Courtesy of General Gates.

The Place of Surrender.

First personal Meeting of Gates and Burgoyne

nimity of feeling which drew forth the expressed admiration of Burgoyne and his officers, had ordered all his army within his camp, out of sight of the vanquished Britons.' Colonel Wilkinson, who had been sent to the British camp, and, in company with Burgoyne, selected the place where the troops were to lay down their arms, was the only American officer present at the scene."

The sketch here presented, of the place where the British army sur rendered, was made from one of the canal bridges at Schuylerville, looking east-northeast. The stream of water in the fore-ground is Fish Creek, and the level ground seen between it and the distant hills on the left is the place where the humiliation of the Britons occurred. The tree by the fence, in the center of the picture, designates the northwest angle of Fort Hardy, and the other three trees on the right stand nearly on the line of the northern breast-works. The row of small trees, ap

parently at the foot of the distant hills, marks the course of the Hudson, and the hills that bound the view are those on which the Americans were posted. This plain is directly in front of Schuylerville, between that village and the Hudson. General Fellows was stationed upon the high ground seen over the barn on the right, and the eminence on the extreme left is the place whence the American cannon played upon the house wherein the Baroness Reidesel and other ladies sought refuge.

As soon as the troops had laid down their arms, General Burgoyne proposed to be introduced to General Gates. They crossed Fish Creek, and proceeded toward headquarters, Burgoyne in front with his adjutant general, Kingston, and his aids-de-camp, Captain Lord Petersham and Lieutenant Wilford, behind him. Then followed Generals Phillips, Riedesel, and Hamilton, and other officers and suites, according to rank. General Gates was informed of the approach of Burgoyne, and with his staff met him at the head of his camp, about a mile south of the Fish Creek, Burgoyne in a rich uniform of scarlet and gold, and Gates in a plain blue frock-coat. When within about a sword's length, they reined up and Colonel Wilkinson then named the gentlemen, and General Burgoyne, raising his hat gracefully, said, "The fortune of war, General Gates, has made me your prisoner." The victor promptly replied, "I shall always be ready to bear testimony that it has not

halted.

1 Letter of Burgoyne to the Earl of Derby. Stedman, i., 352. Botta, ii., 21.

2 See Wilkinson.

Humiliating Review of the British Prisoners. Burgoyne's Surrender of his Sword.

The Spoils of Victory. Yankee Doodle.

been through any fault of your excellency." The other officers were introduced in turn, and

the whole party repaired to Gates's headquarters, where a sumptuous dinner was served.1

After dinner the American army was drawn up in parallel lines on each side of the road, extending nearly a mile. Between these victorious troops the British army, with light infantry in front, and escorted by a company of light dragoons, preceded by two mounted officers bearing

the American flag, marched to the lively tune of Yankee Doodle.' Just as they passed, the two commanding generals, who were in Gates's marquee, came out together, and, fronting the procession, gazed upon it in silence a few moments. What a contrast, in every partic -ular, did the two present! Burgoyne, though possessed of coarse features, had a large and commanding person; Gates was smaller and far less dignified in appearance. Burgoyne was arrayed in the splendid military trappings of his rank; Gates was clad in a plain and unassuming dress. Burgoyne was the victim of disappointed hopes and foiled ambition, and looked upon the scene with exceeding sorrow; Gates was buoyant with the first flush of a great victory. Without exchanging a word, Burgoyne, according to previous understanding, stepped back, drew his sword, and, in the presence of the two armies, presented it to General Gates. He received it with a courteous inclination of the head, and instantly re turned it to the vanquished general. They then retired to the marquee together, the British army filed off and took up their line of march for Boston, and thus ended the drama upon the heights of Saratoga.

