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Saratoga and Juake Cham~ 
 plain in jfcistory 
 
 «© © 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH EGGLESTON SEELYE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON, THE STORY OF COLUMBUS, THE 
 LIFE OF TECUMSEH, THE LIFE OF POCAHONTAS, THE LIFE 
 OF BRANT AND RED JACKET, THE LIFE OF MONTE- 
 ZUMA, LAKE GEORGE IN HISTORY, ETC. 
 
 FIRST EDITION. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ELWYN SEELYE, 
 Lake George, N. Y. 
 
V- tai 
 
 ^C 
 
 9297 
 
 Copyright, 1898, 
 By ELIZABETH EGGLESTON SEELYE. 
 
 | 
 
 M^lp 
 
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Saratogaa Natural Battleground 1 
 
 The Champlain Warpath 2 
 
 The Making of Saratoga :> 
 
 Geology of the Champlain Valley 4 
 
 Saratogaa Hunting Ground 4 
 
 The Discovery of Lake Champlain 5 
 
 First Battle on Lake Champlain 5 
 
 Father Jogues and Saratoga Lake (i 
 
 First Purchasers of Saratoga 7 
 
 First Invasion 7 
 
 Saratoga an Outpost S 
 
 Indian Battle Near Saratoga Springs 10 
 
 The Hamlet of Saratoga 10 
 
 First Meeting of French and English on Lake Cham 
 
 plain 11 
 
 Saratoga Opposed to Crown Point 13 
 
 The Massacre of Saratoga 13 
 
 A New Fort at Saratoga 14 
 
 Saratoga in the Last French War 15 
 
 A Fort at Ticonderoga 16 
 
 First European at Saratoga Springs 17 
 
 The Battle of Ticonderoga 17 
 
 The Fall of Ticonderoga 23 
 
 To the Final Conquest 25 
 
 The Discovery of Saratoga Springs 26 
 
 First Settlers at Saratoga Springs ^7 
 
 Ethan Allen and Ticonderoga 28 
 
 The Invasion of Canada 31 
 
 Franklin at Saratoga 31 
 
 Franklin a Voyager on Lake Champlain 32 
 
 First Naval Struggle on Lake Champlain 32 
 
 Plan for a Descent Upon Saratoga from the West and 
 
 North 36 
 
 iii 
 
Burgoyne's Army 37 
 
 Burgoyne on Lake Champlain 38 
 
 St Clair's Retreat 39 
 
 The Chase 45 
 
 Burgoyne at Whitehall 47 
 
 The Battle of Fort Anne 47 
 
 The Work of Obstruction 49 
 
 Difficulties and Discouragements 50 
 
 Jane McCrea 51 
 
 First Move Upon Saratoga 54 
 
 Falling Back 57 
 
 Saratoga Invaded > 60 
 
 The First Battle of Saratoga 64 
 
 Between the Battles 68 
 
 The Second Battle of Saratoga 70 
 
 The Day After 77 
 
 The Retreat 78 
 
 The Pursuit * 80 
 
 , A Trap fo>- the Americans at Saratoga 81 
 
 The Cannonade 84 
 
 The Surrender 86 
 
 Results of the Saratoga Capitulation 91 
 
 Saratoga Springs 93 
 
 The Perils of Travel on Lake Champlain in 1807 . 95 
 
 The Battle of Plattsburgh 102 
 

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 \ 
 
^aratocja aKc| Lake ChatT\£lait\ \t\ History, 
 
 The story of Saratoga and Lake Champlain is 
 necessarily the same. Lake Champlain and the 
 Upper Hudson occupy one great valley and form a 
 natural pathway between Canada and the United 
 States. At Saratoga and on Lake Champlain, Eng- 
 land and France long faced each other in hostile 
 claims for the possession of the continent. At 
 Saratoga more than at any other point the struggle 
 of the Revolution was decided. Invasions from 
 the north aimed at seizing the important military 
 region in the angle of the Hudson and Mohawk, 
 known as Saratoga ; expeditions from the south set 
 forth from Saratoga to force a way through the 
 Champlain valley. He who would know the story 
 of one can not but find that of the other interwoven 
 with it. 
 
 SARATOGA A NATURAL BATTLEGROUND. 
 
 Saratoga, in the widest sense of the name, is a 
 triangle lying at the joining of two vastly important 
 
 1 
 
valleys, those of the Mohawk and the Champlain - 
 Hudson. These watercourses for untold ages 
 formed the sole highways between rival peoples, 
 struggling for the mastery of a continent. By 
 controlling these valleys in times past the Iroquois 
 Indians succeeded in laying a foundation for the 
 only native empire north of Mexico. The French 
 and English succeeded them here in the struggle for 
 the heart of North America, and in these same 
 valleys England and her American colonies strove 
 for the mastery of this vast land. Its location 
 made it almost inevitable that the smiling region of 
 Saratoga should have been the scene of one of the 
 world's few decisive battles. 
 
 THE CHAMPLAIN WARPATH. 
 
 Though the Mohawk Valley, which bounds Sara- 
 toga on the south, has become, since the days of 
 canals and railroads, of great commercial import- 
 ance, it was in the early times too remote and its 
 navigation too obstructed for the transportation of 
 heavy cannon, hence the larger and more important 
 armies moved through Lake Champlain to and from 
 the Upper Hudson, while more lightly equipped 
 expeditions co-operated with them by the Mohawk 
 Valley. Lake Champlain has been for ages a war- 
 path. Its discoverer, indeed, heard that Indians 
 had formerly lived on some of the islands in this 
 lake, but the wars of the New York Indians, with 
 those of Canada, long made it an unsafe dwelling 
 place, and it was deserted save by savage war 
 parties which stole up and down its waters in their 
 canoes on errands of surprise and massacre, often to 
 
3 
 
 return laden with the spoils of war and with trem- 
 bling captives. This native warfare was suc- 
 ceeded by the invasions of the French and Revo- 
 lutionary wars, in which Indian warriors still 
 played an important part. Gayly dressed and 
 finely-drilled European troops mustered here year 
 after year until finally, with the close of the last 
 war with England, this great warpath of the 
 nations was left solely to trade and to the tourist, 
 who still finds the route to Canada to lie through 
 the Champlain Valley, or seeks its shores for 
 pleasure and recreation. 
 
 THE MAKING OF SARATOGA. 
 
 Saratoga lies at the extreme southern end of the 
 great Adirondack plateau, which is part of the 
 Laurentian mountain system, the oldest on our 
 continent, the first to rise above the ocean in remote 
 ages. Before the time of the glacier the Upper 
 Hudson traversed this region in a different direc- 
 tion, taking its course southward between Mt. 
 McGregor and the Kayaderoseras range of the 
 Adirondack Mountains. When the ice melted the 
 deposits of the glacial waters, loaded with sand and 
 gravel, filled up this ancient channel of the Hudson 
 and sent it winding and struggling through the 
 Luzerne or Palmerstown mountains, and across the 
 rocks at Glens Falls, Sandy Hill and Fort Edward. 
 In these rocks the river has gradually cut a gorge, 
 its falls having receded in the course of ages from 
 Fort Edward to Glens Falls. The Upper Hudson 
 was before the glacial age a tributary to the main 
 stream which took its way through the Mohawk 
 
Valley, laden with the outlet waters of several of 
 the great lakes. 
 
 The hills of Saratoga are the work of the glacier, 
 being deposited by the overflow of glacial waters on 
 their way to the Hudson, like the bars in a river. 
 This region was exposed to the sun and clothed in 
 green long before the glacier had retreated from the 
 flanks of the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks 
 on either hand. Lying at the very edge of the 
 Adirondack plateau, Saratoga's celebrated springs 
 well up through a fault, or fissure, between the old 
 Laurentian rock and that of a later formation. 
 
 GEOLOGY OF THE CHAMPLAiN VALLEY. 
 
 The Champlain Valley, together with the St. 
 Lawrence, is thought once to have sunk below the 
 sea level, causing an influx of ocean waters and a 
 deposit of sea shells in this region. It was also once 
 connected both with the Hudson and the St. Law- 
 rence rivers, thus making an island of what is now 
 New England. It still forms one valley with that 
 of the Hudson, one of its tributaries, Halfway 
 Brook, rising almost on the banks of the latter 
 stream. 
 
 SARATOGA A HUNTING GROUND. 
 
