastic activity of the provincials, and were too proud to listen to their counsels. This tardiness and pride cost them many misfortunes, either by absolute defeat in battle, or the theft of glorious opportunities for victory through procrastination. Their shrewd savage allies saw and lamented this, and before the commissioners of the several colonies, who met at Albany in 1754 to consult upon a plan of colonial alliance, in which the Six Nations *** were invited to join, Hendrick administered a pointed rebuke to the governor and military commanders. The sachems were first addressed by James Delaney, then lieutenant-governor of New York; and Hendrick, who was a principal speaker, in the course of a reply remarked, "Brethren, we have not as yet confirmed the peace with them (meaning the French-Indian allies). 'Tis your fault, brethren; we are not strengthened by conquest, for we should have gone and taken Crown Point, but you hindered us. We had concluded to go and take it, but were told it was too late, that the ice would not bear us. Instead of this, you burned your own fort at Sar- ragh-to-gee [near old Fort Hardy], and ran away from it, which was a shame and a scandal to you. Look about your country, and see; you have no fortifications about you--no, not even to this city. 'Tis but one step from Canada hither, and the French may easily come and turn you out of doors.
"Brethren, you were desirous we should open our minds and our hearts to you: look at
* This soldier is believed to have been General Seth Pomeroy, of Northampton, Massachusetts.-Everett's Life of Stark.
** At this battle General Stark, the hero of Bennington, then a lieutenant in the corps of Rogers's Rangers, was first initiated in the perils and excitements of regular warfare.
*** The Six Nations consisted of the tribes of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas, Senecas, Cayugas, and Tuscaroras. The first five were a long time allied, and known as the Five Nations. They were joined by the Tuscaroras of North Carolina in 1714, and from that time the confederation was known by the title of the Six Nations. Their great council fire was in the special keeping of the Onondagas, by whom it was always kept burning. This confederacy was a terror to the other Indian tribes, and extended its conquests even as far as South Carolina, where it waged war against, and nearly exterminated, the once powerful Catawbas. When, in 1744, the Six Nations ceded a portion of their lands to Virginia, they insisted on the continuance of a free war-path through the ceded territory.
Lord Loudon. Montcalm's first Attack on Fort William Henry.--Perfidy and Cowardice of Webb.--Vigilance of Stark
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the French, they are men--they are fortifying every where; but, we are ashamed to say it, you are like women, bare and open, without any fortifications."*
The head of Lake George was the theater of a terrible massacre in 1757. Lord Loudon, a man of no energy of character, and totally deficient in the requisites for a military leader, was appointed that year governor of Virginia, and commander-in-chief of all the British forces in North America. A habit of procrastination, and his utter indecision, thwarted all his active intentions, if he ever had any, and, after wasting the whole season in getting here and preparing to do something, he was recalled by Pitt, then prime minister, who gave as a reason for appointing Lord Amherst in his place, that the minister never heard from him, and could not tell what he was doing. **
Opposed to him was the skillful and active French commander, the Marquis Montcalm, who succeeded Dieskau. Early in the spring he made an attempt to capture Fort William March 16, 1757 Henry. He passed up Lake George on St. Patrick's eve, landed stealthily behind Long Point, and the next afternoon appeared suddenly before the fort. A part of the garrison made a vigorous defense, and Montcalm succeeded only in burning some buildings and vessels which were out of reach of the guns at the fort. *** He returned to Ticonderoga, at which post and at Crown Point he mustered all his forces, amounting to nine thousand men, including Canadians and Indians, and in July prepared for another attempt to capture Fort William Henry.
General Webb, who was commander of the forces in that quarter, was at Fort Edward with four thousand men. He visited Fort William Henry under an escort of two hundred men commanded by Major Putnam, and while there he sent that officer with eighteen Rangers down the lake, to ascertain the position of the enemy on Champlain. They were discovered to be more numerous than was supposed, for the islands at the entrance of Northwest Bay were swarming with French and Indians. Putnam returned, and begged General Webb to let him go down with his Rangers in full force and attack them, but he was allowed only to make another reconnoissance, and bring off two boats and their crews which he left fishing. The enemy gave chase in canoes, and at times nearly surrounded them, but they reached the fort in safety.
Webb caused Putnam to administer an oath of secrecy to his Rangers respecting the proximity of the enemy, and then ordered him to escort him back immediately to Fort Edward. This order was so repugnant to Putnam, both as to its perfidy and unsoldierly character, that he ventured to remonstrate by saying, "I hope your excellency does not intend to neglect so fair an opportunity of giving battle should the enemy presume to land." Webb coolly and cowardly replied, "What do you think we should do here?" The near approach of the enemy was cruelly concealed from the garrison, and under his escort the general returned to Fort Edward. The next day he sent Colonel Monroe with a regiment to re-enforce and to take command of the garrison at Lake George.
Montcalm, with more than nine thousand men, and a powerful train of artillery, landed
* Reported for the Gentlemen's Magazine, London, 1755.
