Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 Part 10

Burgoyne's new position stretched along the heights next the river, so as to cover the road to Saratoga. He had merely drawn back his centre and right, while his left wing remained stationary; and he now stood facing west, instead of south, as before the battle.

[Sidenote: Oct. 8.]

The day pa.s.sed in skirmishing, reconnoitring, and artillery firing. The Americans were feeling their way along the enemy's new front, while Burgoyne's every effort was limited to keeping them at a distance, with his superior artillery, till night. On our side, his intentions were rather guessed than certainly known. His great problem was how to get his army over the Hudson undiscovered. It was supposed that he would attempt to retreat across his bridge as soon as it was dark. Our artillery, therefore, tried to destroy it with shot. Moreover, fourteen hundred men were crossed over to the east bank, and now stood ready to dispute Burgoyne's pa.s.sage from that side of the river.

At sunset, General Frazer was buried[53] inside a battery, on the brow of the heights, according to his dying wish. Chaplain Brudenell read the burial service, with our b.a.l.l.s ploughing up the earth around him, and our cannon thundering the soldier's requiem from camp to camp.

At nine o'clock, the British army began its retreat along the river road, leaving its camp-fires burning behind it; profound silence was enjoined. To avoid confusion, the different corps simply moved off in the order in which they stood on the lines, or by their right. Upon finding that his crossing would be opposed by the troops who had pa.s.sed over to the east bank, Burgoyne had decided to go back the way he came as far as Saratoga, and on fording the river at that place. Orders were therefore given to destroy the bridge. Just before day, his rearguard set fire to it, and marched off without interference. All the sick and wounded were left behind.

In view of the fact that all of the enemy's movements announced a rapid retreat, the Americans seem to have shown a want of vigor in pushing the advantages they had won by the late battles. This hesitation may be in part accounted for by the other fact that both Arnold and Lincoln were disabled. Lincoln had been wounded while reconnoitring the enemy's right, on the eighth, with a view of pa.s.sing a force round in his rear.

Gates was thus deprived of his most efficient lieutenants at the moment when they were most needed. The British army could hardly have been placed in a more critical position; but, by keeping up a bold front, it managed to extricate itself without the loss of a man.

[Sidenote: Oct. 9.]

[Sidenote: Dovegat, now Coveville.]

Rain began falling early the next morning. Burgoyne had marched but six miles, yet dallied till afternoon on the spot where he had halted early in the day. He then saw, to his inexpressible dismay, the same body of Americans[54] whom he had seen opposite his encampment at Stillwater, now marching abreast of him, with the evident design of seizing the Saratoga ford before he could get to it. The road he meant to take was, therefore, already as good as in the enemy's hands.

The discovery that he was being everywhere hemmed in hastened Burgoyne's departure. Much baggage and many wagons and tents were burned, in order that the army might march the faster. Like a ship, laboring with the gale, it was relieving itself of all unnecessary burdens.

Pelted by the storm, in silence, and with downcast looks, the soldiers plodded wearily on, through mud and water, ankle deep. No tap of drum or bugle-call put life into their heavy tread. The sense of defeat and disgrace brooded over the minds of officers and men, as they stole away in darkness and gloom from an enemy for whom they had but lately felt such high disdain. Grief, shame, and indignation were the common lot of high and low. No word was spoken, except when the curt "Forward" of the officers pa.s.sed along the ranks. All knew instinctively, that this retreat was but the prelude to greater disaster, which, perchance, was not far off.

The same evening, the bedraggled and footsore soldiers waded the Fishkill[55] where the bridge had been, but was now destroyed, and bivouacked on the heights of Saratoga.[56] Too weary even to light fires, to dry their clothing, or cook their suppers, they threw themselves on the wet ground to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' sleep; for, dark as it was, and though rain fell in torrents, the firing heard at intervals throughout the night told them that the Americans were d.o.g.g.i.ng their footsteps, and would soon be up with them. It seemed as if the foe were never to be shaken off.

[Sidenote: Oct. 10.]