 Saratoga county was long a hunting ground of 
 the Mohawk Indians. The mineral springs, now so 
 famous, were then the resort of animals craving 
 their salt taste, and among this concourse of wild 
 creatures the Indian hunter was sure to find 
 abundant game. The Indians also had some 
 notion of the value of these mineral waters, and 
 used them in cases of illness. 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 
 
 Champlain, like other explorers of his day, sought 
 in the waters of North America for a western 
 passage to the rich countries of Eastern Asia. He 
 was attracted by rumors of a great body of water, 
 with free passage into the St. Lawrence, to seek the 
 lake which bears his name, in the company of an 
 Algonquin war party, bound on an irruption into 
 the Mohawk country by way of the Champlain 
 Valley. The Indians had assured him of free water 
 passage the whole way, and he was greatly disap- 
 pointed to find rapids in the Richelieu River, but 
 left his sailing craft behind him and, accompanied 
 by only two French soldiers, made his voyage of 
 discovery the remainder of the way in Indian 
 canoes. He first saw the waters of Lake Champlain 
 in July, 1609, and admired their extent and beauty. 
 He was alive to all the curiosities of this region, and 
 did not fail to note the peculiarities of the large 
 fish known as the muskalonge. It was only the 
 chance encounter of his Indian companions with an 
 Iroquois war party, on its way through the great 
 thoroughfare to Canada, that prevented Champlain 
 from being the discoverer as well of the Upper 
 Hudson and Saratoga regions several weeks before 
 Hudson ascended the river which bears his name. 
 
 FIRST BATTLE ON LAKE CHAM PL AIN. 
 
 It was the twenty-ninth of July, 1609, when the 
 Indians in the Mohawk and Algonquin canoes 
 descried each other. Fearful war whoops arose on 
 either hand. The Mohawks took to the shore and 
 raised a barricade ; the Canadian Indians lashed 
 
their canoes together, and danced and yelled 
 defiance the livelong night upon the water. When 
 day broke Champ ! ain and his two French followers 
 lay low in the canoes, covered with deerskins, while 
 their Indian allies paddled ashore. The Mohawks 
 sallied from their shelter to meet their enemies, 
 some of them clad in an armor of twigs inter- 
 woven with deerthongs The two French soldiers 
 were hastily hidden in the bushes on one side of the 
 battle ground. At the beginning of the affray 
 Champlain marched out from between the parted 
 ranks of his Indian allies, a startling apparition to 
 the Mohawks, and discharged his musket, loaded 
 for the occasion with four balls. Two Mohawks 
 fell ; the third was wounded. For a short time the 
 arrows fell thick and fast upon both sides, but a 
 discharge of fire arms from the two ambushed 
 French soldiers so terrified the Mohawks that they 
 broke and fled. There was the usual pursuit, the 
 capture of prisoners, and the midnight torture of a 
 victim, whose miseries Champlain finally ended 
 with a musket ball. 
 
 FATHER JOGUES AND SARATOGA LAKE. 
 
 Probably the first European to set foot on Sara- 
 toga soil was Father Jogues. the Jesuit missionary, 
 who, as a tortured captive, passed through Lake 
 Champlain, Lake George, and so southward through 
 Saratoga county to the Mohawk in 1642. After a 
 painful winter of captivity in Mohawk cabins he 
 was taken by the Indian family with which he 
 lived to a small body of water, believed to be Sara- 
 toga Lake, for the fishing. Here, in the famished 
 
springtime, when the winter's store of corn had 
 been exhausted, he and his captors lived, when 
 better food failed, on the entrails of the last day's 
 fish, or on frogs, both alike disgusting to the good 
 father. 
 
 FIRST PURCHASERS OF SARATOGA. 
 
 The first white owners of a part of Saratoga 
 were some Dutch merchants, of Albany, prominent 
 among whom was Peter Schuyler, beloved by the 
 Indians under the name of Quider. These men in 
 1684 bought six miles wide on either side of the 
 Hudson, from Mechanicville to the neighborhood of 
 Fort Miller. This patent did not include the 
 springs, for the earliest settlers only valued such 
 lands as lay along the streams and lakes, then the 
 sole highways. The tract of land which contained 
 the springs was afterwards, under the name of 
 Kayaderoseras patent, long a bone of contention 
 between the Mohawks and New Yorkers, some of the 
 the latter having bought it in 1708. and the former 
 claiming that they had never meant to sell their 
 great hunting ground, but only a farm upon it. It 
 did not become the undisputed property of white 
 men until 1768. 
 
 FIRST INVASION. 
 
 For many years New York lay bare and exposed 
 to invasion from the great warpath of the Cham- 
 plain Valley to the northward. Given over to trade 
 and commerce by her natural advantages, the col- 
 ony neglected defense or trusted to the Mohawks, 
 who were long embroiled with Canada by reason of 
 the French alliance with the Algonquin Indians to de- 
 
8 
 
 fend them. In 1689, during the first of the four 
 French wars which desolated this northern frontier, 
 the Champlain Valley was chosen by Louis XIV, in 
 faraway France, for a descent upon the Hudson, 
 which, with the aid of two French vessels of war 
 in New York harbor, was to reduce the colony to 
 French rule. The vessels failed to reach American 
 shores in season, and the scheme fell through, but 
 the next year in midwinter a party of over two 
 hundred French and Indians, armed against the 
 cold with blanket coats and mittens, traveling on 
 snow shoes and dragging their provisions on Indian 
 toboggans, traversed the ice on Lake Champlain 
 and Lake George, and, descending the Hudson, 
 made a pathway of the frozen surfaces of Saratoga 
 Lake and Fish Creek, the Mourning Kill and Balls- 
 ton Lake on their way to the midnight surprise of 
 the frontier village of Schenectady. The massacre 
 which followed aroused the tardy New Yorkers to a 
 sense of their danger and alarmed the New Eng- 
 land colonies, whose sole western defense was the 
 attenuated line of New York towns on the Hudson. 
 The danger arising from the accessibility of the 
 Hudson from the Champlain Valley caused the 
 earliest combination of some of the American colo- 
 nies, and was the occasion of the meeting of the 
 first of Congresses in New York the following spring. 
 
 SARATOGA AN OUTPOST. 
 
 There was a ford in the Hudson between the 
 mouths of Fish Creek on the western and of the 
 Batten Kill on the eastern bank of the stream. 
 From time immemorial this had been the crossing 
 
place of the river for Indians, and it became that of 
 white men. Here a blockhouse was built in the 
 spring of 1690 at what afterwards became the village 
 of Saratoga and is now Schuylerville. This outpost 
 of civilization was garrisoned by a few Dutch 
 soldiers, commanded by Peter Schuyler. The first 
 of a great number of military expeditions destined 
 to set forth from this post crossed the river at the 
 Saratoga ford the same summer, toiling up the Hud- 
 son partly in canoes, partly on foot along the river 
 bank. At what is now Fort Miller the canoes were 
 carried around falls in the river. At Fort Edward, 
 known then as the Great Carrying Place, the small 
 army left the Hudson and took its way some twelve 
 miles through magnificent forests of white pine to 
 Fort Anne. Save for a raid on the part of Major 
 John Schuyler and a few men upon the Canadian 
 village of La Prairie the expedition proved a failure 
 and got no farther than Fort Anne. 
 
 The next year Major Peter Schuyler, who cut an 
 important figure in the early history of New York, 
 set forth from the little outpost of Saratoga with 
 two hundred and sixty white men and Indians. He 
 descended Lake Champlain to the attack of La 
 Prairie, not far from Montreal, where, after coming 
 off victorious in a short fight, he cut clown the 
 green corn in the fields. On retreating through the 
 woods to his canoes on the Richelieu, he fell into a 
 French and Indian ambuscade, but charged the 
 enemy with great spirit, drove them from cover, 
 fought his way through their midst, and then 
 turned about to drive them back that he might 
 
10 
 
 retreat in safety up the Richelieu and Lake Cham- 
 plain and down the Hudson to Saratoga. This was 
 one of the most plucky struggles of the northern 
 warpath, and savored little of Indian methods of 
 warfare, as well it might, the Indian allies of both 
 French and English having retreated at the outset 
 of the contest. 
 
 INDIAN BATTLE NEAR SARATOGA SPRINGS. 
 
 Two years later, 1693. Frontenac, the governor of 
 Canada, retaliated upon New York in a way felt by 
 the colony, which depended much upon Indian 
 allies, by striking a blow at the Mohawks. A party 
 of six hundred French and Indians traversed Lake 
 Champlain, and, avoiding the Saratoga ford by 
 crossing the Hudson above Glens Falls, pushed 
 through what is now Wilton and Greenfield to 
 strike a blow at the Mohawk allies of the English 
 colonies. Peter Schuyler followed fast on the heels 
 of the invaders, when they retreated from their 
 work of destruction. He overtook them near an 
 old Indian pass over the Palmerstown Mountains, in 
 Wilton, and gave them battle almost within sight of 
 Saratoga Springs. The French and Indians made 
 their escape after the battle by crossing the Hudson 
 on a cake of ice that chanced to be wedged in a 
 bend of the river. 
 
