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ATTENTIONS BAR CODE IS LOCATED INSIDE OF BOOK!
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Gc 974.702 Sa72b Brandow, John Henry Story of Old Saratoga and history of Schuylerville
A reproduction by the Author
THE SARATOGA MONUMENT
Ercetcd by the Saratoga Monument Association to commemorate the Surrender ?L to Gen Gates, October 17, 1777, the grand finale of one of
the fifteen decisive battles of the world. It stands on the site of Burgoyne’s forti- Sle t^ie* 1111 overlooking the place of his surrender. The corner stone
June1' i88llth ^ mi ltary ceremonies> October 17, 1877, and completed in
Height, 155 feet; Base 40 feet square; 184 steps lead up to the last windows, which command an enchanting view of from ten to eighty miles in all directions.
THE
STORY OF
OLD SARATOGA
AND
HISTORY OF SCHUYLERVILLE
JOHN HENRY BRANDOW, M. A.
Sometime Pastor of the (Dutch) Reformed Church of Schuylerville, N. Y., and member of the New York State Historical Association
Fort Orange Press BRANDOW PRINTING COMPANY ALBANY, N. Y.
1900
K\\c UN** VnI v^'c Cotf ™ c,ye^
&i**i'*
Copyright 1901 By John Henry Brandow
1148181
DEDICATION
To the
Patriotic Societies in the United States and to all Americans who revere the characters and cherish the heroic deeds of their forebears
/ dedicate this book
PREFACE
This book, like many another, is a growth from a small beginning; the outcome of a brief sketch made for another purpose. The author never dreamed that he would be guilty of perpetrating a book. When he began the aforesaid sketch he supposed that the his- tory of the locality had been thoroughly written up and that nothing of interest could be found which had not repeatedly been spread before the interested public.
This surmise was certainly true of the Burgoyne campaign with its battles and auspicious ending which occurred within the bounds of Old Saratoga. All of this had become well threshed straw before we began our task ; hence, we have been able to add but a little to what has already appeared in print con- cerning it, except a few anecdotes of a personal nature. We can claim nothing more with respect to that decisive campaign in the great struggle of the fathers for independence than that we have redrawn the picture from the view point of the “Heights of Saratoga/' and have put into the scene a series of details which heretofore had appeared only as scat- tered and disjointed fragments.
Our excuse for the book is this : While hunting for Colonial or ante-Revolutionary data relative to the history of this locality we discovered that there was very much more to it than had yet appeared in any form accessible to the public; and, what is more to the point, we found that this is the only locality, worthy of it, in the valley between New York City and Plattsburg, whose Colonial history had not been
VI
Preface
carefully explored and written up. With this in mind we resolved to dig down and get at the roots of its history ; so we have diligently examined everything we could hear of or find that would throw any light on that shadowy epoch in Old Saratoga’s story; and we trust that those who are interested in such matters will agree with us that we have been measurably paid for the trouble. In the meantime we believe we have also discovered several important historic sites, to- gether with the name of the one local annalist, the anonymous Sexagenary, which had long been lost.
It is a pity that there had not been more chroniclers to record the many interesting incidents which must have occurred here, particularly during the period of King George’s war, and yet more is the* pity that many of the records that were made have been lost. Still, as it is, we feel that we can assert without fear of successful contradiction that outside the cities of New York and Albany, Old Saratoga is the most interesting historic locality in New York State, and New York was the battle ground of America in Revo- lutionary and Colonial days. But notwithstanding the fact that this is the scene of so many events, tragic, thrilling, and heroic, in their character; events far reaching and superlatively beneficent in their effects on our civilization, Saratoga is a name that has been made little of by American writers, and is sel- dom used to conjure with in speech or story.
We have in this work kept the military history separate from the civil in the belief that the average reader will find it less confusing, and hence more satis- factory, than any attempt at mixing the two together, and yet we confess that the line of demarkation be-
Preface
vii
tween the civil and the military is sometimes pretty hazy.
That we have been enabled to carry this work to completion grateful acknowledgments are due, first, to the many interested citizens of Schuylerville, with- out whose encouragement we would not have dared 1o embark on such a venture; to Mr. W. L. Stone, the accomplished Revolutionary historian, and to Gen. J. Watts De Peyster, military critic and prolific author, for valuable facts and suggestions; to Miss Fanny Schuyler, for the loan of Schuyler manuscripts and for criticising a portion of the work ; to Mr. W. B. Melius, the erudite keeper of the Albany County records, for help in our search for data; to Mr. Hugh Hastings, State Historian, and Henry Harmon Noble, his efficient assistant, for their hearty encouragement, timely suggestions and valuable hints concerning historic manuscripts preserved in the State Library; and to Mr. Arnold J. F. van Laer, State Archivist, for invaluable assistance in deciphering some of the ancient manuscripts under his care.
We are also especially obligated to Mr. C. W. May- hew of Schuylerville for the free use of his library, rich in historic works ; to Miss Anna Hill for generously type- writing a large portion of the manuscript; to Mrs. John H. Lowber and Mrs. Jane Marshall for courteously per- mitting a careful examination of their historic homes, and for interesting facts connected therewith.
We also feel deeply indebted to Rev. F. C. Scoville of Greenwich, N. Y., for valuable assistance in our search for the author of the Sexagenary.
Schuylerville, N. Y., Dec , 15, 1900.
CONTENTS OF BOOK I
MILITARY HISTORY
CHAPTER I
Champlain’s discovery. His fight with the Iroquois. Hud- son’s discovery of the river. First attack of the Iroquois on the Canadian settlements, and capture of Father Jogues. Escape of Jogues. Jogues’ subsequent mission of peace to the Mohawks, and discovery of the country between Lake George and Albany. His mission to the Mohawks and martyrdom.
CHAPTER II
Saratoga; varied spelling of the name. Significance of the name. Fishing weirs at the foot of Saratoga lake.
CHAPTER III
The Indian trails that met at Old Saratoga. Courcelle’s ex- pedition against the Mohawks. Marquis de Tracy’s expedition. Impolicy of Denonville. Descent of the Five Nations upon Canada.
CHAPTER IV
War of the English Revolution. Expedition against Albany diverted to Schenectady. Massacre at Schenectady. Winthrop’s expedition against Canada. The blockhouse at Saratoga. The little army stalled at Whitehall. Johannes Schuyler, dissatisfied, leads a successful raid against Laprairie, Canada. Pieter Schuy- ler duplicates his brother’s raid the next year. Frontenac pun- ishes the Mohawks. The peace of Ryswick.
CHAPTER V
First settlement at Old Saratoga. Queen Anne’s war. Why the Canadian Indians harassed Massachusetts, but spared New
b
X
Contents
York. Pieter Schuyler builds a blockhouse fort at Saratoga, 1709. First military road. Nicholson's expedition against Canada. Nicholson’s second attempt against Canada, in 1711.
CHAPTER VI
Reasons suggested why so little is said in history of the de- struction of Old Saratoga. More about the early settlements at Old Saratoga. The French build a fort at Crown Point — Why? Effect of this move upon the English colonists. Philip Livingston builds a fort at Old Saratoga. Another fort built in 1739. Rebuilt in 1745. King George’s war.
CHAPTER VII Destruction of Saratoga
Marin starts on a foray against settlements along the Connec- ticut. Diverted by Indians against Saratoga. Experiences at Lydius’ house. Ford the river at the State Dam. Description of Old Saratoga before the massacre. The attack as told by the French Journal. Sander’s letter to Sir Wm. Johnson concerning it. Public indignation against the authorities for the defense- less state of Saratoga.
CHAPTER VIII
Fort Clinton. Its Site. Its Fate
The fort at Saratoga rebuilt and named Fort Clinton. The first garrison and its experiences. Relieved by force under Capt. Henry Livingston. Herbin’s attack on a detachment headed for Albany. He captures letters describing the wretched conditions at the fort. St. Luc’s attack on Fort Clinton. His success in ambushing a part of the garrison. Site of Fort Clin- ton and its predecessor discovered. M. Rigaud’s fruitless re- connaissance. Letter from Commandant to Sir William Johnson referring to the attack, and disclosures of an Indian. Peter Kalm’s story of St. Luc’s attack. The garrison of Fort Clinton mutinies. Governor Clinton orders the destruction and abandon- ment of the fort. Visit of de Villiers to the ruins. He describes them. King Hendrick refers to the fort in a speech.
Contents
XI
CHAPTER IX
The French and Indian War
First blow struck by George Washington. Three expeditions against the French in 1755. Sir William Johnson's battle with Dieskau at Lake George. He re-christens Lac St. Sacrament and Fort Lyman. About bad roads, and the ford and ferry at Old Saratoga. Campaign of 1756 under Gen. John Winslow. Its failure. Campaign of 1757. Montcalm’s reduction of Fort William Henry, and General Webb’s cowardly behavior. Story of the moccasin print. Building of Fort Hardy under Colonel Montressor. A nondescript blockhouse fort. Campaign of 1758. Abercrombie’s march up the valley. His defeat at Ticonderoga. Successful campaign of Amherst and Wolfe, in 1759.
CHAPTER X . The Revolution
Causes of the war. Events of 1775-1776. Campaign of 1777 planned. Gen. John Burgoyne given command of northern army. Description of his army. Invests Ticonderoga, seizes Sugar Loaf Mountain and plants a battery thereon. St. Clair evacuates Ticonderoga. Battles at Hubbardton, Vt., and Fort Anne. The panic that followed the loss of Ticonderoga. Was Schuyler to blame for the loss of that post? History of his efforts to prop- erly man it. Gates’ intrigues. Schuyler blocks Burgoyne’s pas- sage. Stampede of the inhabitants.
CHAPTER XI
Burgoyne posted at Sketiesborough. Jubilation of the British • over their success. The Jane McCrea tragedy. St. Clair joins Schuyler. The militia desert him. He and Washington appeal for more troops. Congress and New England apathetic. Wash- ington sends up Arnold. Schuyler withdraws to Moses’ Creek and begins to fortify. Retreats to Saratoga, then to Stillwater. He sends Arnold to the relief of Gansevoort, at Fort Schuyler. Retreats to the mouth of the Mohawk. Movements of Bur- goyne. The battle of Bennington. Schuyler relieved by Gates. Comments on Schuyler’s character. Burgoyne delayed a month
Contents
xii
by the disaster at Bennington. Crosses the Hudson. Advance by slow stages to Sword’s house. Gates advances first to Still- water, then to Bemis Heights, where he begins to fortify. De- scription of American camp.
CHAPTER XII
Battle of the 19TH of September
Colonel Colburn’s early morning scout. Burgoyne and Fraser advance to turn the American left wing. Gates proposes to await in his camp the attack, but is persuaded by Ar- nold to assail Burgoyne beyond the lines. Morgan meets Major Forbes’ scouting party near Freeman’s cottage and drives them back with loss. Description of the battle. Riedesel saves the British from rout. Whose victory was it? Burgoyne counter- mands his order for a renewal of the attack. Why Lord Howe did not co-operate with Burgoyne. The burial of the dead. Burgoyne fortifies his camp. How his forces were disposed. No rest for the British within their camp. Situation in the American camp. Rupture between Gates and Arnold.
CHAPTER XIII Battle of the 7th of October
Burgoyne calls a council of war to consider the situation. He resolves to make a reconnaissance in force of Gates’ position. Moves out some distance to his right and deploys into line. Gates, apprised of movement, dispatches an officer to ascertain its nature. He resolves to attack Burgoyne. Arnold, deprived of . all command, chafes in camp. He breaks loose and starts for the front without orders. Fraser shot. Arnold storms the Brit- ish right and ends the fight. Difference in spirit exhibited by Gates and Burgoyne in this battle.
CHAPTER XIV The Retreat
Burgoyne withdraws his forces to the river. Death of Gen- eral Fraser. Burgoyne’s description of his burial. The retreat
Contents
xiii
to Coveville and delay. The woes of Burgoyne’s bateaumen. Lady Ackland obtains permission to join her husband in the American camp. Burgoyne’s graceful letter of commendation. Gates sends General Fellows to occupy Saratoga and guard the ford. Colonel Sutherland, ascertaining his unguarded state, requests permission of Burgoyne to attempt his capture. The British army moves forward and occupies the Heights of Sara- toga. Burgoyne has a night’s carouse in the Schuyler mansion. Baroness Riedesel describes the discomforts of the retreat. Gates reinforces Fellows. Captain Furnival cannonades the Marshall house.
CHAPTER XV The Siege
Burgoyne fortifies his camp on the Heights of Saratoga. Plow his army was posted. Burgoyne reconnoitres toward Fort Ed- ward, but recalls the detachment. Gates’ tardy pursuit. Bur- goyne burns the Schuyler buildings. Gates orders an attack on Burgoyne. Burgoyne is forewarned, and prepares to receive it. The details of the affair. Gates decides to starve Burgoyne. into submission, and completes his lines of circumvallation. Situation of the besieged. The Baroness Riedesel relates her hard experi ences in the Marshall house. Rewards the brave German woman, who furnished them with water.
chaptp:r xvi
The Capitulation
Burgoyne calls council of war and discusses the question of surrender. The cannon ball argument. Burgoyne dispatches an officer to Gates with a proposal. Gates gives terms on which he will accept surrender, which prove offensive to the Britons. Bur- goyne proposes milder terms. Gates accepts. Burgoyne gets cheering news from Clinton ; calls another council of war, and proposes to recede from his agreement. Council decides that public faith has been pledged. Burgoyne signs the “Convention.” Articles of surrender. Extract from De Peyster’s Ode on the Surrender. Reflections on the feelings of victors and vanquished.
XIV
Contents
Description of the formal surrender. Baroness Riedesel’s re- ception by General Schuyler. “Yankee Doodle” first played as an American martial air. The Stars and Stripes first unfurled to grace a victory. General Schuyler’s magnanimity toward Bur- goyne. Number of prisoners surrendered, and size of Gates’ army. Saratoga a decisive battle. Why? “17th. A day famous in the annals of America.” The fate of the two armies. Guide to the battlefield.
CHAPTER XVII
The Sexagenary
Who was he? The identification of this anonymous author.
CHAPTER XVIII Anecdotes
Stampede of the inhabitants. Its cause. Experience of the Marshall family. Trials of the Rogers family. Neilson’s en- counter with the big Indian.
CHAPTER XIX Anecdotes — Continued
Capture of the British picket by young farmers. Lieutenant Hardin’s narrow escape. The saving of the old Dutch church. Return of the Beckers to Saratoga. Cannonade of the old Dutch church. A militiaman captures two of Burgoyne’s horses. Ro- mance of the Maguires. The Sexagenary describes Burgoyne, and the Hessians. He also tells of captured Indians, and of the plunder of the British camp. Jacob Koons gets even with Burgoyne. Make “elbow room” for Burgoyne. Burgoyne enter- tained at Albany by General Schuyler. Startling question of little Miss Riedesel. Saratoga after its desertion by the armies. The search for cannon, etc., in the river. Colonel Van Veghten’s narrow escape. The dog gagged by a garter. Dunham’s daring capture of Lovelass.
Contents
XV
CHAPTER XX
The War of 1812 and the Civil War
War of 1812 in brief. The Civil War a struggle for self-pres- ervation. Patriotism not dead as some supposed. Bull Run dispels the illusion about the strength of the insurrection. Judge McKean’s clarion call to arms. The Bemis Heights battalion starts for the front. Hardships of first campaign decimate the regiment. Schuylerville raises an entire company. List of the battles in which the 77th participated. The 77th mustered out Sufferings and sacrifices of wives and mothers.
CONTENTS OF BOOK II
CIVIL HISTORY
CHAPTER I
The name, Saratoga or Schuylerville. The Saratoga Patent. First settlers. The location of old Saratoga; its mills. The re-set- tlement after the massacre. The visit of Peter Kalm, the Swedish naturalist. Old Saratoga’s development under Philip Schuyler. Mrs. Grant’s description of Schuyler’s Saratoga enterprises.
CHAPTER II
First permanent settlers. Their names and locations.
CHAPTER III
How the Pioneer Fathers Lived
How log houses were built. How fires were started, borrowing fire. Table furniture. Carpets. Wearing apparel. Tailoring. Footwear. Medicinal herbs. Farming tools. Milling. Amuse- ments. Transportation.
CHAPTER IV Revolutionary Trials
The people take sides. The news of Lexington and Concord. Farmers impressed into service. The flight of the people. After their return. Tory raids.
CHAPTER V
The Schuyler Mansions and Their Occupants
Mansion No. I. Mansion No. II. Philip Schuyler and his family. Revolutionary experiences. Attempt on General Schuy- ler’s life. Mrs. Schuyler burns the wheat fields. Burgoyne’s carouse. Burgoyne burns mansion No. II. The building of mansion No. III. Description of mansion No. III. Schuyler builds first road to Saratoga Springs. Washington’s visit to old Saratoga.
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Contents
CHAPTER VI Mansion No. III. — Continued
John Bradstreet Schuyler. Death of John Bradstreet Schuyler Philip Schuyler, 2nd. Visit of Marquis de Lafayette. Hospi- tality of the Schuylers. Departure of the Schuylers. The Strovers.
CHAPTER VII
Post Revolutionary Settlement
Early roads. Lateral roads. The partition of the district of Saratoga. How Saratoga Springs got its name.
CHAPTER VIII Villages
The first store in the township. Dunham’s Hill. Deans Cor- ners. Quaker Springs. Grangerville. Coveville. Victory Mills. Smithville. Schuylerville. The effect of the canal on the growth of Schuylerville. Earliest fire department. The advent of railroads.
CHAPTER IX
Manufactures
The cotton mills. Schuylerville Paper Co. The grist and flouring mills. The Thompson Pulp and Paper Co. The Amer- ican Woodboard Co. The Liberty Wall Paper Co. The electric railroad.
CHAPTER X
The Churches and Schools The Dutch Reformed Church
First reference to religious affairs at Saratoga. First church built. Location of same. Re-organization of church after the Revolution. Lining out the hymns abolished. Introduction of stoves. Union with the church at Tissiook. A lottery proposed to pay church debts. The first parsonage. Removal to, and building on, a new site. This church burns, and- a stone one built.
Contents
XIX
Building of the present brick church. Selling the original par- sonage, and building a new one. Parsonage No. III. List of pastors of the Reformed church.
Baptist Church
The first notice of this church. Notice of Samuel Rogers, the first minister. The first church edifice. Where located. The new, or present, church and parsonage.
The Methodist Episcopal Church
Early struggles. The building of the church. The itinerant preacher, and his hardships. The church enlarged. A parsonage built. List of pastors under the old circuit system. List of pas- tors after Schuylerville became a charge.
The Episcopal Church
The beginnings of this society. First services in Schuylerville. Building a church. List of rectors.
Church of the Visitation (Roman Catholic)
First services in Schuylerville. Building of the first church edifice. List of pastors. Building of the new church and par- sonage. Church of Notre Dame de Lourdes.
Schools
First schools. The academy. The union free school.
The Press
The various papers started and discontinued. The Schuyler- ville Standard.
CHAPTER XI
The Monument
The monument association. Laying the corner-stone. Cen- tennial celebration. Description of the monument. Views from monument.
CHAPTER XII
Guide to Schuylerville and old Saratoga, with historical map.
INTRODUCTION
It would be impossible to write an intelligible narrative of Old Saratoga, now Schuylerville, without sketching the broader field of history of which it forms a part. As well attempt a satisfactory description of a two-mile section of the majestic Hudson that flows before it with- out telling whence the river rises and whither its gleam- ing waters go. Old Saratoga is but one link in a chain of marvellous story. We must at least catch a glimpse of the whole chain or we shall never come to appreciate this one golden link.
That the place now called Schuylerville has become historic is due neither to the size of the town, the famous deeds of its inhabitants, nor because someone whom the world calls specially great was born here. It was well kntfwn to two great nations while yet it was a howling wilderness, and had obtained world-wide renown before any one had yet dreamed of the village of Schuylerville. Its place in history is due mainly to its location. Here, in military language, was one of the few strategic points in the great Hudson valley. Whoever held these points held the whole valley, and whoever held this valley could hold the continent.
