USA > New York > Washington County > Washington county, New York; its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 28
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The nights, also, were rendered hideous by the howls of large packs of wolves that were attracted by the partially buried bodies of those slain in the action of the nineteenth.1 On the first of October a few English soldiers who were digging potatoes in a field a short distance in the rear of headquarters within the camp, were surprised by the enemy who suddenly rushed from the woods and carried off the men in the very faces of their comrades."
There were now only sufficient rations for sixteen days-all the supplies which Burgoyne had counted on as coming by way of Skenesborough and Fort Edward, being cut off-and foraging par- ties, composed of a large number of men were sent out daily. One of these parties met some militia from Washington County, near Green- wich, and were driven back with some loss. At length Burgoyne was obliged to cut down the ordinary daily rations to a pound of bread and a pound of meat, and, as he had heard nothing from Clinton he became seriously alarmed. Accordingly, on the evening of the 5th of October, he called a council of war. Riedesel and Fraser advised an immediate falling back to their old position, behind the Battenkill.
1 The first two nights this noise was heard, General Fraser thought it to have been the dogs belonging to the officers, and an order was given for the dogs to be confined within the tents. The next night the noise was much greater, when a detachment of Canadians and Provincials were sent out to reconnoiter, and it proved to have arisen from large droves of wolves that came after the dead. They were similar to a pack of hounds, for one setting up a cry, they all joined, and when they approached a corpse, their noise was hideous until they had scratched it up.
In fact. Saratoga and vicinity seem to have been a great place for wolves. Amos Stafford, who settled on the bank of Fish Creek (near Stafford's Bridge) about 1780, paid for his farm by the bounties he received from the wolves he shot. The rifle, with which he did such execution, was for several years in my possession.
2 Regarding this move in detail see Life of Morgan.
243
BURGOYNE RECONNOITERS.
Phillips declined giving an opinion and Burgoyne reserved his deci- sion until he had made a reconnoisance in force "to gather forage and ascertain definitely the position of the enemy, and whether it would be advisable to attack him."' Should the latter be the case, he would, on the day following the reconnoissance, advance on the Americans with his entire army, but if not, he would march back to the Battenkill. .
At ten o'clock on the morning of October 7th, liquor and rations having been previously issued to the army, Burgoyne, with fifteen hundred men, eight cannon and two howitzers, started on his recon- noissance, accompanied by Generals Riedesel, Phillips and Fraser. The Canadians, Indians and three hundred of Breymann's Brunswick- ers,2 were sent ahead under Captain Fraser (not the General) to make a diversion in the rear of the Continentals. They succeeded in reach- ing a point a little in the rear of a log-barn (on the present " Neilson Farm" on Bemis Heights) which formed the extreme left of the American breastworks; but they were speedily discovered and after a brisk skirmish of half an hour, were driven back, hotly pursued by the Americans, to within a short distance of the British line of battle which was then forming.
The British advanced in three columns toward the left wing of the American position, entered a wheat field, deployed into line and began cutting up wheat for forage. The grenadiers, under Major Acland, and the artillery under Major Williams, were stationed on a gentle eminence.3 The center was composed of British and German troops, under Phillips and Riedesel. In advance of the right wing, under the Earl of Balcarras, General Fraser had command of a de- tachment of five hundred picked men. The movement having been seasonably discovered, the center advanced guard of the Americans beat to arms. Colonel (afterwards General) Wilkinson, Gates's adju-
1 It would seem, from the extracts from the Brunswick Journal above quoted, as though Bur- goyne should have known pretty well the position of the Americans-but that is only one instance of his fatuitous course throughout the campaign.
2 The statement of Bancroft and Irving that the Hessians bore the brunt of the battles of ; Freeman's Farm and Saratoga is erroneous. Only one Hessian regiment was in these actions the rest being in Long Island and the Southern Department.