 THE HAM! ET OF SARATOGA. 
 
 During the fourteen years of peace that followed 
 a little Dutch hamlet grew up near the block house 
 fort at the Saratoga ford, this farthest outpost of 
 the New York wilderness. Here Albany merchants 
 built houses, and resorted at certain seasons of the 
 
11 
 
 year for trade, catching the Indian hunter as he 
 returned from his hunt in the territory around 
 Saratoga Springs, and gaining something in being 
 on the ground to bid first for his furs, an object 
 much sought in those days. During this time & 
 lively smuggling trade was carried on between 
 Albany and Canada by way of Saratoga and the 
 Champlain Valley. It was not until 1709 that New 
 Yorkers ceased filling their pockets and were drawn 
 into the second French war. Again an expedition 
 set forth against Canada by the great northern 
 warpath under command of Colonel Nicholson. A 
 stockaded fort was now built on the east side of the 
 river opposite the little hamlet of Saratoga and 
 called Fort Saratoga This fort was connected with 
 Lake Champlain by a chain of temporary posts at 
 the carrying places — one at Fort Miller, another at 
 Fort Edward, and a third at Fort Anne. Having 
 reached the latter spot the expedition, like the for- 
 mer one, advanced no further, but spent the summer 
 in waiting for the arrival at Boston of an English 
 fleet which was to co-operate with it against Canada 
 by attacking Quebec, but which had in fact been 
 ordered elsewhere and never came. 
 
 FIRST MEETING OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH ON LAKE 
 CHAMPLAIN. 
 
 The French had meantime sent fifteen hundred 
 men up Lake Champlain to take the English at Fort 
 Anne by surprise, but they succeeded only in sur- 
 prising themselves, for they fell in with some 
 English scouts, their Indians were fired upon from 
 an ambush, the savages themselves took some of 
 
12 
 
 their French Canadian allies in the woods for the 
 enemy and fired upon them, and the commander of 
 the expedition lost himself from his army for a 
 time. After this chapter of accidents the French 
 retreated, believing that they had come in contact 
 with the English advance guard. This first blun- 
 dering meeting of English and French soldiers in 
 the Champlain Valley took place a little south of 
 Crown Point, then known to the French as Pointe & 
 le Chevelure, or Scalp Point. 
 
 SARATOGA OPPOSED TO CROWN POINT. 
 
 Thirty-one years of peace followed the second 
 French war. The village of Saratoga grew and the 
 French seized Lake Champlain. New York claimed 
 the western shore of this valuable waterway, and 
 New Hampshire and Massachusetts squabbled over 
 its eastern border. "While they quarreled for the 
 bone," in the words of an old writer, "the French 
 ran away with it." Choosing Crown Point, where 
 the lake contracts to the width of a river, they built 
 a fort which they called St. Frederic, with walls 
 twenty feet thick and high and an octagonal tower 
 of black limestone, the whole being surmounted 
 with twenty-six cannon and several mortars. To 
 oppose this really formidable fortress New T York 
 had only a weak stockaded fort at the Saratoga 
 ford, manned with thirteen men and officers. This 
 little garrison which sheltered itself with difficulty, 
 and its ammunition scarcely at all beneath its leaky 
 barrack roof, would yet have perished with drought 
 for lack of a well had Saratoga been besieged. New 
 York governors rated their assemblies on the needs 
 
13 
 
 of Fort Saratoga, but the representatives engaged in 
 a . long struggle with the royal power, destined to 
 culminate in the Revolution, would grant nothing 
 for military defenses, fearing to put power into the 
 governor's hands, and thus it happened that the 
 stockades and roofs of Fort Saratoga were left to rot. 
 
 THE MASSACRE CF SARATOGA. 
 
 Such was the defenceless state of the sole northern 
 outpost of New York, when in 1744 the war of the 
 Austrian succession in Europe threw the new world 
 into a fresh struggle. Governor Clinton urged the 
 New York assembly to build forts at the carrying 
 places and fords on the Hudson, and when the 
 assembly refused unless he accepted its conditions 
 and even neglected to repair the falling stockades of 
 Fort Saratoga, he angrily withdrew the feeble gar- 
 rison of this forlorn hope of a fort. 
 
 In November, 1745, five hundred Canadians and 
 Indians ascended Lake Champlain, marched to Fort 
 Edward, where a trader named Lydius then lived, 
 and, having imprisoned his servants that no warning 
 might, reach the devoted village of Saratoga, the 
 marauders descended the Hudson, capturing by the 
 way a man and his wife with a wagon load of flour. 
 The woman tried to turn the invaders aside, assur- 
 ing them that there were two hundred men in Fort 
 Saratoga awaiting them with resolution, but they 
 probably had better information for they proceeded 
 and on the morning of November fifteenth fell upon 
 the little village. They made prisoners of those 
 who surrendered peacefully, but killed all who 
 resisted or ran, as men working in the field naturally 
 
14 
 
 did. The Philip Schuyler of that day, who lived 
 in a large brick house pierced with loopholes, 
 answered a Canadian officer who knew him and 
 promised him good treatment in case of surrender, 
 with the words: "You are a dog and I will kill 
 you." Whereupon he was shot. Thirty people 
 were killed, sixty were carried away to captivity, 
 houses and mills, barns full of wheat and corn, and 
 stables full of animals as well as the fort and the 
 houses of Albany merchants, who resorted here at 
 certain seasons of the year for trade with the 
 Indians, all were burned to the ground. 
 
 A NEW FORT AT SARATOGA. 
 
 The massacre of Saratoga aroused the people of 
 New York, and the next year a new and larger fort 
 was built on the Saratoga side of the river in the 
 angle of the Hudson and Fish Creek. This post was 
 named Fort Clinton in honor of the governor of 
 that name. 
 
 The third French war beat severely upon the 
 exposed region of Saratoga and below. Twenty- 
 seven scalping and marauding parties are said to 
 have fallen upon this region, let loose by the 
 ambitious struggles of European monarchs over the 
 control of a crown. New York could in fact no 
 longer rely on the Mohawk Indians for keeping the 
 enemy at bay, the rage of these Indians against the 
 French, which dated from Champlain's battle with 
 them, having nearly subsided. It was to little 
 purpose that the new Indian agent of the Mohawk, 
 William Johnson, urged these people to "go a 
 scalping." 
 
15 
 
 In 1747 a body of French and Indians made an 
 attempt upon the new fort at Saratoga, approaching 
 it stealthily and concealing their main force in 
 hopes of surprising the garrison. A few scouts 
 were sent to decoy the garrison out of the fort, and 
 lay in hiding until two Englishmen came out. The 
 Indians then fired upon them, and when attacked 
 made off as though they were wounded. A hundred 
 and twenty of the garrison at once sallied from the 
 fort and went in pursuit. They soon fell into an 
 ambuscade of French and Indians, who at once 
 opened fire upon them. The English resisted 
 stoutly, aided by the guns of the fort, but the 
 invaders rushed upon them tomahawk in hand. 
 Some escaped to the fort, though so closely pursued 
 as to be scarcely able to close the gates upon their 
 pursuers; others ran down the hill to the river, 
 where they were either drowned or tomahawked. 
 This affair occurred where at a later day Burgoyne's 
 army laid down its arms. The following fall the 
 fort at Saratoga was abandoned for lack of supplie s 
 and burned to the ground. No disastrous results 
 followed for peace was soon after declared. 
 
 SARATOGA IN THE LAST FRENCH WAR. 
 
 But six years passed before war again broke out. 
 This time America embroiled Europe in her own 
 quarrels, the French in America having made a 
 well organized effort to secure the heart of the 
 continent by the seizure of important military 
 points on the main watercourses, their claim to 
 inland territory reaching eastward almost to the 
 important Saratoga triangle. Again did Saratoga 
 
16 
 
 become a point of importance, and again did a new 
 fort arise on the ruins of the old, now named Fort 
 Hardy in honor of the ruling governor. Here the 
 army of General Johnson, the Indian agent and 
 trader, halted on its way northward to the attack of 
 Crown Point. Past this spot ran a new military 
 road cut through the forests from Albany to Lake 
 George by the advancing army, and here the 
 numerous military expeditions of this war crossed 
 the Hudson. Fort Edward, or Fort Lyman as it 
 was at first called, came into existence at this time, 
 and with its building Saratoga ceased to be an 
 outpost and became one of a chain of posts succor- 
 ing and sheltering the great armies which marched 
 up and down the Hudson year after year in the 
 last French war, co-operating with others that took 
 their way through the Mohawk Valley southward of 
 the Saratoga triangle to the defense of Oswego and 
 the capture of Niagara. 
 