How is that? you may ask. Well, take a good map of New York State and you will notice that an extraor- dinary depression or valley extends from the river St. Lawrence, in Canada, directly south to New York bay. This valley is the result of some mighty convulsion in na- ture, which rent the mountains asunder, leaving this chasm between the ranges, to be further hollowed out and smoothed down by the action of those giant rivers of
XXII
Introduction
ice, the glaciers. The highest point of the divide, or watershed, in this depression is between Fort Edward and Fort Ann, and this is only 147 feet above sea level. This elevation is remarkably slight in a distance of 350 miles, especially when one considers the mountain ranges between which the valley runs. With the exception of some twenty miles this whole distance between New York and Montreal was navigable for small craft before the dams were built in the Hudson.
Besides this valley running north and south, another depression, starting from Schenectady, stretches west- ward and cleaves the great Appalachian mountain range in twain, forming an open gateway toward the setting sun. Through this runs the Mohawk.
Scan your map of North America closely from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Florida and you will learn to your surprise, mayhap, that from the Gulf of St. Law- rence to the Gulf of Mexico there is no other wide-open portal except the Mohawk, to the west, through those mighty barriers which the great Appalachian range has thrown across the pathway to the imperial domain of the Mississippi valley. Thus, if you have a military eye, you can readily see that, Before the days of railroads, who- ever held the Hudson valley held the key to the continent from the east.
Turn to your map of New York State again and you will notice that the country where dwelt the Iroquois is drained by the St. Lawrence through the Black, the Seneca and the Genesee rivers; by New York bay through the Mohawk and Hudson rivers ; by Delaware bay through the Delaware river ; by Chesapeake bay through the Susquehanna river, and by the Gulf of Mexico through the Allegheny and Ohio rivers.
Introduction xxiii
Those old “Romans of the West,” the Five Nations or Iroquois, somehow discovered the strategic value of their position and took advantage of it. Having formed a civil confederacy, and then uniting their military forces, they became a menace and a terror to all their fieighbors. The trails leading up and down these various rivers they transformed into warpaths. Ere long their fierce war- whoop was heard westward to the Mississippi, north- ward to the Saguenay, and south to the great gulf, and from every whither they returned as conquerors, proudly bringing with them those spoils so dear to the savage heart, scalps and captives. These conquests were com- pleted by the year 1715 when they brought back the Tus- caroras from the Carolinas, and admitted them into their confederacy. After that they were called the Six Nations.
The Adirondack region, including the Champlain and Hudson valleys, as far south as the old district of Sara- toga extended, was reckoned specially desirable as a pos- session, and had ever been disputed territory between the Algonquins of the north and the Iroquois. Long before the white man set eyes on this region it was known to the red man as “the dark and bloody ground.” Against all opponents, the indomitable courage and persistency of the fierce Iroquois had quite won the day when the white man appeared on the scene as a new contestant for the valu- able prize. When he entered the field, he was destined to add some still darker chapters to its already bloody history.
BOOK I
MILITARY HISTORY
CHAPTER I Discovery of this Valley
Our first introduction to these natural pathways lead- ing northward and westward is connected with the meet- ing of a party of whites and Indians drifting south from Canada on discovery intent, and a party of painted Iro- quois hastening north, on war and pillage bent. The leader of the party from the north was Samuel de Cham- plain, the founder of Quebec, and the first French Gov- ernor of Canada. The Algonquins had told him of a wonderful inland sea that stretched far southward into the land of the terrible Iroquois. He became curious to see it, and so in the spring of 1609, with two white companions and 60 native warriors with their canoes, he started on the eventful voyage. They reached the lake in July and paddled south leisurely, till they arrived in the vicinity of Crown Point, as is supposed, where in the night they met the party of two hundred Iroquois painted and plumed for war. Of course, there was trouble in the wind at once. By mutual consent they postponed the fight till daylight, when the apparition of three strangely- dressed men with white faces, a thing never before dreamed of by them, together with the thunder of their arquebuses and the terrible execution they wrought, quickly decided the day, and the Iroquois fled precipi- tately, not pleased with their first taste of the white man.
1
2
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
Champlain came no farther, but the beautiful lake which he had discovered and described, fittingly bears his hon- ored name.
Six weeks after this event, by a strange coincidence, Hendrick Hudson, an Englishman, commanding a Dutch ship, sailed into the splendid harbor now known as New York bay, and laying his course due north entered what he fondly hoped would prove to be the much looked for passage to the East Indies, but which turned out to be only a river, yet a river far more beautiful than any his eyes had ever beheld. Wishing to learn the character and size of his great find, he worked his way as far north as Troy or Cohoes. Then he returned to report his dis- covery. He, too, was honored by having his name af- fixed to the southern portion of this marvellous valley and its noble river. Five years thereafter a trading post was established 150 miles north of New York bay, and which for fifty years bore the name of Fort Orange, after the noble house whose sons had successfully led the Nether- lands in their eighty years fight for liberty against Spain. But a 100 miles of this valley from Troy to Crown Point was as yet terra incognita to the white man, and remained so for one-third of a century.
During all this time the Iroquois of Central New York had refrained from war against the north ; but they by no means forgot their humil- iating defeat at the hands of the white men who were the allies of their ancient foes in Canada. For thirty- three years they had nursed their wrath and drilled them- selves in warfare with other tribes, to the west and south, when in the spring of 1642, after themselves becoming possessed of fire-arms and practiced in their use, they de- cided that the time had come to Mot out their disgrace in
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
3
the blood of the Algonquins and French. And had it not been for the timely arrival of some French troops the Canadian settlements would have been utterly exter- minated.
Among their captives was a noble Jesuit priest, Father Isaac Jogues, who in company with several helpers and converts were returning, with their canoes loaded with supplies, to a mission already established among the Hurons in the distant west. He, with two assistants, Couture and Goupil, and a number of Hurons, were hor- ribly tortured; then they were bound and headed south for the Mohawk country. It was about the ist of Sep- tember when they arrived at that bold promontory jutting out into Lake Champlain, since become famous as Ticon- deroga. Rounding this they turned west where soon they were stopped by the churning rapids and chiming falls of a goodly stream, the outlet of another lake. Here the Indians landed, shouldered their canoes, fol- lowed up the stream, and soon with their captives launched forth upon the crystal waters of Andiatarocte. Here, for the first time since the dawn of creation, eyes, that could appreciate, looked upon the rare beauty of that “fair Naiad of the ancient wilderness/' Lac St. Sacra- ment, as it was christened two years later by Father Jogues.
These savage warriors, with their hapless victims, duly landed where now stands that handsome hos- telry, Fort William Henry Hotel, and straightway plunged into the dusky woods and followed the ancient war trail. This trail led from Lake George to the bend in the Hudson a few miles west of Glens Falls, thence southwestward till it struck the Mohawk in the vicinity of Amsterdam. Arrived at their castles, the captives
4
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
were again ferociously tortured for the entertainment of savage women and children. Finally Goupil was mur- dered, Couture having struck the fancy of the Indians by some act of bravery, was adopted into the tribe; Father Jogues lived for months in daily expectation of being murdered. He was given to an old Indian as a slave and performed for him the most menial tasks. In the following March he accompanied his master on his spring fishing trip. They repaired to a lake four days distant. On reasonable grounds this is supposed to have been Lake Saratoga. If so he was the first white man who ever gazed upon the placid surface of that beautiful sheet of water.
About the ist of August, 1643, he accompanied a party of Indians on a fishing trip down the Hudson some twen- ty miles below Albany. Before the main body were ready to leave he secured permission to return with a few Indians who were going up the river in a canoe. At Albany he was very kindly treated by the Dutch who urged him to escape. They had previously made a fruit- less attempt to ransom him. Finally he concluded to make the attempt, slipped away from his custodians, and secreted himself. But the Indians made such an ado about it, that to pacify them Megapolensis, the good Dutch Dominie, and Arendt Van Curler, the subsequent founder of Schenectady, collected enough goods to ran- som him. The Albany Dutchmen then gave him free passage to France. At New York Gov. Kieft exchanged his squalid and savage dress for a good suit of Dutch cloth and placed him aboard a small vessel bound for his home. On his arrival there he was received as one risen from the dead, for they had heard of his capture. He at once became an object of curiosity and reverence. He
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
5
was summoned to court and Queen Anne of Austria kissed his mutilated hands.
Soon he returned to Canada. In 1646 he was ordered by his superior to go to the Mohawk country on an em- bassage of peace for the government. He with Sieur Bourdon, an engineer, and two Algonquin Indians started the middle of May, laden with rich gifts to con- firm the peace. They reached Lake George on the eve of Corpus Christi. From this fact he named it Lac St. Sacrament, a name which was retained for more than a hundred years. From Lake George they took the trail to the Hudson, where, being greatly fatigued from their load of gifts, they borrowed some canoes from an Iro- quois fishing party and descended the Hudson, passing Old Saratoga to Fort Orange. Here the Dutchmen, to whose sacrifices he owed his life, heartily welcomed and entertained him. After a few days he left them for the Mohawk council where he was received with grudging courtesy.
His mission having ended successfully, he started for home, but with the determination to return and found a mission among the Mohawks. With this purpose in mind he left behind a small chest containing a few trinkets and necessaries. But the Indians were persuaded that it harbored some malignant spirits that would work mischief among them. Sure enough there was sickness in the village that summer, and the cater- pillars ate their corn. This was of course all laid to the evil spirits left in that box. Hence, when Father Jogues returned, there was a case against him. He was foully murdered on the 18th of October, 1646. “Thus,” as Parkman says, “died Isaac Jogues, one of the purest ex- amples of Roman Catholic virtue which this Western
6
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
continent has seen.” 1 (The shrine at Auriesville is erected on the traditional site of his martyrdom.)
Thus, when Father Jogues reached Albany in 1646 the whole of the Champlain-Hudson valley had been trav- ersed by the white man. It is also interesting to note that he and Sieur Bourdon were the first to see the site of Schuylerville.
The reader will recall the fact that New York and Al- bany had been occupied as trading posts since 1614, and had been permanently settled or colonized since 1623.
CHAPTER II
Saratoga — Significance of the Name
The name Saratoga passed through many vicissitudes at the hands of public officials before the spelling became settled. Note the variety of spelling as it appears in the Documentary History of New York: Cheragtoge, Sara- chtitoge, Sarachtoga, Saractoga, Saraghtoga, Saragtoga, Saratoge, Saraktoga, Sarastague, Sarastaugue, Schor- achtoge, Sarasteau, Saraston, Saratogo, Sarrantau, Serachtague, Seraghtoga, Soraghtoga, Saratoga. Thus the modern spelling of this name affords a good example of the survival of the fittest in orthography.
To most people outside the boundaries of this county, the name Saratoga is coupled only with the great water- ing place twelve miles west of the Hudson whose me- dicinal waters gush forth “for the healing of the nations.” Whereas its adoption there, was a long after-thought.
1 See Parkman’s Jesuits in North America.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
7
Indeed, the name as applied to a river district was known to white men for a hundred years before the springs were discovered.
Saratoga is an Indian word. The red men applied it to one of their favorite hunting and fishing grounds lo- cated on either side of the Hudson river, extending from three to five miles back from the stream, and an indefinite distance both north and south of Fishcreek, which empties into the river at Schuylerville. The colonists adopted this name and applied it as the Indians did to a district covering both sides of the Hudson and extending from the mouth of the Mohawk, north to the vicinity of Fort Miller. Afterward it began at Mechanicville in- stead of Cohoes. But when they began to build forts at the north to protect their frontier settlements, the one placed at the junction of Fish creek with the Hudson was then called the fort at Saratoga.
As to the significance of the name several traditions are extant. One is, that it means, “the hillside country of the great river another says it means “place of the swift water/' in allusion to the rapids just above Schuylerville which disturb the quietness of the river's flow. A Can- adian Indian told the historian Hough that Sar-a-ta-ke means “place where the track of the heel shows," refer- ring to depressions like heel prints which he claimed could be seen in some rocks in this vicinity. Mr. J. L. Weed of Ballston, N. Y., told the writer that an old uncle of his, Joseph Brown, an early settler, who had native Indians for neighbors on Saratoga lake, used to say that the word means “place of herrings," suggested by the vast number of those fish which they used to catch in the river and creeks hereabouts. To the writer this seems the most satisfactory for the reason that both the Dutch
8
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
and English gave the analogous name Fishkill or Fishcreek to the outlet of Saratoga lake be- cause of the myriads of herrings which used to swarm up through it in the spring of the year into that lake; and secondly, because of the exten- sive fish weirs which the Indians constructed at the out- let of the lake for catching herring.* 2 This same Joseph Brown used to relate an Indian legend in this connection. These fishing grounds and especially the weirs at the lake were accounted a valuable possession by the Indians far and near, and were often the occasion of wars and bloody encounters. Once a small party of Iroquois In- dians were catching and curing herring there, when they were apprised of the approach of a powerful body of Al- gonquins from the north. They decamped at once, but a decrepit old chief refused to go because he would hin- der their flight, and might thus prove their destruction. He could serve them better by staying where he was. They reluctantly yielded to his wishes and left him to his fate. Soon the intruders appeared on the scene and ques- tioned the old man as to the whereabouts of his people, but he gave evasive answers, whereupon they put him to the torture which soon quenched the little spark of his re- maining life ; but without evoking the desired informa- tion.3
_ 2 Remains of those old Indian weirs were visible within the memory of
some of the older inhabitants.
3 This same stoiy greatly elaborated and highly colored in true Indian style is told in Stone’s Reminiscences of Saratoga.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
9
CHAPTER III
The old Indian trails — First expedition from Can- ada into the Mohawk Country under Courcelle and De Tracy
As has already been intimated, Schuylerville, or rather old Saratoga, owes its historic importance to its geo- graphical location. In colonial days it was regarded by military men as an important strategic position. From this point important lateral trails diverged from the main one, which ran like a great trunk line up and down the Hudson valley. These lateral trails started here because at this point two large streams empty into the Hudson ; the Battenkill (or Di-an-on-de-howa, in Indian) from the east, and the Fishcreek from the west. The one afforded easy access to the Connecticut valley, while the other of- fered ready passage from the north and east over into the valley of the Mohawk. In short, here was a sort of Indian “four corners.”
Two trails led from the north or Champlain valley into the Mohawk valley. One started at Ticonderoga, passed through Lake George, thence across country, passing the Hudson not far west from Glens Falls, thence through the towns of Moreau and Wilton turning west through the pass south of Mt. McGregor at Stile's Tavern, over near Lake Desolation, southwest through Galway, thence into the Mohawk valley a little west of Amsterdam. This was called the Kayadrosseras trail.4 The other started at Whitehall, thence to Fort Edward and down the Hudson to Schuylerville, up the Fishcreek to
4 Sylvester’s Hist, of Saratoga County. Edition of 1878, p. 32.
IO
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
Saratoga lake, thence up the Kayadrosseras river to the Mourningkill, thence over a carry into Ball- ston lake, over another carry into Eel creek, and down this into the Mohawk river. This was called the Saratoga trail. If on their expeditions to the north the Mohawk Indians chose to build their canoes at home before starting, they came down the Saratoga trail be- cause it was a waterway. If they decided to build their canoes at the head of the lake, then they took the Kay- adrosseras trail overland, for it was shorter.
These trails were already ancient and warworn before the white man appeared on the scene. He promptly ap- propriated them to his own use for purposes not only of warfare but of commerce.
Courcelle’s Expedition against the Irootjois
This region was frequently seen and traversed by the white man years before the name Saratoga appeared in printer’s ink, or official correspondence. For years prior to 1666, bands from the Five Nations, or Iroquois, had harrassed the French settlements in Canada, at Montreal, Three Rivers and Quebec, murdering and carrying the settlers into captivity. Finally a full regiment of French soldiers was sent to their defence. The French governor, Samuel de Remi Sieur de Courcelle, impatient of delay after they came, started out with a force of 600 men and a number of Algonquin Indians as guides to wreak ven- geance on the hated savages. Equipped with snow shoes and with provisions loaded on toboggans, drawn by mas- tiff dogs, they started from Quebec on October 29, 1665. They slowly and laboriously made their way south over frozen lakes and the wilderness of snow till they arrived at the Hudson about February 1st, 1666. Their Indian
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA n
guides failing them on account of too much “fire-water,” they missed the Kayadrosseras trail, their intended route, and took the Saratoga trail instead. This brought them down to the mouth of the Fishcreek at Schuylerville, up which they went to Saratoga lake and so on. The 9th of February they discovered to their chagrin that instead of being near the Mohawk castles, or palisaded forts, they were within two miles of the Dutch trading post at Schenectady. Here they fell into an ambush set by the Mohawk Indians and lost eleven men. The Indians fled and gave the alarm. Nearly exhausted from cold and exposure, but receiving some timely succor from the Dutch, they abandoned the enterprise, and hastily re- treated by the way they came, down through Old Sara- toga and up the Hudson and Lake Champlain.5 That trip of some 700 miles over a frozen desert, void of hu- man habitation, in the teeth of howling blizzards and bit- ing cold, was an achievement never excelled before that day.
De Tracy's Expedition
Stung to madness by the murder, that summer, of Sieur Chazy, a favorite captain in the regiment, at the hands of these same Iroquois, a new expedition was organized. In October of the same year, 1666, under the efficient leadership of the Marquis de Tracy, a force of 1,300 men and two cannons started on their mission of vengeance. They came with boats instead of toboggans and snow shoes, and as their flotilla of some 250 canoes and bateaux swept over the crystal waters of Lac St. Sacrament, (Lake George) it formed the first of those splendid
5 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. III., pp. 118, 126.
12
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
military pageants which were destined to render forever famous that pellucid gem of the old wilderness. This force took the Kayadrosseras trail and plunged boldly into the woods, reaching the Mohawk in due time, where they succeeded in utterly destroying the strongholds of the Indians and laying waste their fields, yet capturing and killing but few of their wily foes. Then with a vast deal of flourish and gusto, de Tracy caused a cross to be erected, the arms of France elevated on a pole, and a high sounding proclamation read, declaring all this territory to belong to His Majesty, the King of France, by the right of conquest. Then they went home by the way they came without the loss of a man.6
Descent of the Iroquois upon Canada
After de Tracy’s punishment of the Mohawks they kept shy of the Canadians for more than twenty years. The peace then conquered would have doubtless contin- ued indefinitely had not Canada been most unfortunate in one of her governors. Denonville, greedy for trade and the extension of the French dominions, tried to woo the Iroquois from their English allegiance. Failing in this he trespassed on their territories, attacked some of the villages of the Senecas, and killed and captured a number of their people. This roused the slumbering hate of the whole Confederacy, and war to the death was declared.
Their forces having assembled, they paddled down the Mohawk river in their bark canoes, passed the little fron- tier village of Schenectady, and landed at Eel place creek about the ist of August, 1689. They had decided upon
6 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. IX., pp. 56, 79.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
*3
the Saratoga trail. A flotilla of about 250 canoes filled with 1,300 plumed and painted warriors, the fiercest in the new world, must have been a stirring sight as they debouched from the Kayadrosseras and floated out upon the tranquil bosom of Saratoga lake. It was a fit fore- runner of the showy regattas seen on the same waters 200 years later.7 And again when they struck into Fish- creek, lined with tamaracks, and embowered with birches and maples and oaks, festooned with the wild grape and clematis vines, could we have stood that day, say at Stafford's Bridge, behind some bushy screen, we would have witnessed a splendid pageant of over a mile in length. They swept down the crooked and tortuous Fish- creek to where Victory is now located, whence they car- ried their canoes down the south side to the Hudson, and then lustily paddled north on their bloody mission. Their descent upon the settlements about Montreal was as a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, so unlooked for was it. This was the most dreadful blow sustained, the most ter- rible event recorded in Canadian history. Their build- ings were burned, their garnered harvests destroyed, be- tween three and four hundred French settlers and sol- diers8 were butchered, and 130 were brought back to be tortured for the entertainment of those left at home, or to supply their savage feasts with unusual and dainty meats. The Indians returned, most of them, as they had gone, by the Saratoga trail. The ancient forest then standing here, echoed that day to the sighs of those hap- less captives, and the soil of old Saratoga was moistened with their tears, as they toiled up the carry from the river to the smooth water of Fishcreek above Victory. That
7 Sylvester’s Saratoga County Hist., p. 34.
® Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. \ ol. IX., pp. 43 r> 434*
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THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
was one procession at Schuylerville none of us, I fancy, would care to have beheld, unless prepared to rescue the unfortunate victims.
