militia. The Indians melted away from Burgoyne, and by the zeal of Schuyler, contrary to the wiser policy of Gates, a small band, chiefly of Oneidas, joined the American camp. In the evening of the fourth of October, Burgoyne called Phillips, Riedesel, and Fraser to council, and proposed to them by a roundabout march to turn the left of the Americans. To do this, it was answered, the British must, for three days, leave their boats and provisions at the mercy of the Americans. Riedesel advised a swift retreat to Fort Edward; but Burgoyne still continued to wait for a co-operating army from below. On the seventh he agreed to make a grand reconnoissance, and, if the Americans could not be attacked, he would think of a retreat. At eleven o'clock on the morning of that day seven hundred men of Fraser's command, three hundred of Breymann's, and five hundred of Riedesel's, were picked out for the service. The late hour was chosen, that in case of disaster night might intervene for their relief. They were led by Burgoyne, who took with him Phillips, Riedesel, and Fraser. The fate of the army hung on the issue, and not many more than fifteen hundred men could be spared without exposing the camp. They entered a field about half a mile from the Americans, where they formed a line, and sat down in double ranks, offering battle. Their artillery, consisting of eight brass pieces and two howitzers, was well posted; their front was open; the grenadiers under Ackland, stationed in the forests, protected the left; Fraser, with the light infantry and an English regiment, formed the right, which was skirted by a wooded hill; the Brunswickers held the centre. While Fraser sent foragers into a wheat-field, Canadians, provincials, and Indians were to get upon the American rear.

Gates, having in his camp ten or eleven thousand men eager for battle, resolved to send out a force sufficient to overwhelm the detachment. By the advice of Morgan, a simultaneous attack was ordered to be made on both flanks. A little before three o'clock the column of the American right, composed of Poor's brigade, followed by the New York militia under Ten Broeck, unmoved by the well-served grape-shot from two twelve-pounders and four sixes, marched on to engage Ackland's grenadiers; while the men of Morgan were seen making

VOL. V.-14

a circuit, to reach the flank and rear of the British right, upon which the American light infantry under Dearborn impetuously descended. In danger of being surrounded, Burgoyne ordered Fraser with the light infantry and part of the twenty-fourth regiment to form a second line in the rear, so as to secure the retreat of the army. While executing this order, Fraser was hit by a ball from a sharpshooter, and, fatally wounded, was led back to the camp. Just then, within twenty minutes from the beginning of the action, the British grenadiers, suffering from the sharp fire of musketry in front and flank, wavered and fled, leaving Major Ackland, their commander, severely wounded. These movements exposed the Brunswickers on both flanks, and one regiment broke, turned, and fled. It rallied, but only to retreat in less disorder, driven by the Americans. Sir Francis Clarke, Burgoyne's first aid, sent to the rescue of the artillery, was mortally wounded before he could deliver his message; and the Americans took all the eight pieces. In the face of the hot pursuit, no second line could be formed. Burgoyne exposed himself fearlessly; a shot passed through his hat, and another tore his waistcoat; but he was compelled to give the word of command for all to retreat to the camp of Fraser, which lay to the right of head-quarters. As he entered, he betrayed his sense of danger, crying out: "You must defend the post till the very last man!" The Americans pursued with fury. Arnold, who had ridden upon the field without orders, without command, without a staff, and beside himself, like one intoxicated, yet carrying some authority as the highest officer present in the action, gave orders which argued thoughtlessness rather than courage. By his command an attack was made on the strongest part of the British line, and continued for more than an hour, though in vain. Meantime, the brigade of Learned made a circuit and assaulted the quarters of the regiment of Breymann, which flanked the extreme right of the British camp, and was connected with Fraser's quarters by two stockade redoubts, defended by Canadian companies. These intermediate redoubts were stormed by a Massachusetts regiment headed by John Brooks, afterward governor of that state, and with little loss. Arnold, who had joined in this last assault, lost his horse and

was himself badly wounded within the works. Time and the loss of blood restored his senses. The regiment of Breymann was now exposed in front and rear. Its colonel, fighting gallantly, was mortally wounded; some of his troops fled; and the rest, about two hundred in number, surrendered. Colonel Speth, who led a small body of Germans to his support, was taken prisoner. The position of Breymann was the key to Burgoyne's camp; but the directions for its recovery could not be executed. Night ended the battle.