 A FORT AT TICONDEROGA. 
 
 The English colonies in the summer of 1775 
 advanced their front of former wars from Saratoga 
 to Lake George; the French pushed forward from 
 Crown Point to Ticonderoga. The English thought 
 to beleaguer Crown Point; the French planned to 
 thrust the English back from Fort Edward. Neither 
 expedition reached its destination, but both met at 
 the head of Lake George, where a battle was 
 fought in which the French were routed. After 
 the battle of Lake George the French built a Fort 
 at Ticonderoga, which they named Carillon, because 
 of the musical sound of falling waters in the outlet 
 stream of Lake George. 
 
17 
 
 In the summer of 1757 a brilliant army of ten 
 thousand French, Canadians, and Indians, in com- 
 mand of Montcalm, ascended Lake Champlain and 
 made a rendezevous of Ticonderoga, where the 
 savages distinguished themselves by eating an 
 Englishman, captured in a skirmish on Lake 
 George. This army ascended Lake George to the 
 siege and capture of Fort William Henry. The fall 
 of this po3t and the massacre which followed so 
 terrified the country below that Montcalm might 
 have taken Fort Edward, and perhaps have been 
 able to threaten Albany from Saratoga had he not 
 lacked the means for transporting cannon and 
 supplies to the Hudson. 
 
 THE FIRST EUROPEAN AT SARATOGA SPRINGS. 
 It was after Ticonderoga became the advanced 
 French post that an event happened, which is one 
 of the many that link the history of Saratoga and 
 Lake Champlain into one continuous story. A 
 French officer lay ill in Fort Ticonderoga. An 
 Indian, one of those Mohawks, no doubt, who had 
 been induced to desert their former home to live in 
 Canada under the name of Caugnawagas, told the 
 sick man of the wonderful healing powers of a 
 certain spring, and guided him, it is believed, to the 
 High Rock spring of Saratoga to use its waters. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF TICONDEROGA. 
 
 In 1758, the great Minister Pitt having come into 
 
 power in England, the English took the offensive 
 
 again in the Hudson- Champlain Valley, and an 
 
 army of sixteen thousand men crossed the Hudson 
 
18 
 
 at Saratoga on the way to an attack upon Ticon- 
 deroga. This force was nominally commanded by 
 Abercromby. but the real leader was Lord Howe, a 
 gifted young officer, who for this frontier warfare 
 cut short the men's hair and coat tails, and browned 
 their polished gun barrels. He abolished camp beds 
 and camp followers, sleeping himself upon a bear 
 skin, washing his OAvn linen, and by way of example 
 he asked his officers to a dinner of pork and beans 
 eaten from a common dish with pocket knives and 
 forks. Under such a leader everything progressed 
 rapidly, and by the sixth of July the army, after 
 making the passage of Lake George, landed near 
 the Baldwin of our day. The opposing French 
 army lay within the loop made by the outlet stream 
 between Lake George and Ticonderoga. Across 
 this loop ran the only road, but the French had 
 destroyed the bridges by which it crossed the stream, 
 and an attempt was made to march the English 
 army through the woods around the loop of the 
 stream toward the fort and so to get into the rear of 
 the French army. The English, however, became 
 confused in the woods, and the vanguard of Ameri- 
 can rangers, with Lord Howe at their head, fell in 
 unexpectedly with an advanced party of the French 
 army which had been engaged in watching the 
 English landing and was now making its way back 
 to the fort through the valley of Trout Brook. 
 Near where this brook enters the outlet stream an 
 encounter took place between the colonist rangers 
 of the English army and the French, in which 
 Lord Howe fell at the first volley. A panic seized 
 
19 
 
 the English. Always at a loss in the forests of 
 America, regiments threw themselves one on 
 another, and General Abercromby was near being 
 dragged off in the confusion. But other bodies of 
 Americans in the English army, more used to woods 
 warfare than the English, came to the aid of the 
 advance guard, and the French, caught between 
 two forces, at first fought savagely and at length 
 broke and fled to be either shot or drowned in the 
 outlet stream. Of three hundred and fifty only 
 fifty escaped. The English loss was even greater, 
 for though but ten were killed, Lord Howe, the life 
 of the expedition, was among their number. 
 
 General Abercromby had had quite enough of the 
 woods, and after spending a night of indecision 
 near the scene of the recent struggle returned to 
 the Lake George landing place, resolved to march in 
 future by roads. This delay gave Montcalm time to 
 retire from his camp within the loop of the stream 
 to the rocky plateau in the rear of the fort which he 
 began hastily to fortify with a rude barricade of logs, 
 bags of earth and sods, outside of which he caused 
 trees to be felled with their branches outward, thus 
 forming a huge abbatis. The French wished only 
 for time in which to complete their defense, and 
 this Abercromby by his halting and slow move- 
 ments gave them. Montcalm had but four thousand 
 men, and feared being cut off from Crown Point by 
 a movement in his rear. Abercromby, on the other 
 hand, believed Montcalm to be much stronger than 
 he was, feared he would be reinforced, and pro- 
 posed to take the fort by assault rather than by a 
 
•jo 
 
 regular siege, before which it inust have fallen. 
 
 On the eight of July. 1758, the English moved to 
 the attack in three columns, and the French 
 dropped their shovels and axes and took up their 
 arms. The English pressed on until they reached 
 the ahbatis. where they became fearfully entaii- 
 Some were impaled on sharpened branches, and all 
 who approached to within fifteen paces of the 
 French line were killed. They fell back declaring 
 that the French position could not be taken at 
 the point of the bayonet. Abercromby. who was 
 himself well in the rear, ordered a fresh charge. 
 On came the English again under the terrible fire 
 of the French, of whom they could see nothing 
 but their caps above the barricade. They combined 
 to attack the right, the center and the left. To 
 each point Montcalm, in his shirt sleeves, for it was 
 midsummer weather, hurried with reinforcements. 
 The French cheered their general and their king 
 and fought furiously. While the battle raged in 
 front an attempt was made on the part of a force of 
 men in twenty battea;.: _ t by water into the 
 
 French rear, but some well directed cannon shot 
 from the fort sank two of the boats and forced the 
 others to retire. 
 
 Six times in six hours the English struggled up 
 against a murderous tire to fling themselves in vain 
 against the hopele— tangle of the French al 
 At five o'clock a determined assault was made upon 
 the right of the French position, the English hewing 
 their way to the foot of the breastworks. Twenty- 
 five officers of the Highland regiment fell in this 
 
21 
 
 assault, dying Scotchmen calling to their comrades 
 "not to lose a thought upon them but to mind the 
 honor of their country." At six o'clock the Eng- 
 lish made their last charge and fell back for the last 
 time, the rangers and other bodies of American 
 troops keeping up a distant firing for some time 
 longer to cover the retreat and the removal of the 
 wounded. 
 
 Among the wounded Highland officers was a 
 Major Campbell, of Inverawe, who, as tradition 
 goes, had been warned by the ghost of a cousin, 
 whose murderer he had unwittingly sheltered, of 
 his death at a place then to him unknown, named 
 Ticonderoga. He is said to have gone into the battle 
 with many misgivings. His wound was in the arm, 
 and he died at Fort Edward more as it seems to the 
 modern mind of the careless surgery of the day than 
 by ghostly appointment. During the battle some 
 Englishmen were near entering the French works, 
 supposing the enemy had surrendered, for the rea- 
 son that a Frenchman, as a vent to his excitement, 
 had waived a handkerchief tied to his gun. The 
 French took the English in their turn for men who 
 had capitulated as they ran forward holding their 
 guns above their heads and calling "quarter." 
 They were about to receive them into the works 
 when a French officer convinced his men of their 
 mistake, and a volley was fired in the face of the 
 approaching English, who were disgusted with 
 what they took for a bit of French deceit. One 
 plucky Rhode Island man contrived to get under 
 the very edge of the French breastworks, where he 
 
22 
 
 killed several Frenchmen, and when at length they 
 discovered him and wounded him gravely by firing: 
 down upon him he sprang up and brained with his 
 hatchet a Frenchman on the other side of the barri- 
 cade. An English officer who saw this action sent 
 men to bring him off, and two weeks later he was 
 recovering of his wounds and able to curse the 
 French stoutly. 
 
