USA > Vermont > The Lake Champlain and Lake George valleys, Vol. I > Part 23
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results were not as planned. The use of Indians proved to be unwise. Redskins had been employed by both sides in the French wars to ter- rorize the countryside, but in that case the hostility, in addition to being political, had been augmented by differences of nationality and fanned by religious hatred. The Revolution was a conflict of a dif- ferent order and the rules were refined by public opinion.
When Burgoyne finally held a conference with his Indians at Willsboro he made an attempt to limit their barbarities, it is true, but, as could easily be foreseen, his platitudes were worthless in check- ing savage passion. To them he said: "I positively forbid blood- shed, when you are not opposed in arms. Aged men, women, chil- dren and prisoners, must be held sacred from the knife and hatchet, even in the time of actual conflict. You shall receive compensation for the prisoners you take, but you shall be called to account for scalps. In conformity and indulgence of your customs, which have affixed an idea of honor to such badges of victory, you shall be allowed to take the scalps of the dead, when killed by your fire and in fair opposition ; but on no account or pretence, or subtilty, or prevarication, are they to be taken from the wounded, or even dying; and still less pardon- able, if possible, will it be held, to kill men in that condition, on pur- pose, and upon a supposition that this protection to the wounded would be thereby evaded. Base, lurking assassins, incendiaries, rav- agers and plunderers of the country, to whatever army they may belong, shall be treated with less reserve; but the latitude must be given you by order, and I must be the judge on the occasion. Should the enemy, on their parts, dare to countenance acts of barbarity towards those who fall into their hands, it shall be yours also to retaliate."
Burgoyne's admonitions to the Indians were as productive of results as a dog's barking at the moon. Such a dignified exhortation was not incisive enough to impress the savage mind. The red men signified their acceptance of Burgoyne's inhibitions, but if they wished to dis- regard the suggestions they could find a loophole in the last sentence quoted. On the other hand, if the general had been more positive in his prohibitions, his dusky allies would have melted away into the wilderness and his forces would have been decreased in proportion. As in the case of Montcalm at the battle of Lake George in the French and Indian War, he was to find that the red man might be a liability as well as an asset. Without realizing it, he was traveling
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on the wings of a hurricane. He was playing with fire and was going to get his fingers burned. In the English House of Commons, Burke fell back on sarcasm to attack Burgoyne's speech to the Indians, whom he compared to the animals kept in the Tower of London. That great orator said : "Suppose there was a riot on London Hill. What would the keeper of His Majesty's lions do? Would he not fling open the dens of the wild beasts, and then address them thus ? ‘My gentle lions-my humane bears-my tender-hearted hyenas, go forth ! But I exhort you, as you are Christians and members of civilized society, to take care not to hurt any man, woman, or child.'"
Assisting Burgoyne were a group of well known and experienced officers. Major-General William Phillips, an artilleryman of thirty years' service, had won great distinction on the battlefields of Europe. He was an extremely able man and knew it, his vanity being so great that Thomas Jefferson called him "the proudest man of the proudest nation on earth." Probably the most famous of the English officers, however, was a brigadier named Simon Fraser, destined to meet an untimely and dramatic death on the battlefields of Saratoga. He had served under Wolfe at Louisburg and at Quebec, and as he now, at forty-eight, started out on this ill-fated campaign he was at the crest of a distinguished military career. The German mercenaries were under the command of Baron von Riedesel, an extremely capable and tactful officer, with more experience in leading armies than Burgoyne himself. From out of Germany came his wife and three little girls to join him. At present they remained behind in Canada, but so strong were the ties of love and family devotion that they joined the Baron just before Bennington. The story of the experiences of the Baroness Frederica and her three little daughters aged six, three, and a year and a half as they endured the hardships of Burgoyne's camp is interesting, while her comments and observations concerning life at the camp are even more entertaining. Under Riedesel, there were two German officers of note : Lieutenant-Colonels von Breymann and Baum. Although today we bracket their names together, there was intense bitterness between them as they led their separate detachments of Burgoyne's army southward. The Canadian forces were very small, but Lanaudière was an officer among them. The Tories were commanded by John Peters, a Vermonter, while two other officers, the Jessup brothers, came from the Glens Falls area. The Indians
