whole army were depressed. It crippled his movements at a moment when it was all-important that he should go forward with celerity. St. Leger, whom he had sent by way of Oswego to invade the Mohawk Valley, was there, besieging Fort Schuyler on the site of Rome, and they were to meet as victors at Albany. His plans were frustrated; his hopes were destroyed. His troops had to be fed with provisions brought from England by way of Canada, over Lakes Champlain and George and a perilous land carriage, for gathering patriots were hovering about his rear. It was perilous for him to remain where he was, and more perilous for him to advance or retreat.

While these important events were occurring eastward of Schuyler's camp at Stillwater, equally important ones were happening westward of him. Brant had come from Canada in the spring of 1777, and in June was at the head of a band of Indian marauders on the head-waters of the Susquehanna. Brigadier-General Nicholas Herkimer was at the head of the Tryon county militia, and was instructed by Schuyler to watch and check any hostile movements of the Mohawk Chief, whose presence had put an end to the neutrality of his nation and of others of the Iroquois Confederacy. To assist the Whigs of Tryon county, a garrison commanded by Colonel Peter Gansevoort was placed in Fort Schuyler, which was reinforced by the regiment of Colonel Marinus Willett. Bateaux had just brought provisions up the Mohawk for the garrison, when, at the beginning of August, St. Leger, with a motley host of Tories and Canadians, under Colonels Johnson, Claus and Butler, and Indians led by Brant, arrived from Oswego and began a close siege of the fort. Hearing of this, Herkimer, with the Tryon county militia, proceeded to help the garrison. He sent them word that he was coming. On the receipt of the news a part of two regiments (Gansevoort's and Wesson's), led by Colonel Willett, made a sortie from the fort, and fell upon the camp of Johnson's "Royal Greens" (see page 852) so suddenly and effectively, that they were dispersed in great confusion, Sir John not having time to put on his coat before he was compelled to fly. His papers and baggage and those of other officers, and the clothing, blankets, stores and camp equipage, sufficient to fill twenty wagons, were the spoils of victory, with five British standards as trophies. A part of Sir John's "Greens," and some Indians, had gone to meet approaching Herkimer.

At Oriskany, a few miles west of Utica, Herkimer and his little army were marching in fancied security on the morning of the 6th of August, when Tories and Indians from St. Leger's army, suddenly rose from an ambush and fell upon the patriots at all points with pikes, hatchets, and rifle-balls. Herkimer's rear-guard broke and fled; the remainder sustained a fierce conflict for more than an hour with great bravery. General Herkimer

CHAP. XXVI.

BATTLE AT ORISKANY.

93I

had a horse shot dead under him, and by the bullet that killed the animal, his own leg was shattered just below the knee. Sitting on his saddle and leaning against a beech tree, the brave old general (then sixty-five years of age) directed the battle with great coolness, while the bullets flew thickly around him. A heavy thunder-shower caused a lull in the fight. When it had passed, the battle was renewed with great violence, Major Watts, a brother-in-law of Sir John Johnson leading a portion of the "Greens." At length the Indians, hearing the firing in the direction of the fort, where Willett made his sortie, became

panic-stricken and fled to the deep woods. They were soon followed by the equally alarmed Tories and Canadians. The Patriots were left masters of the field, but they did not relieve Fort Stanwix. Their commander was carried to his home, below the Little Falls, where he died from the effects of excessive bleeding from his wound.

St. Leger continued the siege. The garrison bravely held out; and Colonel Willett went from the fort stealthily down the Mohawk Valley with a message from Gansevoort to Schuyler, asking for relief. The sagacious general perceived the importance of beating back St. Leger, as a part of the means for securing the expected victory over Burgoyne. He called a council of officers, and proposed to send a detachment up the valley. They opposed the measure because the army was then too weak to check the march of Burgoyne. The general persisted in his opinion of the necessity and humanity of sending a force to the relief of Fort Schuyler. He was walking the floor with great anxiety of mind, when he heard one of the officers say in a low tone of voice, "He means to weaken the army." That was an epitome of all the slanders which had been uttered since the evacuation of Ticonderoga.

WOUNDED HERKIMER DIRECTING THE BATTLE.

