USA > New York > Washington County > Washington county, New York; its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 31
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As soon as this introduction was over the other captive generals and their suites repaired to the cabin which constituted the headquar- ters of Gates, where they were received with the greatest courtesy, and with the consideration due to brave but unfortunate men. After Riedesel had been presented to Gates, Morgan and other American officers, he sent for his wife and children. It is to this circumstance that we owe the portraiture of a lovely trait in General Schuyler's character. "In our passage through the American camp," the Bar- oness writes, " I observed with great satisfaction, that no one cast at 11s a scornful glance. On the contrary, they all greeted me, even
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BRITISH RECEIVE GENEROUS TREATMENT.
showing compassion on their countenances at seeing a mother with her little children in such a condition. I confess I feared to come in- to the enemy's camp, as the thing was so entirely new to me. When I approached the tents a noble looking man came toward me and took the children out of the wagon, embraced and kissed them, and then, with tears in his eyes, helped me to alight. He then led me to the tent of General Gates, with whom I found Generals Burgoyne and Phillips who were upon an extremely friendly footing with him. Presently, the man who had received me so kindly, came up and said to me: " It may be embarrassing to you to dine with all these gentle- men; come now with your children into my tent, where I will give you, it is true, a frugal meal, but one that will be accompanied by the best of wishes.' 'You are certainly,' answered I, 'a husband and father, since you show me so much kindness.' I then learned that he was the American General Schuyler."
The English and German generals dined with the American com- mander in his cabin on boards laid across barrels. The dinner, which was served upon four dishes, consisted only of ordinary viands, the Americans at this period being accustomed to plain and frugal meals. The drink, on this occasion, was cider and rum mixed with water. Burgoyne appeared in excellent humor. To General Morgan he talked a great deal and spoke very flatteringly of the Americans, remarking, among other things, that he admired the number, dress and discipline of their army and, above all, the decorum and regularity that were ob- served. "Your funds of men," he said to Gates, "are inexhaustible. Like the Hydra's head, when cut off, seven more spring up in its stead."
He also proposed a toast to General Washington, an attention that Gates returned by drinking the health of the King of England. The conversation on both sides was unrestrained, affable and free. In- deed, the conduet of Gates, throughout, after the terms of the surren- der had been adjusted, was marked with equal delicacy and magna- nimity, as Burgoyne himself admitted in a letter to the Earl of Derby. In that letter, the captain-general particularly mentioned one circum- stance which, he said, exceeded all he had seen or read of on a like occasion. It was, that when the British soldiers had marched out of their camp to the place where they were to pile their arms, not a man of the American troops was to be seen; General Gates having ordered his whole army out of sight, that not one of them should be a spectator
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of the humiliation of the British troops. This was a refinement of delicacy and of military generosity and politeness reflecting the high- est credit upon the conqueror, and was spoken of by the officers of Burgoyne in the strongest terms of approbation.
As the company rose from the table, the Royal army filed past in their march to the seaboard, the American bands striking up "Yan- kee Doodle." Thereupon, by preconcerted arrangement, the gener- als stepped out, and Burgoyne, drawing his sword, presented it in the presence of the two armies to General Gates. The latter received it with a courteous bow and immediately returned it to the vanquished general. Colonel Trumbull has graphically depicted this scene in one of his paintings in the rotunda of the capitol at Washington.
General Schuyler, as we have seen, was in the camp with Gates at the time of the surrender; and when Burgoyne, with his general offi- cers, arrived in Albany, they were the guests of Mrs. General Schuy- ler by whom they were treated with great hospitality. The urbanity of General and Mrs. Schuyler's manners, and the chivalric magna- nimity of his character, smarting as he was, under the extent and severity of his pecuniary losses, are attested by General Burgoyne, himself, in his speech in 1778, in the British House of Commons. He said further, that one of the first persons he saw, after the " Conven- tion " was signed, was General Schuyler; and when expressing to him his regret at the burning of his mansion, General Schuyler desired him "to think no more of it, and that the occasion justified it accord- ing to the rules of war." "He did more, " continued Burgoyne, " He sent an aide-de-camp1 to conduct me. to Albany, in order, as he ex- pressed it, to procure better quarters than a stranger might be able to find. That gentleman conducted me to a very elegant house and, to my great surprise, presented me to Mrs. Schuyler and her family. In that house I remained during my whole stay in Albany, with a table of more than twenty covers for me and my friends, and every other demonstration of hospitality." "
1 The late Colonel Richard Varick, then the military secretary of General Schuyler.
2 During Mrs. Riedesel's stay at Albany, as the guest of General and Mrs. Schuyler, one of her little girls, on first coming into the house, exclaimed, "Oh mamma ! Is this the palace papa was to have when he came to America?" As the Schuyler family understood German, Madame Riedesel colored at the remark, which, however, was pleasantly got over. Life of Peter Van Schaick.
