USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress. Vol. II > Part 43
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In a little house on the river-bank the Baroness Riedesel and Lady Harriet Ackland spent the day in agonizing fear. A dinner awaited the four accomplished generals who went out in the morning expecting to return to the banquet at four. As the hour approached, the gallant and beloved Frazer was borne in dying instead. The table was removed and a bed improvised, in its place. The baroness put her three young chil- dren to bed that they might not disturb the sufferer; wounded men were constantly being brought in; they were laid in the entries and in all available parts of the house. Lady Ackland was in extreme distress con- cerning the fate of her husband, who was within the American lines. At ten o'clock in the evening Burgoyne ordered a retreat, but he had only transferred his camp to the heights above the hospital at daylight next morning. All day the two armies exchanged a sharp fire without any positive action. General Lincoln was severely wounded while riding by the side of Gates reconnoitering the British position. That evening, in a cold autumn rain, Frazer, who had been the life and soul of the invad- ing army, was solemnly buried ; immediately after which touching service Burgoyne stole away in the stormy darkness, leaving his sick and wounded to the mercy of the Americans. His few days' provisions were confided to boats on the Hudson, but the difficulty of guarding them was very great. His guns were dragged along the muddy roads. To- wards daylight the no longer boastful Britons halted for rest. It rained all day on the 9th ; in the evening the main portion of the drenched army forded Fish Creek, waist-deep, and bivouacked on the opposite bank in the open air. Burgoyne remained upon the south side with a strong guard, and passed the night in the mansion of General Schuyler. The next day he burned it, with all its valuable barns, mills and outbuildings - an elegant villa property. The ladies of the British officers suffered every
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discomfort during this humiliating retreat. Lady Harriet Ackland, in the midst of the driving storm of the 9th, obtained permission to visit the American camp and ask to be allowed to share her husband's imprison- ment and alleviate his sufferings. She set out at dusk in an open boat, accompanied by her waiting-maid, her husband's valet, and a chaplain, and was kindly received by Gates.
Burgoyne found himself unable to retreat to Lake George. The Americans had blocked the way. He encamped on an elevated plateau northeast of the village of Schuylerville ; and the army of Gates was pres- ently encamped all around him. He was subjected to a fire on flank and rear and front. His outposts were perpetually engaged. The soldiers dared not lay down their arms night or day. The whole camp became a scene of constant fighting. There was no 'safety for baggage, and no safe shelter for the wounded even while the surgeon was binding up their wounds. No water could be obtained, although close to Fish Creek and the Hudson River, for the trees were filled with Morgan's sharp-shooters. Provisions were nearly exhausted, wounded officers crawled into the cellars of houses ; eleven cannon-balls crashed through one house where Baroness Riedesel was ministering to sufferers in the cellar. Rifle-balls were every moment perforating the tents, and on the 13th a cannon-ball swept across the table where Burgoyne and his generals were seated. On the 14th a cessation of hostilities until terms of capitulation could be arranged was proposed by Burgoyne. His aid, Colonel Kingston, was received at the crossing of the creek by James Wilkinson, the young adjutant-general of the American army, and conducted blindfolded into the presence of Gates. An unconditional surrender was at first de- manded; but on the 16th Gates consented to more generous terms. In the night intelligence of the reduction of the Hudson River forts and Clinton's northerly advance reached Burgoyne, and he wavered for a moment, hoping to avoid surrender. But it was too late. He could not honorably recall his word. At nine o'clock on the morning of the 17th he attached his signature to the convention.1 Two hours later Oct. 17. his troops marched out of their lines and deposited their arms on the river-bank, the brave veterans so overcome with sorrow and shame that many sobbed like children as they grasped for the last time weapons they had borne with honor, some kissing their guns with the tenderness of lovers, others stamping upon them with oaths of rage. The scene was be-
1 Burgoyne had earnestly desired that the treaty should be called a convention, and not a capitulation. This matter of taste was conceded, inasmuch as it did not alter the facts, or deprive the American arms of one leaf of the laurels they had won. For treaty in full, see Appendix A.
