request Schuyler charged Arnold with an expedition to relieve the garrison. Long before its approach an Indian ran into Saint-Leger's camp, reporting that a thousand men were coming against them; another followed, doubling the number; a third brought a rumor that three thousand men were close at hand; and, deaf to remonstrances and entreaties from their superintendents and from Saint-Leger, the wild warriors robbed the British officers of their clothes, plundered the boats, and made off with the booty. Saint-Leger in a panic, though Arnold was not within forty miles, hurried after them before nightfall, leaving his tents, artillery, and stores.

It was Herkimer who "first reversed the gloomy scene" of the northern campaign. The pure-minded hero of the Mohawk valley "served from love of country, not for reward. He did not want a continental command or money." Before congress had decided how to manifest their gratitude he died of his wound; and they decreed him a monument. Gansevoort was rewarded by a vote of thanks and a command; Willett, by public praise and "an elegant sword."

The employment of Indian allies had failed. The king, the ministry, and, in due time, the British parliament, were informed officially that the red men "treacherously committed ravages upon their friends;" that "they could not be controlled;" that "they killed their captives;" that "there was infinite difficulty to manage them;" that "they grew more and more unreasonable and importunate." When the Seneca warriors, returning to their lodges, told the story of the slaughter of their chiefs, their villages rung with yells of rage and the howls of mourners.

Burgoyne, who on the thirtieth of July made his head-quarters on the banks of the Hudson, had detachments from seventeen savage nations. A Brunswick officer describes them as "tall, warlike, and enterprising, but fiendishly wicked." On the third of August they brought in twenty scalps and as many captives; and Burgoyne approved their incessant activity. To prevent desertions of soldiers, it was announced in orders to each regiment that the savages were enjoined to scalp every runaway. The Ottawas longed to go home; but, on the fifth of August, Burgoyne took from all his red warri

ors a pledge to stay through the campaign. On the sixth he reported himself to General Howe as "well forward," "impatient to gain the mouth of the Mohawk," but not likely to "be in possession of Albany" before "the twenty-second or the twenty-third" of the month.

To aid Saint-Leger by a diversion, and fill his camp with draught cattle, horses, and provisions from fabled magazines at Bennington, Burgoyne on the eleventh of August sent out an expedition on the left, commanded by Baum, a Brunswick lieutenant-colonel of dragoons, and composed of more than four hundred Brunswickers, Hanau artillerists with two cannon, the select corps of British marksmen, a party of French Canadians, a more numerous party of provincial royalists, and a horde of about one hundred and fifty Indians. Burgoyne in his eagerness rode after Baum, and gave him verbal orders to march directly upon Bennington. After disposing of the stores at that place, he might cross the Green Mountains, descend the Connecticut river to Brattleborough, and enter Albany with Saint-Leger and the main army. The night of the thirteenth, Baum encamped about four miles from Bennington, on a hill that rises from the Walloomscoick, just within the state of New York. When, early on the morning of the fourteenth, a reconnoitring party of Americans was seen, he wrote in high spirits for more troops, and constructed strong intrenchments. Burgoyne sent him orders to maintain his post; and, at eight o'clock on the fifteenth, Breymann, a Brunswick lieutenant-colonel, with two Brunswick battalions and two cannon, marched, in a constant rain, through thick woods, to his support.

The legislature of New Hampshire, in the middle of July, receiving the supplicatory letter from Vermont, promptly resolved to co-operate "with the troops of the new state," and ordered Stark, with a brigade of militia, "to stop the progress of the enemy on their western frontier." Uprising at the call, the men of New Hampshire flew to his standard, which he set up at Charlestown, on the Connecticut river. Schuyler ordered them to join his retreating army, and, because they chose to follow their own wise plans, Schuyler brought upon Stark the censure of congress for disobedience. But the upright hero,

consulting with Seth Warner of Vermont, made his bivouac on the fourteenth of August at the distance of a mile from the post of Baum, to whom he vainly offered battle. The regiment of Warner came down from Manchester during the rain of the fifteenth; and troops arrived from the westernmost county of Massachusetts.