** This is asserted by Dr. Franklin in his Autobiography (Sparks's Life, 219), where he gives an anecdote illustrative of the character of Loudon. Franklin had occasion to go to his office in New York, where he met a Mr. Innis, who had brought dispatches from Philadelphia from Governor Denny, and was awaiting his lordship's answer, promised the following day. A fortnight afterward he met Innis, and expressed his surprise at his speedy return. But he had not yet gone, and averred that he had called at Loudon's office every morning during the fortnight, but the letters were not yet ready. "Is it possible," said Franklin, "when he is so great a writer? I see him constantly at his escritoire." "Yes," said Innis, "but he is like St. George on the signs, always on horseback, but never rides forward."
*** The garrison and fort were saved by the vigilance of Lieutenant Stark, who, in the absence of Rogers, had command of the Rangers, a large portion of which were Irishmen. On the evening of the 16th he overheard some of these planning a celebration of St. Patrick's (the following day). He ordered the sutler not to issue spirituous liquors the next day without a written order. When applied to he pleaded a lame wrist as an excuse for not writing, and his Rangers were kept sober. The Irish in the regular regiments got drunk, as usual on such an occasion.. Montcalm anticipated this, and planned his attack on the night of St. Patrick's day. Stark, with his sober Rangers, gallantly defended and saved the fort.
Montcalm's second Attack on Fort William Henry.--Surrender of the Garrison.--Perfidy of the French and Indians.
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at the head of the lake, and beleaguered the garrison, consisting of less than three thousand men. * He sent in proposals to Monroe for a surrender of the fort, urging his humane desire to prevent the bloodshed which a stubborn resistance would assuredly cause. Monroe, confidently expecting re-enforcements from Webb, refused to listen to any such proposals. The French then commenced the siege, which lasted six consecutive days, without much slaughter on either side. Expresses were frequently sent to General Webb in the mean while, imploring aid, but he remained inactive and indifferent in his camp at Fort Edward. General Johnson was at last allowed to march, with Putnam and his Rangers, to the relief of the beleaguered garrison; but when about three miles from Fort Edward, Webb recalled them, and sent a letter to Monroe, saying he could render him no assistance, and advising him to surrender. This letter was intercepted by Montcalm, and gave him great joy, for he had been informed by some Indians of the movements of the provincials under Johnson and Putnam, who represented them to be as numerous as the leaves on the trees. Alarmed at this, Montcalm was beginning to suspend the operations of the siege preparatory to a retreat, when the letter from the pusillanimous Webb fell into his hands. He at once sent it in to Monroe, with proposals for an immediate surrender.
Monroe saw that his case was hopeless, for two of his cannon had bursted, and his ammunition and stores were nearly exhausted. Articles of capitulation were agreed upon, and, under promise of protection, the garrison marched out of the fort preparatory to being escorted to Fort Edward. **
The savages, two thousand warriors in number, were enraged at the terms of capitulation, for they were induced to serve in this expedition by a promise of plunder. *** This was denied them, and they felt at liberty to throw off all restraint. As soon as the last man left the gate of the fort, they raised the hideous war-whoop, and fell upon the English with the fury of demons. The massacre was indiscriminate and terrible, and the French were idle spectators of the perfidy of their allies. They refused interference, withheld the promised escort, and the savages pursued the poor Britons with great slaughter, half way to Fort Edward. **** Fifteen hundred of them were butchered or carried into hopeless captivity. Montcalm utterly disclaimed all connivance, and declared his inability to prevent the massacre without ordering his men to fire upon the Indians. But it left a deep stain upon his otherwise humane character, and the indignation excited by the event aroused the English colonists to more united and vigorous action.
Montcalm burned and otherwise destroyed every thing connected with the fortification. Major Putnam, who had been sent with his Rangers from Fort Edward August 1757 to watch the movements of Montcalm, reached Lake George just as the rear of the enemy left the shore, and truly awful was the scene there presented, as described by himself: "The fort was entirely demolished; the barracks, out-houses, and buildings were a heap of ruins; the cannon, stores, boats, and vessels were all carried away. The fires were still burning, the smoke and stench offensive and suffocating. Innumerable fragments, human skulls and bones, and carcasses half consumed, were still frying and broiling in the decaying fires.
* The place where Montcalm landed is a little north of the Lake House, at Caldwell, and about a mile from the site of the fort.
** It was stipulated, 1st. That the garrison should march out with their arms and baggage; 2d. Should be escorted to Fort Edward by a detachment of French troops, and should not serve against the French for a term of eighteen months; 3d. The works and all the warlike stores should be delivered to the French, 4th. That the sick and wounded of the garrison should remain under the protection of Montcalm, and should be permitted to return as soon as they were recovered.
*** Dr. Belknap.
**** The defile through which the English retreated, and in which so many were slaughtered, is called the Bloody Defile. It is a deep gorge between the road from Glenn's Falls to Lake George and the high range of hills northward, called the French Mountain. In excavations for the plank road near the defile a large number of skeletons were exhumed. I saw the skull of one, which was of an enormous size, at least one third larger than any other human head I ever saw. The occipital portion exhibited a long fracture, evidently made by a tomahawk.