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were led by the great Saint-Luc de la Corne, and by Langlade after Burgoyne's army arrived at Skenesborough. Langlade had won ever- lasting fame as the man who had prepared the ambush for Braddock's army in the great French and Indian War. Important as he was regarded, however, he was more or less eclipsed by the remarkable Saint-Luc de la Corne, a veteran of fifty years experience in border warfare, who, by virtue of numerous raids made in the French wars, was very much at home in the territory between Burgoyne's army and Albany. Having been imprisoned by the Americans for fourteen months, he was determined to get even. In all of the early border history we cannot find a man whose name was capable of inspiring so much terror in the minds of English settlers as the name of this master of savage barbarity. Attached to the English Army as a sort of local political adviser to Burgoyne was still another inter- esting personality, our old acquaintance, Philip Skene, who had been a leader in the attempt to make a separate Colony of Vermont before the outbreak of the war, and who had, after the opening of hostilities, incurred the devastating animosity of the Green Moun- tain Boys. He was destined to give Burgoyne much advice, which was to have an important bearing on the outcome of the campaign. The number of guns comprising the British artillery reached the astonishing total of one hundred and thirty-eight, while the quantity of baggage and supplies carried along to satisfy the needs of the soldiers, and more particularly the whims of the officers, especially Burgoyne himself, was also amazing.
Considering it as a whole, the English Army was a curious hodge- podge. The German troops were mercenaries, uninterested in the outcome of the war. Neither they nor the English soldiers knew much about wilderness fighting. The Tories, Canadians, and Indians were versed in that type of warfare, but their numbers were insuffi- cient; and inspiration was lacking, except among the Tories. The presence of the Germans and the Indians tended to arouse and stiffen the backbone of the Americans. Baum and Breymann hated each other more than they disliked their opposing commanders. As for Phillips, officers who believe the work at hand to be beneath their dig- nity remind us too much of Braddock and that axiom about pride coming before a fall. In addition to all this, the conglomeration was commanded by a man utterly unadapted to a wilderness cam-
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paign, completely disdainful of his opponents and of the business before him, and determined to enjoy himself at all costs. This accu- rately describes the army and its leaders, as the unwieldy force began the journey up Lake Champlain. As it sailed southward with bands playing, flags waving, and boats filled with gaudy uniforms dotting the lake, the scene somewhat resembled the appearance of Abercrom- bie's equally disastrous expedition making its way down Lake George in the French and Indian War. Captain Thomas Aubrey described Burgoyne's army as it set out up the lake as follows: "When in the widest part of the lake it was remarkably fine and clear, not a breeze stirring, when the whole army appeared at one view in such perfect regularity as to form the most complete and splendid regatta ever beheld. In the front the Indians went in their birch canoes con- taining twenty or thirty in each; then followed the 'Royal George' and the 'Inflexible,' towing large booms which are to be thrown across two points of land, with the other brigs and sloops following; after them the brigades in their order."
Meanwhile, let us turn to the American fortress at Ticonderoga and see what was happening there as Burgoyne and his incongruous forces were sailing to the fray. Immediately we find the usual friction and antagonism always existing among Americans of the Revolution- ary era. New Yorkers and New Englanders were squabbling among themselves fully as much as in the past. The raw wounds of the quarrel over Vermont were very much in evidence, while the funda- mental cleavage between the Dutch aristocracy in New York and the English democracy in the rival states was as apparent as ever. This not only interfered with the chances of presenting maximum patriot strength on the fields of battle, but also made the selection of commanders difficult. The Continental Congress was notoriously governed by political considerations in selecting generals, and now geographic considerations entered into the hiring and firing of com- manders. New England delegates voted in favor of officers from their own states and the other geographic sections did likewise. This situation led to military instability in the Champlain Valley.