 The English losses in the battle of Ticonderaga 
 amounted to nineteen hundred men. six hundred of 
 whom were killed outright, the largest loss in one 
 battle that has ever occurred in this northern war- 
 path of the nations. The French losses were three 
 hundred and seventy -seven, not counting those who 
 had perished in the skirmish of two days before. 
 Never had human life been wasted to less purpose. 
 Abercromby had still abundant men and all the 
 cannon for a regular siege, but he was no leader. 
 The men were fearfully disheartened by the horrors 
 of the recent battle, and to the astonishment of the 
 French the whole army, the largest which ever 
 visited this region, was soon in full retreat up Lake 
 George, leaving behind much baggage and provi- 
 sions, together with a number of shoes sticking fast 
 in the mud of a marsh through which the army 
 hastened. 
 
 The battle of Ticonderoga was called by the 
 French, who claimed Lake Champlain for French 
 territory, a descent into Canada, and there was 
 great exultation over Montcalm's victory. The 
 English on the other hand were deeply mortified at 
 Abercromby's defeat, and this general was after- 
 
ward known to his own men as "Mrs. Nabby- 
 cromby." 
 
 THE FALL OF TICONDEROGA. 
 Under the vigorous management of Pitt, the 
 English had pushed the French back at all other 
 points except on Lake Champlain, and the danger 
 to the interior of Canada was now so great that 
 Montcalm had soon to consider the possibility of 
 being forced to abandon Ticonderoga. The follow- 
 ing year, 1759, when Wolfe appeared before Quebec, 
 General Amherst advanced against Ticonderoga 
 with an army of eleven thousand men. This post 
 was now in command of a French officer named 
 Burlamaque and defended by almost as many men 
 as had the year before defeated Abercromby, but 
 Burlamaque had orders, after making a show of 
 resistance, to abandon the fort and retreat through 
 Lake Champlain to the Richelieu, there to defend 
 Montreal. To deceive the English he busily 
 strengthened his defenses until Amherst's army 
 approached, when he withdrew within the fort. 
 The barricade which the English had stormed in 
 vain the year before, though now more strongly 
 built of logs and earth, was not defended by the 
 French, and Amherst's army encamped under its 
 edge for shelter from the cannon of the fort. The 
 first night after the English arrived Burlamaque 
 secretly retired from Ticonderoga, with most of his 
 army, leaving an officer named Hebecourt with 
 four hundred men to keep up a show of resistance 
 and detain the English before Ticonderoga as long 
 as possible. For four days Hebecourt kept up a 
 
24 
 
 heavy cannonade upon the besieging army, and 
 when Amherst's batteries were erected and about to- 
 open fire upon the walls of Ticonderoga the garrison 
 suddenly withdrew under cover of the night. At 
 ten o'clock that night three deserters came to the 
 English camp with news that the French were 
 making off in boats and had left a slow match burn- 
 ing in their powder magazine. It was in vain for 
 Amherst to offer a high reward in gold to the man 
 of them who would lead the way to cut the match, 
 such a feat being beyond the courage of a deserter, 
 and an hour later there was a tremendous explo- 
 sion which destroyed, however, only one bastion 
 and the barracks of the fort. While there was still 
 danger of a further explosion an English sergeant 
 risked his life to haul down the French flag that 
 English colors might float a few hours sooner over 
 the walls of Ticonderoga. 
 
 The retreating French garrison repaired to Crown 
 Point, and spent three days there, after which they 
 blew up the fort and retired to the Richelieu River, 
 the entrance to which was protected by a French 
 squadron, consisting of a schooner and three smaller 
 craft, then sailing these waters. Amherst advanced 
 to Crown Point. He was expected to push on into 
 Canada to the aid of Wolfe, but he was stopped at 
 this point by the necessity for a squadron to oppose to 
 that of the French. The captured French saw mill at 
 Ticonderoga was set to sawing timbers and boards 
 for vessels, but it often broke down under the 
 unwonted stress of work, and the remainder of the 
 summer was more than spent in the labor of build- 
 
25 
 
 ing a brigantine, a floating battery and a sloop. 
 Amherst, who was famous for fort building and 
 scattered works of defense wherever he went, occu- 
 pied the time in erecting a fine stone fort at Crown 
 Point at a cost of fifty thousand dollars, besides 
 which he cut a road across the present state of 
 Vermont from Lake Champlain to the Connecticut 
 River, widened the road from Crown Point to Ticon- 
 deroga and explored Otter Creek. 
 
 TO THE FINAL CONQUEST. 
 
 It was the eleventh of October, and about a month 
 after the capture of Quebec, when Amherst's army 
 at length advanced in the rear of the hastily built 
 fleet to the attack upon Montreal, by way of the 
 Richelieu River. The floating army was struck by 
 a squall and forced into Ligonier, or Willsborough 
 Bay, where it remained for four days, while a 
 terrific north wind blew and torrents of rain fell. 
 A frost and south wind which followed were 
 speedily succeeded by a second blast from the 
 north, and Amherst gave over the undertaking in 
 discouragement and returned to Crown Point and 
 the more congenial occupation of fort building. 
 
 In the next August, 1760, General Haviland ad- 
 vanced through Lake Champlain with three thous- 
 sand men to aid in a combined attack upon Montreal 
 and the remnant of Canada which still held out. 
 Haviland laid siege to the French post on Isle-aux- 
 Nois in the Richelieu. The English, with the 
 aid of the famous scout Rogers, ran aground or 
 captured the small French squadron in this river, 
 and the French abandoned the island and retired to 
 
26 
 
 Montreal, followed by Haviland, who combined 
 with other English forces, ascending the St. Law- 
 rence from Quebec and descending it from Oswego, 
 in an attack on Montreal, which, being unable to 
 resist cannon, speedily surrendered. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF SARATOGA SPRINGS. 
 Sir William Johnson, the gentleman, trader, 
 Indian agent, soldier, colonial official and baronet, 
 who lived on the Mohawk with a family of half- 
 breed children in a mansion, swarmed over by his 
 Indian friends, had received a wound at the battle 
 of Lake George, from which the ball had not been 
 removed and from which he often suffered. In 
 1767 he had an illness from this cause, and his 
 Mohawk neighbors told him of the value of a certain 
 medicinal spring which they themselves visited in 
 like case. Johnson resolved to try its waters, and 
 taking Indian guides with him he traveled by water 
 to Schenectady, and was carried from this point 
 through the woods on a litter to Ballston Lake, 
 where a pioneer Irishman had built his solitary 
 log cabin. From this point the party followed an 
 Indian trail which ran for some distance along the 
 shore of Saratoga Lake to High Rock Spring. His 
 Indian guides built a bark cabin near the spring, 
 and here Sir William spent four days drinking of 
 and bathing in the water. At the end of this time 
 the wilderness baronet was so far recovered as to be 
 able to walk part of the way to his boat at Schenec- 
 tady. Sir William Johnson may be said to have 
 been the discoverer of Saratoga Springs, as the 
 French officer's knowledge of them was lost to all 
 
27 
 
 but Johnson, who heard of his visit through the 
 Indians. The baronet trader recommended these 
 waters to others and caused them to be analyzed. 
 
 FIRST SETTLERS AT SARATOGA SPRINGS. 
 The pioneer of Saratoga Springs was one Dirk 
 Schouten, a Dutchman, who, in 1773, came from the 
 Hudson River to the eastern shore of Saratoga Lake, 
 which he crossed in a canoe and ascended the Kaya- 
 deroseras Creek two miles, and then followed an 
 Indian trail to High Rock Spring. He made a 
 clearing and began building a log cabin on high 
 ground somewhat west of the spring. There was 
 then an encampment of Indians near the spring, 
 and having quarreled with these people Dirk was 
 driven from the region before his cabin had been 
 finished. The next summer came John Arnold with 
 a family of small children to enlarge and live in the 
 Schouten cabin. The fame of the spring had spread, 
 and the first hardy visitors began to find their way 
 in to drink the water, getting what accommodations 
 they could at the Arnold cabin, and frequently 
 sleeping in hammocks swung from trees for fear of 
 the rattlesnakes which then abounded in the rocky 
 ledges near at hand. Wolves howled at night and 
 bears and deer drank from the brook. After two 
 years Arnold, with the restlessness of a frontiers- 
 man, moved away, and a man named Norton suc- 
 ceeded to his vacant log cabin. He in turn was 
 driven away by the approach of Burgoyne's invading 
 army, which set all the inhabitants of this region 
 flying like leaves before a storm. 
 