During the fight, neither Gates nor Lincoln appeared on the field. In his report of the action, Gates named Arnold with Morgan and Dearborn; and congress restored Arnold to the rank which he had claimed. The action was the battle of husbandmen, in which men of the valley of Virginia, of Maryland, of Pennsylvania, of New York, and of New England fought together with one spirit for the common cause. The army of Burgoyne was greatly outnumbered, its cattle starving, its hospital cumbered with sick, wounded, and dying. At ten o'clock in the night he gave orders to retreat; but at daybreak he had only transferred his camp to the heights above the hospital. Light dawned, to show the hopelessness of his position.

Fraser questioned the surgeon eagerly as to his wound, and, when he learned that he must die, he cried out in agony: "Damned ambition!" At sunset of the eighth his body, attended by the officers of his family, was borne by soldiers of his corps to the great redoubt above the Hudson where he had asked to be buried; the three major-generals, Burgoyne, Phillips, and Riedesel, and none beside, followed as mourners; and, under the fire of the American artillery, the order for the burial of the dead was strictly observed over his

grave.

In the following hours Burgoyne, abandoning the wounded and sick in his hospital, continued his retreat; but, the road being narrow and heavy from rain and the night dark, he made halt two miles short of Saratoga. In the night before the tenth the British army, finding the passage of the Hudson too strongly guarded, forded the Fishkill, and in a very bad position at Saratoga made their last encampment. On the

tenth Burgoyne sent out a party to reconnoitre the road on the west of the Hudson; but Stark, who after the battle of Bennington had been received at home as a conqueror, had returned with more than two thousand men of New Hampshire and held the river at Fort Edward.

At daybreak of the eleventh an American brigade, favored by a thick fog, broke up the British posts at the mouth of the Fishkill and captured all their boats and all their provisions except a short allowance for five days. On the twelfth the British army was completely invested, and every spot in its camp was exposed to rifle shot or cannon. On the thirteenth, Burgoyne for the first time called the commanders of the corps to council, and they were unanimous for treating on honorable

terms.

The American army and the freeholders of New York and New England, who had voluntarily risen up to resist the invasion from Canada, had, by their unanimity, courage, and energy, left the British no chance of escape. "The great bulk of the country," wrote Burgoyne, "is undoubtedly with the congress in principle and zeal." When the general who should have directed them remained in camp, their common zeal created a harmonious correspondence of movement, and baffled the officers and veterans opposed to them. Gates, who had never appeared in the field * during the campaign, took to himself the negotiation, and proposed that they should surrender as prisoners of war. Burgoyne replied by the proposal that his army should pass from the port of Boston to Great Britain. upon the condition of not serving again in North America during the present contest; and that the officers should retain their carriages, horses, and baggage free from molestation or search, Burgoyne "giving his honor that there are no public stores secreted therein." Gates, uneasy at the news of British forces on the Hudson river, closed with these "articles of convention," and on the seventeenth "the convention was signed." A body of Americans marched to the tune of Yankee Doodle into the lines of the British, who marched out and in mute astonishment laid down their arms with none of the

* Nor was Gates in company with Lincoln when Lincoln was wounded. Correct Gordon, ii., 565, Eng. Ed., by note in N. Y. Doc. Hist., iv., 640.

American soldiery to witness the spectacle. Bread was then served to them, for they had none left, nor flour.

Their number, including officers, was five thousand seven hundred and ninety-one, among whom were six members of parliament. Previously there had been taken eighteen hundred and fifty-six prisoners of war, including the sick and wounded who had been abandoned. Of deserters from the British ranks there were three hundred; so that, including the killed, prisoners, and disabled at Hubbardton, Fort Ann, Bennington, Orisca, the outposts of Ticonderoga, and round Saratoga, the total loss of the British in this northern campaign was not far from ten thousand.

The Americans acquired thirty-five pieces of the best ordnance then known, beside munitions of war, and more than four thousand muskets.

Complaints reached congress that the military chest of the British army, the colors of its regiments, and arms, especially bayonets, had been kept back; and that very many of the muskets which were left behind had been purposely rendered useless.

During the resistance to Burgoyne, Daniel Morgan, from the time of his transfer to the northern army, never gave other than the wisest counsels, and stood first for conduct, effective leadership, and unsurpassable courage on the field of battle; yet Gates did not recommend him for promotion, but asked and soon obtained the rank of brigadier for James Wilkinson, an undistinguished favorite of his own.