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held by no American eyes except those of the two young aids of Gates, Morgan Lewis 1 and Wilkinson. The delicacy of the arrangement reflected the greatest credit upon the Americans. A few moments later, Burgoyne and his suite rode to the headquarters of Gates. The two commanders exchanged the compliments of soldiers. Burgoyne glittered in scarlet and gold a large, well-formed, handsome man with courtly manners ; Gates, smaller of stature and without the airs of fine breeding or preten- sion, was clad in a plain blue overcoat -and Schuyler stood by him in citizen's dress. "The fortune of war has made me your prisoner," said Burgoyne, with hat in hand, as he took the extended hand of Gates. “I shall always be ready to testify that it has not been through any fault of your Excellency," was the graceful reply. The generals entered the tent of Gates and dined together on boards laid across barrels. During the same hour the Royal troops were served with bread by the Americans, as they were destitute, even without flour to make it; they had not more than one day's provision of any kind remaining. The generals cour- teously conversed ; Burgoyne spoke very flatteringly of the Americans, praised their discipline and their dress, and particularly their numbers. " Your fund of men is inexhaustible ; like the Hydra's head, when cut off seven more spring up in its stead," he remarked. At the close of the repast Burgoyne toasted Washington and Gates toasted the King of Eng- land. Then, as the captured army approached on their march to Boston. the two commanders stepped out in front of the tent, and standing together conspicuously in full view of both armies - the conquerors and the con- quered - Burgoyne drew his sword, bowed, and presented it to Gates, Gates, bowing, received the sword, and returned it to Burgoyne.
No simple ceremony in the world's history was ever more significant. No martial event from the battle of Marathon to that of Waterloo - two thousand years - exerted a greater influence upon human affairs than the conquest of Burgoyne. Of the fifteen battles decisive of lasting results, during more than twenty centuries of human progress, the conflict of Saratoga is one. Up to that hour the Americans were esteemed "rebels " by the powers of the earth. Henceforward they were patriots attempting to rescue their country from wrong and outrage. The agents of Congress were no longer obliged to hold intercourse with the monarchs of Europe in stealthy ways. They met with open congratulations. A new power
1 Morgan Lewis was born in 1754, hence was twenty-three years of age at this epoch ; James Wilkinson was twenty. Morgan Lewis was the son of Francis Lewis, signer of the Declaration of Independence ; he had been a student of law in the office of John Jay. In June, 1775, he joined the army in Cambridge, and was made captain of a rifle company. His subsequent career will be noted in future pages.
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was recognized. A new element had entered into the diplomacy of nations. This victory determined the French alliance, and the French alliance was instrumental in securing the final triumplı.
The figure of Philip Schuyler rises grandly above all others in this connection. To his judicious and distinguished efforts, his ingenious contrivances and unceasing vigilance, was due the glory. And yet he uttered no complaint at seeing his laurels worn by another; he even congratulated Gates (who had displayed no professional skill whatever,) in the true spirit of chivalrous courtesy and devotion to the common cause, and ministered to the personal comfort of the fallen foe. Riedesel sent for his wife and children as soon as the Royal army had passed by. They came in a calash, and a gentleman of dignified bearing, devoid of military insignia, lifted the children from it, kissing them and caressing them, and gallantly assisted the baroness to alight, offering her his arm and conducting her to the tent of Gates, where the generals were assembled ; presently he suggested that his own tent was more quiet, and invited the lady to accept its hospitalities. "I then learned," writes the baroness, " that he was the American General Schuyler." Burgoyne spoke feelingly to Schuyler concerning the destruction of his Saratoga property. "Don't speak of it; it was the fate of war," was the magnanimous reply. And when Burgoyne nioved on his journey to Boston, Schuyler sent an aide-de- camp to conduct him to his own home, -- " an elegant house,"1 said Bur- goyne, "where, to my great surprise, I was presented to Mrs. Schuyler and her family ; and where I remained during my whole stay at Albany, with a table of more than twenty courses for me and my friends, and every other possible demonstration of hospitality."
On the same day that Burgoyne at Saratoga assented to the terms of surrender, Sir Henry Clinton, having caused the destruction of every American vessel on the Hudson as far as the mouth of Esopus Creek, added to the general distress and terror by sending General Vaughan to strike a death-blow to Kingston, the temporary capital of New York. In size, wealth, and importance it was the third town in the State. Its population numbered between three and four thousand. Some forty-eight stone dwellings, of which several were large and elegant, with three or more hundred houses of wood, and two good-sized hotels, stood within an area of about twenty-five acres ; together with a court-house built of blue limestone, and a Dutch Church with an extensive burial inclosure. It numbered among its inhabitants numerous families of distinction ; as, for instance, the Van Gaasbecks, the Tappans, the Bruyns, the Elmendorfs,
1 Sketch of Schuyler Mansion, page 146 (Vol. II.) ; Speech of Burgoyne in the House of Commons, on Mr. Vyner's motion, May 26, 1788.