The whole number of prisoners surrendered was five thousand seven hundred and ninetyone, of whom two thousand four hundred and twelve were Germans and Hessians. The force of the Americans, at the time of the surrender, was, according to a statement which General Gates furnished to Burgoyne, thirteen thousand two hundred and twenty-two, of which number nine thousand and ninety-three were Continentals, or regular soldiers, and four thousand one hundred and twenty-nine were militia. The arms and ammunition which came into the possession of the Americans were, a fine train of brass artillery, consisting of 2 twenty-four pounders, 4 twelve pounders, 20 sixes, 6 threes, 2 eight inch howitzers, 5 five and a half inch royal howitzers, and 3 five and a half inch royal mortars; in all forty-two

1 See Wilkinson.

? This view is taken from the turnpike, looking south. The old road was where the canal now is, and the place of meeting was about at the point where the bridge is seen.

3 Thatcher, in his Military Journal (p. 19), gives the following account of the origin of the word Yankee and of Yankee Doodle: "A farmer of Cambridge, Massachusetts, named Jonathan Hastings, who lived about the year 1713, used it as a favorite cant word to express excellence, as a yankee good horse or yankee good cider. The students of the college, hearing him use it a great deal, adopted it, and called him Yankee Jonathan; and as he was a rather weak man, the students, when they wished to denote a charaeter of that kind, would call him Yankee Jonathan. Like other cant words, it spread, and came finally to be applied to the New Englanders as a term of reproach. Some suppose the term to be the Indian corruption of the word English-Yenglees, Yangles, Yankles, and finally Yankee.

"A song, called Yankee Doodle, was written by a British sergeant at Boston, in 1775, to ridicule the people there, when the American army, under Washington, was encamped at Cambridge and Roxbury." See "Origin of Yankee Doodle," page 480, of this volume.

Two of these, drawings of which will be found on page 700, are now in the court of the laboratory of the West Point Military Academy, on the Hudson. F

The Germans and Hessians.

Their Arrival at Cambridge and wretched Appearance.

Kindness of the People.

pieces of ordnance. There were four thousand six hundred and forty-seven muskets, and six thousand dozens of cartridges, besides shot, carcasses, cases, shells, &c. Among the English prisoners were six members of Parliament.1

Cotemporary writers represent the appearance of the poor German and Hessian troops as extremely miserable and ludicrous. They deserved commiseration, but they received none. They came not here voluntarily to fight our people; they were sent as slaves by their masters, who received the price of their hire. They were caught, it is said, while congregated in their churches and elsewhere, and forced into the service. Most of them were torn reluctantly from their families and friends; hundreds of them deserted here before the close of the war; and many of their descendants are now living among us. Many had their wives with them, and these helped to make up the pitiable procession through the country. Their advent into Cambridge, near Boston, is thus noticed by the lady of Dr. Winthrop of that town, in a letter to Mrs. Mercy Warren, an early historian of our Revolution: “On Friday we heard the Hessians were to make a procession on the same route. We thought we should have nothing to do but view them as they passed. To be sure, the sight was truly astonishing. I never had the least idea that the creation produced such a sordid set of creatures in human figure-poor, dirty, emaciated men. Great numbers of women, who seemed to be the beasts of burden, having bushel baskets on their backs, by which they were bent double. The contents seemed to be pots and kettles, various sorts of furniture, children peeping through gridirons and other utensils. Some very young infants, who were born on the road; the women barefooted, clothed in dirty rags. Such effluvia filled the air while they were passing,' that, had they not been smoking all the time, I should have been apprehensive of being contaminated.""

The whole view of the vanquished army, as it marched through the country from Saratoga to Boston, a distance of three hundred miles, escorted by two or three American officers and a handful of soldiers, was a spectacle of extraordinary interest. Generals of the first order of talent; young gentlemen of noble and wealthy families, aspiring to military renown; legislators of the British realm, and a vast concourse of other men, lately confident of victory and of freedom to plunder and destroy, were led captive through the pleasant land they had coveted, to be gazed at with mingled joy and scorn by those whose homes they came to make desolate. Their march was solemn, sullen, and silent; but they were every where treated with such humanity, and even delicacy, that they were overwhelmed with astonishment and gratitude. Not one insult was offered, not an opprobrious reflection cast;" and in all their long captivity they experienced the generous kindness of a people warring only to be free.