28 
 
 ETHAN ALLEN AND TICONDEROGA. 
 
 During the fifteen years' interval between the last 
 French war and that of the Revolution settlers 
 began to be scattered more or less sparsely through 
 the valleys of the Upper Hudson and Lake Cham- 
 plain. Along the whole extent of the latter body 
 of water were some twenty families, and at Skenes- 
 borough, now Whitehall, Major Philip Skene, an 
 English officer of the French war, had planted a 
 settlement of soldiers, built mills, a stone house and 
 barracks. He owned vast quantities of land in this 
 region, and looked forward to the government of 
 the then disputed territory of Vermont. It wa& 
 thought that this soldier settlement at the southern 
 end of the Champlain Valley would prove a barrier 
 against invasion. No one imagined that the next 
 formidable inroad would be that of an English and 
 not a French army, and that the founder of Skenes- 
 borough was destined to play the part of an invader 
 rather than that of a defender. During these years- 
 of peace Crown Point, which was mostly destroyed 
 by an explosion in 1773, boasted a garrison of 
 twelve while Ticonderoga had one of forty-eight 
 men, commanded by a certain Captain Delaplace. 
 The gate of the latter fort stood open and a farmer's 
 boy named Nathan Beman often crossed from the 
 eastern shore of the lake to play on the parade 
 ground with the children of the soldiers. 
 
 With the outbreak of the war of the Revolution 
 these slumbering northern posts became suddenly 
 of vast importance. Soon after the battle of Lex- 
 ington a volunteer party composed mostly of Green. 
 
29 
 
 Mountain boys, commanded by Ethan Allen, and 
 without any particular authority hastened to the 
 surprise of Ticonderoga. After a forced march 
 these two hundred and thirty men reached in the 
 night the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, opposite 
 the fort. Here the boy Nathan Beman lived, and 
 securing him as a guide Ethan Allen crossed the 
 water with eighty-three men, all that he could 
 crowd at one time into the boats at hand. The 
 dawn of May tenth, 1775, was at hand, and all 
 depended on a surprise. Without waiting for the 
 return of the boats with the rest of his men Ethan 
 Allen marched to the gate of the fort. The sentinel 
 snapped his gun at the invaders, but from long 
 disuse it failed to go off, and he hastily retreated 
 to the interior of the fort and took refuge under a 
 bomb proof. The Green Mountain boys followed 
 fast on his heels, and Allen was soon forming his 
 men on the parade grounds, facing the barracks on 
 either hand. Three huzzas were given to wake the 
 sleeping garrison. Then, hitting with his sword a 
 sentinel who made a pass at and slightly wounded 
 one of his officers, Allen forced him to lead the way 
 up a flight of steps to the second story of a barrack 
 where the commandant slept. The Green Mountain 
 leader thundered at the captain's door. Delaplace 
 made haste to appear, breeches in hand. Allen 
 called for the instant delivery of the fort. Dela- 
 place asked by what authority he bemanded it. 
 
 '"In the name of the Great Jehovah and the 
 Continental Congress," said the Green Mountain 
 leader, who, it has been said, had about as much 
 
30 
 
 respect for one authority as the English officer had 
 for the other. 
 
 The surrender was speedily accomplished, and 
 when the remainder of the Green Mountain boys 
 had arrived from the other shore they "tossed 
 around the flowing bowl," as they expressed it. with 
 much exultation. The spoils were more than one 
 hundred and twenty cannon, besides ammunition 
 and provisions. The guns were carried on sleighs 
 the next winter to Boston, where they enabled Wash- 
 ington to drive the enemy out of that town. 
 
 The capture of Ticonderoga was followed by that 
 of Crown Point, which fell without a blow at the 
 summons of Seth Warner, who appeared before it 
 with a detachment of Green Mountain boys on the. 
 following day. To secure command of the lake it 
 was, however, necessary to reduce the English fleet, 
 which in these waters consisted of one sloop of war. 
 The enterprise fell to the part of Benedict Arnold, 
 who, much to his chagrin, had joined the expedition 
 too late to command at the fall of Ticonderoga, and 
 who now came to the front as the only man of the 
 party who knew anything of the management of 
 vessels Skenesborough, or Whitehall, had mean- 
 while fallen into the hands of the invaders. Skene 
 being absent in England. Arnold manned and 
 armed the schooner which had belonged to Skene and 
 set off down the lake with a brisk south wind. He 
 took the garrison of twelve men at St. Johns by 
 surprise, and taking possession of the English vessel 
 was soon on his way back up the lake with a favor- 
 
31 
 
 ing north wind. This was another occasion for 
 tossing around the flowing bowl. 
 
 THE INVASION OF CANADA. 
 
 The easy conquest of Lake Champlain suggested 
 the advisability of securing Canada to prevent the 
 English government from using it as a base of 
 supplies for an attack upon the northern colonies. 
 An army once more passed through Saratoga in 1775 
 and gathered upon Lake Champlain, this time an 
 ill-equipped crowd of venturesome Americans, so 
 undisciplined as to confound freedom with personal 
 independance of command. The illness of General 
 Schuyler left the command to Montgomery, who, 
 failing for lack of heavy cannon to make a break in 
 the walls of St. Johns, now strongly garrisoned by 
 the English, succeeded nevertheless in passing it 
 and capturing Fort Chambly above, and was soon 
 in possession of Montreal. Montgomery marched to 
 the midwinter siege of Quebec, where he fell, and 
 spring found the ill-disciplined little American 
 army in lack of everything and likely to be driven 
 from Canada by the arrival of a force from England. 
 FRANKLIN AT SARATOGA. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles 
 Carroll, of Carrollton, were appointed commissioners 
 to go to Canada and inquire into the state of the 
 American army there. They ascended the Hudson 
 in a sloop to Albany, where they were entertained 
 by Schuyler, his wife and his two "lively black- 
 eyed daughters, Betsey and Peggy." The Schuyler 
 family accompanied the gentlemen to their country 
 home at the river-side village of Saratoga in the 
 
32 
 
 only vehicle of the day in this region a springless 
 farm wagon. The roads were very bad, and Frank- 
 lin, who was over seventy years old and suffering 
 from an attack of the gout, was so fatigued by the 
 ride as to have in jest bidden his friends a last fare- 
 well in the letters which he wrote in Saratoga. 
 FRANKLIN A VOYAGER ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 
 
 A week's rest at Saratoga enabled Franklin to 
 pursue his journey to Lake George, where the 
 commissioners embarked in a flat-bottomed batteau 
 with a blanket hoisted for a sail. This primitive 
 craft was drawn across to Lake Champlain by oxen. 
 The party landed for meals at some island or point 
 to boil tea, and so with a favoring wind the batteau 
 made its leisurely way through the great northern 
 lake. Having reached Canada the commissioners 
 found the case of the American army a hopeless 
 one, and advising its retreat returned through Lake 
 Champlain in the blanket rigged boat. 
 
 FIRST NAVAL STRUGGLE ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 
 
 In the summer of 1776 the American army of 
 invasion accordingly retreated through Lake Cham- 
 plain, first to Crown Point, then to Ticonderoga. 
 Arnold, who was one of its officers, caused the 
 frame of a schooner building at St. Johns to be 
 carried away piecemeal, and when this vessel was 
 finished and added to the others already on Lake 
 Champlain the Americans possessed a small 
 squadron with which to protect themselves from 
 the advance of the English. The enemy at once set 
 seven hundred men at work to build a three-masted 
 ship, which was put together in twenty-eight days 
 
33 
 
 and armed with sixteen guns. To the ship were 
 added, two schooners, a thunderer, or flat-bottomed 
 vessel, mounted with heavy guns, and a number of 
 gunboats armed with one cannon each. These 
 vessels were manned with seven hundred experi- 
 enced seamen from English vessels of war. To 
 oppose this fleet the Americans had only the new 
 schooner, two sloops, three galleys, and a smaller 
 number of gunboats, manned with unskilled lands- 
 men. 
 