When the sun rose on the sixteenth, Stark concerted with his officers the plan for the day. Baum, seeing small bands of men, in shirt-sleeves and carrying fowling-pieces without bayonets, steal behind his camp, mistook them for friendly country people placing themselves where he could protect them; and so five hundred men under Nichols and Herrick united in his rear. While his attention was arrested by a feint, two hundred more posted themselves on his right; and Stark, with two or three hundred, took the front. At three o'clock Baum was attacked on every side. The Indians dashed between two detachments and fled, leaving their grand chief and other warriors lifeless on the field. New England sharpshooters ran up within eight yards of the loaded cannon, to pick off the cannoneers. When, after about two hours, the firing of the Brunswickers slackened from scarcity of powder, the Americans scaled the breast work and fought them hand to hand. Baum ordered his infantry with the bayonet, his dragoons with their sabres, to force a way; but in the attempt he fell mortally wounded, and his veteran troops surrendered.

Just then the battalions of Breymann, having taken thirty hours to march twenty-four miles, came in sight. Warner now first brought up his regiment, of one hundred and fifty men, into action; and with their aid Stark began a new attack, using the cannon just taken. The fight raged till sunset, when Breymann, abandoning his artillery and most of his wounded men, ordered a retreat. The pursuit continued till night; those who escaped owed their safety to the darkness. During the day less than thirty of the Americans were killed, and about forty were wounded; the loss of their enemy was estimated at full twice as many, besides at least six hundred and ninety-two prisoners, of whom more than four hundred were Germans.

This victory, one of the most brilliant and eventful of the war, was achieved spontaneously by the husbandmen of New

Hampshire, Vermont, and western Massachusetts. Stark only confirms the reports of Hessian officers when he writes: "Had our people been Alexanders or Charleses of Sweden, they could not have behaved better."

At the news of Breymann's retreat, Burgoyne ordered his army under arms; and at the head of the forty-seventh regiment he forded the Battenkill, to meet the worn-out fugitives. The loss of troops was irreparable. Canadians and Indians of the remoter nations began to leave in disgust. For supplies, Burgoyne was thrown back upon shipments from England, painfully forwarded from Quebec by way of Lake Champlain and Lake George to the Hudson river. Before he could move forward he must, with small means of transportation, bring together stores for thirty days, and drag nearly two hundred boats over two long carrying-places.

On the first of August congress relieved Schuyler from command by a vote to which there was no negative; and on the fourth eleven states elected Gates his successor. Before Gates assumed the command, Fort Stanwix was safe and the victory of Bennington achieved; yet congress hastened to vote him all the powers and all the aid which Schuyler in his moods of despondency had entreated. Touched by the ringing appeals of Washington, thousands of the men of Massachusetts, even from the counties of Middlesex and Essex, were in motion toward Saratoga. Congress, overriding Washington's advice, gave Schuyler's successor plenary power to make further requisitions for militia on New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Washington had culled from his troops five hundred riflemen, and formed them under Morgan into a better corps of skirmishers than had ever been attached to an army even in Europe; congress directed them to be forthwith sent to assist Gates against the Indians; and Washington obeyed so promptly that the order might seem to have been anticipated.

As for Schuyler, he proffered his services to the general by whom he was superseded, heartily wished him success, and soon learned to " justify congress for depriving him of the command, convinced that it was their duty to sacrifice the feelings of an individual to the safety of the states when the people who only could defend the country refused to serve under him."

CHAPTER XIII.

PROGRESS OF SIR WILLIAM HOWE AND BURGOYNE.

JULY-OCTOBER 20, 1777.

A DOUBT arose whether Washington retained authority over the new chief of the northern department till congress declared that "they never intended to supersede or circumscribe his power;" but, from an unwillingness to confess their own mistakes, from the pride of authority and jealousy of his superior popularity, they slighted his advice and neglected his wants. They remodelled the commissary department in the midst of the campaign on a system which no competent men would undertake to execute. Washington, striving for an army, raised and officered by the United States, "used every means in his power to destroy state distinction in it, and to have every part and parcel of it considered as continental;" congress more and more reserved to the states the recruiting of men, and the appointment of all but general officers. Political and personal considerations controlled the nomination of officers; and congress had not vigor enough to drop the incapable. "The wearisome wrangles for rank," and the numerous commissions given to foreign adventurers of extravagant pretensions, made the army "a just representation of a great chaos." A reacting "spirit of reformation" was at first equally undiscerning; Kalb and Lafayette, arriving at Philadelphia near the end of July, met with a repulse. When it was told that Lafayette desired no more than leave to risk his life in the cause of liberty without pension or allowance, congress gave him the rank of major-general, and Washington received him into his family; but at first the claim of Kalb was rejected.