Destruction of Fort William Henry.--Brilliant Expedition under Abercrombie.--Visit to the Ruins of Fort George
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Dead bodies, mangled with scalping-knives and tomahawks in all the wantonness of Indian fierceness and barbarity, were every where to be seen. More than one hundred women, butchered and shockingly mangled, lay upon the ground, still weltering in their gore. Devastation, barbarity, and horror every where appeared, and the spectacle presented was too diabolical and awful either to be endured or described."
Fort William Henry was never rebuilt. Upon an eminence about a mile southeast of it, and half a mile from the lake, Fort George was erected, but it was never a scene of very stirring events. A little south of Fort George was a small fortification called Fort Gage, so named in honor of General Gage, who served under Lord Amherst, and succeeded him in the command of the forces in America in 1760, and was Governor of Massachusetts when the Revolution broke out. Hardly a vestige of this fort can now be seen.
The English, under General Abercrombie and the young Lord Howe, quartered at Fort George in 1758, preparatory to an attack upon the French posts upon Lake Champlain. Seven thousand regulars and nine thousand provincial troops were there assembled, with a one train of artillery and all necessary military stores, the largest and best- appointed army yet seen in America. On the 5th of July they embarked on Lake George, on board nine hundred bateaux and one hundred and thirty- five whale-boats, and the next day landed at the foot of the lake and pushed on toward Ticonderoga. Of the events which befell them there I shall hereafter write. Let us glance a moment at the present.
Toward evening the rain abated, and, accompanied by an old resident shoemaker as guide, I made a visit to the remains of the two English forts. The elder one (Fort William Henry) stood directly upon the lake shore, on the west side of a clear mountain stream called West Creek, the main inlet of Lake George. Nothing of it now remains but a few mounds and shallow ditches, so leveled and filled that the form of the works can not be distinctly traced. The road along the lake shore passes across the northeast and northwest angles, but the features of the past are hardly tangible enough to attract the attention of a passer-by. A little southwest of the fort, at the base of Rattlesnake or Prospect Hill, is a level clearing called the French Field. It is the place where Dieskau halted and disposed his troops for action. Many of the slain were buried there; and I saw a rough-hewn stone at the head of a grave, upon which was inscribed, in rude characters, "Jacques Cortois, 1755."
Fort George, the remains of which are scattered over several acres, was situated about a mile southeast from William Henry, upon an eminence gently sloping back from the lake. The dark limestone or black marble, such as is found at Glenn's Falls, here every where approaching near the surface or protruding above, formed a solid foundation, and supplied ample materials for a fortress. A quadrangular citadel, or sort of castle, was built within the lines of breast-works, and the ruins of this constitute all that is left of the old fort. I observed vestiges of the foundations of the barracks and other buildings; and the quarries whence materials were taken for the buildings and ramparts seem almost as fresh as if just opened. The wall of the citadel, on the eastern side (the left of the picture), is now about twenty feet high. Within the ancient area of the fort there is just sufficient earth to nourish a thick growth of dark juniper bushes, which, with the black rocks and crumbling masonry, presented a somber aspect. Both forts commanded a fine view of the lake for ten miles north.
The indications of fair weather which lured me out suddenly disappeared, and before I reached the Lake House the heavy clouds that came rolling up from the south poured down their contents copiously. Dark masses of vapor hovered upon the mountains that begirt the lake, and about sunset the tops
Storm upon Lake George.--Arrivals from Ticonderoga.--Departure from Caldwell.
113
were buried in the driving mists. We seemed to be completely shut up within mighty prison walls, and early in the evening vivid lightning and heavy thunder-peals contributed to produce a scene of singular grandeur and awe. In the midst of the elemental strife the steam-boat arrived with passengers from Ticonderoga, and those pleasure seekers who came in her, bedraggled and weary, were capital studies for an artistic Jeremiah in search of lamentations personified. But an excellent supper, in dry quarters, soon brought the sunshine of gladness to every face, and before ten o'clock more than half the new-comers were among the liveliest in quadrille, cotillion, waltz, or gallopade.
I arose the next morning at four. The scene from my chamber window was one of quiet beauty. The sky was cloudless, and the lake, without a ripple, was spread out before me,
"A glorious mirror of the Almighty's form."
The east was all glowing with the soft radiance of approaching sunlight, giving a deeper gray to the lofty hills that intervened, and every tree was musical with the morning song of the birds.
"The south wind was like a gentle friend,
Parting the hair so softly on my brow.
It had come o'er the gardens, and the flowers
That kissed it were betrayed; for as it parted
With its invisible fingers my loose hair,
I knew it had been trifling with the rose
And stooping to the violet. There is joy
For all God's creatures in it."
Willis.