 While the English fleet was building Arnold had 
 had the lake to himself, and advanced at one time 
 to the neighborhood of Rouses Point. When at 
 length the English approached he anchored across 
 the narrow channel between Valcour's Island and 
 the western shore. In the early morning of October 
 eleventh, 1776, the English vessels passed Cumber- 
 land Head. The English squadron was commanded 
 by Captain Pringle in the Inflexible. The American 
 schooner Royal Savage was caught outside of the 
 American line in the broad lake and was chased by 
 the English ship Carleton. In tacking to get back 
 into line the American vessel ran aground, and her 
 men were forced to abandon her and seek safety on 
 Valcour's Island. The English fleet had now 
 rounded the southern point of this island and lay 
 between Arnold and retreat. The English gunboats 
 drew together in a cluster to fire on the escaping 
 crew of the Royal Savage. Four American vessels 
 which had meanwhile got under way to defend 
 the grounded schooner fired with a good deal of 
 effect into the cluster of English gunboats, which 
 
34 
 
 were then ordered to form in line across the channel 
 between Valcour's Island and the shore and give 
 battle. Only one of the English vessels was able to 
 get into the narrow channel to take part in the 
 combat, and here she at once became such a target 
 for Arnold's guns that after about an hour's fighting 
 she was towed out, leaving the gunboats to continue 
 the battle alone. Arnold fought savagely, pointing 
 nearly all the cannon on board the Congress himself 
 for want of an experienced gunner. In the struggle 
 this little vessel was hulled twelve times and 
 received seven shots between wind and water, her 
 main mast was cut to pieces and many of her crew 
 were killed. An American galley, named the 
 Washington, was also badly shattered; one gunboat 
 was sunk, and another lost all of her officers but the 
 captain. The English lost but one gunboat and 
 twenty men, these small craft being difficult to aim 
 at with precision. About five o'clock the English 
 drew off and anchored in a line south of the Ameri- 
 can fleet with the intention of completing its 
 destruction on the following day. 
 
 Arnold saw that his position was a hopeless one, 
 the English being greatly superior to him in skill 
 and in the size and number of their cannon. The 
 English gunboats which at first lay in a line between 
 the larger vessels were allowed to retire for shelter 
 to a bay near at hand. The night was cloudy, and 
 Arnold cautiously got under way and sailed his 
 vessels one by one through the enemy's line without 
 discovery. This was a masterly feat, and greatly 
 surprised the English, who awoke the next morning 
 
35 
 
 to find their prey escaped. They at once gave 
 chase. Unfortunately the Americans were obliged 
 to stop for half a day at Schuyler's Isiand to mend 
 sails and stop leaks. A headwind detained both 
 squadrons, the gunboats being unable to sail to 
 windward, but on the morning of October thirteenth 
 the English hove in sight of the Americans. By 
 noon Arnold's ships lay in a narrow part of the lake 
 where they were retarded by a south wind while the 
 English in more open water got a breeze from the 
 northeast which brought them within range. The 
 Inflexible, the Maria and the Carleton opened fire on 
 the American galleys, Congress and Washington, 
 which, together with some gunboats, brought up 
 the rear of the retreating American vessels. A few 
 close broadsides compelled the Washington to strike, 
 and Arnold in the disabled Congress was left to 
 defend the rear of his squadron. Three ships armed 
 with forty-four cannon poured their fire into the 
 devoted little vessel, but Arnold contrived to hold 
 out for four hours. At the end of that time, when 
 the Congress was almost a total wreck and he was 
 surrounded by seven sail of the enemy, he ran her 
 and four gunboats aground in a small creek on the 
 eastern shore about ten miles above Crown Point, 
 set them all on fire and ordered his men to wade out 
 into the water and defend the burning vessels with 
 musketry against boarding parties in small boats. 
 When they had burned to the water's edge he 
 retreated through the woods to Ticonderoga. 
 
 By this gallant struggle Arnold saved six sail of 
 the American fleet, preserved Ticonderoga from at- 
 
tack for that year and very much raised the reputa- 
 tion of the Americans for resolution. 
 
 PLAN FOR THE DEFENCE OF SARATOGA FROn 
 THE WEST AND NORTH. 
 
 It was inevitable that England should choose the 
 Champlain and Mohawk valleys for an attack upon 
 the rear and center of the American colonies and 
 that her course should be directed from the north 
 and west toward the Saratoga triangle there to make 
 a junction of the two forces for the descent of the 
 Hudson and the co-operation with an ascending force 
 Elsewhere she could operate only from the coast, 
 here she might hope to cut the rebellious provinces 
 in two, capture their main inland thoroughfare, the 
 Hudson, cut off New England and leave her exposed 
 to be reduced from the rear. 
 
 In the winter of 1776 General Burgoyne was seen 
 walking in Hyde Park with the king of England. 
 Burgoyne was a fashionable gentleman who had in 
 early life made a runaway match with the daughter 
 of a noble family and received rich promotions in 
 consequence ; he was also a dashing soldier and had 
 a ready though florid pen with which he afterward 
 wrote some successful plays. He had served under 
 Sir Guy Carleton the preceding year in Canada and 
 having seen the Americans flee at the approach of 
 the English troops thought but little of their cour- 
 age and is said to have boasted that he could march 
 through all of the American colonies with five 
 thousand men. It was agreed in England between 
 the king and the minister, Germaine, that Burgoyne 
 should have the chief command of an army which 
 
was to descend the Champlain valley and that of the 
 upper Hudson to Saratoga where it was to be joined 
 by an invading force under a partisan leader, St. 
 Leger, after which it was to move upon Albany 
 while General Howe sailed up the Hudson from 
 New York to a junction with Burgoyne which was 
 to insure the destruction of American independence. 
 
 BURGOYNE'S ARMY. 
 
 Burgoyne's well-appointed army amounted to be- 
 tween eight and ten thousand men and was com- 
 posed of English and German regular troops, Can- 
 adian militia, Indians, and the beginnings of some 
 royal American regiments to be filled up in northern 
 New York by loyalist colonists who it was thought 
 would leave off their timorous ways and join the 
 English standard when put in heart by the appear- 
 ance of a conquering army. Burgoyne was pro- 
 vided with an extensive park of artillery, for Ameri- 
 cans had already shown great skill in throwing up 
 breastworks with the utmost rapidity and it had 
 been found that they were disposed to fight from 
 behind them most abominably well. 
 
 The lesson that Lord Howe had taught of light 
 equipment for an inland expedition had been forgot- 
 ten. Officers were encumbered with baggage, the 
 army was followed by nearly three hundred women, 
 trains of beef cattle were never wanting and the 
 general's table during the whole campaign did not 
 lack the wines and other delicacies needed for gay 
 nightly feasts. Some young gentlemen are even 
 said to have carried fishing tackle, intent, like true 
 Englishmen, on the sports of a new country. 
 
38 
 
 Never had an army a more brilliant array of offi- 
 cers. There were lords, baronets and viscounts, a 
 German baron, members of the House of Commons, 
 sons of great families who afterward succeeded ta 
 titles, and no less than thirty young men who became 
 in the future, either generals or admirals. So many 
 foreigners of distinction were never bent upon visit- 
 ing the Lake Champlain and Saratoga region in a 
 body. 
 
 BURGOYNE ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 
 
 It was the latter part of June, 1777, that Bur 
 goyne's brilliant army made the voyage up Lake 
 Champlain, advancing from seventeen to twenty 
 miles in a day and camping at night both on the west- 
 ern and eastern shores. It was ideal summer weather 
 and the lake was placidly beautiful. Though floating^ 
 the army's order of advance was as perfect as on 
 land. The Indians in birch bark canoes, containing 
 from twenty to thirty each, led the van, then came 
 the advanced corps and gunboats in regular line, 
 followed by the vessels Royal George and Inflexible, 
 towing booms, next, the brigs and sloops of the Eng- 
 lish squadron, the generals and their suites occupy- 
 ing pinnaces, and after them the second and the 
 German battalions, the rear being brought up by 
 camp followers of all sorts. The main army en- 
 camped at Cumberland Head and at the Bouquet 
 River. The men caught salmon in the streams and 
 at'one place killed enough, of the immense flocks of 
 wild pigeons which then flew at certain seasons 
 through the Champlain Valley, to feed all of the ten 
 thousand people who in some capacity or other 
 
39 
 
 accompanied the army. One young officer sketched 
 the mountain view at Isle LaMotte and all was like 
 a grand pleasure excursion. 
 
 At the Bouquet River or Willsborough, Burgoyne 
 treated the Indians to a war feast and held a council 
 in which he lectured them to his own satisfaction 
 on humanity in warfare. On the thirtieth of June 
 the army reached Crown Point and encamped both 
 here and at Chimney Point opposite, the vessels of 
 war lying between. Here Burgoyne issued a high- 
 s ounding address to the inhabitants of the country 
 he was about to overrun, reproaching them for their 
 disloyalty and threatening them with the Indians. 
 He also gave out at this place his famous general 
 orders in which he made the astonishing announce- 
 ment: 
 
 "This army must not retreat." 
 