1 Gordon, ii., 267.

2 Women of the Revolution, i., 97.

3 Mercy Warren, ii., 40.

4 Although Congress ratified the generous terms entered into by Gates with Burgoyne in the convention at Saratoga, circumstances made them suspicious that the terms would not be strictly complied with. They feared that the Britons would break their parole, and Burgoyne was required to furnish a complete roll of his army, the name and rank of every officer, and the name, former place of abode, occupation, age, and size of every non-commissioned officer and private soldier. Burgoyne murmured and hesitated. General Howe, at the same time, was very illiberal in the exchange of prisoners, and exhibited considerable duplicity. Congress became alarmed, and resolved not to allow the army of Burgoyne to leave our shores until a formal ratification of the convention should be made by the British government. Burgoyne alone was allowed to go home on parole, and the other officers, with the army, were marched into the interior of Virginia, to await the future action of the two governments. The British ministry charged Congress with positive perfidy, and Congress justified their acts by charging the ministers with meditated perfidy. That this suspicion was well founded is proved by subsequent events. In the autumn of 1778, Isaac Og. den, a prominent loyalist of New Jersey, and then a refugee in New York, thus wrote to Joseph Galloway, an American Tory in London, respecting an expedition of four thousand British troops which Sir Henry Clinton sent up the Hudson a week previous: "Another object of this expedition was to open the country for many of Burgoyne's troops that had escaped the vigilance of their guard, to come in. About forty of these have got safe in. If this expedition had been a week sooner, greater part of Burgoyne's troops probably would have arrived here, as a disposition of rising on their guard strongly prevailed, and all they wanted to effect it was some support near at hand."

Relative Condition and Prospect of the Americans before the Capture of Burgoyne.

Effect of that Event

The surrender of Burgoyne was an event of infinite importance to the struggling republicans. Hitherto the preponderance of success had been on the side of the English, and only a few partial victories had been won by the Americans. The defeat on Long Island had eclipsed the glory of the siege of Boston; the capture of Fort Washington and its garrison had overmatched the brilliant defense of Charleston; the defeat at Brandywine had balanced the victory at Trenton; White Plains and Princeton were in fair juxtaposition in the account current; and at the very time when the hostile armies at the north were fighting for the mastery, Washington was suffering defeats in Pennsylvania, and Forts Clinton, Montgomery, and Constitution were passing into the hands of the royal forces. Congress had fled from Philadelphia to York, and its sittings were in the midst of loyalists, ready to attack or betray. Its treasury was nearly exhausted; its credit utterly so. Its bills to the amount of forty millions of dollars were scattered over the country. Its frequent issues were inadequate to the demands of the commissariat, and distrust was rapidly depreciating their value in the public mind. Loyalists rejoiced; the middlemen were in a dilemma; the patriots trembled. Thick clouds of doubt and dismay were gathering in every part of the political horizon, and the acclamations which had followed the Declaration of Independence, the year before, died away like mere whispers upon the wind.

All eyes were turned anxiously to the army of the north, and upon that strong arm of Congress, wielded, for the time, by Gates, the hopes of the patriots leaned. How eagerly they listened to every breath of rumor from Saratoga! How enraptured were they when the cry of victory fell upon their ears! All over the land a shout of triumph went up, and from the furrows, and workshops, and marts of commerce; from the pulpit, from provincial halls of legislation, from partisan camps, and from the shattered ranks of the chief at White Marsh, it was echoed and re-echoed. Toryism, which had begun to lift high its head, retreated behind the defense of inaction; the bills of Congress rose twenty per cent. in value; capital came forth from its hiding-places; the militia readily obeyed the summons to the camp, and the great patriot heart of America beat strongly with pulsations of hope. Amid. the joy of the moment, Gates was apotheosized in the hearts of his countrymen, and they