When I was in Germany in 1857, I arrived there about a month, only, after the death of this very little girl who made the above remark and who had become a grandmother with a large num-
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CHARACTER OF BURGOYNE.
General Burgoyne, until his unfortunate campaign, stood very high in his profession. He had made a brilliant record on the banks of the Tagus for dash, as well as judgment, under the eye of a master in the art of war, the famous Count Schaumberg Lippe, who had been selected by Frederick the Great to save the Kingdom of Portugal, on the very verge of ruin. He also added to a prepossessing exterior. the polished manners and keen sagacity of a courtier. He was like- wise witty and brave. But personal courage alone does not constitute a commander; for of a commander other qualities are expected, espec- ially experience and presence of mind. Burgoyne, in all his under- takings, was hasty and self-willed. Desiring to do everything him- self, he rarely consulted with others, and yet he never knew how to keep a plan secret. While in a subordinate position, although con- tinually carping at his military superiors and complaining of his in- ferior position, yet when given a separate command, he was guilty of the same faults which he had reprehended in others. Being a great sybarite he often neglected the duties of a general, as well toward his king as his subordinates. He could easily make light of everything, provided he was eating a good meal, or was with his mistress, and while he was enjoying his champagne and choice food his army suf- fered the keenest want. Thus, immediately after the capitulation; he could eat and drink with the enemy's generals, and talk with the greatest ease of the most important events.
Soon after the surrender he returned to England and justly threw the failure of the expedition upon the ministry. Nor can there be any doubt that, had he been properly supported, he would, despite his mistakes, have reached Albany; since, in that case, Gates would not have been at Bemus' Heights, with an army to oppose him. Mr. Fon- blanque, in his " Life of Burgoyne," draws particular attention for the first time, to a fact that throws entirely new light on the apparent failure of Howe, and clears up all that has hitherto seemed mysterious and contradictory. Orders, fully as imperative as those to Burgoyne,
ber of descendants. I had intended to call on her, and was greatly disappointed to find she had died so recently before my visiting Germany. I mention this circumstance merely to show how near these old Revolutionary times are to our own not so very far distant !
1 The correct spelling, and not Bemis as is generally supposed. My authority for this is Hon. Hugh Hastings, (State Historian for New York) who wrote me a few days since, that in his late researches, he had come across the signature of Jotham Bemus-the owner of the Heights- in which he writes his name Bemus.
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were to have been sent to Howe, but, owing to the carelessness of Germaine-who preferred going to a good dinner in Kent to waiting a few moments to append his signature-they were pigeon-holed in London where they were found, after the Convention at Saratoga, carefully docketed and only wanting the signature of the minister. Hence, Howe acted on the discretionary orders sent to him previously and concluded to go to Philadelphia instead of to Albany-merely telling Clinton that, if other reinforcements came meanwhile from England, he might make a diversion in favor of Burgoyne. Primar- ily, then, the failure of the expedition was due to the gross negligence of the war-minister, though the failure of Howe does not excuse the blunders through which Burgoyne lost his army in the retreat. It should, however, be stated in justice to the British General that, in arranging the campaign with the King, he expressly stipulated and insisted on it most strenuously that his success depended upon Howe's co-operation.
Burgoyne, however, was perhaps, not so much to blame for the dis- mal failure of his " Expedition." Thus, Colonel Montressor in his Jour- nal (published in Vol. XIV' of the Historical Society Collection, new series) in commenting upon the reasons of the failure of British arms in America, among other criticisms writes: "The sending of Bur- goyne on a route where he never had been, nor knew nothing of, commanding officer of the artillery, a parade man. neither knew American service, clogged with a needless heavy train of artillery. No engineer that had ever been there before, no plans, etc., of all absurd things, dividing that little army, one division with Lieutenant Leger and the other with Skene, two madmen."