From the piazza of the Lake House, fronting the water, a comprehensive view of the historic grounds in the vicinage may be seen, as delineated in the picture. In the extreme distance on the left is the range of the French Mountain, and on the right is Rattlesnake Hill (one thousand five hundred feet high), with other lofty elevations, heavily wooded to their very summits. By the trees on the shore, in the center of the picture, is the site of Fort William Henry; and further on the left, and directly over the flag-staff is the site of Fort George.
We left this fine summer resort in the steam-boat William Caldwell, at eight in the morning. The air was clear and cool, the company agreeable, and the voyage down the lake delightful. The mountain shores, the deep bays, and the numerous islands (said to be three hundred and sixty-five, the number of days in the year) present a constant variety, and all that the eye takes in on every side is one vision of beauty. I procured a seat in the pilot's room aloft, whence I had a broad view of the whole ever-changing panorama of the lake in the course of the voyage.
The first island which we passed, of any considerable size, was Diamond Island, * lying
* This name was given it on account of the number and beauty of the quartz crystals which are found upon it. In shape and brilliancy they resemble pure diamonds.
Diamond Island.--Successful Expedition under Colonel Brown.--Long Point, Dome Island, and the Narrows.
114
directly in front of Dunham's Bay. Here was a depot of military stores for Burgoyne's army in 1777, and the scene of a sharp conflict between the small garrison that defended it and a detachment of Americans under Colonel Brown. Between the actions of the 19th of September and 7th of October at Bemis's Heights, General Lincoln, with a body of New England militia, got in the rear of Burgoyne near Lake Champlain. He sent Colonel Brown with a strong division to attempt the recapture of Ticonderoga and the posts in the vicinity, and thus to cut off the retreat of the British as well as their supplies. It was a service September 25, 1777 exactly suited to Brown's active and energetic character, and, by a rapid and stealthy movement on a stormy night, he surprised and captured all the British outposts between the landing- place at the north end of Lake George and the main fortress at Ticonderoga. Mount Hope, Mount Defiance, the French lines, and a block- house, with an armed sloop, two hundred bateaux, and several gun-boats, fell into his hands. He also captured two hundred and ninety-three prisoners, and released one hundred Americans; and, among other things, he retook the old Continental standard which St. Clair left at Ticonderoga when he evacuated that post. He then attacked the fortress, but its walls were impregnable, and he withdrew.
Flushed with success, Colonel Brown determined to sweep Lake George, and in the vessels they had captured the Americans proceeded to Diamond Island. The little garrison there made a vigorous resistance, and the republicans were repulsed with some loss. They then pushed for the shore on the south side of Dunham's Bay, where they burned all the vessels they had captured, and returned to Lincoln's camp.
A little north of Diamond Island is Long Island, which lies directly in front of Long Point, a narrow, fertile strip of land that projects far into the lake from the eastern shore. The estuary between the north side of the point and the mountains is Harris's Bay, the place where Montcalm moored his bateaux and landed on the 16th of March, 1757.
About twelve miles from Caldwell, in the center of the lake, is Dome Island, which, at the distance of two or three miles, has the appearance of the upper portion of a large dome, with an arch as regular as if made by art. This island was the shelter for Putnam's men whom he left in the two boats while he informed General Webb of the presence of the French and Indians upon the two islands near the entrance of Northwest Bay, and nearly in front of the landing-place at Bolton, on the western shore.
Shelving Rock, a lofty cliff on the eastern shore, and Tongue Mountain, a bold, rocky promontory on the west, flank the entrance to the Narrows, where the islands are so numerous, varying in size from a few rods to an acre, that there is only a very narrow channel for a steam-boat to pass through. A little north of Shelving Rock is the Black Mountain, its summit twenty-two hundred feet high, thickly covered with the dark spruce, and its sides robed with the cedar, fir, pine, and tamarac. There the wild deer, the bear, and the catamount have free range, for the hunter seldom toils up its weary ascent.
* This little sketch was taken from the steam-boat, near the south end of Long Island, which appears in the foreground. Long Point is seen in the center, and on the right are Dunham's Bay and the northern extremity of the French Mountain. The highest peak on the left is Deer Pasture, or Buck Mountain
Sabbath Day Point.--Skirmish in 1756.--Halt of Abercrombie's Army.-- Splendid Appearance of the Armament.
115
A few miles beyond the entrance to the Narrows, on the western shore, is another fertile strip of land projecting into the lake, called Sabbath Day Point. It is between three and four miles from the little village of Hague, in the midst of the most picturesque scenery imaginable. Here, in 1756, a small provincial force, pressed by a party of French and Indians, and unable to escape across the lake, made a desperate resistance, and defeated the enemy with considerable slaughter. Here, in the summer of 1758, General Abercrombie, with his fine army, already noticed as having embarked in bateaux and whale-boats at the head of the lake, landed for refreshments. It was just at dark, on a sultry Saturday July 5, 1758 evening, when the troops debarked and spread over the beautiful cape for a few hours' repose. The young Lord Howe, the well- beloved of both officers and soldiers, was there, and called around him, in serious consultation, some of the bravest of the youthful partisans who accompanied the expedition. Captain Stark (the Revolutionary general) was invited to sup with him; and long and anxious were the inquiries the young nobleman made respecting the fortress of Ticonderoga and its outposts, which they were about to assail, as if a presentiment of personal disaster possessed his mind.