3 This eminenee is now (1900) covered by an orchard. some two rods east of the road leading' from Quaker Springs to Stillwater, and twenty rods southeast of the house formerly occupied by Joseph Rogers. Fraser was shot midway between the orchard and Roger's house. A basswood tree, as well as a granite tablet, erected by Joseph W. Drexel, now marks the spot. This tree is a shoot out of the stump of the original tree that stood at the time when Fraser fell.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
tant-general, being at headquarters at the moment, was dispatched to ascertain the cause of the alarm. He proceeded to within sixty rods of the enemy, and returning, informed Gates that the enemy were foraging, attempting, also, to reconnoiter the American left, and like- wise, in his opinion, offering battle. In this view Generals Lincoln and Arnold, who had also reconnoitered the British lines, coincided. " What is the nature of the ground, and what is your opinion ?" asked Gates. "Their front is open," Wilkinson replied, "and their flank rests on woods, under cover of which they may be attacked; their right is skirted by a height: I would indulge them." "Well then," rejoined Gates, "order Morgan to begin the game." At his own sug- gestion, however, Morgan was allowed to gain the ridge on the ene- my's right by a circuitous course, while Poor's and Learned's brigades should attack his left.
The movement was admirably executed. At half past two o'clock in the afternoon the New York and New Hampshire troops marched steadily up the slope of the knoll on which the British Grenadiers and artillery under Acland and Williams were stationed; and for a moment there was an awful stillness-each party seeming to bid defiance to the other. At length the artillerymen and grenadiers began the action by a shower of grape, which passed over the heads of the Americans, who, in turn, rushed forward firing and opening to the right and left. Then again forming on the flanks of the grenadiers they mowed them down at every step until the top of the hill was gained. Here a blood and hand struggle ensued which lasted about thirty minutes, when Acland being badly hurt, the grenadiers gave way leaving the ground thickly strewn with their dead and wounded. In this dreadful con- flict one field-piece that had been taken and retaken five times, finally fell into the hands of the Americans; whereupon Colonel Eillery of New Hampshire leaped upon the captured cannon, waved his sword and dedicated it "to the American cause," jumped down and, turning its muzzle, fired it on the British with the ammunition they had left behind. "The ground which had thus been occupied by the British Grenadiers," says Wilkinson in his memoirs, "presented a scene of complicated horror and exultation. In the square space of twelve or fifteen yards lay eighteen grenadiers in the agonies of death and three officers were propped up against stumps of trees, two of them mortally wounded, bleeding and almost speechless. A surgeon, a man of great worth, who was dressing one of the officers, raising his blood-be-
245
BATTLE OF OCTOBER SEVENTH.
smeared hands in a frenzy of patriotism, exclaimed, . Wilkinson, 1 have dipped my hands in British blood! ' He received a sharp rebuke for his brutality, and, with the troops, I pursued the hard-pressed flying enemy."
While pursuing the retreating grenadiers, Wilkinson heard a feeble voice exclaim, " Protect me, sir, against that boy." Turning his eyes he saw a lad taking deliberate aim at a wounded British officer, whom he at once knew to be Major Acland. Wilkinson quickly dismounted and taking him by the hand expressed the hope that he was not badly wounded. "Not badly," replied that gallant officer, "but very in- conveniently, as I am shot through both legs. Will you, Sir, have the goodness to have me conveyed to your camp?" Wilkinson at once directed his servant to alight and, lifting the wounded man into the vacant seat, had him conveyed to headquarters.
As soon as the action began on the British left, Morgan poured down like a torrent from the side and attacked Fraser so vigorously on his flank as to force him back to his lines. At this critical moment Major Dearborn1 arrived on the field with two regiments of New England troops, and delivered so galling a fire that the English gave way and fled in wild confusion. The brunt of the action now fell upon the Brunswickers, who alone had to sustain the impetuous onset of the Americans.
Brigadier Fraser, who up to this time had been stationed on the right, noticed the critical situation of the center and hurried to its succor with the 24th regiment. Conspicuously mounted on an iron- grey horse, he was all activity and vigilance, riding from one part of the division to another, and animating the troops by his example. Perceiving that the fate of the day rested upon that officer, Morgan, who, with his riflemen, was immediately opposed to Fraser's corps, took twelve of his sharpshooters aside, among whom was the cele- brated marksman, "Tim" Murphy-men on whose precision of aim he relied-and said to them: "The gallant officer vonder is General Fraser. I admire and respect him, but it is necessary for our good that he should die. Take your station in that cluster of bushes and do your duty."