On his first arrival in England he was received very coldly by the court and people, the King refusing to see him; but upon a change in the Ministry he regained somewhat of his former popularity. In 1780, he appeared before the public in a vindication of himself in a work entitled the State of the Expedition. Subsequently, he wrote several popular comedies, and was one of the managers of the impeachment of Lord Hastings. He did not live, however, to see the result of that trial, as he died on the 4th of August, 1797, and was buried in West- minster Abbey.'
In regard to General Gates, the same incapacity which afterward
1 There were rumors at the time that he died of poison, self-administered, from chagrin at his failure in life. But these rumors appear to me to be without any foundation.
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CHARACTER OF GATES.
became so apparent in his unfortunate southern campaign, was mani- fested from the time of his assuming the command of the Northern army until the surrender. It was, perhaps, no fault of his that he had been placed in command at the North, just at the auspicious mo- inent when the discomfiture of Burgoyne was no longer problemati- cal.1 He was ordered by Congress to the station and performed his duty passably well. But it is no less true, that the laurels won by him ought to have been worn by Schuyler. Colonel Wilkinson, who was a member of Gates's military family, has placed this question in its true aspect. He maintains, in his Memoirs, that not only had the army of Burgoyne been essentially disabled by the defeat of the Ger- mans at Bennington before the arrival of Gates, but that the repulse of St. Leger at Fort Stanwix had deranged his plans, while safety had been restored to the western frontier and the panic, thereby caused, had subsided. He likewise maintains that after the reverses at the North. nowise attributed to him, and before the arrival of Gates, the zeal, patriotism and sanitary arrangements of General Schuyler had vanquished the prejudices excited against him; that by the defeat of Baum and St. Leger, Schuyler had been enabled to con- centrate and oppose his whole Continental force against the main body of the enemy, and that by him, also, before the arrival of Gen- eral Gates, the friends of the Revolution had been re-animated and excited to manly resistance, while the adherents of the Royal cause were intimidated, and had shrunk into silence and inactivity. From these premises, which are indisputable, it is no more than a fair de- duction to say " that the same force which enabled Gates to subdue the British army, would have produced a similar effect under the orders of General Schuyler; since the operations of the campaign did not involve a single instance of professional skill, and the triumph of the American arms was accomplished by the physical force and valor of the troops UNDER THE PROTECTION AND DIRECTION OF THE GOD OF BATTLES. " "
' And yet, I am not entirely sure of this statement, for Gates undoubtedly intrigued in Con- gress to have himself supersede Schuyler. Therefore, in the text, it will be observed, I say " perhaps."
2 " A Thanksgiving sermon," says Lamb, " was preached on the occasion of the surrender before the American army by the chaplain [Timothy Dwight, afterwards President of Yale Col- legej from Joel I1, 20th. "But i will remove far from you the Northern Army and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the East sea and his hinder part toward the utinost sea, and his ill savor shall come up because he hath done great things."
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Gates was a man of great plausibility and address and, withal, a handsome fellow and a great lion in society. It. is, therefore, not sur- prising, that, flushed with his fortuitous success, or rather with the success attending his fortuitous position, he did not wear his honors with any remarkable meekness. On the contrary, his bearing toward the commander-in-chief was far from respectful. He did not even write to Washington on the occasion until after a considerable time had elapsed. In the first instance, Wilkinson was sent, as the bearer of dispatches to Congress, but did not reach that body until fifteen days after the articles of capitulation had been signed, and three days more were occupied in arranging the papers before they were pre- sented.1 The first mention which Washington makes of the defeat of Burgoyne is contained in a letter written to his brother on the 18th of October, the news having been communicated to him by Governor Clinton. He spoke of the event again on the 19th in a letter addressed to General Putnam. On the 25th in a letter written to that officer he acknowledges the reception of a copy of the articles of capitulation from him-adding, that it was the first authentic intelligence he had received "of the affair," and that he had begun to grow uneasy and almost to suspect that the previous accounts were premature. Nor was it until the end of November that Gates deigned to communicate to the Commander-in-chief a word upon the subject, and then only incidentally, as though it were a matter of secondary importance .? '
Gates's treatment of Morgan, also, was on the same line. Notwith- standing the splendid service he had rendered at the Battle of October 7th, his name had only a passing notice in the early dispatches, and was not even mentioned in Gates's official account of the surrender to which he ( Morgan) had so largely contributed.