It was after midnight when the whole armament moved slowly down the lake, and it was late on the Sabbath morning before they reached the landing-place at the foot of it. ** The scene exhibited by this strong and well-armed force of sixteen thousand men was very imposing. "The order of march," says Major Rogers, "exhibited a splendid military show." Howe, in a large boat, led the van of the flotilla. He was accompanied by a guard of Rangers and boatmen. The regular troops occupied the center and the provincials the wings. The sky was clear and starry, and not a breeze ruffled the dark waters as they slept quietly in the shadows of the mountains. Their oars were muf-
* 'Explanation of "the references: 1. Fort Ticonderoga. 2. Fort Howe. 3. Mount Defiance. 4. Mount Independence. 5. Village of Alexandria. 7. Black Point. 8. Juniper Island. 9. Anthony's Nose. 10. M'Donald's Bay. 11. Rogers's retreat on the ice to Fort William Henry. 12. Cook's Islands. 13. Scotch Bonnet. 14. Odell Island. 15. Buck Mountain and Rattlesnake Dens. 16. Shelving Rock. 17. Phelps's Point. 18. Long Point. 19. Long Island. 20. Dome Island. 21. Diamond Island. 22. Dunham's Bay. 23. Harris's Bay. 24. The route of Dieskau from Skenesborough to Fort William Henry.
** It being early on Sunday morning when the army left the point, General Abercrombie named the place Sabbath Day Point. The little sketch here given was taken from the steam-boat, half a mile above, look ing northeast.
Skirmish at Sabbath Day Point, 1776.--Rogers's Slide.--Narrow Escape of Major Rogers.--Prisoners' Island
116
fled; and so silently did they move on in the darkness, that not a scout upon the hills observed them. Day dawned just as they were abreast of the Blue Mountain, four miles from the landing-place; and the first intimation which the outposts of the enemy, stationed there, had of the approach of the English was the full blaze of red uniforms which burst upon their sight as the British army swept around a point and prepared to land.
At Sabbath Day Point a party of American militia of Saratoga county had a severe battle with Tories and Indians in 1776. Both were scouting parties, and came upon each other unexpectedly. The Americans repulsed the enemy, and killed and wounded about forty. There are now a few buildings upon the point, and the more peaceful heroism of the culturist, in conflict with the unkindness of nature, is beautifying and enriching it.
On the western shore of the lake, three miles northward of the little village of Hague, is Rogers's Bock, or Rogers's Slide. The lake is here quite narrow, and huge masses of rocks, some a hundred feet high, are piled in wild confusion on every side. The whole height of Rogers's Rock is about four hundred feet, and the "slide," almost a smooth surface, with a descent on an angle of about twenty-five degrees from meridian, is two hundred feet. This hill derives its name from the fact, that from its summit Major Rogers, commander of a corps of Rangers, escaped from Indian pursuers. With a small party who were reconnoitering at the outlet of the lake, in the winter of 1758, he was surprised and put to flight by a band of Indians. He was equipped with snow-shoes, and eluded pursuit until he came to the summit of the mountain. Aware that they would follow his track, he descended to the top of the smooth rock, and, casting his knapsack and his haversack of provisions down upon the ice, slipped off his snow-shoes, and, without moving them, turned himself about and put them on his feet again. He then retreated along the southern brow of the rock several rods, and down a ravine he made his way safely to the lake below, snatched up his pack, and fled on the ice to Fort George. The Indians, in the mean while, coming to the spot, saw the two tracks, both apparently approaching the precipice, and concluded that two persons had cast themselves down the rock rather than fall into their hands. Just then they saw the bold leader of the Rangers making his way across the ice, and believing that he had slid down the steep face of the rock, considered him (as did the Indians Major Putnam at Fort Miller) under the special protection of the Great Spirit, and made no attempt at pursuit. **
In consequence of a detention at Bolton, we did not reach the landing- place at the outlet of the lake until noon. Within a mile of the landing is a small island covered with shrubbery, called Prisoners' Island, where the French, in the Seven Years' War, kept their English captives who were taken in that vicinity. The first party confined there easily es-
* This sketch is from the lake, a little south of Cook's Point, seen just over the boat on the left. Immediately beyond is seen the smooth rock. Nearly opposite the "slide" is Anthony's Nose, a high, rocky promontory, having the appearance of a human nose in shape when viewed from a particular point.