CHAPTER IV
Destruction of Schenectady and Retaliation
During the year of the above described foray, 1689, war was declared between France and England, which, of course, could not but involve their colonies. This war grew out of the English Revolution of 1688, which de- throned James II of England and enthroned, in his place, William and Mary of Holland.
Count de Frontenac was sent over by the French in October, 1689, to displace the impolitic Denonville. He resolved to be the first to strike a blow in that war on this side the water, and accordingly, fitted out three expedi- tions. One from Quebec against Maine, the second from Three Rivers against New Hampshire and the third from Montreal against Albany.
The force designed for Albany numbered 210 men, ninety-six of which were Indians under the command of two Canadian officers, Sieur la Moyne de St. Helene and Lieut. Daillebout de Mantet. Forgetful of the experi- ence of de Courcelle, twenty-three years before, they, like him, start out in the dead of winter. Having reached the head of Lake Champlain, near Ticonderoga, they halted and held a council. The Indians demanded to know whither they were bound. De St. Helene
replied that he wished to surprise and take Fort
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
5
Orange (Albany). The Indians, remembering the defeats which the French had lately sustained, strongly objected and said: “Since when have the French become so brave ?” Still undecided they continued their march for eight days, toward Albany, till they came to the parting of the ways here at Old Sara- toga,9 (Schuylerville). On their own motion the In- dians left the Hudson here, turned to the right, and took the trail leading toward Schenectady, and the French followed after without serious protest. A thaw had set in and they waded knee deep through the snow and slush. It must have been dreadfully exhausting work, for it took them nine days to make the trip from Schuylerville to Schenectady, a distance of thirty-seven miles by the route they took. But just before they reached their goal one of those sudden and extreme changes occurred, so common to our winters in this latitude. A blizzard came howling down from the north-west, which chilled them to the marrow. The snow fell knee deep. They had in- tended to defer the attack till about two o’clock a. m., but they were forced to proceed at once or perish from the cold. They afterward said, had they been attacked at that time, or had they met with resistance when they at- tacked, they would have been forced to surrender, so benumbed were they by the cold. There was no need, however, for delay on their part, for they could not have imagined better arrangements for their reception than they found.
The Revolution in England naturally created two par- ties ; those who sided with and those who sided against the dethroned King James. These parties were dupli- cated in the colonies. There were many here who were
9 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. IX., p. 466.
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THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
intensely loyal to James, as well as many who were eager to swear allegiance to William and Mary. Of course, this caused trouble and divisions throughout the realm. Party strife fanned into a flame by the acts of the usurp- ing governor Leisler, had become so fierce in Schenectady that neither faction would do a thing for the town’s pro- tection, though they well knew that war existed between France and England, and they were liable to an attack from the north. The two gates of the little town front- ing east and west were left wide open and a dummy sentinel made of snow, in mockery of the few troops quartered within the town, stood guard before the western portal.
Everybody, even the soldiers, were sleeping in fan- cied security. A body of Mohawk Indians had been enj gaged by the Albany authorities to scout to the north, but the love of the fireside proved more alluring than the charms of fire-water and Dutch gold, and so they had lingered at Schenectady.
Guided by some captured squaws, the Canadians crossed the Mohawk on the ice and appeared before the western gate. Silently, as if shod with wool, they glided in and posted themselves next the palisades that surrounded the village. Then the hideous warwhoop was raised, and be- fore the stupefied inhabitants could realize what it all meant, the work of destruction and butchery was under way. For two hours hell was let loose in Schenectady while Satan and his imps held high carnival. It would be useless to attempt a description of the horrors crowded into that brief space. Suffice it to say that at the end of it sixty men, women and children lay stark in death, hor- ribly mutilated, or roasting in the flames of their former homes. Between eighty and ninety were reserved as
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
1 7
prisoners while a few escaped in their night robes, and with bare feet, carried the dreadful tale to Albany, sev- enteen miles away.
After refreshing themselves a little, the victors started on their retreat, the following morning. Leaving behind the old men, the women and children, and retaining twen- ty-seven of the younger men and boys as prisoners, they hastened away, taking the Kayadrosseras trail toward Canada. But they were not allowed to return unmo- lested. They were chased to Lake Champlain and eigh- teen of their number killed or captured by a band of Mo- hawk Indians.10
Winthrop’s Expedition
The fight was now on in dead earnest; for the colonists could not allow so cruel a deed to go unavenged.
The authorities at Albany on the 26th of March, 1690, ordered Capt. Jacob de Warm to proceed to Crown Point with a party of twelve English and twenty Indians to watch the motions of the enemy. On the 30th, Capt Abram Schuyler was sent to Otter Creek, Vt., which was the usual starting point for forays into Massachusetts, with nine men and a party of Indians to do like service at that point.
Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, New York and Maryland resolved upon an invasion of Canada. Each agreed to furnish its quota of troops. Fitz John Win- throp of Connecticut was commissioned major-general to lead the expedition. The troops from Massachusetts and Plymouth did not materialize. Winthrop brought 135 of those promised by Connecticut, Maryland sent fifty,
30 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. IX., p. 466.
2
i8
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
New York furnished 150 men besides 180 Indians. 515 men was not a very formidable array to be led by a major- general.
On the 30th of July, 1690, the Yankees with the Dutch troops collected at Albany and from down the Hudson set out from Albany and camped the first night at the Flatts, the old Schuyler homestead. August 1st they marched to the Stillwater, “soe named/' says Win-' throp, “for that the water passeth soe slowly as not to be discerned/'
“August 2d," continues the journal of Winthrop, “we martched forwards and quartered this night at a place called Saratogo, about 50 English miles from Albany, where is a blockhouse and some of the Dutch soldiers."11 This blockhouse had been built by orders of the Council to protect the house of Bartel Vrooman and six others who had settled here a year or two previously. The site of this blockhouse is a matter of conjecture. Cer- tainly it was on the west side of the river for the army marched on that side. It was as certainly on the south side of Fishcreek, for the first settlement was made there, and the creek would be one of its defences against the north. It probably stood on the ground afterward oc- cupied by Forts Saratoga and Clinton.
Thus, in this, the first of many expeditions against Can- ada, Saratoga (Schuylerville) looms up as an important point. Here Winthrop established his depot of supplies, for on August 7th he says “I sent 30 horse under the command of Ensigne Thomlinson to Saratogo for more provition."
The little army got no nearer Canada than Whitehall, through lack of canoes and provision, and because of
11 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. IV., pp. 194, 195.
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19
sickness among the troops. This according to Winthrop. But Capt. Johannes Schuyler of Albany, only twenty- three years old, commanding those Dutch troops that Winthrop was moved to praise so highly because of their superior efficiency, was clearly dissatisfied that the ex- pedition should be abandoned without an attempt to strike a blow. And this not alone because of its depressing ef- fect upon the colonists, but he was especially fearful of the effect of failure upon the Indians who were just then wavering in their allegiance between the French who were so belligerent and the English who showed so little fight. He therefore resolved that as for his single self he would not return to Albany without an effort to bring back something to show for all the trouble. He applied to Gen. Winthrop for permission to go forwards. Win- throp cheerfully granted it and commissioned him cap- tain for the venture.12
At once he beat up for volunteers ; forty whites and ioo Indians responded. Loading their canoes with sufficient provision, they cut loose for the north. They surprised La Prarie, south of Montreal, killed a number of the in- habitants, took many prisoners, did great damage to property and returned with but little loss to themselves. This was the first armed force that ever penetrated Can- ada from the English colonies. They reached Albany on the 31st of August, only eleven days after Winthrop and his hundreds had sheepishly crept back. This Jo- hannes Schuyler was the grand-father of General Phillip Schuyler.
12 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol IV., p. 196.
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THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
Expedition of 1691
The success of Johannes Schuyler's raid seemed to whet the appetite of the Albany Dutchmen, and also of the Indians, for more experience of like flavor. Hence on June 21, 1691, another expedition started from Albany, this time led by Mayor Pieter Schuyler, brother of Jo- hannes, the hero of the campaign of '90. They started with 120 whites, and sixty river Indians (Catskills and Schagticokes) . The first night they camped at Still- water. “On the 24th," says Schuyler's Journal, “we marched to Saraghtoga, 16 miles distant, and camped about 2 of the clock afternoone."
“June 26th. We continued at Saraghtoga; foul weather, where we were joined by 15 Mohawks com- manded by one Schayavanhoendere." These Mohawks came over by the Saratoga trail from Schenectady and were from a party of ninety-five or more, which later joined the expedition at Ticonderoga.
Pieter Schuyler13 followed the tracks of his brother of the year before, fought and won two battles in one day, August 1st; killed many of the enemy, paralyzed the plans of Frontenac for that year, and returned with a goodly number of prisoners and much glory, and what was of much more consequence at that time, they ha-d ’Won for their fighting qualities the high esteem and firm allegiance of the Iroquois. The French account of these actions declares that Schuyler's party was practically an- nihilated. Schuyler reports thirty-seven of his men cap- tured and killed, and twenty-five wounded, out of a force of 260.14
13 This Peter Schuyler was the first Mayor of Albany, and gained un- bounded influence over the Indians, by whom he was called Quider, pro- nounced Keeder, which was as near as they could speak the name Peter.
14 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. III., pp. 781-795, 800.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA 2x
The French admitted in their report to the home gov- ernment, that these battles were the “most obstinate ever fought in Canada/’ and that after the battle in the woods they could not pursue, the “men able to march being sent to the fort for assistance to carry off the wounded.”
John Nelson, an English gentleman taken prisoner bv the French, arrived at Quebec about the time when the news of Schuyler’s expedition was received. In his memorial to the English government on the state of the colonies, he says : “In an action performed by one Skyler of Albanie, whilst I arrived at Quebec in the year 1691, when he made one of the most vigorous and glorious at- tempts that hath been known in these parts, with great slaughter on the enemie’s part, and losse on his own, in which if he had not been discovered by an accident, it is very probable he had become master of Monreall. I have heard the thing reported so much in his honor by the French, that had the like been done by any of theire na- tion, he could never missed of an acknowledgement and reward from the court, tho I do not hear of anything amongst us hath been done for him.”15
There is nothing in the records to indicate that the home government ever took any notice of these most heroic deeds performed by the Schuylers at a very critical juncture in our colonial history. It is acknowledged by all who are familiar with the situation in 1690-1 that those two successes preserved the friendship of the Iro- quois, and their friendship at that time was absolutely essential to England’s hold on New York, and New York was the key to the situation. Bancroft styles Pieter Schuyler “the Washington of his times.”
15 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. IV., p. 209.
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THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
The French get even with the Mohawks
For the next year and a half the Iroquois, especially the Mohawks, so harrassed the Canadian settlers that Count de Frontenac determined to exterminate them utterly. Collecting a force of 625 French and Indians he started for them in January, 1693. The party en- dured the usual hardships, but no cold could chill their ardor, nor blizzard beat them back, so determined were they upon vengeance. They took the Kayadrosseras trail from Lake George, reached the Mohawk valley and took the Indians wholly by surprise. They stormed and destroyed all their towns save one, which was several miles back from the river, captured over 300 prisoners, had a grand jubilation and started back with their booty.16 But most of their prisoners escaped or were rescued before they reached Canada.
Fortunately for New York, the peace of Ryswick in 1697 put an end to King William’s war. In fact, the war had proven especially costly to Albany county, com- prising as it then did all the northern settlements in the colony of New York. It is interesting at this day to read the comparative census of the years 1689 and 1698. In 1689 Albany county had only 2,016 white inhabitants, At the end of the war in 1698, 567 were missing. That left but 1,449 with which to begin the 18th century. The In- dians lost more than half their number. In 1689 they had 2,800 warriors, in 1698 only 1,320. It was about time for all concerned to bury the hatchet.
16 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. IX., pp. 649-656: also Vol. IV., pp. 173, 180.
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23
CHAPTER V
Queen Anne's War — First Settlement of Old Sara- toga— Nicholson's Expeditions against Canada.
For the next ten or twelve years the old northern wil- derness had rest from war. During this time we find several notices of Old Saratoga in the records of the period. From Col. Romer's report,17 in 1698, we learn that no less than seven families had settled here before King William's war in 1689. The name of one of these settlers, that of Bartel Vrooman, has come down to us. The report says, “the farms were ruined," that is the log houses were burned, and the settlers abandoned the lo- cality as a result of that war. It is probable that these first settlers had left the place for the winter of 1689-90 else they would have been discovered and the fact of their capture would have appeared in the French report of the expedition against Schenectady in 1690.
The next we hear of Saratoga as a military post is in the report of the governor, Lord Cornbury, dated Sep- tember 24, 1702. There among other recommendations he says : “I propose there should be a stockadoed fort at Saractoga, a place six and twenty miles above the Half Moon upon Hudson's River and is the farthest settlement we have.”18
Again in his report of June 30, 1703, he is about to set to work on the fort, for he says : “There are but few fam- ilies there yet, and these will desert their habitations if they are not protected."
Meanwhile war had again broken out between France and England, known in England as the war of the Span-
17 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. IV., p. 441-
18 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. IV., p. 969.
24
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
ish succession. In this war the French and Indians seemed to wreak their vengeance specially on the New England settlements ; for example, Deerfield, Mass., was destroyed in 1704, and Haverhill in 1708. Why New York escaped was not known to the settlers at the time, but subsequently it was learned that the Iroquois and their Roman Catholic relatives in Canada had made a treaty not to molest each other’s domain in that war.
One Congreve reports, in 1704, most of the forts on the northern frontier to be out of order, among which was the fort of 1689 at old Saratoga.19
The many outrages from Canada, at last impelled the colonists of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey to unite for an invasion of Canada. A fleet was to attack Quebec while a formidable army of 1,500 was to reduce Montreal. This force rendesvoued at Al- bany and got under way the fore part of June, 1709. The main body had been preceded by a force of 300 Dutchmen from Albany and vicinity under Col. Peter Schuyler. First this pioneer force built a stockade fort at Stillwater, which Schuyler called Fort Ingoldsby, after the governor; then they moved up to Saratoga and built a similar fort on the east side of the river, evidently to guard the ford which crossed just north of the island over which the bridge and highway to Greenwich now pass.
The next was built at the Great Carrying place (Fort Edward), which he named Fort Nicholson, and the next at the forks of Wood creek, which he called at first Queens’ Fort, but later Fort Anne in honor of the reign- ing English sovereign.
Moreover Colonel Schuyler and his pioneers built the
19 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. IV., p. 1128.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
25
first military road in this country of which we have record. This road began here at Old Saratoga, at the ford no doubt, on the east side of the river and ran up that side of the stream to Fort Edward, thence to Wood creek. It had to be cut most of the way through the primeval forest. The road to Fort Edward has no doubt been practically the same ever since.
This army was under the command of General Francis Nicholson, who, Governor Hunter declared, had never seen an army in the open field.20 This was the first time the red-coated British regular appeared on the scene and trod this old war-worn trail which was so soon to become familiar tramping-ground to him.
Gen. Nicholson marched bravely up, garrisoned the several forts which had been built for him and then, like Micawber, sat down at Fort Anne and waited for some- thing to turn up. The first thing that turned up was a malignant disease in his camp by which he lost more men than if he had hastened forward and fought a disastrous battle with the French. The next thing that did not turn up was the British fleet, which had been promised to co-operate with him on the St. Lawrence. In the midst of such calamities what was there left for a brave man like him and his army to do but to turn their backs upon Canada and march down the hill again to Albany? Which thing they did.
In 1 71 1 another campaign was organized for the con- quest of Canada. The plan was a duplicate of the pre- vious one. Only the force that marched up through Old Saratoga was about twice as formidable, numbering near- ly 3,000 regulars, colonists and Indians. This time they se- lected the Lake George route instead of the Fort Anne and
20 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. V., p. 451.
26
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
Whitehall, evidently because it was the healthier. This was wise, but the redoubtable Gen. Nicholson had no sooner reached Lake George than he heard that the fleet on which he depended for support had been scattered by the winds and wrecked. At once he threw up his hands in despair, burned forts Anne and Nicholson and marched back ingloriously. Thus the third attempt at conquer- ing Canada failed, mainly through the inefficiency of its leaders. Had John, or Peter Schuyler been at the head of the expedition we feel sure that that army would have been heard from in Canada, but no New York Dutchman could hope for any worthy recognition from either Old or New England. The fort at Saratoga was thus left the unmost military post of the colony facing the ever frowning north.
The treaty of Utrecht between France and England put the finale on Queen Anne's war.
CHAPTER VI
King George's War — The Building of the Forts
In all the early histories of New York much is made of the sack and massacre of Schenectady in 1690, and that of Cherry valley in 1778, while little or nothing is said of the equally tragic fate of Old Saratoga in. 1745. One cannot but wonder why that event should have re- ceived from the historians such scant courtesy. The only reasons for it that suggest themselves to the writer are first : That most of the people who made up the vil- lage at that time were doubtless illiterate. There were none of the survivors nor any of their friends possessed of sufficient literary ability, or interest in the event to write up a worthy account of the fate of this frontier vil-
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
27
lage. Apparently the only one present who could have done it, died bravely fighting for his honor and his home, and “dead men tell no tales; ” That was Capt. Philip Schuyler, uncle of the general.
A second reason which suggests itself is the existence of fiercest political dissension between the people and their governors, which largely absorbed the thought and time of the thinkers. About the only detailed accounts that we possess of the massacre are found in the reports given by the French of their exploit.
In order to the better appreciation of that event it will be well to glance at such of the fragments of history as have been preserved that relate to the planting and growth of the settlement at Old Saratoga.
As we have seen, the first settlers were obliged to abandon the place at the time of King William’s war in i689~’97. Just when these settlers ventured back the record saith not, but there were a few families here in 1703 as we have already learned.
During the long peace which followed Queen Anne’s war the little settlement at Saratoga developed gradually under the fostering care of the enterprising Schuylers. The settlers by no means confined themselves to the west side of the river, but cleared for themselves many a broad acre of those rich bottom lands on the east side. There too, substantial homes were reared, and no doubt one of the houses on that side was built in blockhouse style for their common defence, and called The Fort. Where it was located we know not.
The French and the English of those days were very anxious to extend the sphere of their influence in the great American wilderness, just as they now are doing in Asia and Africa. The French looked with covetous eyes
28
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
upon the colony of New York especially, for she had al- ready discovered that whoever held New York could have it all. Hence we are not surprised at seeing her attempt to move her frontiers as far south as the elastic treaty of Utrecht and the patience of the English would permit. In 1731 she determined to appropriate that nat- ural stronghold Crown Point to herself.21 Brooking no delay, she began to fortify it, first by a stockade, then soon by a substantial stone work which she called Fort St. Frederic. This was a menace to both the New York and New England colonists, who viewed the move- ment with deepest apprehension and chagrin. As a counter move they should have fortified Ticonderoga, but political strife and jealousies between the several gov- ernors and their legislatures seemed to paralyze every effort looking toward the public safety and welfare.
The building of this fort together with the constant efforts to win over the Six Nations and steal away the fur trade greatly exasperated the colonists. And when- ever the relations between France and England became especially strained the New Yorkers would think about their defenses toward the north.
One of those crises occurred in 1721, when the author- ities decided to delay no longer in building a fort at Sara- toga for the defense of the northern frontier. This was erected in the months of September and October of that year under the superintendency of Philip Eivingston.
The bill of items presented by Livingston for the build- ing of this fort, with many receipts from the workmen, are still preserved in the archives at Albany. The docu- ment is a fine specimen of penmanship. The bill as ren- dered amounted to 153^ ns. 4d. Johannes Schuyler,
21 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. VIII., p. 345.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
29
proprietor of the first sawmills erected here, furnished much of the material for the above fort.22
Captain William Helling23 was the first commandant of this fort ; whether he had any successors does not appear.