Within a few moments a rifle-ball cut the crouper of Fraser's horse, while another passed through his horse's mane. Calling his attention
1 Who afterward built Fort Dearborn, on the site of which Chicago is erected.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
to this, Fraser's aid said: "It is evident that you are marked out for particular aim ; would it not be prudent for you to retire from this. place ?" Fraser replied, "my duty forbids me to fly from danger." The next moment he fell mortally wounded by a ball from the rifle of Murphy and was carried off the field by two grenadiers.
Upon the fall of Fraser, dismay seized the British, while a corres- ponding elation took possession of the Americans. Up to this time .. Burgoyne had been in the thickest of the fight, and now finding him- self in danger of being surrounded, he abandoned his artillery,1 and ordered a retreat to the "Great Redoubt." In the retreat the enemy left all their cannon on the field, except two howitzers, with a loss of more than four hundred men and among them the flower of Bur- goyne's officers, viz. : Fraser, Acland, Williams, Captain Money (who had distinguished himself so much at the Battle of Fort Anne) Deputy Quartermaster-General, Sir Francis Clarke and many others.
The retreating troops had scarcely entered their lines when Arnold, notwithstanding he had been refused a command by Gates, placed himself at the head of the Continentals, and under a terrific fire as- saulted their works from right to left. "He behaved," says Samuel Woodruff, a sergeant in this battle, in a letter to my father, the late Colonel William L. Stone, " more like a madman than a cool and dis- creet officer." But if it were madness, there was "method in it." With a part of Patterson's and Glover's Marblehead's brigades, he attacked, with the ferocity of a tiger, the Great Redoubt, and encoun- tering the light infantry of Balcarras, drove them at the point of the bayonet from a strong abattis within the redoubt itself .? Then spur- ring boldly on, exposed to the cross-fire of the two armies, he darted to the extreme right of the British camp.
I In this connection I cannot refrain from quoting as quite amusing, an extract from the " Journal" of Pauch who had charge of the Hesse-Hanau artillery in this action. It is un- doubtedly to this retreat of the artillery mentioned in the text that he writes: * * Finding myself alone. isolated and almost surrounded by the enemy, and with no way open, my two can- non dismounted and deserted, 1 had no alternative but to make my way back to camp with great difficulty, if 1 did not wish to be stuck in a damned crooked road." Pauch does not exaggerate it. The old wood-road, traces of which were visible up to the last twenty-five years, was almost serpentine in its course. The use here of the preposition "in" instead of "on " probably refers to the muddiness of the road.
1 " So severe was the fighting at this point, that an old soldier who was in this fight, once told me that in the lower ground in front of the Redoubt, the blood and water was knee-deep."-E. R. Freeman to the author. This also shows that the much vaunted idea that only British soldiers can wield the bayonet is humbug. Witness the present Boer war.
247
GERMANS RETREAT.
This right flank defense of the enemy was occupied by the Bruns- wick troops under Breymann, and consisted of a breastwork of rails piled horizontally between perpendicular pickets and extended two hundred yards across an open field to some high ground on the right,1 when it was covered by a battery of two guns. In front of the east work the ground declined in a gentle slope for a hundred yards when it sunk abruptly. The Americans had just formed a line under this declivity and were engaged with the Germans when, about sunset, Learned came up with his brigade. A slack fire was then observed in that part of the enemy's lines between the Germans and the light in- fantry, where were stationed the Provincials.
This slack fire was owing to the fact that most of the Canadians were absent from their posts. Had they been at their places Riedesel thinks it would have been impossible for the left flank to have been surrounded. Be this as it may, the Canadians fled, leaving the Ger- man flank uncovered, and at the same moment Arnold, arriving from his attack on the "Great Redoubt," attacked the Brunswickers on their left flank and rear with such success, that the chivalric Breymann was killed and they themselves forced to retreat, leaving the key of the British position in the hands of the Americans. The advantage thus gained was retained by the Americans and darkness put an end to an action, equally brilliant and important to the Continental arms. Great numbers of the enemy were killed and two hundred prisoners taken. Burgoyne, himself, narrowly escaped, one ball having passed through his hat and another having torn his waistcoat. The loss of the Amer- icans was inconsiderable.