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the Bogarduses, the Hasbroucks, the Hardenburghs, the Van Burens, the Kierstedts, the Van Steenburghs, the Du Boises, the Van Deusens, the Banckers, and the Vanderlyns. John Vanderlyn, the painter, was then an infant. A boys' boarding-school flourished under Dominie Doll, in which the afterwards distinguished Edward Livingston (youngest brother of the Chancellor), then thirteen years of age, was a pupil. It was this institu- tion to which he referred twenty years later, when he said, "I learned some lessons besides those found in the good teacher's curriculum. At my first dinner, potatoes and a piece of pork composed the whole bill of fare. The knife and fork were put in the solitary dish, and the school- boy invited to partake. 'I don't like pork, we never eat it at home,' was my reply. ' Very well, my little man,' said my host, ' nobody obliges you to eat.' Consequently a potato was my repast. The second day brought no variety. On the third, fastidiousness succumbed to hunger, and I endured the pork and potato diet without variation through the term." Kingston was the refuge of numerous New York families of wealth and position, who with their liveried negro slaves and stylish equipages had retired from the city before the British entered and took possession of their costly homes. Philip Livingston, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, lived in a spacious house near the Hudson, which was also the present home of his daughter Sarah, and her husband, Rev. Dr. John Henry Livingston. The Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, of the Brick Church, New York City, residing near them, was aroused in the middle of the night of the 15th by an unlettered German whom he scarcely knew, and warned to immediately remove the household goods which he had stored in a small building on the river-bank; he did so, and with the Livingstons escaped to Sharon, Connecticut. James Beekman, whose fine mansion on the East River was proving so delightful to the British officers, had rented a farm near Kingston, and with his clever and accomplished wife (Jane Keteltas) was devoting himself to the education of his children. Some of the new state officials were attended by their families. Mrs. John Jay had recently joined her husband. The stately ceremonials, together with the showy costume of the period - wigs, ruffles, velvet coats, white silk stockings, and shoe-buckles of the gentlemen, and the court hoop, bro- caded silks, and mountains of powdered hair, flowers, and feathers of the ladies -and the host of colored retainers, gave to the scene the effect of a little feudal court. The approach of the enemy was known in time for the flight of the people, some of whom were able to remove a portion of their personal property. Vaughan landed at Rondout, burning every habitation on the two-mile route to Kingston by two roads, where within the next three hours he accomplished the total destruction of the defense-
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less town, burning every house and barn and building but one, including twelve thousand barrels of flour and a large quantity of other stores; then hastily retreated, fearing speedy vengeance. He presently crossed the Hudson, marched in various directions, burned the dwellings of all well- known Whigs, and committed wanton outrages which provoked universal condemnation, even among those who were attached to the king's cause. Two British officers, a wounded captain and his surgeon, were being hos- pitably entertained by Mrs. Judge Robert R. Livingston, the mother of the Chancellor and of Edward Livingston, at her beautiful home at Clermont, as the red smoking column, bearing the torch aloft, neared her dwelling, and they gratefully proposed to extend the protection of their presence and influence to save her property, which she politely declined ; burying a part of her furniture, the remainder was packed upon wagons; and with her large family and retinue of servants she set forth on a weary journey to Salisbury, Connecticut ; at the moment of starting, the figure of a favorite servant, a fat old negro woman, perched in solemn anxiety on the top of one of the loads, caused a burst of hearty merriment. Mrs. Livingston did not leave one moment too soon, as the smoke and flames rising from her mansion told her ere she was two miles away. The news from Saratoga suddenly checked these useless atrocities, and Sir Henry Clinton called in his troops and fell back to New York.