Another crisis occurred in 1739. As a result of this one, Lieut. -Governor Clarke reporting to the Lords of Trade in London, says that he had persuaded the Assem- bly to make provisions for building several forts, among the rest, one at “Sarachtoga but as no appropriation for this fort appears in the Act to which the governor refers, we are left in the dark as to when it was begun or finished ; but subsequent events make it evident that the fort was really built at that time. For example, Governor Clinton, reporting to the Lords of Trade June 5, 1744, says, he is about to send “a party of troops to the fort at Saratoga for the defense of that place.”24 A few years later we see the Assembly squaring its accounts with a large number of individuals for work done in 1745 in rebuilding this fort.25 Since the old records say that the effective life of those wooden forts was only five to seven years, this “rebuilding” would indicate that there was a fort built here at least as early as 1739. The fort as rebuilt in the winter and spring of 1745 was square with a blockhouse on each corner. 26
The long peace of thirty-one years was broken in 1744 by France declaring war against England. I11 fact pretty
22 N. Y. Colonial MSS. Vol. LXIV., pp. 39, 40.
23 Ibid. p. 45.
24 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. VI., p. 255.
25 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. VI., p. 648.
26 A block house was built of heavy logs, with the second story projecting over the first about two feet, and pierced for small arms and, some times, cannon. In a fort these block houses were connected by palisades of logs set in the ground and extending from 10 to 12 feet above ground. A gallery was built inside the palisades and high enough from the ground to enable a sentinel to walk about and look over.
3°
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
much all Europe was involved in that war. It started with a quarrel between rival claimants to the Austrian throne. The chief competitors were the noted Maria Theresa, daughter of the late Emperor Charles VI., and Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria. England sided with Maria Theresa while France took the part of Charles. It was called in Europe the War of the Austrian Succes- sion, but it is usually set down by Americans as King George's war. The representatives of the two belliger- ent nations on this continent cared precious little about who should sit on the Austrian throne, but they did care very much about who should hold the sceptre over the imperial domain of this continent, and for this they were ready to fight.
In this war the English struck the first blow. Early in 1745 an expedition was organized against Louisburg, a stronghold of the French on Cape Breton island. The French had spent some $5,000,000 and thirty years of labor on the fortifications there, and it was called by them the Gibraltar of America. Each of the New England colonies furnished its quota of troops, while New York appropriated 5,ooo£ in aid of the expedition. The cam- paign was entirely successful ; Louisburg fell and great was the rejoicing in both Old and New England. New England troops did about all the fighting, but the Old England officers and troops got all the rewards.
The French forces at that time in Canada were not very numerous, but with such as they had they must avenge such a disaster as best they could. Where should they strike? Why, of course, where they could do the most harm with the forces they had, and that “where” lay through the open gateway of the Champlain and Hudson valleys.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
3*
CHAPTER VII Destruction of Saratoga
The governor of Canada planned an expedition in the fall of that same year, 1745, with the design of striking the New England settlements along the Connecticut river.
The force was put under the command of M. Marin. It consisted of 280 French and 229 Indians, in all 509. The chaplain was the Abbe Francois Picquet, who after- ward became famous as the founder of the Mission La Presentation at Ogdensburg, N. Y.
They started from Montreal the 4th of November and arrived at Crown Point the 13th.
In the council convened at Crown Point the Indians held, that it was too late in the season to go over the mountains Into the Connecticut valley. Then, the Abbe Picquet, displaying a map of the Hudson, pointed out Saratoga among other places as worthy of capture. The map showed thirty-one houses and two forts, (one on each side of the river no doubt). After much expostu- lation and argument M. Marin concluded to yield to the wishes of the Indians, and so the doom of fair Saratoga was sealed.
Embarking again they paddled south for a distance, then left their canoes and took up their march along the north shore of South Bay, thence over the Fort Anne Mountains heading for Fort Edward. They lost their way, however, and spent several days wandering about before they got out of the woods. At last on the morn- ing of the 27th of November they struck the Hudson near the house of John H. Lydius, a bold trader who had dared to establish himself so far away from his white neighbors. His was a large house built on the site of
32
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
old Fort Nicholson, (Fort Edward). Here they captured a boy and hired man, Lydius and his family having retired to Albany for the winter. In a house near by, the Indians found three men; all these together with two Schagticoke Indians, captured the day before, they placed in the Lydius house under a guard of twenty men. Then the men, having received absolution from the priest, who remained behind, hastened on, taking the old mil- itary road built by Peter Schuyler in 1709. Marin went ahead down the river with a few men in canoes to find a suitable fording place. On the way, the Indians cap- tured six or seven men in a house near the road. They were sent to keep company with the other captives at Lydius’. About four and a half miles from Saratoga the army met a man and his wife returning from Schuy- ler’s Mills with some bags of flour. After some parley the man and woman were given to Atagaronche, a chief, while the French appropriated the flour and horses. As the woman started for Lydius’ she said, in hopes of frightening them off: “You are going to Saratoga, but
you will find 200 men in the fort waiting to give you a warm reception.” This did not disturb them, for the two Schaghticokes, above mentioned, had told them that the fort was empty.
The place selected for crossing was evidently a little below the State dam, at Northumberland, for it was south of Fort Miller where the man and woman were captured, and in describing the crossing the journal of the expedition says : “Happily we found ourselves near an island and a waterfall, whose sound mingled with the noise we made in crossing the river.” The island men- tioned is doubtless the one just below the State dam, over which the electric road now passes.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
33
It was about mid-night before they got across. Then says the journal: “The night was very cold, and had it
not been for a little fire, which the bed of a creek shel- tered by two hillocks enabled us to make, some would have run the risk of freezing their feet, as we all had wet feet.” The “creek” mentioned is evidently the little stream that crosses the highway perhaps twenty rods south of the residence of Mr. E. W. Towne, and about five rods south of where a road turns up the hill to the west. The “hillocks” are either the steep banks of the creek, or the steep wooded hill back of Mr. Towne's, and the bare hill back of Mr. D. A. Bullard's farm buildings. The first theory is doubtless preferable.
While the main body was thus trying to thaw itself out and make itself comfortable, M. Beauvais was sent forward with a scout to make a reconnoissance of the doomed hamlet.
A generation had passed since this ancient war-path had been pressed by hostile feet. Most of the inhabi- tants of this now sleeping village knew not what war and pillage meant except from hearsay. One need not stretch his imagination to form a pretty correct picture of Old Saratoga as it looked on the 27th of November, 1745-
Here were at least thirty dwellings with their usual outbuildings, barns, granaries, pens, etc. ; four mills, a blacksmith shop, perhaps a store of general merchandise, and the frowning fort, made up the material portion of this primitive hamlet. These buildings were all strung like beads on a single narrow, lane-like road running north and south for perhaps a half mile above and two miles below Fish creek. There was no bridge across the creek at that time. It was forded a few rods above the
3
34
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
present canal aqueduct. The only brick house in the place was owned and occupied by Philip Schuyler, uncle of Gen. Philip Schuyler ; this was located twenty rods directly east of the present mansion. This house was de- signed for defense, being pierced above and below for small arms. The original road ran east of that house. The fort stood a half mile below the creek on the flats. Most of the houses were about and below the fort. The fort, though much had been done on it, was still in bad repair, so much so that the troops claimed that they could not stay there with comfort or safety. Instead of there being 200 in the garrison a^s the woman told the Frenchmen, there had been only ten privates stationed there in charge of one Sergeant Convers, who in turn had gone over to Schenectady, leaving his corporal in command. Governor Clinton had left it optional with the Lieutenant of the company whether the men should remain or withdraw. Their stay was to depend
on the treatment they should receive at the hands of the Indian Commissioners", who seemed to be the source of supplies and repairs. The little gar- rison withdrew only a short time before the attack, and reported at Albany. It is a wonder that the settlers did not follow them, as they must have known that they were liable to an attack at any time from the north. But thirty years of peace seems to have lulled their fears to sleep.
The settlement had evidently enjoyed a prosperous sea- son. The barns, the granaries, and the cellars were full to repletion ; many goodly stacks of hay and grain nes- tled close to the buildings. Herds of sleek cattle and plump sheep were feeding in their stalls; great piles of lumber were awaiting shipment to the markets below,
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
35
and the mills were grinding and sawing night and day, seemingly rushed with orders. “The evening meal had been eaten ; the mother had sung her lullaby over the cradle ; the fires were all 'raked up' on the hearthstone, and all had gone to rest,” save a few men at the sawmill.
“Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,” is an oracle that was tragically, yes luridly, illustrated in the fate of Saratoga on the morning of November 28, 1745. For, owing to the wariness of the invaders its people had not received the least intimation that that morning should not be just as peaceful as any that preceded it.
On the return of M. Beauvais from below with his re- port, Marin gave orders for the advance and attack. From this point let the journal of the French adjutant
be our guide.27 1148181
“The Nipissing and Abenakis followed the eastern shore of the river under the lead of Messrs, de Courte- manche and Niverville with a few French volunteers.” to look after the settlement on that side.
“November 28. On the return of Beauvais we began to move quietly, and in good order with all the officers at their posts. We marched through the woods about a league along a very good road and then came to the houses. When we reached the first one M. Marin or- dered me to detail four Frenchmen and ten Indians to go and surround it, but did not permit them to attack it until daybreak, which was the time when we were all to make the attack together. We had not gone more than an eighth of a league when they fired a gun and uttered their death yells, rushing to the assault. The Abenakis,
27 This journal was found in the archives at Quebec after its capture by Wolfe in 1759. It was placed in the hands of Col. Philip Schuyler, as the one most interested.
3 6
STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
[on the east side], who until then had awaited the signal, took upon themselves to make the attack, and from that time it was not possible to exercise any control. However, we went on to the edge of the wood in good order. M. de Beauvais having told M. Marin that we were discovered, he di- rected us to follow him. We passed a very rapid river [Fish creek], for which we were not prepared, and came to a sawmill, which two men (a negro and a Dutchman), were running, and in which there was a large fire. M. de St. Ours and M. Marin’s son were disputing the pos- session of the negro with an Indian, although another Indian said that it was Marin who had captured him. His father, with whom I was, told him this was not the time to dispute about prisoners, and that it was neces- sary to go on and take others. A large party attacked a blacksmith's house on this side of the river [creek], when a native unfortunately killed a child twelve or four- teen years old. It was doubtless the darkness of the night and the fear of the river that separated us.
‘‘Coming out of the mill we went to the house of a man named Philip Schuyler, a brave man, who would not have been seriously incommoded if he had only had a dozen men as valiant as himself. M. Beauvais, who knew and liked him, entered the house first, and, giving his name, asked him to give himself up, saying that no harm would be done him. The other replied that he was a dog, and that he would kill him. In fact, he fired his gun. Beauvais repeated the request to surrender, to which Philip replied by several shots. Finally Beauvais, being exposed to his fire, shot and killed him. We im- mediately entered and all was quickly pillaged. This house was of brick, pierced with loop-holes to the ground
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
37
floor. The Indians had told us that it was a sort of guard house where there were soldiers. In fact, I found there more than twenty-five pounds of powder, but no soldiers. We made some of the servants prisoners, and it was said that some people were burned who had taken refuge in the cellar.
“We burned no more houses before reaching the fort, as this was the last. We had captured everybody, and had no longer any cause to fear lest anyone should go and warn the fort of our approach. It was at quite a considerable distance from the houses where we had been. We found no one in it. We admired its construction. It was regularly built, and some thought one hundred men would have been able to defend it against 500. I asked M. Marin if he wished to place a detachment there ? He replied that he was going to set fire to it, and then told me I might go and do my best. This permis- sion gave several of us the pleasure of taking some pris- oners, and it did not take us long to get possession of all the houses below the fort, breaking the windows and doors in order to get at the people inside. However, everyone surrendered very peaceably. We had never counted on the facility with which all the houses were taken and the pillage accomplished. We set fire to ev- erything good and useful ; for instance, more than 10,000 planks and joists, four fine mills, and all the barns and stables, some of which were filled with animals. The people who were in the fields were in great part killed by French and Indians. In short, according to our estima- tion, the Dutch will not repair the damage we caused short of 200 marks. The barns were full of wheat, In- dian corn and other grains. The number of prisoners amounted to 109, and about a dozen were killed and
38
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
burned in the houses. Our achievement would have been much more widely known and glorious, if all the merchants of Saratoga had not left their country houses, and gone to spend the winter at Albany ; and, I may add, had we met with more resistance.
“The work was complete at 8 a. m., when M. Marin issued orders for the retreat. On our return we reached Fort St. Frederic, December 3d, and Montreal, December 7th."28
Such is the French account of that deed of savagery. The chronicler, apparently somewhat ashamed of their work, strives to paint the barbarities of that night in as light a shade as they will bear. The number of prisoners given is no doubt correct, because he was in a position to know, but the number mentioned as butchered is pal- pably incorrect. The savages, greatly exasperated over the recent execution of seven of their braves by the Eng- lish, would not be content with ten or a dozen scalps. Nor could any individual in that party possibly know how many perished. It was night and they were con- cerned only to do their work of destruction as quickly as possible and retire. Governor Clinton gives the number killed as thirty. This is doubtless much nearer the truth. Only one family escaped by flight.29
Thus what we saw to be a busy, thriving hamlet on the 27th of November was a scene of blackened ruins and an utter solitude on the 28th. The prisoners, men, wo- men and children, many of them half clothed and bare- footed, were collected, bound together and headed toward the frowning north, doomed to a fate which, to many of
28 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. X., p. 76; also G.
W. Schuyler’s Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. II.
29 Documents relating to Colonial Hist of N. Y. Vol. VI., p. 288; Vol.
X. , p. 39.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
39
them, was worse by far than death. Some died in pris- ons. A few were ransomed from the Indians and re- turned, but most of them never saw the old home-land again.
A thrill of horror ran through the colonies as the news of this catastrophe spread. A storm of indignation broke over the heads of the governor, the Assembly, and on everyone who could, in any way, be held responsible for the defenseless condition of this frontier post.
Captain John Rutherford, who commanded the com- pany from which the men were detailed to garrison the fort, demanded a court of inquiry, which was granted. The men swore that the fort was neither habitable nor defensible ; that there was no well for water, nor oven for baking bread. Lieutenant Blood testified that Governor Clinton had given him orders to withdraw unless the Indian Commissioners should repair and equip it as they had promised. They failed to do so, and therefore he had withdrawn the men as per orders.
There is little doubt but that the men exaggerated the facts considerably, as they probably found it dull busi- ness doing garrison duty at such an out-of-the-way place, and naturally wanted to get away, and keep away.
That the fort was untenable is disproved by the testi- mony of the Frenchmen above quoted. They thought it to be admirably built, and that ioo men could hold it against 500.
The only English account of the massacre at Saratoga which has been preserved, aside from Governor Clinton’s brief report to the Lords of Trade appears in a letter to Sir William Johnson. It is dated
^ Albany, Nov. 28, 1745.
I have received your favor of the 23d instant &c.
40
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
The bearer hereof In obedience to your Request therein shall herein give you as brief and true account of that un- fortunate Affair which happened on the 17th 30 [O. S.]
Instant at Saraghtogue — as I am Every Other Night & day on the watch, and my houses full of people soe That I cannot be at Large herein, — Viz : at Break of Day or one hour or two before Day a Number of 400 french & 200 Indians appeared and did Besett all the houses there, Burnt and Destroyed all that came Before them. Left only one Sawmill standing which stood a little out their way it seems; took along with them such Booty as they thought fit & kilt and took Captives 100 or 10 1 persons, Black and white. I guess the Black most all prisoners, and the number of them exceeds the number of the white. The unfortunate Capt. Philip Schuyler was kilt in this Barbarous action, they say certain true ; hoped He may Rather Be prisoner, the Latter is not Believed.31
Sr,
Your friend, well wisher,
& Very Humble Servant
ROBT. SANDERS.
The Assembly severely blamed the governor for with- drawing the garrison. Instead of doing that, he should have reinforced the post with some of the many idle troops camped below Albany, where they were of no use to anybody. Once at the fort they could have repaired it speedily, dug a well, and built an oven as a matter of agreeable employment and exercise.
30 The English at this time used the old style of reckoning, which was eleven days behind that of the French, who used the new style. The Eng- lish dated the massacre of Saratoga November 17th; the Trench November 28th.
31 Johnson l.iSS. Vol. XXIII., p. 18.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA 41
The truth is that the Governor and the Assembly were both to blame; for each was more anxious to spite the other than to care for the public interests.
The secret of this animosity was that Clinton, like his predecessors, was an absolutist, very jealous of the King’s, and his own, prerogatives. On the other hand the Assembly, as representing the people, who were large- ly Dutch trained to republicanism before they emigrated, was equally jealous of its rights and liberties, and would neither be cajoled nor bullied into giving up a single privilege it had gained, but constantly pressed for more. The struggle for liberty and independence and the drill for self-government in these colonies began long years before the Revolutionary war. The Dutch of New York and the Pilgrims of New England had tasted the sweets of civil and religious liberty, and self-government in Hol- land, before they came here, and they were not disposed to yield them up at the beck and call of despotic gov- ernors who did not believe that colonial subjects had any rights which they were bound to respect.
CHAPTER VIII
Fort Clinton — Its Site— Its Fate
Immediately after the destruction of Saratoga, Colonel Schuyler (cousin of the general) suggested to the gov- ernor that the fort be rebuilt. The governor and council took the matter under advisement at once. As a result, Clinton ordered it to be rebuilt immediately, trusting that the Assembly would furnish the means with alacrity."2
32 Minutes of Council in MSS. Vol. XXI., p. 66.
42
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
The Assembly appropriated to this purpose 150^ ($750) on the 24th of December, 1745 ; a sum wholly inadequate, as this sixth fort in the series was to be considerably larger than the one destroyed. The work was started, and much of that winter was apparently spent in the work of reconstruction. In March it was ready for occupancy and was named Fort Clinton after the governor, but great difficulty was found in getting the militia up to garrison it. Dread of the French and Indians was doubtless the reason.
In June, 1746, the fort is said to have been in bad re- pair, which probably means that it lacked completion. What troops made up the first garrison has not been as- certained.
A party of Indians hovering about Saratoga in July, of that year, reported to the French that there were 300 at the fort. Still another party reported to the French that no person went outside the fort except in parties of thirty. This was about August first of that year, 1746. 33
Early in September a band of fourteen Abenaki In- dians, headed by Sieur de Montigny, who had been de- tached by M. Rigaud, after his attack on Fort Massa- chusetts,34 came over this wa}7 to keep an eye on Sara- toga, and learn about the rumored English expedition against Crown Point. One day they caught a party of twenty soldiers outside the fort, escorting a wagon loaded with clay for making a chimney, fell upon them, took four of them prisoners, and scalped four; the rest threw themselves precipitately into the fort, some of whom were badly wounded.
33 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. X., p. 59.
34 Fort Massachusetts was located at Williamstown, Mass. Its site is marked by a liberty pole and can be seen from the train a little way east of the B. & M. Station.
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
43
About October 23 a scouting party of thirty-three In- dians and four Frenchmen, under M. Repentigny, hover- ing about the road somewhere between Saratoga and Waterford, heard a great noise through the woods toward the river. The Indian chief skulked down to the road to see what was up and discovered a great train of wagons escorted by several hundred troops bound for Fort Clinton. There were a few carriages in the caval- cade occupied by finely-dressed officers. The enemy stationed themselves near the road in a thicket and waited their chance. Seeing a couple of carts somewhat sepa- rated from the rest they pounced upon the drivers, killed both of them, scalped one, and scattered in the woods before any one could come to the rescue.35
This was no doubt the New York militia, under the command of Captain Henry Livingston, who was com- mandant of the fort from November, 1746, till March, 1747. The wagons were loaded with ammunition and camp belongings, provisions, etc.
In December, ’46, a French and Indian scouting party observed the fort [no doubt from the top of some trees on the high ground toward Victory], and reported that it was twice as large as the old one; that the English had a large storehouse erected near the fort, and that the gar- rison numbered perhaps 300.36
Early in March, ’47, Lieutenant Herbin at the head of a party of thirty French and Indians struck a blow near Saratoga. They fell upon a detachment of twenty-five on their way to Albany, killed six of them, captured four, and the remaining fifteen threw away their muskets and took to flight. These prisoners reported some interest-
36 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. X., p. 75.