The engraving exhibits a view of both sides of the medal, drawn the size of the original. On one side is a bust of General Gates, with the Latin inscription, "HORATIO GATES DUCI STRENUO COMITIA AMERICANA;" The American Congress, to Horatio Gates, the valiant leader. On the other side, or reverse, Burgoyne is represented in the attitude of delivering up his sword; and in the background, on either side of them, are seen the two armies of England and America, the former laying down their arms. At the top is the Latin inscription, "SALUS REGIONUM SEPTENTRIONAL:" literal English, Safety of th northern region or department. Below is the inscription, "HOSTE AD SARATOGAM IN DEDITION, ACCEPT) DIE XVII. OCT. MA CCLXXVII. ;" English, Enemy at Saratoga surrendered October 17th, 1777.

Wilkinson before Congress. Gold Medal awarded to Gates.

Proceedings of the British Parliament.

Speech of Chatham.

generously overlooked the indignity offered by him to the commander-in-chief when he refused, in the haughty pride of his heart in that hour of victory, to report, as in duty bound, his success to the national council through him. Congress, too, overjoyed at the result, forgot its own dignity, and allowed Colonel Wilkinson,' the messenger of the glad tidings, to stand upon their floor and proclaim, "The whole British army have laid down their arms at Saratoga; our own, full of vigor and courage, expect your orders; it is for your wisdom to decide where the country may still have need of their services." Congress voted thanks to General Gates and his army, and decreed that he should be presented with a medal of gold, to be struck expressly in commemoration of so glorious a victory.

This victory was also of infinite importance to the republicans on account of its effects beyond the Atlantic. The highest hopes of the British nation, and the most sanguine expectations of the king and his ministers, rested on the success of this campaign. It had been a favorite object with the administration, and the people were confidently assured that, with the undoubted success of Burgoyne, the turbulent spirit of rebellion would be quelled, and the insurgents would be forced to return to their allegiance.

1777.

2

66

Parliament was in session when the intelligence of Burgoyne's defeat reached England; December 3, and when the mournful tidings were communicated to that body, it instantly aroused all the fire of opposing parties. The opposition opened anew their eloquent batteries upon the ministers. For several days misfortune had been suspected. The last arrival from America brought tidings of gloom. The Earl of Chatham, with far-reaching comprehension, and thorough knowledge of American affairs, had denounced the mode of warfare and the material used against the Americans. He refused to vote for the laudatory address to the king. Leaning upon his crutch, he poured forth his vigorous denunciations against the course of the ministers like a mountain torrent. This, my lords," he said, "is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is no time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery can not now avail-can not save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. . . You can not. I venture to say it, you can not conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns we have suffered much and gained nothing, and perhaps at this moment the northern army (Burgoyne's) may be a total loss. . . . . You may swell every expense, and every effort, still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign power; your efforts are forever vain and impotent; doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely, for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your enemies. To overrun with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms-never, never, never!"'3

The Earl of Coventry, Earl Temple Chatham's brother-in-law, and the Duke of Richmond, all spoke in coincidence with Chatham. Lord Suffolk, one of the Secretaries of State, undertook the defense of ministers for the employment of Indians, and concluded by saying, It is perfectly justifiable to use all the means that God and nature have put into our This sentiment brought Chatham upon the floor. "That God and nature put

hands."

James Wilkinson was born in Maryland about 1757, and, by education, was prepared for the practice of medicine. He repaired to Cambridge as a volunteer in 1775. He was captain of a company in a regiment that went to Canada in 1776. He was appointed deputy adjutant general by Gates, and, after the surrender of Burgoyne, Congress made him a brigadier general by brevet. At the conclusion of the war be settled in Kentucky, but entered the army in 1806, and had the command on the Mississippi. He commanded on the northern frontier during our last war with Great Britain. At the age of 56 he married a young lady of 26. He died of diarrhea, in Mexico, December 28th, 1825, aged 68 years.

Pitkin, i., 399.

3 Parliamentary Debates.