** Major Rogers was the son of an Irishman, who was an early settler of Dumbarton, in New Hampshire. He was appointed to the command of a party of Rangers in 1755, and with them did signal serviee to the British cause. In 1759 he was sent by General Amherst from Crown Point to destroy the Indian village of St. Francis. He afterward served in the Cherokee war. In 1766 he was appointed governor of Michilli-maekinae. He was accused of constructive treason, and was sent in irons to Montreal for trial. In 1769 he went to England, was presented to the king, but soon afterward was imprisoned for debt. He returned to America, and in the Revolution took up arms for the king. In 1777 he returned to England, where he died. His name was on the proscription list of Tories included in the aet of New Hampshire against them, in 1778. His journal of the French War, first published at London in 1765, was republished at Concord in 1831.
Debarkation of British Troops.--A pleasant traveling Companion.-- Trip from Lake George to Ticonderoga.
117
caped, in consequence of the carelessness of the victors in not ascertaining the depth of the water, which on one side is fordable. A small guard was left in charge of them, and, as soon as the main body of the French had retreated, the English prisoners waded from the island and escaped.
Directly west of this island is Howe's Landing, the place where Lord Howe with the van-guard of Abercrombie's army first landed, the outlet, a mile below, being in possession of the enemy. The whole British force debarked here on the morning after leaving Sabbath Day Point, and before noon the Rangers under Rogers and Stark were pushing July 6, 1758 forward toward Ticonderoga, as a flank or advance-guard to clear the woods, while the main army pressed onward.
The distance from the steam-boat landing to Fort Ticonderoga is four miles. We found vehicles in abundance awaiting our arrival, and prepared to carry passengers with all their baggage, from a clean dickey only to a four-feet trunk, for twenty-five cents each. I succeeded in securing my favorite seat on a pleasant day, the coachman's perch. At the Lake House we became acquainted with a young lady from the vicinity of the lofty Catskills, whose love of travel and appreciation of nature made her an enthusiast, and one of the most agreeable companions imaginable. She fairly reveled in the beauties of Lake George, not exhibited in the simpering lip-sentimentality, borrowed from the novelist, which so often annoys the sensible man when in the midst of mere fashionable tourists, but in hearty, intelligent, and soul-stirring emotions of pleasure, which lie far deeper in the heart than mortal influence and fashion, and which gleam out in every lineament of the face. While others were afraid of spoiling their complexions in the sun, or of crumpling their smooth dresses or fine bonnets, she bade defiance to dust and crowds, for her brown linen "sack," with its capacious pockets for a guide-book and other accessories, and her plain sun-bonnet gave her no uneasiness; and her merry laughter, which awoke ringing echoes along the hills as she, too, mounted the coachman's seat to enjoy the fresh air and pleasant landscape, was the very soul of pleasure. We rambled with herself and brother that afternoon over the ruins of Ticonderoga, and at evening parted, company. We hope her voyage of life may be as pleasant and joyous as those few hours which she spent that day, where,
"In the deepest core
Of the free wilderness, a crystal sheet
Expands its mirror to the trees that crowd
Its mountain borders."
The road from the foot of Lake George to Fort "Ty" is hilly, but the varied scenery makes the ride a pleasant one. We crossed the outlet of the lake twice; first at the Upper Falls, where stands the dilapidated village of Alexandria, its industrial energies weighed down, I was told, by the narrow policy of a "lord of the manor" residing in London, who owns the fee of all the land and of the water privileges, and will not sell, or give long leases. The good people of the place pray for his life to be a short and a happy one-a very generous supplication. From the high ground near the village a fine prospect opened on the eastward; and suddenly, as if a curtain had been removed, the cultivated farms and pleasant villages of Vermont along the lake shore, and the blue line of the Green Mountains in the far distance, were spread out before us.
The second or Lower Falls is half way between the two lakes, and here the thriving village of Ticonderoga is situated. A bridge and a saw-mill were there many years before the Revolution; and this is the spot where Lord Howe, at the head of his column, crossed the stream and pushed forward through the woods toward the French lines, a mile and a quarter beyond. We arrived at the Pavilion near the fort at one o'clock, dined, and with a small party set off immediately to view the interesting ruins of one of the most noted fortresses in America. Before noticing its present condition and appearance, let us glance at its past history.
Ticonderoga is a corruption of Cheonderoga, an Iroquois-word, signifying "Sounding wa
Topography of Ticonderoga.--The Fortress.--Its Investment by Abercrombie.--Bravery of Lord Howe.
118
ters," and was applied by the Indians to the rushing waters of the outlet of Lake George at the falls. The French, who first built a fort at Crown Point (Fort St. Frederic), established themselves upon this peninsula in 1755, and the next year they began the erection of a strong fortress, which they called Fort Carillon. * The Indian name was generally applied to it, and by that only was it known from the close of the French and Indian war in 1763. **
The peninsula is elevated more than one hundred feet above the lake, and contains about five hundred acres. Nature and art made it a strong place. Water was upon three sides, and a deep swamp extended nearly across the fourth. Within a mile north of the fortress intrenchments were thrown up, the remains of which may still be seen at each side of the road, and are known as the French lines. The whole defenses were completed by the erection of a breast-work nine feet high, upon the narrowest part of the neck between the swamp and the outlet of Lake George; and before the breast-work was a strong abatis.