36 Ibid. p. 89.
44
THE STORY OF OLD SARATOGA
ing facts concerning Fort Clinton, viz: That there were twelve cannon at the fort, six eighteen-pounders and six eight-pounders ; that ioo bateaux had been built for the proposed expedition against Crown Point; that a great sickness had prevailed that winter at Albany and was still raging there and at Saratoga, where a great many of the soldiers had died.37 A letter was found in the pocket of the commanding officer, who was killed, written by Commandant Livingston. This letter declares that “all the soldiers are ill ; that the garrison is in a miserable condition ; that no more than a hundred men are fit for duty; that we are in want of every succor/' and then adds : “Were we killed in this expedition against Canada it would have been an honor to us ; that the fort is in the worst condition imaginable, and I pity the men who are to succeed us." Verily, when two mother hens spend their time fighting each other (as did Gov. Clinton and the Assembly) the chickens are pretty sure to suffer.
It is not known who immediately succeeded Captain Livingston, but John H. Lydius, of Fort Edward fame, in a letter to Sir Wm. Johnson, dated Albany, June 16, 1747, relates the following incident found in a letter received from Captain Jordan of Saratoga. A fleet of 300 birch canoes had passed down the river, and that when the fort opened on them with cannon they replied with small arms and hastened on toward Albany.38 A Captain Jordan, no doubt, was here as commandant, but the story about that number of canoes filled with Indians deliberately paddling by a fort within easy range of its cannon is decidedly improbable, for the Indian ever had a mortal dread of the “big guns" of the white man.
37 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. X., pp. 93, 96.
38 Johnson MSS. Vol. XXIII.
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45
From the beginning of the war there had been much talk and preparation for the conquest of Canada. The colony of New York spent 70,000 £ ($350,000) on it; but it all evaporated in talk and preparation.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsyl- vania and Maryland were all to help, but only a few troops ever assembled at Albany. After the fall of Louis- burg an army of 3,000, well led and officered, could have marched from end to end of Canada without very serious opposition ; for she had but few troops with which to defend herself at that time. But jealousy and ineffi- ciency then ruled in the seats of authority in theise col - onies, and so nothing was accomplished.
“In union there is strength but first get your union.
La Corne St. Luc's Expedition Against Fort Clinton, 1747
The reader has no doubt been impressed with the thought that the French kept themselves thoroughly posted on the situation at Saratoga (Schuylerville). As a result they felt themselves justified in making another attempt at the fort’s reduction. M. Rigaud had charge of the next expedition. From Fort St. Frederic (Crown Point) he detached M. de la Corne St. Luc with twenty Frenchmen and 200 Indians of various tribes to strike the blow. The journal of that expedition is worth the reading, so we give it here :
“June 23d. Started from Fort St. Frederic at mid- night for Sarastau to endeavor to find an opportunity to strike some good blow on the English or Dutch garrison at Fort Klincton, as they called it.
“26th. Left his canoes and slept near the river of
46
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Orange [Hudson], which he crossed, the first in a little pirogue. Had five canoes made of elm bark. Left Messrs, de Carqueville and St. Ours to cross their men. All were over at two o’clock in the afternoon.
“28th. At early dawn the Abenakis told him he was exposing his men very much, and they wished to form an ambuscade on a little island in front of the fort, in order to try and break somebody’s head. He told them they must go to the fort.
“He sent Sieur de Carqueville with seven Indians of the Saut and Nepissings, to see what was going on at the fort. They reported that some forty or fifty English were fishing in a little river [the Fish creek], which falls into that of Orange, on this side of the fort. He sent Sieur de Carqueville, a Nepissing, and an Abenaki to ex- amine where the fort could be approached. M. de St. Luc said he should give his gun, a double-barreled one, to the first who would take a prisoner, and told them that after the first volley they should charge axe in hand. He said the same thing to the French. Sieur de Carqueville arrived, and said the English had retired into the fort. I sent M. de St. Ours to see where the river [Fishcreek] could be crossed, and to watch the movements of the fort. He returned to say that he had found a good place ; that several Englishmen were out walking. They crossed the river [creek] and spent the remainder of the day watch- ing the enemy.
“29. They all crossed half a league above [Victory Mills], though the Abenakis were opposed to it. Waited all day to see if any person would come out. Sent twenty men on the road to Orange [Albany], who re- turned under the supposition that they were discovered, passing near the fort. Made a feint to induce them to
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47
come out. He demanded of the chiefs six of their swift- est and bravest men; commanded them to lie in ambush, on the banks of the river, within eight paces of the fort at daybreak, to fire on those who should come out of the fort, and to try and take a scalp, and if the fort returned their fire to pretend to be wounded and exhibit some dif- ficulty in getting off so as to induce the enemy to leave the fort. Those in ambush neither saw any person nor heard any noise ; they came to say they thought they were discovered. The chiefs assembled around the officers and said that they must retreat; that they were surrounded by 400 men who had just come out of the fort. These gentlemen told them that it was not the custom of the French to retire without fighting, when so near the enemy and that they were able to defend themselves against this number of men, should they be so bold as to come and at- tack them.
They sent out the six scouts to lie in ambush at their appointed place, and to pass the night on their arms. He commanded the French and Indians to discharge their pieces in case a large number of people came out and to let them return the fire, and then to rush on them axe in hand, which was done.
“30th. Those who lay in ambush fired on two Eng- lishmen'who came out of the fort at the break of day on the 30th, and who came towards them. The fort made a movement to come against our scouts who withdrew. About a hundred and twenty men came out in order of battle, headed by two Lieutenants and four or five other officers. They made towards our people, in order to get nearer to them by making a wheel. They halted at the spot where our scouts had abandoned one of their mus- kets and a tomahawk. [Another account says they w£re
48
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lured some distance from the fort.] De St. Luc arose and discharged his piece, crying to all his men to fire ; some did so, and the enemy fired back, and the fort let fly some grape, which spread consternation among the In- dians and Canadians, as it was followed by two other dis- charges of cannon ball. Our men then rushed on them, axe in hand, and routed the enemy, who they pursued within thirty toises [about 200 feet] of the fort, fighting. [Another account says St. Luc surrounded them.]39 Some threw themselves into the river and were killed by blows of the hatchet, and by gunshots. Forty prisoners were taken and twenty-eight scalps. The number of those drowned could not be ascertained. One lieutenant, who commanded, with four or five other officers, were killed and one lieutenant [named Chews] was taken pris- oner. Only one Iroquois of the Saut was killed, he was attacked by three Englishmen ; five were slightly wounded.
“The attack being finished, Sieur de St. Luc collected the arms and withdrew his men. He remained with three Frenchmen and as many Indians, watching the en- emy's movements. About 150 men, as well as they could judge, came out of the fort, without daring to ad- vance. Of the 120 or 130 who might have been in the sortie from the fort, some twenty or twenty-five only appeared to have re-entered it."
The above quotation is given at length chiefly that the interested reader might have the data from which to form his own opinion as to the location of Fort Clinton. It has been a bone of historic contention for many years. Some writers, taking their cue from the description given by the Swedish traveller Kalm, have placed it on a hill
39 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. X., p. 112.
/
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east of the Hudson.40 Others insist that it was located north of the Fishcreek on or near the site of Fort Hardy.
After a careful reading of the above journal, the pres- ent writer ventures to claim that Fort Clinton, like the blockhouse and the two wooden forts which succeeded it, (of 1739 and 1745) was also on the west side of the Hud- son and south of Fishcreek, and near the bank of the river.
Note, first, that the whole force crossed the Hudson to the west side on the 26th of June, and they nowhere speak of re-crossing to get at the fort. Second. The “little river” was no doubt the Fishcreek, as in Marin's journal. The French called all such streams rivers. Third. The main body crossed this “river” a half league above its mouth. (Of course that “river” could not be the Hud- son.) The rapids at Victory Mills answer that particu- lar. Fourth. “The road to Orange” (Albany) was on the west side of the Hudson, and according to the journal this “passed near the fort.” Fifth. The ambush or de- coy of six men was to lie on the bank of the river within eight paces of the fort. This would be impossible were the fort on the high bluff east of the Hudson where Kalm puts it. Sixth. Again, as the official records say, that Governor Clinton ordered the fort, which was destroyed in 1745, to be “rebuilt,” and since no objection to the old site anywhere appears, it is a fair presumption that the
40 “Saratoga has been a fort built of wood by the English to stop the attacks of the French Indians upon the English inhabitants in these parts, and to serve as a rampart to Albany. It is situated on a hill on the east side of the River Hudson, and is built of thick posts, driven in the ground, close to each other, the manner of Palisades, forming a square, the length of whose sides was within the reach of a musket shot. At each corner are the houses of the officers and within the palisades are the barracks, all of timber. The English themselves set fire to it in 1747, not being able to defend themselves against the attacks of the French and their Indians.” — Peter Kalm’s Travels. Vol. II., p. 287.
4
5°
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word “rebuild” here means to erect another fort on the site of its predecessor. Seventh. Moreover, the “little island” mentioned in St. Luc’s journal as “in front of the fort” is still in the old place about a half mile below Fishcreek. This landmark together with the statement in Marin’s journal that the fort burned by them in 1745 “was quite a considerable distance from the Schuyler houses where we had been” suggested to the writer the place where we ought to look for the site of old Forts Saratoga and Clinton. So one day he asked Mr. E. A. Chubb, whose father for many years owned the flats in that locality, if there was not a spot opposite or nearly opposite the little island on which in plowing they some- times found broken bricks and loose stones. He replied : “Yes, there is such a place there, and it is the only place on the flats where you can find a stone big enough to throw at a cow ; and, besides, we used to find many lead balls, and grape shot and brass buttons, and we also found several cannon balls, and father used to imagine that there might have been an old fort or something of that kind there.”
The writer soon thereafter verified this by an exam- ination of the ground. The place is a few rods below the “little island,” which, by the way, having been denuded of trees has for years been wearing away.41 There scat- tered over ground a little higher than the rest, he found many brick-bats and rough stones which had no doubt formed part of the “twenty chimneys” and fire-places in the old fort. The space over which these fragments are scattered is about 225 feet square. Loads of them have been dumped over the bank, doubtless to get rid of them.
41 The remnants of a little island directly in front of the fort can be seen at low water.
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5*
On a later visit Mr. George Hathaway, the present owner, called the writer's attention to what appeared to be sections of heavy stone walls embedded in the bank 100 feet or more below the dumping place, and which recent freshets had exposed; for the river is rapidly cut- ting away the banks here. There, plainly visible, are some foundations of the old fire-places, three in a row, together with a stratum of broken brick, stone and charred wood about sixteen inches below the surface. In laying them the builders had dug three feet below the surface. Many thin brick of the old Holland pattern lie about mingled with the stone that have tumbled down. About 100 feet north of these we discovered another foundation which had been partially disclosed bv an en* terprising woodchuck. We also picked up many old hand-made nails in the charred wood embedded in the steep bank. Another person recently found in the same place an English half-penny dated 173b.
In addition to the above Mr. F. B. Pennock, an intelli- gent citizen of Schuylerville, told the writer that many years ago while staying in Whitehall, N. Y., he became acquainted with an aged St. Francis, or Abenaki Indian, who told him that his grand-father was present at the at- tack on Fort Clinton, and was afterward down here with Burgoyne. He exhibited an old sketch map of Saratoga on which he pointed out the location of sev eral points of interest, among which was the site of Fort Clinton. After returning here it occurred to Mr. Pen- nock to go to the place indicated by the Indian, and see if he could discover any signs of a fort or other structure. He found the stones in the bank and the old bricks, etc., lying around which certified him that the Indian knew what he was talking about. He spoke of it to several
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of the older citizens, but they were incredulous and so he let the matter drop. The spot located by Mr. Pennock and that fixed upon by the writer are one and the same.
Eighth. A careful reading of Kalm’s account leads one to conclude that despite the fact that the fort, seen by him, had been set on fire, much of it was yet standing, else he could not have given so detailed a description of its construction; whereas, the French account declares that nothing remained of Fort Clinton but twenty chim- neys. Kalm’s fort must have had log chimneys lined with clay or plaster, for there are no sufficient remains of stone chimneys, or brick fire-places on either the hills or the flats east of the river to warrant the belief that such a fort had stood there ; and furthermore, there are no stones suitable for chimney construction to be found within several miles of the site of it. In support of this theory we offer the following certificate presented by Philip Livingston with his bill for building the fort:
Nov. nth, 1721.
This is to certify that John Campbell was detained at the Block House at Saraghtogue, after the rest of the men was sent home, upon the account of his trade, and has wrought nine days making the chimbley’s Backs and pounding the Hearths.42
WILLIAM HELLING, (Capt.)
This would indicate that the chimneys were lined with, and the hearths made of clay, as stone chimneys would need no lining.
Again, Kalm’s fort was square, whereas, Fort Clinton was oblong according to French measurements. The fort described by Kalm was doubtless the one built by
42 N. Y. Colonial MSS. Vol. LXIV., p. 45.
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53
Philip Livingston in 1721, and kept in repair as a refuge for the people on the east side of the river. Kalm evi- dently did not inspect the west bank of the river, and hence did not see the remains of Fort Clinton. In a speech at Albany in 1754 King Hendrick chides the Eng- lish for having burned their “forts at Saratoga/' which leaves room for Kalm's fort in addition to Fort Clinton. (See below). Recall also the two forts marked on Father Picquet's map in connection with Marin's expedition against Saratoga. Kalm obviously describes the one of the two located on the east side of the river.43
Soon after the withdrawal of St. Luc, M. Rigaud came against the fort in the hope of finishing what his lieutenant had so auspiciously begun. But after sitting around in the woods watching for three days without catching anyone outside, he concluded that the loss of a hundred men had made the garrison very cautious, and that he could not carry the fort except by a regular siege. This together with the desertion of most of his Indian allies, compelled him to abandon the enterprise and re- turn.44
The following letter written to Sir Wm. Johnson the day after the attack is of so interesting a character and in certain particulars tallies so closely with the French account that we insert it :
43 On invitation of the writer, Messrs. Samuel Wells, William S. Ostran- der, George R. Salisbury and W. E. Bennett, prominent lawyers in Schuy- lerville, went down and looked the ground over carefully. He thereupon read to them the above journals, and his conclusions therefrom, when they agreed that the spot answers all the conditions, and the remains and relics which have been discovered here, confirm the fact that this must be the site of those two Colonial forts known as Saratoga and Fort Clinton. Forts Clinton and Hardy alone, of the eight or more that were erected here, received a name; the others, each in its time, were always spoken of as the block house, or fort at Saratoga. See, e. g. the above quoted certificate.
44 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. X., p. 115.
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“Saratog, Saturday night, June 20th, [O. S.] July 1st. [N. S.] 1747
“I wrote you last night which was giving you an ac- count of the unhappy ingagement we had yisterday with the French, and have thought proper to write you again this evening for the following Reasons. This morning, at ten of the clock, A French Indian Came running to- wards the Garrison, and made all the signs of a distressed person, fired off his Piece, laid it down, and came up to the Garrison, and Desired to be admitted; which was granted, and has made the following discourse, to wit: He says he came out of Crown pt under the command of one Monjr Laicore [La Corne St. Luc] who is com- mander in Chief of the whole party which consists of Twelve Companies. And since [then] he has Tould us he has Four Thousand French and Indians. And he further tells us that Monsr Lacore went up to the place of Rendesvous, which is The Great Carrying Place, [Fort Edward] after the engagement, with Mr. Chews who with the rest of th£ prisoners are sent to Crown pt. Monsr Lacore has left Monsr Lagud [Rigaud] as com- manding officer of 300 men who are constantly seen in the woods Round the Garrison, and he says his desire is to intercept all parties coming from Albany; And that Monsr Lacorn is expected down from ye Carrying Place with the rest of the forces under his command this Even- ing, and are determined to stay here until they can have several Guns, Provisions &c. that they have sent for to Crown pt. as thinking it impossible to reduce this place without them, tho he says they have got hand-grenades, Cohorns, shovels & spades, & fire-arrows in order to fire the Block Houses, which that party attempted to do that
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55
fired upon the Rounds [sentries] from under the Bank. The person appointed to perform the same had a Blankit carryed before him that we should not Discover the fyer upon the point of the arrows. They not finding [the] thing according to their mind thought it best to come the next night and undermine ye Blokhouse No. i, which they understood the Maggazine was in. But now I have rendered it impossible by Levelling ye Bank, and am in such a posture of Defense which will render it impossible to take ye Garrison with small arms, or anything else they have with them.”45
Here the letter ends, apparently unfinished, and is with- out signature. This officer certainly displays a good deal of pluck and resolution after the severe losses of the day before, and despite the threatening disclosures of the Indian says not a word about reinforcements. The letter written the day before, describing the attack has been lost.
Peter Kalm, the noted Swedish naturalist, passed up through here on a tour of exploration just two years after this famous attack on Fort Clinton. He tells the story of it in his book as he had heard it from the lips of par- ticipants on both sides, and since it throws some new light on the situation here at the time we give it herewith.
“I shall only mention one out of many artful tricks which were played here [at Saratoga], and which both the English and the French who were present here at that time told me repeatedly. A party of French with their Indians, concealed themselves one night in a thicket near the fort. In the morning some of the Indians, as they had previously determined, went to have a nearer view of the fort. The English fired upon them as soon as they saw them at a distance; the Indians pretended to be
45 Sir William Johnson’s MSS. Vol. XXIII., p. 44.
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wounded, fell down, got up again, ran a little way and dropped again. Above half the garrison rushed out to take them prisoners; but as soon as they were come up with them, the French and the remaining Indians came out of the bushes, betwixt the fortress and the English, surrounded them and took them prisoners. Those who remained in the fort had hardly time to shut the gates, nor could they fire upon the enemy, because they equally exposed their countrymen to danger, and they were vexed to see their enemies take and carry them off before their eyes, and under their cannon. There was an island in the river near Saratoga much better situated for a fortification.”46
The last garrison that served in Fort Clinton was made up of New Jersey troops under Colonel Peter Schuyler. These troops seem to have fared worse at the hands of the public than any of their predecessors. Governor Clinton insisted that the New York Assembly should pro- vide for them ; but the Assembly refused on the ground that since this was a general war, and all the colonies alike interested in the defense of the frontiers, it was the duty of each colony to subsist its own troops, wherever they were on service.
During the latter part of the summer of 1747 the As- sembly becoming apprehensive that the garrison would desert because of lack of subsistence, apprised Governor Clinton of the facts, and asked that a sufficient number of the forces recently levied in New York for the proposed expedition against Canada, be sent to garrison the fort at Saratoga, or that a hundred of the regulars be sent up, assuring him that they had an abundance of provision for their own troops.47
46 Kalm’s Travels in North America. Vol. II., pp. 289, 290.
47 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. VI., p. 618.
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57
Finally the storm, which had been for sometime brew- ing and apprehended, broke in September of that year, when the majority of the garrison resolved to right their wrongs in their own way. So on the morning of the 20th, at the word of their leaders, they shouldered their muskets and started for Albany. The official account of the incident is still preserved in manuscript, which we shall herewith put in type, for the first time, and as one reads it he cannot but wish that the soldier's side of the story had also been preserved.
This letter was addressed to Governor George Clin- ton then in New York city.
“ Albany, Sept. 22d, 1747.