In their final retreat the Brunswickers turned and delivered a part- ing volley, which killed Arnold's horse. Just at this moment a wounded Brunswicker fired at Arnold and wounded him in the same leg that had been injured by a musket ball at the storming of Quebec two years previously. A private by the name of John Redman, sec- ing his general wounded, at once ran up to bayonet the offender, but was prevented by Arnold, who, with true chivalry, exclaimed, "He's a fine fellow-don't hurt him." At this instant, while Arnold was striving to extricate himself from his saddle, Major Armstrong rode up and delivered to him an order from Gates to return to camp, fear- ing he "might do some rash thing." "He indeed," says Mr. Lossing,
1 Now called Burgoyne's (Breymann's) Hill. See note ante.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
" did a rash thing in the eyes of military discipline. He led troops to victory without an order from his commander." "It is a curious thing," says Sparks, " that an officer, who had really no command in the army. was the leader in one of the most spirited and important- battles of the Revolution. His madness or rashness, or whatever it may be called, resulted most fortunately for himself. The wounds he received at the moment of rushing into the very arms of danger and death, added fresh lustre to his military glory and were a new claim to public favor and applause." In the heat of the action, he struck an officer on the head with his sword and wounded him, an indignity which might justly have been retaliated on the spot and in the most fatal manner. The officer did, indeed, raise his gún to shoot him, but he forbore and, on the next day, when he demanded redress, Arnold declared his entire ignorance of the act and expressed his deep regret. Wilkinson ascribed his rashness to intoxication ; but Major Armstrong, who, with Samuel Woodruff, assisted in removing him from the field, was satisfied that this was not the case.1 Others ascribed it to opium. All this, however, is mere conjecture, unsustained by proofs of any kind, and consequently may be dismissed as improbable. His vagaries may, perhaps, be sufficiently explained by the extraordinary circum- stances of wounded pride, anger and desperation in which he was placed. But his actions were certainly rash, when compared with the stately method of the Commander-in-chief, (Gates), who directed by orders from his camp, what his presence should have sanctioned in the field.
Indeed, the conduct of Gates does not compare favorably either with that of his generals, or of his opponents. While Arnold and Burgoyne were in the hottest of the fight, boldly facing danger and almost meeting face to face, Gates, according to the statement of his Adjutant-General, was discussing the merits of the Revolution with Sir Francis Clarke, Burgoyne's aide-de-camp, who, wounded and a prisoner, was lying upon the commander's bed, seemingly more intent upon winning the verbal, than the actual battle. Gates became in- censed because Sir Francis would not admit the force of his argu- ment and, calling his aide out of the room, asked him if " he had ever heard so impudent a son of a bitch ?" A few days afterwards Sir Francis died.
1 See Woodruff's letter to my father in his " Life of Brant."
249
NEWS OF VICTORY.
Gates has been suspected-and I think truly-of a lack of personal courage.1 He certainly looked forward to a possible retreat, and while he cannot be censured for guarding against every emergency. 'he, to say the least, was not animated by the same spirit which led Cortez to burn his ships behind him. At the beginning of the battle Quartermaster-General Lewis was directed to take eight men with him to the field to convey to Gates information from time to time con- cerning the progress of the action. At the same time, the baggage trains were all loaded up ready to move at a moment's notice." The first information that arrived, represented the British troops to exceed the Americans and the trains were ordered to move on; but scarcely were they under motion, when more favorable news was re- ceived, and the order was countermanded. Thus, they continued to move on and halt alternately until the joyful news-" The British have retreated "-rang through the camp, which reaching the atten- tive guard of the teamsters, they all with one accord swung their hats and gave three long and prolonged cheers. The glad tidings were transmitted with such rapidity from one to another that by the time the victorious troops had returned to their quarters, the American camp was thronged with inhabitants from the surrounding country and formed a scene of the greatest exultation.
From the foregoing account, it will be seen that the term Battle of Bemis Heights, used to designate the action of October 7th is erron- eouts and calculated to mislead. The original maps, which I have in my possession, having procured them in Germany in 1856, show that the second engagement began on ground two hundred and twen- ty-five rods southwest of the site of the first (known as the Battle of Freeman's Farm) and ended on the same ground on which this action was fought. The only interest, in fact, that attaches to Bemis's Heights-fully one mile and a quarter south of the battleground-is, that they were the headquarters of Gates during, and a short time
1 " I will bring the rascals back with me into line," exclaimed Gates, as the militia broke and fled at Camden and, leaving Kalb to bear the brunt of the attack, he spurred after them, not drawing rein till he reached Charlotte, sixty miles from the field of battle." Greene's German Element in the War of the American Revolution.