Here, as I have already mentioned, was the general rendezvous of the French under Montcalm, August 3, 1757 preparatory to the attack on Fort William Henry. It continued to be the head-quarters of that general until Quebec was threatened by an expedition under Wolfe, up the St. Lawrence, when he abandoned the posts on Lake Champlain, and mustered all his forces at the capital of Lower Canada.
Montcalm commanded a force of four thousand men at Ticonderoga when Abercrombie July 6, 1758 approached, and was in daily expectation of receiving a re-enforcement of three thousand troops under M. de Levi. The English commander was advised of this expected re-enforcement of the garrison, and felt the necessity of making an immediate attack upon the works. His army moved forward in three columns; but so dense was the forest that covered the whole country, that their progress was slow. They were also deficient in suitable guides, and in a short time were thrown into a great deal of confusion. They pressed steadily forward, and the advanced post of the French (a breast-work of logs) was set fire to by the enemy themselves and abandoned. Lord Howe, who was Abercrombie's lieutenant, or second in command, led the advanced column; and as they pressed onward after crossing the bridge, Major Putnam, with about one hundred men, advanced as a scouting party to reconnoiter. Lord Howe, eager to make the first attack, proposed to accompany Putnam, but the major tried to dissuade him, by saying, "My lord, if I am killed the loss of my life will be of little consequence, but the preservation of yours is of infinite importance to this army." The answer was, "Putnam, your life is as dear to you as mine is to me. I am determined to go." *** They dashed on through the woods, and in a few minutes fell in with the advanced guard of the French, who had retreated from the first breast-works, and, without a guide and bewildered, were endeavoring to find their way back to the lines. A sharp skirmish ensued, and at the first fire Lord Howe, another officer, and several privates were
* This is a French word, signifying chime, jingling, noise, bawling, scolding, racket, clatter, riot.--Boyer. Its application to this spot had the same reference to the rush of waters as the Indian name Che- onderoga.
** This fortress was strongly built. Its walls and barracks were of limestone, and every thing about it was done in the most substantial manner. Explanation of the ground plan: a, entrance and wicket gate; b, counterscarp twenty feet wide; c c, bastions; d, under-ground room and ovens; e e e e, barracks and officers' quarters; f court or parade- ground; g g, trench or covert-way, sixteen feet wide and ten feet deep; h, the place where Ethan Allen, and his men entered by a covert-way from the outside.
*** Humphrey's Life ef Putnam..
Fight with the French, and Death of Howe.--Attack on Ticonderoga, and Defeat of the English.--Other Expeditions
119
killed. * The French were repulsed with a loss of three hundred killed and one hundred and forty-eight taken prisoners. The English columns were so much broken, confused, and fatigued, that Abercrombie marched them back to the landing-place on Lake George, to bivouac for the night. Early the next morning Colonel Bradstreet advanced and took possession of the saw-mills, near the present village of Ticonderoga, which the enemy had abandoned.
Abercrombie sent an engineer to reconnoiter, and on his reporting that the works were unfinished and might easily be taken, the British troops were again put in motion toward the fortress. As they approached the lines, the French, who were completely July 8, 1758 sheltered behind their breast-works, opened a heavy discharge of artillery upon them, but they pressed steadily forward in the face of the storm, determined to assault the works, and endeavor to carry them by sword and bayonet. They found them so well defended by a deep abatis, that it was almost impossible to reach them; yet, amid the galling fire of the enemy, the English continued for four hours striving to cut their way through the limbs and bushes to the breast-works with their swords. Some did, indeed, mount the parapet, but in a moment they were slain. Scores of Britons were mowed down at every discharge of cannon. Perceiving the rapid reduction of his army, Abercrombie at last sounded a retreat, and, without being pursued by the French, the English fell back to their encampment at the foot of Lake George, from which the wounded were sent to Fort Edward and to Albany The English loss was nearly two thousand men and twenty-five hundred stand of arms. Never did troops show bolder courage or more obstinate persistence against fearful obstacles. The whole army seemed emulous to excel, but the Scotch Highland regiment of Lord John Murray was foremost in the conflict, and suffered the severest loss. One half of the privates and twenty-five officers were slain on the spot or badly wounded. Failing in this attempt, Abercrombie changed his plans. He dispatched General Stanwix to build a fort near the head- waters of the Mohawk, at the site of the present village of Rome, Oneida county. Colonel Bradstreet, at his own urgent solicitation, was ordered, with three thousand troops, mostly provincials, to proceed by the way of Oswego and Lake Ontario, to attack Fort Frontenac, where Kingston, in Upper Canada, now stands; and himself, with the rest of the army, returned to Albany. **
While misfortunes were attending the English under the immediate command of Abercrombie, and the power and influence of the French were gaining strength on the lake, a British force was closely beleaguering Louisburg, on the Island of Cape Breton, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, then the strongest fortification in America, and the rallying point of French power on this Continent. Early in 1758 Admiral Boscawen sailed fromMay 28.