“Sir :
“On the 20th inst. deserted from the garrison of Fort Clinton (after the provision arrived there and the party had come away) [Provisions were finally sent from Al- bany on the 18th, but evidently too late] about 220 of the troops under Coll Schuyler’s command and left him with about forty men. I immediately summoned a council of war, who join with me in the opinion, as there were not a sufficient number of men able to go to Saraghtoga with- out leaving the City and Quarters, with the sick entirely defenseless, that the cannon and other warlike stores be- longing to His Majesty ought (conformable [to] the Paragraff of your Excellences letter of the 10th instant) to be brought away to Albany. I have accordingly or- dered a Detatched party from the whole, except your Excellency’s Company who go down by the Douw [name of a sloop perhaps], for that service with horses, car- riages, &c, as is necessary for that purpose, [and] which are just marched. The Mayor and Corporation this
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58
morning applied to me to request that I would, if pos- sible, prolong the time of removing the artillery, &c, till the Return of an Express they now send down with the utmost dispatch, with one of their Aldermen to apply to your Excelency and Assembly, that a Provition may be made for maintaining that Garrison, which they are con- vinced cannot be by the new Levies in their present situa- tion. I have consented to it provided the Corporation would be at the expense of keeping the horses and workmen so many days longer than otherwise would be necessary, which they have agreed to; Especial as they assure me it will occation most of the Inhabitants of this City de- serting it, and be a further predjudice to us in regard to our Interest with the Indians. I have there- fore wrote to Coll. Schuyler to this purpose and have de- sired him to prolong the time of the preparation as will be necessary for removing; as Corking batteaux, &c., and that I would send your Excel’cy’s commands up the Instant the Express returns, which beg may be as soon as possible ; for I can have no dependence on the present Garrison, nor is there well men enough to relieve it.
"I have, however, advised Coll. [Peter] Schuyler if he finds he cannot maintain the Garrison till he hears from me, and it is your Excel’cy’s Orders that the artillery. Stores, &c., belonging to His Majesty be all brought down to Albany. I take this opportunity of writing, and as I have but a quarter of an hour’s notice, hope you will forgive the hurry I am obliged to write with,48 I am
Sir, Your Excel’cy’s Most
Obliged & Humble Serv’t,
J. ROBERTS [Colonel.]”
48 N. Y. Colonial MSS. Vol. LXXVI.
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59
On the receipt of this letter, Sept. 26th, Clinton im- mediately convened his council, laid the communication before them, and asked their advice. The council, which was wholly subservient to the governor, advised the abandonment and burning of Fort Clinton, and the sav- ing of as much of the timber as could be used in the con- struction of a new fort at Stillwater.
Accordingly the governor, despite the pleas and pro- tests of the Albany delegation, sent up orders to burn the fort and remove the cannon, stores, etc. On the 14th of October following he laid before the council the aforesaid orders together with a statement that the fort was in ashes, and that the cannon, etc., were removed to Still- water.49 But there was no fort built at Stillwater to take its place.
Fort Clinton must have been dismantled and the torch applied about October 5th, 1747, when the men, we may suppose with alacrity, turned their backs on the whole business, and left Saratoga to its pristine solitude, to sav- age beasts and the still more savage men from the north. The governor said in excuse for his orders that he had learned that the only persons interested in having a fort there were the Schuylers and a few others who wanted it as a protection for their wheat fields.50 When he made this statement he seems to have forgot those Commissioners who came to plead, in behalf of Albany and English prestige with the Indians, that the fort be preserved and regarrisoned. Hence the act of the gov- ernor smacks far more strongly of personal spite than of solicitude for the public treasury and the public safety.
At the end of November, 1747, Sieur de Villiers, at the
49 Council Minutes. Vol. XXI.
60 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. VI., p. 630.
6 o
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head of a troop of seventy Indians and French, while out on a foray, visited Saratoga and were greatly sur- prised to find Fort Clinton in ashes. They describe it as about 135x150 feet in size; that twenty chimneys were still standing ; and that the well had been polluted. 51
Thus Old Saratoga and her forts seem to have been doomed to hard luck, judging from the records. No story of heroic deeds done by the garrisons, has been preserved, if^they were ever performed. Their neg- lected and half-starved condition seems to have sapped their energies, and quenched their fighting spirit.
That the Albany people were right in their contention with the governor that the destruction of Fort Clinton would hurt the standing of the English with the Six Nations is evidenced by the following.
In a General Colonial Council, held at Albany, in July, 1754, to confer with the Indians, and endeavor to retain their allegiance, King Hendrick, the great sachem of the Mohawks, in his speech said this among other things :
“ *Tis your fault, brethren, that we are not strength- ened by conquest ; for we would have gone and taken Crown Point, but you hindered us. We had concluded to go and take it, but we were told that it was too late, and that the ice would not bear us; instead of this you burnt your own forts at Saratoga, and run away from them, which was a shame and a scandal to you . Look about your country and see! you have no fortifications, no, not even to this city. ’Tis but a step from Canada hither, and the French may easily come and turn you out of your doors !”62
61 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. X., pp. 147, 148. 52 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y. Vol. VI., p. 870.
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The treaty of peace signed at Aix-la-Chapelle, in May, 1748, put an end to King George’s war and gave the colonists a breathing spell, but not for long.
CHAPTER IX
The French and Indian War
There could be no permanent peace on this continent so long as both the French and English laid claim to all the vast territory west of the Alleghany mountains, and so long as their representatives here were each straining every nerve to make good that claim.
The war which afterwards became general in Europe and was known there as the Seven Years War, began here in 1754 with a blow struck for English sovereignty in western Pennsylvania by a detachment led by a young man, with an old man’s head on his shoulders. That young fellow was George Washington by name, and only twenty-two years old at the time.
England had begun to realize the value of her pos- sessions here, and decided to do more for her colonies now than she had in the last war. Three separate ex- peditions against the French were to be organized; one led by General Braddock against Fort Du Quesne; one by Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, against Niagara, and the third, directed against the very vitals of French power in Canada, must of necessity take the ancient war trail up the Hudson against Crown Point, and Quebec, if possible.
The latter was entrusted to the command of William Johnson, then a colonel of militia, and a great favorite with the home authorities. The army was made up of
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five thousand provincials from the neighboring colonies, and collected at the ancient rendezvous of councils and armies, Albany. There too, that brave old Mohawk Sachem, King Hendrick, assembled his dusky warriors. Early in July six hundred pioneers went forward to clear the path to Lake George, and build at the Great Carrying place a fort. This they called Fort Lyman, in honor of the brave General who was leader of the party. Soon afterwards Johnson renamed it Fort Edward, in honor of the Duke of York and brother of George III. On the 8th of August, General Johnson, as he was now called, started from Albany, and the whole war-like procession passed through Old Saratoga about three days thereafter.
Since Saratoga figured so little in the war of 1 754^60, we shall give but a brief resume of the thrilling events of that period, referring the reader to the many excel- lent histories of that epoch.
Johnson’s mission was the reduction of Ticonderoga, and Crown Point. He reached Lac St. Sacrament in due time, and at once took the liberty to rechristen it Lake George, in honor of his sovereign, and, as he said, “an assertion of his king’s right of dominion there.” Hav- ing reached there he showed no anxiety about proceed- ing farther. The French were more aggressive, and since their foe did not come to them they would go to him and attack him on his own ground. Baron Dies- kau marched around by South Bay and Fort Edward and attacked Johnson on the 8th of September. John- son was able to beat him off, yet with great loss to both sides. Johnson failed to follow up his victory, while the scare of it was on the enemy and soent his time building a fort at the south end of the lake instead of
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63
taking the one at the north end, which he was sent to do, and which he might have done, had he been a Baron Dieskau. He named it Fort William Henry. “I found/' he said, “a wilderness, never was house or fort erected here before." So that campaign failed of its object, but it gave the provincials a higher and truer notion of their own fighting qualities. Philip Schuyler took a hand in the battle of Lake George as a captain of the Albany County Militia. While nothing specially bel- ligerent occurred at Old Saratoga during the French and Indian war, yet the Johnson MSS. contain a few items which throw some light on the material conditions here at that time.
General Johnson, on his march to Lake George, found the roads in a most wretched state. After the battle we find him taking steps to repair them, and improve the means of communication with Albany. In his letters and orders concerning these we find that Saratoga fig- ures quite prominently. Early in October, 200 men were set to work on the road between Albany and Sara- toga; a large number were also set to similar work be- tween Saratoga and Fort Edward on the east side. His soul was mightily vexed at the tardy manner in which his orders about these roads were obeyed, and at the way in which the soldiers “sojered." As Saratoga was the point where the supply trains crossed the river, much attention had to be given to the ways and means of the crossing. It appears that the point where his army crossed on the advance was not the best possible; for in a report to Governor Hardy, dated, Camp Lake George, 7th October, 1755, he says among other things: “Mr. Wraxall informs me that at the north end of an Island, opposite the House of Killaen DeRidder’s, if the
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Bank on the west side is dug away & a waggon passage made, the Ford of the River is not above Horse knee High,53 whereas thro the usual Ford, unless the waggons are uncommonly high the water generally comes into the wagons by which means the Provisions have been often damaged/’54
Again as the river could be forded only at low water, provision had to be made for crossing at high water, and also for defending the passage against an enemy. A large scow boat was therefore built for ferrying the wagons, etc., over the Hudson. This ferry-boat was built near the house of one Hans Steerhart on the west side of the river at Saratoga. A picked company of fifty men from a Massachusetts regiment was posted here, during the fall of 1755, to guard the supplies and crossing, and to help the wagoners, etc., over.55
Campaign of 1756
Another expedition was planned the next year with the same objective, but under a different commander. This time it was led by General John Winslow. He started from Albany, about the first of June, with a force of 5,000 men. He built a fort at Stillwater, and honored it with his own name. But he, like so many of his predecessors , marched up the hill and then marched down again, with nothing accomplished. It is to be presumed, however, that the General and his
63 The river bank has been greatly worn away on the west side at this point, but remains of the old dug-way are still visible, and stock yet pass down it for water. From this point the ford passed to the north end of the island, thence north-east to where the line fence between Mrs. S. Sheldon’s farm and Walsh’s reaches the river.
64 Johnson MSS. Vol. , p. 45.
BR Johnson’s MSS- v^ol. III., pp. 131, 158.
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warriors bold had a pleasant summer outing on Lake George, at the public expense. Philip Schuyler, dis- gusted with the inaction and incapacity of the leaders, left the service at the end of this campaign, but after- ward served in the quartermaster's department.
Campaign of 1757
The next campaign against Crown Point was under the leadership of the most spiritless, sneaking poltroon that had yet led the soldiery of these colonies to inaction and disgrace, General Daniel Webb.
The efficient and stirring Montcalm, leader of the French forces, organized an expedition the same year against Fort William Henry. He was before it with 6,000 men, 2,000 of which were Indians, by the 2d of August. The fort was defended by two thousand two hundred men under Colonel Monroe. Webb, with an army of four or five thousand, was at Fort Edward do- ing nothing. And when called upon for help virtually refused to give it, and traitorously allowed Fort Wil- liam Henry to be besieged and captured without lifting a finger to give it succor. For example, Sir William Johnson, having obtained Webb's reluctant consent, started with a body of provincials and Putnam's rangers for the relief of Monroe, when, after proceeding a few miles Webb sent an aide and ordered him back.
Webb was clearly a coward. On hearing of the fall of Fort William Henry, he at once sent his own baggage to a place of safety far down the Hudson, and would have ordered a retreat to the Highlands had it not been for the timely arrival of young Lord Howe, who suc- ceeded in assuring him that he was in no immediate danger. And Lord Loudoun, the commander-in-chief
5
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in America for that year, and who, if possible, was a bigger coward than Webb, was utterly paralyzed by the news, and grimly proposed to encamp his army of twelve or fifteen thousand men on Long Island “for the defense of the Continent” ! The French could not possibly mus- ter over seven thousand men in all Canada at the time.
It was during this campaign that an incident occurred on the east side of the river opposite Saratoga of some local interest. It is related by the Sexagenary, whose father was one of a body of wagoners returning from a trip to Fort Edward. He says : “The main body of
wagoners returned by the west side of the river, but my father and his friends kept on the east side, and when they reached the Battenkill, they discovered on crossing the bed of the creek the wet print of a moccasin upon one of the rocks. They were confident from this cir- cumstance that hostile Indians were near them, and that one must have passed that way but a few minutes before. To go back seemed as dangerous as to go for- ward. They therefore pushed on towards the river [at the ford] but had scarcely reached its bank when the distinct report of a musket in their rear brought with it the confirmation of their fears. When this firing was heard, a detachment from an escort guarding the wagon- ers on the west side came across to ascertain the cause. On searching, they found in a garden belonging to a Mr. De Ruyter [De Ridder] the body of a dead man, still warm and apparently shot while in the act of weeding, and then scalped.”
It was during this year, 1757, that the authorities again decided to adorn Old Saratoga with another fort. It was built on the north side of Fish creek in the angle made by it with the river, and named Fort Hardy, after
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the then royal governor of the province. It was by far the largest and most elaborate of the forts built here, covering some fifteen acres. It could have been of no practical use at that time further than a shelter for troops and a depot for supplies, because it was command- ed by hills on two sides within easy cannon shot.
Concerning this fort as with old forts Saratoga and Clinton, there has been much diversity of opinion. One historian argues from its bad strategical position, and the silence of all Revolutionary writers (as he claimed) regarding it, that there was no such fort here. Others affirm that it was built by the French under Baron Dies- kau, in 1755. As to Baron Dieskau the fact is he never got further south with his valiant Frenchmen than the vicinity of Fort Edward. He himself, however, was brought down after the battle of Lake George in a boat, wounded and a prisoner of war.
This dispute over Fort Hardy furnishes a good test case on the value of silence, on the part of contempo- rary writers, as tending to prove the existence or non- existence of an object, custom, or alleged fact. Here it is shown to be untrustworthy. The writer rummaging about the State Library in Albany came across the official journal of. the engineer who laid out and superintended the building of the fort.56 It was Colonel James Montressor, chief of the Royal Engineers in America. He was commissioned to build forts the same year at Albany, Schenectady, Halfmoon, Stillwater, Fort Edward and Fort George on Lake George. Fort George, like Fort Hardy, was of no value for defense, and for a long time was known as Montressor’s Folly. He began work on Fort Hardy
56 Collections of the N. Y. Historical Society. Vol. XIV.
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August 19th, 1757. For some time he had con- siderable trouble to get help, but on the 7th of September he had about a hundred men at work and six teams. There had been a sawmill on the north side of the creek, about where the gristmills are now located, but the provincial soldiers had torn it to pieces for firewood, so this work had to be done with whip-saws run by hand power. The stone was drawn from the hills, presumably from the ridge west of the old north burying ground, as old residents say loose stone was most plentiful there. The brick was brought down from Fort Edward in bateaux, or scow boats. Thus early Fort Edward had its brick yards. The tim- ber was procured up the river on both the mainland and islands, floated down and dragged out with ox teams. The first buildings finished were three storehouses, these were placed on posts three feet high to preserve the stores from water in case of inundation. The capacity of the three was 2,596 bbls. of flour. The barracks for the soldiers were 220 feet long; the officers’ rooms were 14x16 feet in size. One day the mechanics all struck work because the commissary tried to put them off with a gill of rum instead of their regular ration. The trouble was that “the jug washout.”
This journal discloses another particularly interest- ing fact, that there was already standing in that same angle, north of the creek, a blockhouse, or stockaded fort. Its size and location, as also that of the afore-mentioned sawmill, appear in the adjoining pen-sketch map repro- duced from the journal. It took several days to tear it down. When and by whom this fort was built is a mys- tery. The silence of the writers, however, does not estab- lish its non-existence.
^
montressor's sketch map of fish creek
AND OLD BLOCK HOUSE
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Campaign of 1758
The army mobilized for the campaign of 1758 was the most formidable and imposing that had yet ap- peared on the American Continent. This also was put under the command of one of those chicken-hearted but titled incompetents which royalty persisted in selecting for positions of grave responsibility. This time it was General James Abercrombie. He led an army of 16,000 men up the old war path through Saratoga. -It must have been a thrilling spectacle to see those gaily capar- isoned warriors swinging along with measured tread to the skirl of the bagpipe and the more stirring music of fife and drum. The trains of supply wagons, ambu- lances, and the batteries of artillery must have seemed well nigh endless to the onlooker. One French scout counted 600 oxen in one drove that were being driven north to feed this army of British beef eaters.
Perhaps Lake George never served as a setting to so magnificent a pageant, as when, embarked in over 1,000 boats, with flags and pennants flying, this embattled col- umn swept majestically over its crystal waters toward Ticonderoga.
But how great the change wrought upon this sup- posed invincible host in a single day of battle with the doughty Montcalm ! Through bad generalship, or rather through the lack of all generalship, we see this splendid army defeated, shattered, and panic stricken, scuttling back to Fort William Henry with its boats laden - wuh the dead and dying. I11 one of these was borne tne body of the brave young Lord Howe, the very soul, and the acknowledged idol, of the whole army. On reaching the head of the lake, Philip Schuyler, now a major, whose deep affection he had won, begged and received
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permission to convey the body of his hero to Albany, where he was buried in St. Peter’s church. Of those who died from their wounds many were buried at Fort Edward, and some were buried here at Old Saratoga (Schuylerville), but all in nameless graves.
Campaign of 1759.
For the first time in her hundred years of occupancy, England selected as leaders for this year men who bore the semblance of generals — Amherst and Wolfe. Sat- isfactory results were soon apparent. With an army of twelve thousand, Amherst followed Abercrombie’s line of advance, and within a week’s time from landing at the foot of Lake George both Ticonderoga and Crown Point, for so long the dread and envy of the English, were in their possession. It is but fair, however, to state that owing to Wolfe’s menace of Quebec, the gar- risons at these forts had been greatly weakened. That same year the brave Wolfe captured Quebec, Canada’s Gibraltar, and so all Canada became an English posses- sion by the right of conquest.
CHAPTER X
The Revolution — The Causes of the War
The scope and purpose of this work will admit of noth- ing more than a glance at the reasons which led the col- onies to declare themselves independent of the sover- eignty of Great Britain.
There were but few people in England'that knew much or cared much about America, and still fewer understood the Americans. The fact that they were colonists seemed of itself to reduce them to a lower plane racially than
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themselves. The English behaved as though they thought the colonies were of use only to be exploited for the imperial glory and commercial profit of Great Britain. Their asserted right to self-government in matters local was a thing rarely known in England, and of course, could not be tolerated by her in the colonies. The royal governors had all fumed and fretted them- selves into hysterics over the wilfulness and perversity of colonial assemblies. But so long as France was power- ful here, England dare not attempt to thwart the will of her colonists too much; for she needed their assistance to maintain herself against the assumptions of her great rival. But when France was well out of the way, and England had a free hand on this continent, she at once began to assert her sovereign authority over her refrac- tory subjects.
The Seven Years War had left her deeply in debt; she would make the colonies help her pay that debt through her Stamp Acts. She forgot that they had al- ready borne the brunt of the conflict and the expense of that war in so far as it was waged in this country. Next she set about depriving the colonial assemblies of their inherent legislative rights. She began to interfere in matters of “internal police/' and was rapidly moving to- ward placing the administration of all law and govern- ment in the hands of men responsible to no one but the Crown. All this without consulting with, or asking the consent of, the colonists. Her repeated acts of tyranny finally aroused the provincials to realize that they were in imminent danger of losing even the com- monest liberties of an Englishman, and not till they found that all other efforts at obtaining redress had failed, did they resort to the arbitrament of arms.
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Events of 1775 and 1776
The final break came and open hostilities began in 1775. This was a year big with success and inspiration to the patriots. It was the year of Lexington, and Con- cord, and Bunker Hill; the important capture of Ticon- deroga, and Crown Point; the invasion of Canada, with the capture of St. Johns, of Chambly, and of Montreal by Montgomery under Schuyler, a campaign which, if it had received a decent and patriotic support from the citi- zenship and soldiery of the north, and something more substantial than resolutions from Congress, would have gained Canada for the Union, but which ended in defeat on the last day of December, and the irreparable loss of the noble Montgomery, who breathed out his heroic life with the expiring year under the granite walls of Que- bec. The end of this year also witnessed the siege of Boston under Washington, with good auguries of success.
The year 1776 brought some more good cheer at its beginning, with the expulsion of the British from Bos- ton, the successful defense of Fort Moultrie in South Carolina, and the Declaration of Independence. This in turn was followed by disaster, in the ejection of the Americans from Canada, the defeat of Arnold on Lake Champlain, and also of Washington at the battle of Long Island, the loss of Forts Washington and Lee, and fin- ally the chase of Washington by the British across New Jersey into Pennsylvania. But as a breath of life to one well nigh asphyxiated, came the unlooked-for smashing of the Hessians at Trenton; the outgeneralling of Corn- wallis and whipping of the British at Princeton, and the virtual expulsion of the enemy from the Jerseys in the
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end of that year. And all this by that same Washing- ton after Howe and Cornwallis had solemnly and unan- imously agreed that he had just received his quietus at their hands.