Gates sent Wilkinson to bear the victorious tidings of Burgoyne's sur- render to Congress; while on the route he stopped at the quarters of Lord Stirling, in Reading, where in a free conversation he repeated part of a letter which Gates had received from Conway, a boastful, intriguing officer, who had joined the army at Morristown under an appoint- ment from Congress. The letter contained strictures on the manage- ment of the army under Washington, with many disparaging comments. Stirling, prompted by friendship, communicated the matter to Washing- ton, and a correspondence followed between Washington, Gates, and Conway, the incidents springing from which revealed an underhanded conspiracy that had been for some time in progress to secure the removal of the commander-in-chief. The success of the Northern army emboldened Gates, and Congress for a time was seriously influenced in favor of the aspirants. But public sentiment expressed itself in a manner so emphatic that the scheme was subsequently abandoned. As the winter approached Howe took observations of Washington's encampment at Whitemarsh, but after, as Jones quaintly remarks, "viewing the front of the Ameri- can right, marching to the center and taking another view, from thence to the left and stealing a peep there," he decided that the works were invulnerable, and that he had better leave them in repose ; and with some
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skirmishing, in which a few were killed on both sides, marched back to the warm December fires and snug quarters of Philadelphia. Washing- ton soon after this removed his weary and destitute army to Valley Forge; such was the want of shoes and stockings among his men, that it is said they might have been tracked over the hard frozen ground the whole dis- tance from Whitemarsh by the blood of their feet. Governor Livingston appealed eloquently to the ladies of New Jersey to contribute from their superfluous woolen habits to the scanty clothing of the suffering soldiers ; and every nerve was strained to prevent an absolute famine in camp. Within twenty miles of each other the two hostile armies thus lay quietly until spring.
Putnam went into winter-quarters in the Highlands. While he was striving with his accustomed energy to provide needful shelter and food for his forces, Burgoyne's army was destroying every latent spark of sym- pathy with Great Britain, which had in Massachusetts survived the shock of horrors that distinguished this bloody year, through their con- duct along the route to and in Boston, from whence they were to embark for England. The houseless inhabitants of Kingston were at the same time shivering in meagre hovels in country places ; some few had found accommodations in Hurley, four miles from the ruins of the little capital, where the new state government lighted in its flight, and where the boarding-school of Dominie Doll continued to prosper. In all directions within the vicinity of New York the British forays had left ashes, desola- tion, and anguish along their track. It seemed as if everything useful to man was plundered or consumed. Meigs, with a detachment of Parsons's brigade, descended upon a band of freebooters in West Chester, capturing fifty, with the cattle and horses they had stolen. But it remained for Tryon to crown the cruelties of the year, by sending an expedition, under Em- merick, with blazing torches, through Tarrytown and neighborhood, which executed its mission with a degree of barbarity seldoni equaled in civilized warfare. Among other outrages, Peter and Cornelius Van Tassel, noted Whigs, were dragged from their dwellings which were set on fire, and led to the British lines with halters about their necks, naked and barefoot, although the night was intensely cold ; and women Nov. 18. and children were mercilessly abused and exposed. Parsons wrote a letter of expostulation to Tryon, in which he said that if disposed to retaliate he could easily burn the Philipse or the De Lancey mansion, but had refrained from doing so because of the wanton and unjustifiable inhumanity of such acts. Tryon promptly replied that with more au- thority he " would burn every committee man's house within his reach." 'The result followed swiftly. A party of Americans landed from a whale-
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boat at Bloomingdale within a week, surprised and captured a small guard at the landing, proceeded to the beautiful country-seat of Oliver De Lancey, and destroyed it, with everything it contained. The terrified ladies made their escape as best they could ; Mrs. De Lancey concealed herself in a stone dog-kennel under the stoop until the party had re- crossed the Hudson; Miss Charlotte De Lancey (afterwards Lady Dun- das), with her brother's child in her arms, Miss Floyd, a guest of the family (afterwards the wife of John Peter De Lancey and mother of Bishop De Lancey), and Mrs. John Harris Cruger, De Lancey's oldest daughter, fled into the woods and bushes in the darkness, remaining in the open air all night.
The last important event of 1777 was the selection of a new site for a fort to replace Forts Montgomery and Clinton ; Governor George Clinton with Lieutenant-Governor Van Cortlandt, John Jay, and one or two mem- bers of the New York Legislature, made observations along the Hudson, and afterwards in council with Washington, determined upon West Point. Early in January, with the snow two feet deep, devoid of tents or suitable tools, Parsons's brigade, under Putnam's direction, threw up the first embankment. From that hour until to-day no foreign power has ever been able to pass up and down the Hudson River without doing homage to the American flag.
The Waddell Chairs. (See page 157.)
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
CHAPTER XXXV.
1778, 1779.