It was not till after daylight that the British artillery could ford the Fishkill with safety. The guns were then dragged up the heights and once more pointed toward the advancing enemy. Numbness and torpor seem to have pervaded the whole movement thus far. Now it was that Frazer's loss was most bitterly deplored, for he had often pledged himself to bring off the army in safety, should a retreat become necessary. He had marked out, and intrenched this very position, in which the army now found its last retreat. Almost twenty-four hours had been consumed in marching not quite ten miles, or at a much slower rate of progress than Burgoyne had censured Breyman for making to Baum's relief, at Bennington. Burgoyne seemed to find satisfaction in showing that he would not be hurried.

The army took up its old positions along the heights into which the Fishkill cuts deeply, as it runs to the Hudson. Being threatened in front, flank, and rear, Burgoyne had to form three separate camps, facing as many different ways. One fronted the Fishkill and commanded the usual fording-place. A second looked east at the enemy posted across the Hudson; a third faced the west, where the ground rose above the camps, and hid itself in a thick forest.

Though he secured his camps as well as he could, Burgoyne meant to make no delay here. But it was no longer in his power to control his own acts. The want of energy shown in the retreat had given the Americans time to close every avenue of escape against him.

Let us note how the fate of armies is decided. Active pursuit did not begin until the morning of the ninth, when the retreat was first discovered. A start of ten hours had thus been gained by the British.

Their artillery had so cut up the roads as to render them next to impa.s.sable for our troops. Frequent halts had to be made to mend broken bridges. From these causes, even so late as the morning of the tenth, our army had advanced but three miles from the battle-ground. But Burgoyne had marched, when he marched at all, like a general who means to be overtaken. Four thousand men were being pushed around his right; an equal number followed in his rear; while fourteen hundred more menaced with destruction any attempt he might make to ford the river.

No choice being left but to continue the retreat by the west bank, pioneers were sent out, under a strong escort, to make the road pa.s.sable.

But the golden moment had already flown. By this time Gates's van had come up with Burgoyne. Morgan's corps had crossed the Fishkill at a point above the British camps, had taken post within rifle-shot, and had thus fastened upon the enemy a grip never more to be shaken off.

As a last resort, the British general decided to attempt a night retreat, leaving behind the artillery he had so persistently dragged after him when the fate of his army was hanging on its speed alone.

Before this desperate venture could be put to trial, worse news came to hand. It was learned that Stark, with two thousand men, was in possession of Fort Edward, and of all the fords below it. Turn what way he would, Burgoyne found a foe in his path.

[Sidenote: Oct. 13.]

Even General Burgoyne now saw no way open but surrender; either he must do this, or let his soldiers be slaughtered where they stood. Cannon and rifle shot were searching every corner of his camp; retreat was cut off; his provisions could be made to last but a day or two longer at most; the bateaux were destroyed; his animals were dying of starvation, and their dead bodies tainting the air his soldiers breathed; water could only be had at the risk of life or limb, as the American sharpshooters picked off every one who attempted to fetch it from the river; and no more than thirty-five hundred men could be mustered to repel an a.s.sault;--a crisis had now been reached which loudly called on the British general, in the name of humanity, to desist from further efforts to maintain so hopeless a struggle.

Burgoyne called his officers together in council. The absence of such men as Frazer, Baum, Breyman, Ackland, Clarke, and others from the meeting, must have brought home to the commanding general, as nothing else could, a sense of the calamities that had befallen him; while the faces of the survivors no less ominously prefigured those to come. A heavy cannonade was in progress. Even while the council was deliberating, a cannon-ball crashed through the room among them, as if to enjoin haste in bringing the proceedings to a close. The council listened to what was already but too well known. Already the finger of fate pointed undeviatingly to the inevitable result. A general la.s.situde had fallen upon the spirits of the soldiers. The situation was manifestly hopeless to all.

There could be but one opinion. Enough had been done for honor. All were agreed that only a surrender could save the army.

[Sidenote: Oct. 14.]

Without more delay, an officer was sent to General Gates. At first he would listen only to an unconditional surrender. This was indignantly rejected. Two days of suspense followed to both armies. Indeed, the vanquished seemed dictating terms to the conqueror. But if the British dreaded a renewal of hostilities, the Americans knew that Clinton's forces[57] were nearing Albany from below. Gates lowered his demands.