Campaign of 1777
After the evacuation of Boston by the British, Gen- eral Burgoyne, who was present during its investment, went to Canada and served under Carleton during 1776, but becoming dissatisfied with his position he returned to England. There, closeted with King George and his favorite ministers, they planned a campaign which was certain, as they thought, to put an end to the war and reduce the colonies to submission.
The scheme was to get possession of the Hudson valley, sever the colonies, paralyze their union, and so, holding the key to the situation, conquer them in detail.
To this end an ample force under St. Leger was to move up the St. Lawrence to Oswego, strike into New York from that point, capture Fort Schuyler, (formerly Fort Stanwix, where Rome, N. Y., now stands) and sweep down through the Mohawk valley to Albany. A'nother army under Howe was to move up the Hudson from New York toward Albany; and the third under General John Burgoyne was to take the old route from Canada south through Champlain and down the Hud- son, when they would all concentrate at Albany to con- gratulate each other, and divide the honors and the spoils. This admirable plan was adopted and its execu- tion was placed in the hands of Burgoyne, under the title of Lieutenant-General.
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First Period of the Campaign
Early in June Burgoyne started from Canada, ani- mated with the highest hopes and brightest anticipations. Should he succeed, as no doubt he would, he expected to find a title of nobility among other good things in his Christmas stocking. Certainly all things looked favor- able for his success.
His was not the largest, but it was the best appointed, army that had yet appeared on these shores.57 It was made up of British, 4,135; Germans, 3,116; Canadians, 148 ; Indians, 503 ; total, 7,902. Later the 22d regiment joined him.
Some of those regiments, both British and German, were ancient and honorable organizations, and were vet- erans of a hundred battles. Europe could furnish no better soldiers.
On the 1st of July, Burgoyne was before Ticonderoga, which he at once invested. Through lack of sufficient force, General St. Clair, the commandant, felt obliged to abandon his line of communication with Lake George, likewise “the old French lines” just west of the fort. He had not over 3,500 men all told, while the works were so extensive that it would require ten thousand to man them properly. Of course, the British seized the points of vantage at once and made the most of them. Still with his meagre force and contracted lines, St. Clair felt confident that he could keep the enemy at bay for a respectable while, and time was valuable just then to Schuyler, who was laboring to collect an army and get up reinforcements to him.
67 “The brass train that was sent out on this expedition was perhaps the finest, and probably the most excellently supplied as to officers and men, that had ever been allotted to second the operations of an army.” — Lieutenant Digby’s Journal , p. 226.
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The British, once on the ground, the practiced eye of that veteran artillerist, General Phillips, noticed a moun- tain across a stretch of water to the south which ap- peared to be unoccupied, and which looked to be within range of the fort. He had it inspected and the officer reported it to be within easy cannon shot, and though difficult of ascent, still accessible. One night’s labor built a road and put several cannon on the summit of the mountain, which the British then christened Mount De- fiance; an appropriate name under the circumstances, and the one it still bears. When daylight came, on the 5th of July, the garrison was paralyzed with amazement to see the crest of that mountain blossoming with red- coats, and frowning with a brazen battery. A council of war was called immediately which decided that the works were now untenable, and that nothing was left but evacuation. That night, as soon as it was dark, the sick and the non-combatants, together with as much of the stores as they could load on the bateaux, were sent to Skenesborough (Whitehall) with an escort of six hun- dred men under Colonel Long. Having spiked the guns, the army quietly withdrew at 2 a. m. on the 6th over the floating bridge that connected Ticonderoga with Fort Independence, and started for Castleton, Vt. But the accidental, (some say intentional) burning of a house on the Fort Independence side betrayed their movements to the British, who straightway prepared for the chase. On the second day they caught up and the unfortunate battle of Hubbardton, Vt., was fought.
In the morning after the evacuation the British fleet, having broken through the barriers placed in the lake between Ticonderoga and Independence, gave chase, caught up with and captured several
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of the flying galleys and bateaux. The Ameri- cans, having set fire to everything valuable at Skenes- borough, hastened toward Fort Ann. A detach- ment of British regulars under Colonel Hill pursued the fugitives the next day far toward the fort. The morn- ing of the 8th, having heard of their approach, Colonels Long and Van Rensselaer sallied forth and gave battle to Hill, in a narrow pass a little to the north-east, and would have annihilated him had it not been for the, to him, timely arrival of a body of Indians, and the failure of the American ammunition.58 Fort Ann was imme- diately evacuated and burned ; but the British retiring to Skenesborough (Whitehall). The Americans returned and occupied the post till the 16th.
Was Schuyler to Blame for the Loss of Ticonderoga?
Consternation and dread filled the hearts of the pa- triots over this unlooked-for disaster. They had fondly nursed the delusion that Ticonderoga was a veritable Gibraltar, impregnable ; and this apart from the question as to whether it was properly manned or no. As soon as the direful news spread through the country, a storm of indignation and obloquy broke over the heads of Gen- erals Schuyler and St. Clair. “They were cowards,” “they were traitors,” “they had sold their country for naught,” “they had been bribed by silver bullets shot into the fort by Burgoyne.” John Adams, in Congress,
68 In the action at Fort Anne the Americans lost their colors, “a flag of the United States, very handsome, thirteen stripes alternate red and white, [with thirteen stars] in a blue field, representing a new constella- tion.”— Digby’s Journal, p. 234.
This fact found in a British journal is especially interesting as connected with the early history of Old Glory.
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said: “We shall never gain a victory till we shoot a General.” This disaster gave occasion to the enemies of Schuyler to resurrect their old prejudices formed against him before the war in connection with the boun- dary disputes between Massachusetts and New York, and the quarrels about the New Hampshire Grants, in which Schuyler had taken a prominent part officially. They set to work to poison the minds of the delegates to the Continental Congress against him, and magnify the virtues of General Gates, who improved the opportunity to openly declare that New York had been wholly in the wrong in those disputes.
It is worth our while to tarry a bit and glance at the principal facts that we may the better know how much blame to lay at Schuyler’s door. First, as to his failure to occupy Mount Defiance; that, no doubt, was a fatal error of judgment; but that astute Frenchman, Mont- calm, and Generals Wayne and St. Clair, and Gates him- self, had all been in command there, and yet none of them had thought Sugar-loaf, as they called it, any cause for serious apprehension, though their attention had been called to it by a competent engineer. Abercrom- bie’s failure to see it in 1758 cost him 2,000 men and defeat. A case exactly analogous occurred at Boston the year before. The British General Howe neglected to fortify Dorchester Heights, Washington seized it, planted his batteries, and the British forthwith evacu- ated Boston before he fired a shot at them from that point.
Again: Why the insufficient garrison at Ticonderoga and the general lack of preparation in his department? Because, after he had labored all the previous winter, heartily seconded by Washington, to put his department
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in a proper posture of defense, General Schuyler found, when spring opened, that he had accomplished but a fraction of what he had resolutely set out to do. And all this first, because of the apathy of the populace, and of most of the authorities to whom they unremittingly appealed. Again, because Gates and his friends through their intrigues had effectually blocked his efforts with the Continental Congress and various Legis- latures by traducing his character, and minimizing his abilities. Again; because of the desertion and chronic insubordination of most of the militia organizations; because of jealousies among his subordinates, and rascal- ity and sluggishness among contractors and commis- saries. Again, because troops ordered in time by Wash- ington to reinforce him, reported themselves for service weeks too late.
Meanwhile Gates and his satellites had been more suc- cessful in their winter’s work in that they procured an order early in the spring summoning Schuyler to appear at the bar of Congress, and give an account of himself, the outcome of which was that he was vindicated of all charges and restored to his command with increased power. On his arrival in Albany, June 3d, after an absence of two months, he found that Gates, who had been sent to take his place, had attempted little or nothing in the way of preparation. At
once he threw himself into the work with re- newed energy because rumors were now rife of the advance of Burgoyne from the north, and of St. Leger from the west, but he was met on every hand with the same old indifference and languor, though he warned the authorities of possible disaster unless they should awake to the gravity of the situation.
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Schuyler was in Albany in a fever of expectancy and impatience, waiting for the four Massachusetts regiments which Washington had ordered up to his support from Peekskill, and as each day failed to bring them he fin- ally fixed on the 6th of July as the last day of his wait ; for he must be away to the north, if only with the few hun- dreds of militia at hand. But the Continentals failed to appear. So instead of the 10,000 he had called for, he had not more than 5,500 poorly-equipped, half- clad men and boys with which to meet Burgoyne's splen- did army of veterans.
Just at daybreak on Monday, the 7th of July, he an- swered a loud knock at his door, when a messenger thrust into his hand a despatch announcing the evacu- ation of Ticonderoga. Of course, he was stunned by the news, not being able to account for the suddenness of the move, but he was not utterly cast down as were those around him, even though he knew that a storm of public fury awaited him. Immediately he mounted his fleetest horse and started for the north. At Still- water and Saratoga he dispatched messengers every- where announcing the dreadful tidings coupled with urgent pleas for help.
Schuyler Blocks up Burgoyne's Pathway
Schuyler reached Fort Edward the morning of the 8th, where he immediately issued orders for obstructing Burgoyne’s advance from Skenesborough, and for the driving oft* all cattle, horses, etc., and the removal of all wagons out of the reach of the enemy. Brigades of axe- men were sent to fell trees across the roads, to break up bridges, and destroy the corduroy roads that led through that savage, swampy, wilderness that stretched from
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beyond Fort Ann to Fort Edward. So effectually was this work done that on some days Burgoyne could not advance over a mile. In all this Schuyler showed him- self a master of what in military parlance is called prac- tical strategy, which often proves more effective than pitched battles in vanquishing an enemy. As a result of this work it took Burgoyne twenty days to get his army from Whitehall to the Hudson, which time was greatly recovered their spirits ; it also enabled them to most valuable to the patriots, for during this period they bring away their war material and provisions from Fort George and transport it down the river. Among other things Schuyler saved 40 unmounted cannon. These were left at Saratoga (Schuylerville), where he ordered carriages to be made for them. For this purpose his mills located here were kept running night and day saw- ing up the stock of oak logs which had been collected for the building of bateaux for transport. Some of these cannon afterward defended the American camp at Bemis Heights, and were later used in the investment of Bur- goyne at Saratoga (Schuylerville).
Stampede of the Inhabitants
The patriotic inhabitants on the upper Hudson and near the lakes, seized with panic at the fall of Ticonde- roga and the sudden appearance of Burgoyne’s Indians, hastily gathered together their most valuable effects, loaded them on carts or wagons, or the backs of horses, and in some cases leaving everything behind, started pell-mell for Albany, or Manchester, Vt., whichever was the more convenient. In their panic, and dread of the Indians, whom they fancied were right at their heels, they often forgot the' ordinary claims of humanity. Those
6
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on horseback or in wagons paid no heed to the pleas of tired mothers, trudging along afoot, trying to escape with their children. “Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost” was the code that too often ruled in those fugitive crowds..
CHAPTER XI
Second Period of the Campaign
When Burgoyne reached Skenesborough on the 7th of July he found himself in a most happy frame of mind. Thus far it had seemed as if all that was necessary for him to do was to pass along, jar the trees, and the rip- ened plums of success fell of their own weight into his lap. So elated was he that on the 10th of July he ordered a Thanksgiving service to be read “at the head of the line, and at the head of the advanced Corps, and at sunset on the same day, a feu de joie to be fired with cannon and small arms at Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Skenesborough and Castleton.” That was indeed a bright day in Burgoyne’s career, but alas ! for him, he never again saw as bright a one. Here ended the first period of the campaign, as he calls it in his “State of the Expedition.”
He retained his headquarters at the house of Colonel Skene, after whom the place was named, till his men had cut their way, under a broiling July sun, through a tangled mass of tree-trunks and tree-tops, harassed night and day by exhaustless and persistent hordes of punkies and mosquitoes. When the road was cleared Burgoyne advanced with his host to Fort Ann on the 25th, and on the 28th caught his first sight of the Hud-
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son. Then he congratulated himself and his men that their troubles were over; but they had hardly begun. The first unpleasant discovery which he made was that Schuyler had so effectually stripped the country of food and forage that sufficient supplies could not be secured for love nor money; he was therefore obliged to halt there till stores and provisions could be brought from Canada by the way of Fort George and Skenesborough, over wretched roads made worse by incessant rains.
The Jane McCrea Tragedy
While Burgoyne was encamped between Fort Ann and Sandy HT11 there occurred an event, which he per- haps thought trifling, but, which wrought as power- fully for his defeat as any other one thing in the cam- paign. That was the murder of Jane McCrea, between Fort Edward and Sandy Hill, on the 27th of July. She was a beautiful young woman visiting a Tory family at Fort Edward, and was engaged to a young Lieuten- ant of Provincials in Burgovne’s army, named David Jones. She and Mrs. McNiel, with whom she was stay- ing, were seized and carried from the house (still stand- ing in Fort Edward) by some Indians, part of a band who were in pursuit of an American scouting party which had fled to their camp, near the old fort. She was placed on a horse and while on the way to General Fraser's camp north of Sandy Hill she was shot acci- dentally by a party sent to their rescue, and then scalped by one of the Indians. This is one version of the story. Another version is, that the savages who had been sent for her by her lover quarreled over the promised reward on the way, and in their rage one of them shot her from the horse she was riding and scalped her. Her beautiful
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tresses were soon seen up at the camp dangling from the belt of the Wyandotte Panther. It was generally believed at the time that her murder was wholly the work of Bur- goyne's Indians. The news of this shocking tragedy drove her lover frantic, while her story, with many embel- lishments, flew everywhere and aroused the people to a sense of their personal danger as nothing else had been able to do. Every man felt that his daughter, wife, mother, or affianced might be the next victim of the mur- derous savage. This occurrence served mightily to arouse hatred against the British for employing savages against their kith and kin. The result was that scores and hundreds who had been wavering before seized their muskets, hastened to the nearest recruiting station and volunteered for service against Burgoyne and his Indians.
Schuyler's Movements
While Burgoyne was eager to get himself and his army out of Skenesborough and over to the Hudson, Schuyler, seated at Fort Edward, was just as eager to block his way and prepare a desert waste there for his reception, and this he executed with such a measure of success as we have already seen. On the 12th of July, General St. Clair joined him at Fort Edward with some two thousand men, the remnant of the army which he brought away from Ticonderoga. The same day Nixon brought up his brigade from Peekskill, but instead of the four regiments ordered by Washington, he had only 575 effectives, many of whom were mere boys.
Schuyler now found himself at the head of some four thousand five hundred troops, about fifteen hundred of which were raw militia. Here the calumnies so indus-
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triously circulated against Schuyler and St. Clair began to produce their effect on the army, and this together with anxiety about ripening harvests, and the total lack of shelter for the troops, engendered so much discontent and insubordination, that the militia deserted faster than he could supply their places. In this desperate situation Schuyler appealed afresh to the Committees of Safety and other authorities in New York, and the Eastern States, to Congress, and to Washington for more men with which to stem the tide of invasion, but little help came to him ; Congress was notably apathetic, and for more than a month hardly so much as lifted a finger for his aid and encouragement. Washington alone appre- ciated the situation. He wrote urgent letters to the militia generals in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, pointing out the danger to their homes and country should Burgoyne be left unopposed, tie also sent General Arnold to Schuyler’s assistance, and part of Glover’s brigade, but he could do nothing further, as his own heart and hands were full with Howe and his erratic movements in the vicinity of New York. And yet in this hour of deepest gloom Schuyler writes to the Committee of Safety of New York: “I thank God I have fortitude enough not to sink under the load of calumny that is heaped upon me, and despite it all I am supported by a presentiment that we shall still have a merry Christmas.”59 He surely proved himself to be a prophet that time.
Fort Edward possessed no fort during the Revolution, only a camp, and this being badly situated for defense, Schuyler withdrew the main body of his army on the 22d of July, four miles south to Moses’ Creek, where Kos- ciusko, the noted Polish engineer, had laid out an
69 Collections of the N. Y. Historical Society. Vol. XII.
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intrenched camp. Here he prepared to dispute Burgoyne’s passage; but the army became so dispirited and so depleted by desertion, that he, with the approval of his officers, ordered a retreat further down the river, and nearer the source of supplies. The movement began on the 30th. His right wing under St. Cdair took the west side of the river, and his left, under Arnold, kept down the east side. The movement was accomplished by easy stages, the army destroying the roads and bridges behind them. They reached Fort Miller on the first day’s march, thence to Saratoga on the 31st of July. Here the army lay for two days. Schuyler’s mills, and other buildings, located here, were full of public stores ; these had to be removed. General Schuyler and his staff spent all the first of August in the saddle looking for a suitable place hereabouts to entrench and make a stand against the enemy, but failing in their quest, he ordered the retreat to be beaten on the 2d, and on the 3d the army reached Stillwater. Here he selected a place and began to entrench, and while here made the house of Dirck Swart (still standing), his headquarters.
It was at Stillwater, where he received news on the 8th of August, of the bloody battle of Oriskany, fought by the brave Herkimer and his Tryon County militia on the 6th, four miles east of Fort Schuyler (Rome). And from here he sent Benedict Arnold, on the 13th, with a detachment for the relief of Fort Schuyler. This was contrary to the wishes and advice of most of his generals, who feared to weaken the army ; but Schuyler resolutely assumed all responsibility, sent Arnold with a picked corps and Fort Schuyler was relieved, and St. Leger, with his Indians and Tories, abandoning their camp were sent scurrying to the northward. And thus Burgoyne
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was hopelessly crippled in the right arm of his strength, while patriot hearts thrilled with new hope in conse- quence, and Schuyler’s little army was gladdened by the assurance of a speedy accession to its strength.
Schuyler having concluded that Stillwater was unten- able with his present force, he withdrew to the “sprouts of the Mohawk,” a place at that time admirably adapted for defense. General Winfield Scott on visiting this spot eighty years later, pronounced it the best strategic posi- tion to be found for the defense of Albany and the lower Hudson against the north at that time.
Movements of Burgoyne
Returning to the north we find that Burgoyne remained in the vicinity of Sandy Hill and Fort Edward till the 14th of August, when he moved down with his center to Fort Miller. Brigadier General Fraser, com- manding his right wing, had already been sent forward, and on the 13th we find him camped at the Battenkill. Following him came Colonel Baum, at the head of his 521 dragoons, his Indians, and Tories, equipped for the expedition against Bennington, Vermont. Its purpose was to provide Burgoyne with a lot of much needed horses for cavalry, artillery, etc., besides other supplies, all of which had been stored there for the use of the American army.
The Battle of Bennington
Baum moved up the Battenkill, from what is now Thomson’s, or Clark’s Mills, on the 13th of August, but he went to his own death and the destruction of his corps of gallant men. He got within about six miles of
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his prey when he found his further advance blocked by a body of resolute militia under the redoubtable Stark. Baum sent back for reinforcements and prepared for bat- tle, He was furiously attacked on the 16th; the Colonel himself was mortally wounded and his force completely cut to pieces before Colonel Breyman arrived with the expected succor. When Breyman appeared on the scene he found himself confronted by a body of men flushed with victory and reinforced by Colonel Seth Warner and his regiment of 500 Green Mountain Boys. After a des- perate fight, in which his force was practically annihi- lated, Breyman escaped with a remnant of sixty or seventy men under cover of the night. Burgoyne lost nearly a thousand men in that affair, a thousand stand of arms, besides four valuable pieces of brass artillery. So this venture, from which so much was expected, brought far more foreboding than forage to the royal army wait- ing by the Hudson. Burgoyne was now badly crippled in the left arm of his strength. Lieutenant Digby, in his Journal (page 286) says, the British officers all carried sober faces after Bennington.