He heard the charge of implied treason with the hottest indignation. Turning quickly toward the slanderer, and unconsciously biting into several pieces a clay pipe which he was smoking, he exclaimed in a voice that awed the whole company into silence: "Gentlemen, I shall take the responsibility upon myself; where is the brigadier who will take command of the relief? I shall beat up for volunteers to-morrow." General Arnold, ever ready for deeds of daring, at once stepped forward and offered his services. Before noon the next day (August 13), eight hundred stalwart men were enrolled for the expedition. They were chiefly from the Massachusetts brigade of General Larned. They followed their brave leader with perfect confidence, and won success. By prowess, audacity and stratagem, Arnold compelled the invader to raise the siege of Fort Schuyler within ten days after he left the camp at Stillwater. At Fort Dayton (German Flats) he found a half-idiotic Tory, a prisoner, who had been tried for crimes and condemned to death. His mother begged for his pardon. It was promised by Arnold under the condition that he should go, with a friendly Oneida Indian, among the savages in St. Leger's camp, and by representing the Americans on the march against them as extremely numerous, frighten them away. The prisoner agreed. He had several shots fired through his coat, and with these evidences of "a terrible engagement with the enemy," he ran, almost out of breath, among the Indians, declaring that he had just escaped from the approaching Americans. Pointing toward the trees and the sky, he said, "They are as many as the leaves and the stars at night." Very soon his companion, the Oneida, came running from another direction, with the same story. The Indians, thoroughly alarmed, held a pow-wow-a consultation with the Great Spirit-and resolved to fly. No persuasion could hold them. Away they went as fast as their feet could carry them, toward Oswego and the more western wilds, followed by their pale-faced confrères, pell-mell, in a race for the safe bosom of Lake Ontario. So the siege of Fort Schuyler was raised; and so ended the formidable invasion from the west.

The expulsion of St. Leger and his followers was a severe blow to the hopes of Burgoyne. This disaster, following so closely upon that near Bennington, staggered him. His visions of conquest, and orders, and perhaps a peerage for himself, vanished. His doom was pronounced. His army was already conquered in fact-it needed very little to make it so, in form. The wise policy and untiring exertions of General Schuyler had accomplished the ruin of the invading army.

The harvests were now nearly over; the spirits of the patriots were greatly revived by recent events; public confidence in General Schuyler, so

CHAP. XXVI.

SCHUYLER SUPERSEDED BY GATES.

933

rudely shaken by misfortune and slander, was rapidly returning, and as a consequence recruits for the Northern Army were flocking into camp, with daily-increasing volume. Schuyler was preparing to march to an easy victory over his hopelessly crippled foe, and so win the laurels which he fairly deserved, when, on the 19th of August, General Gates arrived in camp, and took command of the army, in accordance with the following resolution passed by Congress:

Resolved, That Major-General Schuyler be directed to repair to head

quarters.

"That General Washington be directed to order such general officer as he shall think proper to repair immediately to the Northern Department, to relieve Major-General Schuyler in his command there.”

This was evidently the work of intrigue, faction, and conspiracy. Washington, who was then in his camp at Germantown, near Philadelphia, was fully aware of the schemes of Gates and his friends, and would not consent to be a scapegoat for them; so he declined to nominate a successor to Schuyler, and the Congress proceeded to appoint Gates to that office. They clothed him with powers which they had never conferred on his predecessor, and voted him all the aid Schuyler had ever asked, and which had been withheld. The patriotic general felt the indignity keenly, yet he did not allow his personal grievances to interfere with his duty to his country. He received Gates cordially, furnished him with every kind of useful information respecting the army, and offered him all the aid in his power to give. This generosity was requited by jealousy and coldness. Yet this despicable treatment did not abate Schuyler's efforts to secure the defeat of Burgoyne, although he knew the laurels that would thereby be won would be placed on the brow of his undeserving successor.

Had Gates acted promptly, he might have ended the campaign in the Northern Department, within a fortnight after his arrival. But he lingered twenty days in needless inactivity near the mouth of the Mohawk River, nine miles above Albany, to which place Schuyler, pursuant to a decision of a council of officers, had removed the army from Stillwater. At the end of the twenty days, Gates moved up the valley of the Hudson with an effective force of nine thousand men; and upon Bemis's Heights, an elevated rolling plain a short distance above Stillwater, he established a fortified camp, having Kosciuszko, the brave Polish patriot, as chief engineer. In the meantime, one hundred and eighty boats had been brought over the country by teams and soldiers, from Lakes Champlain and George, with a month's provisions for the use of Burgoyne's army, then reduced to less than six thousand men.

Seeing the advance of Gates, Burgoyne called in his outposts, and with

his shattered forces and his splendid train of artillery, he crossed the Hudson River over a bridge of boats on the 13th of September, and encamped on the heights at Saratoga, where Schuylerville now stands. There he made immediate preparations to attempt to force his way to Albany. He then knew that Howe had sailed southward and would not co-operate with him; and he perceived the necessity of acting promptly, for General Lincoln was gathering a force of New Englanders on his flank, and detachments of Republican troops were menacing his communications with his base of supplies. The American army, every day increasing in strength, were well posted on Bemis's Heights. Their right rested upon the Hudson River below the Heights; their left was upon gentle hills that could not be commanded by hostile cannon from any point; and a well-constructed line of intrenchment stretched along their front. Here an army more numerous than that of Burgoyne lay directly across his path to Albany, and must be dislodged before he could go forward.