" The heroic bronze statue of General Gates in the north niche of the Saratoga Monument at Schuylerville, N. Y., represents him as holding a spy-glass in one of his hands. The committee having the matter in charge, put the spy-glass in especially to symbolize the conduct of Gates as noted in the text.
[ 31 ]
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
previous, to the battle. This action of the 7th of October is called by writers on the subject, variously, the " Battle of Stillwater," "Bemis Heights " and "Saratoga." 1
At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 8th, before daybreak, Burgoyne left his position, now utterly untenable, and defiled on to the meadows by the river where were his supply trains; but was obliged to delay his retreat until the evening, because his hospital could not be sooner removed. He wished, also, to avail himself of the dark- ness. The Americans immediately moved forward and took posses- sion of the abandoned camp. Burgoyne, having concentrated his forces upon some heights which were strong by nature, and covered by a ravine running parallel with the entrenchments of his late camp and the river, a random fire of artillery and small arms was kept up through the day, particularly on the part of the German chasseurs and the Provincials. The former, stationed in coverts of the ravine kept up an annoying fire upon every one crossing their line of vision, and it was by a shot from one of these lurking parties that General Lincoln was severely wounded in the leg while riding near the line. It was evident from the movements of the British that they were pre- paring to retreat; but the American troops, having, in the delirium of their joy consequent upon their victory, neglected to draw and eat their rations, and being withal not a little fatigued with their two days' exertions fell back to their camp which had been left standing in the morning. Retreat was, indeed, the only alternative left to the British commander, since it was now quite certain that he could not cut his way through the American army, and his supplies were re- duced to a short allowance for five days.
Meanwhile, in addition to the chagrin of defeat, a deep gloom per- vaded the British camp. The gallant and beloved Fraser, the life and soul of the army, lay dying in the little farm-house on the river bank occupied by Mrs. General Riedesel.
General Fraser had been borne off the field supported by two sol- diers, one on each side of his horse. "When he arrived in camp," says Lamb, whom we have before so often quoted. "the officers all anxiously inquired as to his wound, but the downcast look and melan- choly that were visible to every one too plainly spoke his situation,
It may not, perhaps, be considered indelicate on my part, to state that I believe that my his- tory of these two battles-fortified by these maps and my researches in Germany-are generally considered by all historians as the authority on this subject.
251
GENERAL FRASER'S DEATH.
and all the answer he could make to the many enquiries, was a shake of his head, expressive that all was over with him. So much was he beloved, that even the women flocked round, solicitous for his fate. When he reached his tent and was recovered a little from the faint- ness occasioned by the loss of blood, he told those around him that he saw the man who shot him; he was a rifleman and aimed from a tree. After the surgeon had dressed his wound he said to him very com- posedly, 'Tell me, to the best of your skill and judgment, if you think my wound is mortal ?' When he replied, 'I am sorry, sir, to inform you that it is, and that you cannot possibly live more than twenty- four hours,' the General called for a pen, ink and paper, and after making his will and distributing a few little tokens to the officers of his suite, desired that he might be removed to the general hospital."
Mrs. General Riedesel, whose "charming blue eyes," General Wil- kinson says he has often seen bedimmed with tears at the recital of his sufferings-has deseribed the last scene in the life of this unfortu- nate officer with such unaffected pathos, that I give it in her own words, simply premising that on the previous day she had expected Bur- goyne, Phillips and Fraser to dine with her after their return from the reconnoissance of the morning.'
Mrs. Riedesel says: "About four o'clock in the afternoon, instead of the guests who were to have dined with us, they brought unto me, upon a litter, poor General Fraser mortally wounded. Our dining table, which was already spread, was taken away and, in its place they fixed up a bed for the General. I sat in the corner of the room trembling and quaking. * I heard him often, amidst his groans, exclaim, 'Oh fatal ambition! Poor General Burgoyne! My poor wife ! *
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