La Corne St. Luc, the leader of the attack on Fort Clin- ton in 1747, had command of most of the Indians in this expedition. He, with many of his Indians, was with Colonel Baum when attacked, but the battle had hardly opened when they ran. Nor did they stop running when they reached the camp of Fraser at the Battenkill, but hastily collecting their effects they all, with the exception of about eighty, started at night for Canada.60
The two battles of Oriskany and Bennington caused the hitherto depressed Americans to believe that what they had done with Burgoyne’s lieutenants they could no
60 Hadden’s Journal, p. 134. Digby’s Journal, p. 253.
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doubt do with Burgovne himself, so they began flocking to the standard of Schuyler at the mouths of the Mohawk, and that of General Lincoln at Manchester, Vt.
Schuyler Relieved by Gates
Some days before these happy events at Bennington, and Fort Schuyler occurred, General Schuyler had been called to Albany on business. On the morning of the 10th of August, as he was about to mount his horse and return to the army, an officer approached and handed him a dispatch. After breaking the seal and reading it an observant onlooker would have noticed an involuntary compression of the lips, a flush of passion crimson his face, and a gleam of righteous anger shoot from his darkling eyes. The dispatch was a resolution of Con- gress relieving him of his command. Oh, the injustice of it! Was this his reward for all the unselfish toil, wasting anxiety, and limitless sacrifices he had been mak- ing for his country? Well, so it seemed.
Smothering his resentment he dismissed the messenger courteously, and started for Stillwater. His first impulse was to abandon the army immediately, but an imperious sense of duty together with the urgent appeals of his officers, prominent among whom were the New England generals, decided him to remain and serve till the coming of his successor, whose name was then unknown. We may judge, however, that he was not much surprised when General Horatio Gates, the appointee of Congress, arrived in camp on the evening of the 19th of August to relieve him. He was received by Schuyler with every mark of distinction, who immediately turned over to him all useful papers, and offered to render him every assist-
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ance in his power ; but Gates met every offer coldly and repaid his courtesies with studied slights.
Gates arrived just at the turning of the tide in Schuy- ler's ill fortune; in time to reap what he had been sow- ing; to profit by the successes at Fort Schuyler and Bennington and by all the delays and harassments he
SCHUYLER RESIGNING HIS COMMAND TO GATES
had inflicted upon Burgoyne. Morgan and his corps of incomparable riflemen, ordered up by Washington, appeared about this time, and the troops set free by the late victories began to pour in. Moreover Congress had freely voted to Gates every aid and authority which had been asked by Schuyler but studiously withheld. Schuy-
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ler finding himself totally ignored withdrew to his home at Albany, resolved however, still to serve his country in some way during this crisis. And this he did zealously and efficiently. Thus he put his own nobility of character and largeness of heart in startling contrast with the lit- tleness and coarseness of Gates.
Estimates of Schuyler's Character
The appearance of such exalted characters from time to time serves to hold us to our faith in the perfectability of human nature, and should stimulate all who contemplate them to cultivate the grace of unselfishness. Daniel Webster once said to General Schuyler's grandson, Geo. L. Schuyler: “When a life of your grandfather is to be published I should like to write the preface. I was brought up with New England prejudices against him, but I consider him as only second to Washington in the services he rendered to the country in the war of the Revolution." Said Gov. Horatio Seymour in his Centen- nial speech: “We could not well lose from our history his example of patriotism and of personal honor and chiv- alry. We could not spare the proof which his case fur- nishes, that virtue triumphs in the end. We would not change, if we could, the history of his trials. For we feel that they gave luster to his character, and we are forced to say of General Schuyler that, while he had been greatly wronged, he had never been injured."61 And Fiske, per- haps the greatest of living American historians, says of him : “No more upright and disinterested man could be found in America, and for bravery and generosity he was like the paladin of some mediaeval romance."
61 Memoir of the Centennial Celebration of Burgoyne’s Surrender, p. 60. W. L. Stone.
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Burgoyne's Advance Delayed by Bennington
It had been Burgoyne’s purpose to move right on toward Albany as soon as Baum should return with the spoils of Bennington, and he had already given orders to that effect. Indeed General Fraser had actually crossed the river on a bridge of rafts and boats August 14th, and spent a day or two with his men at Saratoga,62 but the disaster to Baum and Breyman obliged a change of plan. In the meantime his bridge had been swept away by a freshet. Fraser with his corps got back to their entrenchments north of the Battenkill the best way they could on small boats and rafts, while the whole army was detained an entire month, till supplies could be hauled down from Lake George. This, through lack of sufficient draught animals, was a herculean task, men being forced to do the work of mules and oxen.
This respite gained for us by the battle of Bennington was most opportune, because it afforded the needed time for recruiting and thoroughly organizing the American army, which was now progressing so rapidly at the “sprouts of the Mohawk.”
Fraser threw his first bridge across the Hudson, some- where above the State Dam at Northumberland, but find- ing a narrower and better place below the rapids con- structed the next one there. It was a pontoon bridge, or bridge of boats, about 425 feet long, and its exact location is still marked by the cut through the bank on the west side, and the road excavated by the British down the east bank. The road is clearly visible from the new iron bridge, in the rear of the house of Mr. John A. Dix. Mr. Dix has very considerately left this historic road
62 Hadden’s Journal, p. 137. Digby’s Journal, p. 249.
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intact, and also much of the breastworks thrown up by Burgoyne, behind which he placed a battery to defend the crossing. Amid so much spoliation and vandalism which has been exhibited hereabouts it is refreshing to feel that there are some among us possessed of a proper reverence for such monuments of the heroic past.
For a month after Bennington the British lay strung along the river from Sandy Hill to the Battenkill. Fraser was at the Battenkill, Burgoyne and Phillips with the center at Fort Miller or “Duer’s House,” and Riedesel, with the left, at Fort Edward and Sandy Hill.
Burgoyne Begins His Final Advance
On Saturday, the 13th of September, the crossing began under the lead of Fraser. Colonel Breyman fol- lowed immediately to cover his left wing. Next, on the 14th, came Burgoyne and Phillips with the train of artillery. To expedite the crossing the 20th regiment forded the river instead of crowding the bridge. Bur- goyne took up his quarters in the Schuyler mansion that night.
The Marshall house and one other, standing where the old parsonage of the Reformed church now is, were then the only dwellings north of the creek. The military bar- racks built by the Americans in the northwest angle formed by Broadway and Spring street, were also stand- ing. Fort Hardy was then a ruin. The heights above Broadway were nearly all densely wooded at that time; hence it was extremely hazardous for the advance guard to separate itself from the main body, cross the river, and camp in a position difficult of defense.
That the British fully appreciated this we are assured from the fact that after Burgoyne was over, and while
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his center was crossing, he and his generals inspected the heights and decided where each division should be posted in the event of an attack. In fact the advance or right wing camped for two nights on the heights in three col- umns, in order of battle.63
On the 15th Riedesel with the left wing crossed, when,, at once, Burgoyne severed his communications with Can- ada by breaking up the bridge. The advance was beaten and the invading host forded the Fishkill and started forth to find the enemy posted somewhere in the woods to the south. Singularly enough Burgoyne had not provided himself with scouts, or if he had them, did not use them ; hence we have here the unique spectacle of an invading army groping its way through an unmapped wilderness for an enemy, native to the soil, without sending out feelers or using its eyes to ascertain their exact where- abouts.
The British advanced in three parallel columns, one by the river along the flats, the artillery and baggage by the main road, and the right wing a half mile or more to the west through the woods. Sometimes it was diffi- cult for the columns to keep up communication with each other. In addition to this a flotilla of bateaux, loaded with supplies, floated down the river and kept abreast of the columns. That day the army advanced only as far as Dovegat64 (Coveville) and encamped.
63 Digby’s Journal, p. 267.
64 Dovegat is a word whose etymology has been much in dispute. That it is of Dutch origin is not doubted. The writer consulted Mr. Arnold J. F. van Laer, State Archivist at Albany, a cultured linguist, and a native of Holland. He concludes that it is a corruption of the Dutch duivenkot, equivalent to the English dove-cote. It must have been a favorite haunt or nesting place of wild pigeons. Burgoyne, and Hadden, and Digby, all: wrote it Dovegot.
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While stationed here, Burgoyne occupied the house shown in the picture, and which was but recently torn down.65
The army remained at Dovegat all of the 16th, while several regiments personally conducted by Burgoyne, and accompanied by some two hundred workmen, started forth to repair bridges, and learn the whereabouts of the enemy. So rapid was their movements that they covered nearly three miles that day; they saw no enemy, but heard the sound of beaten drums in the woods to the south calling the men to arms. On the 17th the army advanced and took up its position at Sword’s house.66
While the British army was lying at Sword’s house, a party of soldiers and women strolled out in front of the encampment a few hundred yards to dig some potatoes in a field. While thus engaged a party of Americans swooped down upon them, killed and wounded quite a number, and carried away some twenty of them as pris- oners.67
Movements of the American Army
Soon after he had superseded Schuyler, Gates felt himself strong enough to start northward to dispute
65 When this photo was taken the house stood on the north side of the canal, but when the canal was straightened in 1888 it was left on the south side. Its exact location was just west of the south abutment of Mr. Charles Sarle’s canal bridge. The large elm tree, still standing, was perhaps two rods from the south-east corner of the house. The barns in the photo stood on the north side of the present canal.
66 The site of Sword’s house is on the south side of a spring brook, about
fifty yards west of the canal. To find it, take the private road running westward, just north of Searles’ ferry, cross the canal bridge, and on a knoll a little to the left you win find a slight depression, at the foot of a higher hill. That is where Sword’s house once stood. Mr. Robert Searles told the writer that his father tore it down, and that the hall was so large that he Could turn a yoke of oxen around in it. »
67 Hadden’s Journal, p. 160.
THE DOVEGAT HOUSE
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the advance of the enemy. This movement began on the 8th of September. He first settled upon Stillwater as the place where he would make his stand and began intrench- ing there, (some of these works still remain) ; but the finding by Kosciusko of a more defensible position at Bemis Heights decided him to advance to that point, and there, on the 13th, he began to intrench himself.
Gates' right rested on the river, his left on the high ground to the west. The whole camp was fortified by strong batteries and breastworks as well as by the natural defenses of ravines and thick woods. A deep intrench- ment ran from the foot of the hills to the river at Bemis’ tavern, and was defended at the river end by a battery. From here a floating bridge was thrown across the river, defended on the east side by a tete du pout. A similar work was thrown up farther north at Mill creek. Several redoubts crowned the hills facing the river. A strong earthwork was constructed on the high knoll at the northwest angle of the camp, a mile or more west of the river. This was thrown up around a log barn, which was strengthened by a double coating of logs and named, after the patriotic owner of the property, Fort Neilson. In addition to breastworks the left and front on the high ground were made difficult of approach by an abatis formed of trees felled with their tops outward. The defenses on the high ground were not completed till after the first battle. A flank intrenchment was also begun on a knoll a little west of Fort Neilson.
Midway between Wilbur’s Basin and Bemis Heights Mill Creek empties into the canal. Following up this creek you will enter first a wide and deep ravine which soon turns northward. This again separates into three principal ravines which lead toward the west. The one
7
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called the Middle Ravine was recognized as the dividing line between the hostile camps after the first battle. This figures largely in all descriptions of the movements and incidents connected with the battles.
Arnold had command of the left wing till after the first battle. Under him were Morgan and Poor, with their headquarters in the Neilson house, still standing. Gates reserved to himself the command of the right, with his headquarters at Bemis’ tavern. When he gave comn mand of the right to General Lincoln he moved up on the hill into a house owned by Ephraim Woodworth, whose site is now marked by a granite tablet. A fairly correct idea of the lay of the land, the plan of the camps, and relative positions of the hostile armies, may be had by reference to the map.
CHAPTER XII
Battle of the 19TH of September
Early on the 19th of September, Lieutenant-Colonel Colburn of the New Hampshire line with a small scout- ing party posted themselves in the trees across the river from Sword’s house to observe the British camp. From there they counted no less than eight hundred tents, but observed also something of far more consequence, namely, a movement among those tents that strongly indicated an advance. This being immediately reported to Gates, he put his men on the alert.
The surmise of the scout proved to be correct. Bur- goyne had resolved to advance, ascertain the position and strength of his enemy and outflank him if possible. The movement was made in three columns. The right
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under General Fraser, composed of the 24th regiment, the English and German grenadiers, a body of Provin- cials and Canadians, ‘and a light German battalion with eight six pounders under Colonel Breyman took the road west from Sword’s house till about where the Quaker Springs road now runs, and there turned south. The center column, led by Burgoyne, composed of the 9th, 20th, 2 1st, and 62d regiments, with a body of Indians and Canadians, took the same road for half a mile west, when he turned southeast till he struck the Wil- bur’s Basin ravine, crossed it and then turned west. Burgoyne’s advance was very slow and laborious, as many obstructions had to be removed and several bridges thrown across ravines for the passage of his artil- lery. The intention was to form a junction with Fraser near the head of the Middle ravine and then attempt to turn the American left. Phillips and Riedesel, with the balance of the army, were to follow the river road to within a half mile of the American works and there await the report of three minute guns as notice that the aforesaid junction had been made, when they were to threaten the American right until Burgoyne had executed his flanking movement, then the advance was to be general.
Gates, although apprised of these movements by his scouts, had planned to await the enemy from behind his defenses. But Arnold, divining the intention of Bur- goyne, urged Gates to permit him to go out with his men and attack the enemy before he could reach the camp, urging as arguments that if beaten in the attack they would still have their intrenchments to fall back on, and that if Burgoyne should get near enough to the camp to use his artillery, it would be impossible to hold their
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position. This brings to mind Napoleon’s dictum, “It is a maxim of the military art that the army which remains in its intrenchments is beaten.” If that be cor- rect then Arnold here proved himself to be the better general.
Finally Gates yielded so far as to permit Morgan, and soon thereafter Dearborn, with their rangers and rifle- men, to go out to observe and harass the enemy. About 12 130 P. M. they met Burgoyne’s Indians and Canadians under Major Forbes scouting near the Freeman cottage. These were driven back, with considerable loss, every officer in the party being either killed or wounded. Mor- gan’s men eagerly pursued and unexpectedly struck the main body in the edge of the woods, northeast of the cot- tage where, after a stubborn contest, they were routed and badly scattered in the woods. Morgan, though greatly disconcerted by this accident, was soon able by the vigorous use of his “turkey calT whistle to rally his men about him. Having been strengthened on his left by the arrival of Cilley’s and Scammel’s regiments, they renewed the attack about one o’clock, but with indiffer- ent results.
Burgoyne formed his line of battle in the woods on the north side of a clearing owned by one Isaac Freeman. It contained 12 or 15 acres and extended east and west about sixty rods. This clearing, called Freeman’s farm, was the principal scene of the action of the 19th. Fraser with the right wing had reached the line of low hills just west of Freeman’s farm when the action began. After the termination of the first skirmish, and when the contest had been vigorously renewed, Fraser wheeled to the left for the purpose of flanking Morgan and the other regi- ments when, to his surprise, he encountered, in the woods
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near the head of the Middle ravine, Arnold with several additional New York and New Hampshire troops intent on separating Fraser from Burgoyne. It is needless to say that the dogs of war were unleashed at once, and a furious struggle ensued. The two most fiery leaders in either army were here personally opposed to each other. Arnold and Fraser both seemed ubiquitous, rushing hither and yon in the thick of the fray, giving orders and encouraging their men. The battle here raged for more than an hour, and Fraser seemed in imminent danger of being cut off from the main body when Colonel Breyman with his German grenadiers and a few pieces of artillery appeared on the field and assailing Arnold on his right forced him back. But he retired only to catch breath and regain his strength, for soon being reinforced by two regiments of Connecticut militia he returned to the field, and then the battle raged all along the line. Fraser hav- ing formed his junction with Burgoyne, the chief strug- gle was now on Freeman’s clearing and in the open woods just to the west. The Americans attacked the British furiously and drove them into the woods on the north side, where they were rallied, and charging with bayonets drove the Americans back across the same field into the cover of the woods to the south, where they in turn recovered themselves and hurled the redcoats back with great slaughter. Morgan’s sharpshooters, posted in trees, did terrible execution among the British officers as well as the rank and file. Both sides exhibited the most desperate valor, and bloody hand to hand contests were frequent, especially about the British field battery, which was taken and retaken at every charge, but the Americans, having no horses nor matches could neither get them off the field nor fire them. Gates, having been
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persuaded to reinforce the tired patriots, about five o’clock sent out Learned’s brigade, which renewed the fight with such spirit that Burgoyne, finding himself on the perilous edge of defeat, sent to his left for reinforce- ments. Riedesel responded promptly and reaching the field about dusk, struck the American right, folded it back, and posted Pausch’s battery on the hill south of Freeman’s cottage, which was served with such efficiency that the patriots were obliged to give way and retire. Though nearly dark Riedesel and Fraser were on the point of following up their success when Burgoyne, neither energetic nor wise enough to improve his advan- tage, called a halt, to the infinite disgust of both generals and common soldiers. Thus twice during that eventful day the Germans saved the British army from rout, and yet Burgoyne scarcely mentioned them in his dispatches home.
Of course Burgoyne claimed a victory, but like Pyr- rhus’ victory over the Romans, another such would prove his ruin.68 Indeed it had been an unusually fierce and sanguinary struggle. On the British side the 62 d regi- ment was nearly cut to pieces. It had three or four ensigns or color bearers killed ; only sixty of the four or five hundred men who entered, with five or six officers, reported for duty, and thirty-six out of forty-eight men in Captain Jones’ artillery company were either killed or wounded. The Americans lost in killed and wounded three hundred and nineteen, or ten per cent, of those engaged ; the British lost six hundred or twenty per cent, of those actually engaged. And as to the question of
68 It was a dear bought victory, if I can give it that name, as we lost many brave men .... and no very great advantage, honor excepted, was gained by the day. — Digby’s Journal, p. 273.
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victory: Since it was Burgoyne’s purpose to advance
and not simply to hold his ground, while Gates’ purpose was to hold his ground and check the advance of Bur- goyne, the reader can judge for himself to whom the palm should be given. Moreover, the Americans learned that they were a match for the dreaded British regulars, which discovery was worth a victory in itself to them.
Burgoyne issued orders for a renewal of the conflict in the morning. Accordingly, ammunition and rations were served early to the men, but a dense fog hindered any movement at the appointed hour. While waiting for it to clear up, Fraser observed to Burgoyne that since his grenadiers were greatly fatigued after yesterday’s fighting, it might be well to wait till the morrow, when they would be in far better spirits. Acting on this sug- gestion, Burgoyne countermanded the order and the men returned to their quarters. The Americans, apprised of this proposed movement by a deserter, manned their works and awaited the attack in dread suspense. Had Burgoyne attacked that morning, as he had planned, in all probability he would have carried Gates’ works ; for the American stock of ammunition was practically exhausted, and several days elapsed before the magazine was replenished.69
The following night a dispatch from Sir Henry Clin- ton reached Burgoyne to the effect that he was about to move up the Hudson from New York to his aid. This decided Burgoyne to remain where he was until the expected diversion should cause either the withdrawal or diminution of Gates’ army.
60 It was due to General Schuyler’s diligence in collecting powder and lead that this deficiency was supplied. For this purpose he had the lead- ing stripped from the windows and roofs in Albany, and sent up to the army.
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Why Howe Failed to Co-operate with Burgoyne
For many years after the event, students of the Revolu- tionary war, in both England and America, cogitated much over Howe’s failure to execute his share of the care- fully draughted plan of campaign. The question was, Why did he not advance up the Hudson simultaneously with Burgoyne’s descent from the north? Clinton’s attempted diversion in Burgoyne’s behalf was afterward learned to be wholly on his own motion. This served rather to com- plicate than to clear up the problem. But a memoran- dum left by Lord Shelburne, and quite recently brought to light by Lord Edmund FitzMaurice, has solved the mystery. A number of orders, dispatches, etc., duly pre- pared, awaited the signature of Lord George Germaine, the colonial secretary. Among these were the orders td Howe giving explicit directions for co-operating with Burgoyne. Lord George called in the office on his way to attend some social function or fox hunt down in Kent. He hastily signed the several papers, but when he came to this particular one, on glancing it over, he refused to sign it on the ground that it was not “fair copied.”