VARIED EVENTS.
PARLIAMENT. - THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. - CAMP AT VALLEY FORGE. - BARON STEUBEN. '- GARDINER'S ISLAND. - GENERAL HOWE SUPERSEDED BY SIR HENRY CLINTON. - THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS. - EVACUATION OF PHILADELPHIA BY THE BRITISH. - BATTLE OF MONMOUTH. - GENERAL LEE. - ARRIVAL OF THE FRENCH FLEET. - DESTRUCTION OF WYOMING. - NEW YORK CITY UNDER THE BRITISH. - THE PRISONS. - CITIZENS. - COLONEL LUDDINGTON. - FORAYS IN ALL DIRECTIONS FROM NEW YORK CITY. - DR. JOHN COCHRANE. - WINTER-QUARTERS. - WASHINGTON IN PHILADELPHIA. - THE VERPLANCK MANSION. - CONDITION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. - NEW HAVEN AT- TACKED. - BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. - BURNING OF NORWALK. - STORMING OF STONY POINT. - PAULUS HOOK. - SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS. - THE SOUTHERN ARMY. - NEWPORT. - WASHINGTON AT MORRISTOWN.
T THE news of the disaster to the British arms at Saratoga fell like a thunder-stroke upon the Court of England. Lord Petersham was the bearer of Burgoyne's dispatch, penned in the Schuyler Mansion at Albany. The public admired the grace and dignity with which he told his melancholy tale. "The style is charming," said a minister in the Royal presence. "He had better have beaten the rebels and misspelt every word in the recital," said the king.
The fourth session of Parliament, from November, 1777, to June, 1778, was a continued scene of controversy. The Opposition was growing every day more powerful. The employment of savages to fight the Americans was the well-spring of a blaze of eloquence seldom equaled in the history of the English language. Its condemnation brought Lord Chatham to his feet in one of the most brilliant speeches of his life. Lord North threw out hints in debate that he might make some proposition of accommodation, and the straw was seized by those who were eager to end the contest. Lord Chatham motioned that the door of reconciliation be opened by a treaty, before France, who was helping the Americans in an underhanded way, should take a bolder stand; but
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the motion was lost. Franklin, from Paris, wrote to David Hartley (in October), that some act of generosity and kindness towards the American prisoners might soften resentment and facilitate negotiations. And the philanthropic Hartley, acting upon the hint, started a charitable sub- scription for that end to which large sums were added freely. In Decem- ber, the situation being well known to Hartley, he addressed Parliament, urging the immediate opening of a treaty with the Americans while they were discontented with the cool and dilatory proceedings of the Court of France. "Do it before you sleep," he said. "But they slept and did it not," he wrote to the mayor and corporation of Kingston upon Hull, a few months afterward. No steps of importance were taken until the latter part of February.
By that time France had thrown off her veil, and all Europe was ring- ing with the news of England's disappointment. When Lord North rose in the House of Commons to introduce his Conciliation Bills, admitting that he and his party had been all in the wrong with regard to America, the astonishment of the crowd of members and peers present, says Wal- pole, was totally indescribable. A dull oppressive silence for some time succeeded his speech. "Not a single mark of approbation was heard from any man or description of men within the walls of Parliament." Charles Fox finally rose and ironically complimented Lord North on his happy conversion, and congratulated the Opposition on having obtained so powerful an ally, then with cutting emphasis inquired if a commer- cial treaty with France had not been signed by the American agents in Paris within ten days ? Lord North was thunderstruck, and remained silent. When forced up by the clamor, he owned that he had heard such a rumor, but had received no official intelligence to that effect.
In Paris, during the greater part of January, Franklin, portly and seventy-two, had been weighing and chiseling the forty-four articles com- prised within the two treaties-one of amity and commerce, the other offensive and defensive - which had been prepared for consideration. Arthur Lee was in a tumult of impatience, and wished Franklin " would make more haste." Temple Franklin said that his " grandfather's dining out every day prevented any business from being done." Whereupon Lee jotted in his journal that it "was an unpromising state of things when boys made such observations on the conduct of their grandfathers." As every phrase of the two treaties must be critically scanned and agreed upon by four men of differing opinions, then translated accurately into English, it was serious as well as protracted labor. In the midst of it letters from home told Franklin that his daughter, with an infant four months old, had retired from Philadelphia twenty miles into the country, carrying his library
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