Since the beginning of the war, the command of the Northern Department had been in the hands of Philip Schuyler, a New Yorker. General Gates intrigued with the politicians to get the position for himself. Perceiving that much of the opposition to Schuyler came
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from New England, he made it a point to win the favor of the leaders from those states, and in this he succeeded with the result that he dis- placed Schuyler in March, 1777. His victory was short-lived, how- ever, for Congress, with its usual vacillation, soon changed its mind and restored the command to the New Yorker in May, two months later. Schuyler offered to let Gates have charge of Ticonderoga, but the latter was unwilling to serve under his rival, preferring instead to hurry to Philadelphia to mend his political fences once more. There is no intention at this point to make a decision concerning these two generals, regarding their rights to the command. Gates finally attained his proper place in history, which was not extremely high. Schuyler, although a patriotic, high-minded, courageous leader, was not a master of the intricacies of military art, nor was his cold, aristo- cratic personality one calculated to win the affection of the soldiers from New England. Of the two, Schuyler clearly deserves the bet- ter place in history; but the main point here is not who should have been in command of the Northern Department, but rather the mili- tary instability produced by the sudden changes of commanders. After Gates declined the appointment to the secondary command at Ticonderoga, Arthur St. Clair was appointed. He reached the fort- ress less than three weeks before the appearance of Burgoyne's army, too late to accomplish much. In fact, he assumed command just in time to shoulder the unpleasant responsibility of turning Ticonderoga over to the enemy. St. Clair was a capable general who did not deserve such hard luck, but the whims of fate are often beyond understanding. He had distinguished himself in the French wars at Louisburg and Quebec. During the Revolution he had added to his military stature by virtue of his services to the patriot cause in 1776 in Canada and at Ticonderoga, and he had been one of Washington's most valuable advisers in the New Jersey campaign. Now at the height of his prestige, he had the bad luck to find himself in an impossible situation. He had several decisions to make in the days ahead of him and it is easy to question some of them, but he was doomed to surrender Ticonderoga in any case.
The political instability of the military command was thus an important cause of the weakness of the patriot defense, but it was far from being the only one. There was a lack of foodstuffs and defenders as well, a situation largely explained by the sectional strife.
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It is true that Ticonderoga was difficult to provision, situated as it was, rather distant from the sources of supply; and it is also true that the unusually rainy spring of 1777 had made this problem worse than usual because of the terrible condition of the roads; but if there had been a will there would have been a way. When sectional feel- ing became so rampant that Pennsylvania and Massachusetts troops engaged in a riot culminating in gunshots and wounds, it is easy to understand why New Englanders were reluctant to send supplies to a fortress situated within the borders of New York. Even if the American leaders had summoned more militia to the Champlain Val- ley, there would not have been food supplies sufficient to feed the men.
At the end of June there were only about two thousand infantry- men and three hundred artillerymen fit for duty at the American camp. Before the fort was surrendered nine hundred of the militia arrived, but even with this addition, St. Clair's army was inadequate. The defenses were so elaborate-extending more than two miles and a half-that ten thousand men were really needed. In addition to the works on the western shore, St. Clair had to consider not only Mount Independence on the Vermont side and Mount Hope west of the old French lines, but could well have given more thought to Mount Defiance to the south. Concerning the value of the possession of Mount Independence there was no argument. It rose above the defenses on the western shore and guarded the route to Skenes- borough. St. Clair certainly had to assign it a leading place in his plans. On the other hand, although Mount Hope guarded the Lake George route, this hill was far enough away from the main garrison that there was no hope of successfully defending that post against a strong attack.