The British army was allowed the honors of war, with liberty to return to England, on condition of not serving against the United States during the war. These terms were agreed to, and the treaty was duly signed on the seventeenth.

Burgoyne's situation when gathering up his trophies, and issuing his presumptuous proclamation at Ticonderoga, compared with the straits to which his reverses had now brought him--a failure before his king and country, a captain stripped of his laurels by the hand he professed to despise, a pet.i.tioner for the clemency of his conqueror--affords a striking example of the uncertain chances of war. It really seemed as if fortune had only raised Burgoyne the higher in order that his fall might be the more destructive at last.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHERE THE SURRENDER TOOK PLACE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[53] FRAZER'S BURIAL would not have been molested had our artillerists known what was going forward. Seeing so many persons collected in the redoubt, they naturally directed their fire upon it.

[54] THIS BODY OF AMERICANS was led by Colonel John Fellows, whom Gates had ordered to seize the fords as high up as Fort Edward.

[55] FISHKILL, or Fish Creek, is the outlet of Saratoga Lake. Though a rapid mill-stream, there were several fords. The precipitous banks were a greater obstacle to troops than the stream itself.

[56] HEIGHTS OF SARATOGA are in what is now called Schuylerville, a village owing its prosperity to the water-power of the Fishkill. At the time of the surrender, there were only a few houses strung along the river road. Schuyler's house stood in the angle formed by the entrance of the Fishkill into the Hudson. On arriving at Saratoga, Burgoyne occupied this house as his headquarters, but burned it to the ground immediately on the appearance of the Americans. On the opposite (north) bank of the Fishkill was old Fort Hardy, built during the French War, to cover the ford of the Hudson at this place. Within this fort, Burgoyne's army laid down its arms, October 17, 1777. On the heights back of the river a granite obelisk, one hundred and fifty-four feet high, has been built to commemorate the event.

[57] CLINTON'S FORCES carried Forts Montgomery and Clinton, in the Highlands, by a.s.sault on the sixth. Having thus broken down all opposition to their advance up the Hudson, they reached Kingston (Esopus) on the thirteenth, burned it, and were within a few hours' sail of Albany when news of Burgoyne's surrender caused them to retreat down the river.

XVI.

THE SEVENTEENTH OF OCTOBER, 1777.

The closing scene of this most memorable campaign is thus described by one of the actors in it. He says,--

"About ten o'clock we marched out, according to treaty, with drums beating, and the honors of war; but the drums seemed to have lost their former inspiriting sounds, and though we beat the Grenadiers' March, which not long before was so animating, yet now it seemed by its last feeble effort as if almost ashamed to be heard on such an occasion.

"I shall never forget the appearance of the American troops on our marching past them. A dead silence reigned through their numerous columns. I must say their decent behavior to us, so greatly fallen, merited the utmost praise.... Not one of them was uniformly clad. Each had on the clothes he wore in the fields, the church, or the tavern; they stood, however, like soldiers, well arranged, and with a military air, in which there was but little to find fault with. All the muskets had bayonets, and the sharpshooters had rifles. The men all stood so still that we were filled with wonder. Not one of them made a single motion as if he would speak with his neighbor. Nay, more, all the lads that stood there in rank and file, kind nature had formed so trim, so slender, so nervous, that it was a pleasure to look at them, and we were all surprised at the sight of such a handsome, well-formed race. The whole nation has a natural turn for war and a soldier's life.

"The generals wore uniforms, and belts which designated their rank, but most of the colonels were in their ordinary clothes, with a musket and bayonet in hand, and a cartridge-box or powder-horn slung over the shoulder. There were regular regiments which, for want of time or cloth, were not yet equipped in uniform. These had standards, with various emblems and mottoes, some of which had a very satirical meaning for us."

The number of regular troops, British and German, who laid down their arms at Saratoga was 5,591. The camp-followers amounted to two hundred more. Forty-two pieces of artillery, nearly five thousand muskets, with ammunition for both, fell into the victors' hands.

XVII.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF DEFEAT.

We come now to the reasons why Burgoyne's surrender proved decisive to the cause of American independence.