XXI. under Saint Clair, with no more confusion than CHAP. necessarily attended a sudden movement in darkness under inexperienced brigadiers, took the new road through the wilderness to Hubbardton. At daybreak on the sixth, Fraser moved swiftly upon Ticonderoga, and Riedesel occupied Fort Independence. They found ample stores of ammunition, flour, salt meat, and herds of oxen, more than seventy cannon, and what to the Americans was a most severe loss, a large number of tents. Burgoyne, who came up in the fleet, sent Fraser with twenty companies of English grenadiers, followed by Riedesel's infantry and reserve corps, in pursuit of the army of Saint Clair; and as soon as a passage could be cleared through the bridge that barred the channel between Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, the fleet, bearing Burgoyne and the rest of his forces, chased after the detachment which had escaped by water. The Americans, burning three of their vessels, abandoned two others and the fort at Whitehall. Everything which they brought from Ticonderoga was destroyed, or fell a prey to their pursuers. On the same day, Burgoyne reported to his government that the army of Ticonderoga was "disbanded and totally ruined." Lord George Germain cited to General Howe this example of "rapid progress," and predicted an early junction of the two armies. Men disputed in England whether most to admire the sword or the pen of Burgoyne. They gave him Cæsar's motto. They taunted the Americans as cowards who dared not stand before compacted Britons, and were sure of the entire conquest of the confederated provinces before Christmas. 1777. CHAP. CHAPTER XXII. PROGRESS OF THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NORTH. JULY-AUGUST 21, 1777. On the second of July, the convention of Vermont reässembled at Windsor. The organic law which 1777. they adopted, blending the gains of the eighteenth century with the traditions of Protestantism, assumed that all men are born free, and with inalienable rights; that they may emigrate from one state to another, or form a new state in vacant countries; that "every sect should observe the Lord's day, and keep up some sort of religious worship;" that every man may choose that form of religious worship "which shall seem to him most agreeable to the revealed will of God." They provided for a school in each town, a grammar-school in each county, and a university in the state. All officers, alike executive and legislative, were to be chosen annually, and by ballot; the freemen of every town and all oneyear's residents were electors. Every member of the house of representatives must declare "his belief in one God, the rewarder of the good and the punisher XXII. of the wicked; in the divine inspiration of the Scrip- CHAP. tures; and in the Protestant religion." The legisla tive power was vested in one general assembly, sub- 1777. ject to no veto, though an advisory power was given to a board consisting of the governor, lieutenant-governor, and twelve councillors. Slavery was forbidden. expressly and forever; and there could be no imprisonment for debt. Once in seven years an elective council of censors was to take care that freedom and the constitution were preserved in purity. After the loss of Ticonderoga, the establishment of the new government was postponed, lest the process of change should interfere with the public defence; and the Vermont council of safety despatched supplicatory letters for aid to the New Hampshire committee at Exeter and to Massachusetts. On the night of the sixth, Fraser and his party made their bivouac seventeen miles from the lake, with that of Riedesel three miles in their rear. At three in the morning of the seventh both detachments were in motion. The savages having discovered the rear-guard of Saint Clair's army, which Warner, contrary to his instructions, had encamped for the night at Hubbardton, six miles short of Castleton, Fraser, at five, ordered his troops to advance. To their great surprise, Warner, who was nobly assisted by Colonel Eben Francis and his New Hampshire regiment, turned and began the attack. The English were like to be worsted, when Riedesel with his vanguard and company of yagers came up, their music playing,' the men singing a battle-hymn. Francis for a third time charged at the head of his regiment, and held the enemy at bay till he fell. On the approach of CHAP. the three German battalions, his men retreated to XXII. 1777. wards the south. Fraser, taking Riedesel by the hand, thanked him for the timely rescue. Of the Americans few were killed, and most of those engaged in the fight made good their retreat; but during the day the British took more than two hundred stragglers, wounded men, and invalids. Of the Brunswickers twenty-two were killed or wounded, of the British one hundred and fifty-five. The heavy loss stopped the pursuit, and Saint Clair, with two thousand excellent continental troops, marched unmolested to Fort Edward. The British regiment which chased the fugitives from Whitehall took ground within a mile of Fort Ann. On the morning of the eighth, its garrison drove them nearly three miles, took a captain and three privates, and inflicted a loss of at least fifty in killed and wounded. Reënforced by a brigade, the English returned only to find the fort burned down, and the garrison beyond reach. 1 Burgoyne chose to celebrate these events by a day of thanksgiving; but the spirit of the Americans was alarming, while the loss of men in the two engagements, and by bad food, and camping out in all weathers, could ill be borne. Another disappointment awaited him. He asked Carleton to hold Ticonderoga with a part of the three thousand troops left in Canada; Carleton, pleading his instructions, which confined him to his own province, unexpectedly refused, and left Burgoyne "to drain the life-blood of his army" for the garrison. Again, supplies of provisions came tardily. Of the Canadian horses con1 Riedesel's journal. MS. XXII. 1777. tracted for not more than one third were brought in CHAP. good condition over the wild mountain roads. The wagons were made of green wood, and, moreover, were deficient in number. Further, Burgoyne should have turned back from Whitehall, and moved to the Hudson river by way of Lake George and the old road; but the word was, "Britons never recede;" and after the halt of a fortnight he took the short cut to Fort Edward, through a wilderness bristling with woods, broken by numerous creeks, and treacherous with morasses. In his letters he dwells with complacency on the construction of more than forty bridges, a "log-work" over a morass two miles in extent, and the removal of layers of fallen timbertrees. But this persistent toil in the heat of midsummer, among myriads of insects, dispirited his troops. Early in July, Burgoyne confessed to Germain, that, "were the Indians left to themselves, enormities too horrid to think of would ensue; guilty and innocent, women and infants, would be a common prey." The general, nevertheless, resolved to use them as instruments of "terror," and promised, after arriving at Albany, to send them "towards Connecticut and Boston," knowing full well that they were actually left to themselves by La Corne Saint Luc, their leader, who was impatient of control in the use of the scalping-knife. Every day the savages brought in scalps as well as prisoners. On the twenty-seventh, Jane MacCrea, a young woman of twenty, betrothed to a loyalist in the British service and esteeming herself under the protection of British arms, was riding from Fort Edward to the British 1 Burgoyne in Almon's Parliamentary Debates, ix. 220. |