No attempt was made to fortify Mount Defiance. The impor- tance of this omission has been the subject of much disagreement. Some writers have pictured the rugged eminence towering almost over the walls of the fort; others have relegated it to an obscure background. Both views are distorted. It certainly was not near enough to the main American works to enable an enemy to recognize acquaintances within and carry on a conversation by any means. Even Gates would have realized the importance of fortifying the hill under such obvious conditions. The old guns were far from being as power- ful as our modern artillery, and it is easy for present-day writers to
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exaggerate the damage possible from the cannon used in that day. On the other hand, it is also wrong to claim that Mount Defiance possessed no value from a military standpoint. A young Connecticut officer, named John Trumbull, demonstrated its importance by firing shot from the works at Mount Independence almost to the summit of Mount Defiance, while firing from the old French lines attained even better results. If shot could be fired from the American works so successfully, certainly there was no natural law to prevent shells from the top of the eminence falling into the American position. Although shot from such a distance might not in those days have been extremely damaging, nevertheless, it would have been decidedly unpleasant and annoying, and certainly would not have increased the morale of the garrison. Many American officers-particularly Bene- dict Arnold-understood the danger of the enemy possessing Mount Defiance and recommended the construction of American fortifica- tions there, but they were unable to convince their superiors. When Burgoyne's trained engineers approached, it did not take them long to realize its value and obtain possession. Also, when St. Clair saw the British on its summit, he lost no time in deciding to withdraw. A knowledge of the geography of Ticonderoga and its environs sup- ports the results of Trumbull's demonstration and the conclusions of Arnold, and Burgoyne's officers. There is no question but that Mount Defiance commanded the water routes to the south but the American works as well. Too much fault, however, should not be found with St. Clair. His forces were so small, his problems so numerous and his appointment so recent that he might be pardoned the important omission in the American defense plans.' Rather should the blame be assigned to others, particularly Gates, who was present at Ticon- deroga at the time of Trumbull's demonstration and who had the authority necessary to order the required work to be done. The excuse given by American commanders for their failure to fortify Mount Defiance was that its slopes were so rugged that it was sup- posed no invading force could scale it and drag guns to its summit. Unless the eminence has decreased greatly in size since 1777, it is difficult for a layman to determine what there was to prevent its occu- pation. Some of the American officers had served under Wolfe at Quebec when he had scaled the Heights of Abraham. Is is incon- ceivable that they should have regarded Mount Defiance as inacces- sible. Their excuse is indeed a lame one.
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Another serious difficulty facing St. Clair was that he and the other American generals were completely in the dark so far as British plans and movements were concerned. Howe had a large army in New York City. Washington and Gates can be pardoned for thinking that he intended to move up the Hudson. In addition, although it was known that Burgoyne was in Canada, the Americans had no knowledge of his plans in spite of the fact that his intentions were common talk among the residents of Montreal. At this stage of the war, the American espionage system was fearfully weak, and patriot plans were founded on guesswork. In this case Gates guessed cor- rectly that Burgoyne would advance by way of Lake Champlain; but Schuyler felt the route would be by way of the St. Lawrence, Ontario and then the Mohawk; while Congress decided that the enemy would sail to New York City to join Howe. So thorough were Burgoyne's Indians that St. Clair was not aware that the enemy was approaching until the redcoats were directly in front of him. In addition, Bur- goyne was supposed to have a maximum of five thousand men, so that, in any case, Ticonderoga would be reasonably secure against sudden seizure. The result was that the necessary reinforcements were not sent to St. Clair.
Among the American officers, none was of more interest than Major Benjamin Whitcomb, a leader of scouts who, in his own way, was attempting to carry on the traditions earned by Rogers and his rangers in the French wars. His exploits were legendary. He reasoned that one way of crippling the British was to shoot their officers, and on one occasion he mortally wounded an enemy general. This affair stunned the British commanders. There are some things that are just not done even in time of war, and the generals clearly regarded it as unethical for themselves to be shot at.
This completes the picture of the two contending forces as Bur- goyne set out up the Champlain Valley in the general direction of Ticonderoga. On both sides there were glaring weaknesses, as we have observed. Given enough men to occupy the patriot defenses and Mount Defiance, it is difficult to see how the cocky Burgoyne with his uninspired Germans, unstable Indians, and Britishers untrained for wilderness fighting, could have captured Ticonderoga in the face of united Colonial effort. On the other hand, the American position was so woefully weak and the morale so poor that Burgoyne faced
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but flimsy opposition. The story of the taking of Ticonderoga is primarily a record of mistakes, omissions and errors of judgment. Added to this, both armies were operating very much in the dark, speaking from the military point of view. We have referred to the fact that St. Clair, Washington and the remainder of the patriot lead- ers had no knowledge whatever of British plans and movements. And it must be confessed that Burgoyne was just as completely in the dark concerning the movements of Howe, who was expected to join him.