This sudden fall from the General's favor was remarked by the offi- cers, as Gates had given Morgan unmistakable proofs of his confi- dence and esteem from the moment of his arrival in camp. Morgan kept silent, and the matter remained a mystery at the time, but it was afterward satisfactorily explained.
" Immediately after the surrender, Morgan visited Gates on busi-
1 " It was on this occasion that one of the members of Congress made a motion, that they should compliment Colonel Wilkinson with the gift of a pair of spurs."-Sparks.
2 " The mills of the gods grind slowly, but exceedingly sure." So is it in regard to Gates. He has been relegated to a proper obscurity, whereas, Washington remains, as ever, in a bril- liant light, both to the present and probably, to all future generations.
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INCAPACITY OF GATES.
ness, when he was taken aside by that General and confidentially in- formed that the main army was extremely disatisfied with the con- duet of the war by the commander-in-chief, and that several of the best officers threatened to resign unless a change took place. Morgan perfectly comprehended the motives of Gates, although he did not then know of the correspondence he had been holding with Conway, and he sternly replied : " I have one favor to ask of you, sir, which is never to mention that detestable subject to me again; for under no other man than Washington, as Commander-in-chief, would I ever serve." A day or two after the foregoing interchange of views, Gen- eral Gates gave a dinner [in Albany] to the principal officers of the British army, to which a number of American officers were also in- vited. Morgan was not among the number. Before the evening was over, this petty indignity recoiled upon its author. Morgan had occa- sion to see Gates upon official business. He was accordingly ushered into the dining-room, where the guests still sat at the table. Having attended to the matter in hand, he was about to withdraw, without even the empty ceremony of an introduction. Struck, however, by the commanding figure and noble mein of the Colonel, the guests en- quired his name and, learning that it was Colonel Morgan, the British officers left the table, and, following him, took him by the hand, made themselves known to him, frankly declaring, at the same time, that they had felt him 'severely in the field," whereas they had only a dining-room acquaintance with Gates!
Indeed, General Carrington, one of the ablest and most careful of the writers on the American Revolution, says: "Gates had no power in action, and there is not a redeeming fact during his connection with the Southern army to show his fitness to command troops." It has been seen that he participated actively in one part of the opera- tions near Saratoga until the morning of August nth, 1777. Confid- ing in numbers, and neglecting reconnoissances, he then imperiled his army by foreing several brigades across Fishkill creek, while re- maining in the rear himself. Just as he plunged, says de Peyster, like a reckless incapable into the champ-clos, or lists of Camden.
Gates, as de Peyster further adds, did nothing but talk, and he was great at that. Gates was actually arguing with a dying English offi- cer and aggravating him, a mortally wounded prisoner, while Arnold
Graham's Life of Morgan, also Dr. Hill's MSS.
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and Morgan were winning for him the final ba Saratoga, an exploit which must have chagrined Gates to the uttermost, since noth- ing was further from his mind than to afford Arnold an opportunity to win any glory whatever. The American people accepted Gates as a hero through ignorance, just as an untutored negro accepts a bone with a feather stuck in it for a god.
Transferred three years afterward (by a cabal in Congress) to the chief command of the Southern Department, his disastrous defeat and irresolute, not to say cowardly, conduct soon pricked the bubble of his ephemeral reputation and, after living in comparative obscurity for several years on his farm in Virginia, he died in the city of New York, April 10th, 1806.
Congress, in the first flush of its gratitude, decreed that Gates should be presented with a medal of gold to be struck expressly in commemoration of so glorious a victory. On one side of it was the bust of the general with these words around it : Horatio Gates, duci strenuo, and in the middle Comitia Americana. On the reverse Burgoyne was represented in the attitude of delivering his sword, and in the background, on the one side and on the other, were seen the two armies of England and America. At the top were these words: Salus regionem Septentrional, and at the foot, Hoste ad Saratogam in deditione accepta. Die NU'II Oct. M. D. CCLXXVII.