* George, Lord-viscount Howe, was the eldest son of Sir E. Scrope, second Viscount Howe in Ireland. He commanded five thousand British troops which landed at Halifax in 1757, and, as we have seen, the next year accompanied General Abercrombie against Ticonderoga. Alluding to his death, Mante observes, "With him the soul of the army seemed to expire." He was the idol of his soldiers, and, in order to accommodate himself and his regiment to the nature of the service, he cut his hair short, and fashioned his clothes for activity. His troops followed his example, and they were, indeed, the soul of Abercrombie's army. He was in the thirty-fourth year of his age when he fell. The General Court of Massachusetts Bay, as a testimony of respect for his character, appropriated two hundred and fifty pounds sterling for the erection of a monument in Westminster Abbey. Captain (afterward general) Philip Schuyler, who was highly esteemed by Lord Howe, and who at that time was employed in the commissary department, was commissioned to carry the young nobleman's remains to Albany and bury them with appropriate honors. They were placed in a vault, and I was informed by a daughter of General Schuyler (Mrs. Cochran, of Oswego) that when, many years afterward, the coffin was opened, his hair had grown to long, flowing locks, and was very beautiful.
** General James Abercrombie was descended from a wealthy Scotch family, and, in consequence of signal services on the Continent, was promoted to the rank of major general. In 1758 fifty thousand troops were placed under his command by Mr. Pitt, and sent with him to America to attempt a recovery of all that the French had taken from the English. He was the successor of Lord Loudon, but was not much superior to the earl in activity or military skill. He was superseded by Amherst after his defeat at Ticonderoga, and in the spring of 1759 he returned to England.
Siege and Capture of Louisburg.--Preparations for the Conquest of Canada.--Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
120
Halifax, Acadia, * with forty armed vessels, bearing a land force of twelve thousand men under General Amherst. General Wolfe was second in command; and in appointing that young soldier to a post so important, Pitt showed that sagacity in correctly appreciating character for which he was so remarkable.
On the 2d of June the fleet anchored in Gabarus Bay, and the whole armament reached the shore on the 8th. The French, alarmed at such a formidable force, called in their outposts, dismantled the royal battery, and prepared for a retreat. But the vigilance and activity of Wolfe prevented their escape. He passed around the Northeast Harbor, and erected a battery at the North Cape, from which well-directed shots soon silenced the guns of the smaller batteries upon the island. Hot shots were also poured June 25 into the small fleet of French vessels lying in the harbor of Louisburg, and three of them were burned. The town was greatly shattered by the active artillery; the vessels which were not consumed were dismantled or sunken; and several breaches were July 21 made in the massive walls. Certain destruction awaited the garrison and citizens, and at last the fortress, together with the town and St. John's (now Prince Edward's July 26. Island) was surrendered into the hands of the English by capitulation.
The skill, bravery, and activity of General Amherst, exhibited in the capture of Louisburg, gained him a vote of thanks from Parliament, and commended him to Pitt, who, the next year, appointed him to the chief command in America, in place of the less active Abercrombie. So much did Pitt rely upon his judgment and ability, that he clothed him with discretionary powers to take measures to make the complete conquest of all Canada in a single campaign. His plans were arranged upon a magnificent scale. Appreciating the services of Wolfe, one expedition was placed under his command, to ascend the St. Lawrence and attack Quebec. General Prideaux was sent with another expedition to capture the strong-hold of Niagara, while Amherst himself took personal command of a third expedition against the fortress on Lake Champlain. It was arranged for the three armies to form a junction as conquerors at Quebec. Prideaux, after capturing the fort at Niagara, was to proceed down the lake and St. Lawrence to attack Montreal and the posts below, and Amherst was to push forward after the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, down the Richelieu or Sorel Elver to the St. Lawrence, and join with Wolfe at Quebec.
Amherst collected about eleven thousand men at Fort Edward and its vicinity, and, moving cautiously along Lake Champlain, crossed the outlet of Lake George, and appeared before Ticonderoga on the 26th of July. He met with no impediments by the way, and at once made preparations for reducing the fortress by a regular siege. The garrison were strong, and evinced a disposition to make a vigorous resistance. They soon discovered, however, that they had not Abercrombie to deal with, and, despairing of being able to hold out against the advancing English, they dismantled and abandoned the fort, and fled to Crown Point. Not a gun was fired or a sword crossed; and the next day Amherst marched in and took possession of the fort. He at once set about repairing and enlarging it, and also arranging an expedition against the enemy at Crown Point, when, to his astonishment, he learned from his scouts that they had abandoned that post also, and fled down the lake to Isle Aux Noix in the Richelieu or Sorel. Of his operations in that direction I shall hereafter write.
* Acadia was the ancient name of the whole country now comprehended within the boundaries of Nova Scotia, or New Scotland.
Ticonderoga and its Associations.--Visit to the Ruins of the Fort.-- A living Soldier of the Revolution 121 121