From the British camp at Boquet Ferry on June twentieth, there came a proclamation from Burgoyne addressed to the American set- tlers soliciting assistance, offering protection to the friendly, promis- ing dire punishment to those who resisted, and listing all manner of crimes attributed to the rebels : "To those whom spirit and principle may induce to partake the glorious task of redeeming their Country- men from Dungeons, and reestablishing the blessings of legal Gov- ernment I offer encouragement and employment; and upon the first intelligence of their associations I will find means to assist their under- takings. The domestick, the industrious, the infirm and even the timid inhabitants I am desirous to protect provided they remain quietly at their Houses, that they do not suffer their Cattle to be removed, nor their corn or forage to be secreted or destroyed, that they do not break up their Bridges or roads; nor by any other acts directly or indirectly endeavor to obstruct the operations of the Kings troops, or supply or assist those of the enemy.
"Every species of Provision brought to my camp will be paid for at an equitable rate and in solid Coin.
"In consciousness of Christianity, my Royal Master's clemency, and the honor of Soldiership, I have dwelt upon this invitation, and wished for more persuasive terms to give it impression; and let not people be led to disregard it by considering their distance from the immediate situation of my Camp. I have but to give stretch to the Indian Forces under my direction, and they amount to thousands, to overtake the harden'd enemies of Great Britain and America (I con- sider them the same) wherever they may lurk. If notwithstanding these endeavours, and sincere inclinations to effect them, the phrenzy of hostility should remain, I trust I shall stand acquitted in the Eyes of God and Men in denouncing and executing the vengeance of the
C & G-16
(Courtesy of the Champlain Valley Council )
AUSABLE CHASM
For a full two miles or more the waters of the Ausable tumble over mighty ledges and through roaring rapids or flow placidly along as if in tribute to the stately grandeur and charm of those great prehistoric sentinels which guard their jour- ney to the sea.
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state against the wilful outcasts. The messengers of justice and of wrath await them in the field, and devastation, famine, and every concomitant horror that a reluctant but indispensable prosecution of military duty must occasion, will bar the way to their return."
Thus did Burgoyne attempt to bully the Colonists into submission at the same time he held out the olive branch. His threats of Indian terror are particularly interesting in view of later developments. His pious hope of divine approval of his contemplated ravages shows apparently that he realized that the redskins might tarnish his soul somewhat. In general, Burgoyne's proclamation accomplished little. Part of the population accepted his offer, and in the territory between Lake George and the Hudson a majority of the people were to be found favoring the British; but the bulk of the inhabitants-at least in Vermont-remained loyal to the patriot cause. Burgoyne's reac- tion to Vermonters was stated by him thus: "The New Hampshire Grants in particular, a country unpeopled in the last war, now abounds in the most active and most rebellious race on the continent, and hangs like a gathering storm on my left."
The progress of the British Army sailing up Lake Champlain was leisurely but rough. Rain and high winds constituted an annoyance. Burgoyne seemed to be in no hurry anyway. Crown Point was finally reached on June twenty-seventh, while the advance was con- tinued on July first. The royal forces now forged ahead in three divi- sions : the right wing under General Phillips marching along the west- ern shore; the left wing under Riedesel making its way along the eastern side in the direction of Mount Independence; while the center under Burgoyne remained on the lake. The day was bright and clear. There was not a cloud in the sky as the British commander peered toward the south. This was just as true in the military sense as in the natural. His armed hosts radiated both color and confidence, and appeared as much on holiday parade as on a mission of war. The carefree soldiers and their jaunty commander moved leisurely onward until when within four miles of the famous fortress the division in the center landed.
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