The Battle of Saratoga has justly been designated by Sir Edward Creasy, as "one of the fifteen decisive battles of history." It secured for the American Colonies the French alliance, and lifted the cloud of moral and financial gloom that had settled upon the hearts of the peo- ple, dampening the hopes of the leaders of the Revolution, and wringing despairing words even from the hopeful Washington. From that auspicious day, belief in the ultimate triumph of American liberty never abandoned the nation till it was realized and sealed four years later, almost to a day, in the final surrender of Yorktown.1
And as a considerable portion of this campaign was on the soil of Washington County, her residents are justified in having great pride in the final result.
1 A beautiful monument at S .huylerville, N. Y., commemorates the surrender of Burgoyne. It is as near as can conveniently be placed, to where the headquarters of Gates were situated, which witnessed the formal surrender of Burgoyne's sword and the unfurling, for the first time, of the stars and stripes.
It is true that a flag, intended for the stars and stripes, and made out of a white shirt and
Chat Stone
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DISPERSAL OF MILITIA.
CHAPTER XIX.
1777-1791.
THE MILITIA DISPERSE TO THEIR HOMES-SAD PLIGHT OF THE WHIGS-THEIR FARM> DESOLATED-A FORT OR BLOCK HOUSE BUILT AT NEW PERTH (SALEM)-A COURT- MARTIAL HELD TO PUNISH THOSE LUKEWARM TO THE CAUSE OF THE COLONIES- THE VERMONT CONTROVERSY-EFFORTS OF GOVERNOR GEORGE CLINTON TO OBTAIN FOR NEW YORK JURISDICTION OVER VERMONT-THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS- CLINTON'S FAILURE-END OF CONTROVERSY-VERMONT GIVES UP HER CLAIM TO CHARLOTTE COUNTY-IS ADMITTED INTO THE UNION-NAME OF CHARLOTTE CHANGED BY ACT OF NEW YORK LEGISLATURE TO THAT OF WASHINGTON COUNTY-COMMIS- SIGNERS SETTLE FINALLY THE BOUNDARY OF THE COUNTY.
As soon as the army of Burgoyne had departed for their quarters near Boston, the roads of Charlotte (Washington) county were filled with bands of. New England militia returning in triumph to their homes-all of them convinced that for the present, at least, the tide of war was turned from that section ; many of them believing that the war was virtually at an end. Most of the Whigs of Charlotte county, moreover, who had left their farms on account of the enemy's ad- vance, now returned and resumed their wonted vocations. There was also, a great increase of people who suddenly found that they had all along been on the side of the Colonies and who had only restrained their real (?) sentiments by reason of policy. They had, of course, been patriots in their inmost hearts all along! Those unlucky per- sons, however, who had been true to their principles throughout it all, and had openly esponsed the cause of the King, were glad in their turn, to make their escape from the wrath of their old neighbors; and very few of them ever returned to their former estates, except as members of desultory and marauding bands intent on the work of destruction and slaughter. Nor were the Whigs disposed to wage
some bits of red cloth from the petticoat of a soldier's wife, first floated on captured standards on the ramparts of Fort Stanwix (August 6th, 1777), but the "Stars and Stripes," as we now sec them except as to the number of the stars were first unfurled to grace the surrender at Sara- toga. See General J. Watts de Peyster's Justice to Schuyler. The Fort Stanwix fag is now (1900) in the possession of Mrs. Abram Lansing of Albany, N. V., a descendant of General Gansevoort, by whom it is justly cherished as a most precious relic.
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war with gloves. Officers styled "Commissioners of forfeiture" were appointed by the State, and the property of every Tory "who had committed any overt act, in favor of the King, or had openly advo- cated his cause, was promptly seized and confiscated." Their personal property, in these cases, was sold for what it would bring; but, as there was very little demand for their real estate, most of it was not sold until after the war. Some of the farms, however, were leased to those Whigs who were willing to run the risk of being marked out for special vengeance in case of another invasion. Still, notwithstanding the total collapse of the Expedition of General Burgoyne, the Whigs of Charlotte county were, nevertheless, in a sad plight. All those in the northern part of the county had been driven (as we have seen in the preceding chapters) from their home just before harvest and many of those in the southern part had abandoned their farms through a well founded fear of the enemy.' "Glory," as Johnson remarks, " was a good thing, but as winter approached, many of the patriotic inhabitants of Charlotte county [i. e. Washington] were at a loss where to get food to last them through the season."
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