 It was the first day of July when the English 
 proceeded to the siege of Ticonderoga, boats and 
 vessels literally covering the water in this narrow 
 portion of the lake. Bands were playing, drums 
 beating, flags flying and spirits were high. The 
 destination of the army beyond Ticonderoga was a 
 secret to all except the commanding officers but 
 there was a shrewd suspicion afloat that Christinas 
 dinners were to be eaten in Albany. 
 
 ST. Ci AIR'S RETREAT. 
 
 An American army about four thousand in num- 
 ber and commanded by General St. Clair lay at 
 Ticonderoga. Upon this army the young nation 
 depended solely for defense from the north. The 
 old French position at Ticonderoga had a false repu- 
 
40 
 
 tation for strength due to the stubborn resistance 
 made here by Montcalm during the last French war. 
 The forts of that war were in fact out of date, and 
 it was soon to be found that they were all com- 
 manded by higher ground within range of the more 
 powerful cannon now to be brought against them. 
 This, however, was not as yet suspected and a stub- 
 born resistance was expected from the garrison of 
 Ticonderoga in case of an invasion. 
 
 The old French fort itself was easily liable to be 
 invested and cut off in case of a siege and it was too 
 small and crowded with barracks to accommodate 
 the American army in case it w r ere driven from its 
 outer w r orks and forced to take refuge within the 
 walls of the fort. Because of these disadvantages 
 Mount Independence on the other side of the nar- 
 row strip of w ? ater at this point had been fortified 
 and a floating bridge w T as built between the two 
 posts which w T as defended on the north by a boom of 
 logs attached together with iron chains and on the 
 south by a few vessels of the American squadron. 
 Ticonderoga had neither sufficient men to defend 
 well its extensive outworks nor were the latter en- 
 tirely finished. St. Clair meant, however, in case 
 of a siege to make a stand at Ticonderoga as long as 
 possible and then to retreat to Mount Independence 
 where he w T ould be in connection with the eastern 
 shore and a possibility of retreat as a last resort. 
 
 The descent of Burgoyne's army was a surprise to 
 the garrison of Ticonderaga as it was to the country 
 generally. St. Clair had been led to believe that 
 most of the forces in Canada had been drawn away 
 
41 
 
 for a seaboard attack on the United States and that 
 little more than a feint would this year be made in 
 the Champlain Valley. Even when American scouts 
 spied from a distance English ships of war anchored 
 at Split Rock and later at Crown Point, the invading 
 force was not believed to be large. From the time 
 the English army reached Crown Point the Indians 
 so infested the woods in their hunt for scalps that 
 scouting to any purpose became impossible and it 
 was not until Burgoyne had well-nigh drawn his 
 net around Ticonderoga that St. Clair learned from 
 a prisoner the great strength of the army that had 
 come against him. 
 
 On the first of July English gunboats were seen 
 off Three-Mile point and there was a skirmish be- 
 tween the Indians and an American scouting party. 
 The next day General Fraser with the advance 
 guard of the English army took possession of some 
 high ground, formerly an entrenched camp which 
 commanded a part of the American lines outside of 
 the fort and was consequently named Mount Hope. 
 An American guard in a block house at the Lake 
 George landing repulsed an attack from the enemy 
 about the same time but as a block house could not 
 make a stand against cannon St. Clair withdrew its 
 garrison which retired after setting fire to the block 
 house and the Ticonderoga sawmills. Burgoyne 
 sent men to cut off the retreat of these men but 
 without success. 
 
 These movements cut off the communication be- 
 tween Lake George and Ticonderoga. On the fol- 
 lowing day the German forces under General Ried- 
 esel extended their camp on the eastern shore of 
 Lake Champlain to the neighborhood of Mount In- 
 
42 
 
 dependence and began cutting a road to the narrow 
 neck of land which connected this post with the 
 main land. When the enemy should have occupied 
 this neck, the Americans would be left only one 
 avenue of retreat, that through the southern arm of 
 Lake Champlain toward Whitehall. This last re- 
 sort was soon to be threatened for while the English 
 army, in spite of a lively cannonade from the fort, 
 proceeded to camp in such a way as to nearly sur- 
 round Ticonderoga, an English lieutenant was sent 
 to reconnoiter Sugar Loaf Hill on a point of land 
 south of the Lake George outlet. He climbed this 
 rough peak and found that it so completely over- 
 looked both Ticonderoga and Mount Independence 
 that the men in these posts could be counted while 
 at the same time it commanded the American ship- 
 ping and the bridge of communication between the 
 two forts. There had been some discussion among 
 the Americans the year before about occupying this 
 hill but it seems to have been decided by those in 
 authority to have been out of range. The English, 
 however, at once took possession of it, christening 
 it Mount Defiance and hastened to cut a road to its 
 summit on the day and night of the fourth of July. 
 When day broke on the morning of the fifth St. 
 Clair found the English looking down upon him 
 from Mount Defiance and preparing to build a bat- 
 tery. He saw at once that all hope of making a 
 stand to any purpose was over, for as soon as the 
 battery should be in a state to open fire the forts 
 and shipping must not only be destroyed but the 
 last chance for retreat cut off. The dilemma was a 
 
43 
 
 hard one for St. Clair, who to preserve his army 
 must disgrace himself in the eyes of the public by 
 flying from the enemy without striking a blow or 
 stand the seige with the certainty of losing a force 
 much needed for the defence of the country below. 
 St. Clair held a council of war in the morning and 
 in the afternoon he sent for his quartermaster and 
 told him that an evacuation had been determined 
 upon. 
 
 "Have you had any orders from General Schuy- 
 ler ?" the quartermaster ventured to ask. 
 St. Clair replied that he had not. 
 "I am extremely sorry for it," said the quarter- 
 master significantly. 
 
 "I know well what you mean," said St. Clair, 
 and I have seriously considered the consequences of 
 the step I am taking. If I remain here I will save 
 my character and lose the army. If I retreat I will 
 save the army and lose my character, which I am 
 determined to sacrifice to the cause in which I am 
 engaged." 
 
 The nights are at their shortest at this season of 
 the year and the moon shone on that of July fifth, the 
 last on which the American army might hope to 
 escape from the trap which was being laid about it, 
 for General Phillips of the English army, famous for 
 having saved the day at the battle of Minden at the 
 expense of twenty canes broken over the backs of 
 artillery horses, had urged on the work of dragging 
 cannon up Mount Defiance to such purpose that a 
 battery would be ready to open fire when day broke. 
 Everything must therefore be done with the 
 
44 
 
 greatest expedition. Early in the evening the sick, 
 the women and some baggage and stores were put 
 aboard six armed galleys under guard of Colonel 
 Long and five hundred men and sent through the 
 southern arm of Lake Champlain toward Whitehall, 
 General St. Clair intended to take with the main 
 body of the army a roundabout route by land 
 through Castleton, Vermont, to the same place. 
 During the hurry and confusion of hasty prepara- 
 tions two eighteen pound cannon kept up a steady 
 fire on the English shipping that the enemy might 
 suspect nothing. It was two o'clock when St. 
 Clair and the main army marched across the bridge 
 to Mount Independence. About this time the head- 
 quarters of General Roche DeFermoy, a foreign offi- 
 cer commanding at Mount Independence, were set 
 on fire. The blaze lighted up the whole of the 
 American works and as it must reveal all their 
 movements to the enemy greatly alarmed the men 
 whose line of march at this time extended from the 
 foot of Mount Independence to the Castleton road 
 outside of the fort. They fell into confusion in their 
 eagerness to be off and St. Clair was obliged to halt 
 and form the line again. It was almost four o'clock 
 in the morning when the rear of the American army 
 got out of the fort. 
 
 The evacuation of Ticonderoga was a complete 
 surprise to the English. When the alarm was given 
 General Fraser at once advanced from his camp, at 
 Mount Hope to occupy the fort, but the Americans 
 had destroyed the bridge at this point and posted 
 loaded cannon to defend it. The three or four men, 
 
45 
 
 however, who had been left behind to touch off the 
 guns as the approach of the enemy had found a cask 
 of Maderia wine and were lying drunk in the fort. 
 As soon as the bridge could be sufficiently repaired 
 Fraser marched into Ticonderoga, hoisted the Brit- 
 ish colors, and crossing to Mount Independence 
 hastened in pursuit of General St. Clair followed by 
 General Riedesel and his German troops. 
 
 The inglorious fall of Ticonderoga was a bitter 
 disappointment to all Americans and both General 
 St. Clair and General Schuyler who was the chief in 
 command in the north, lost character by it and 
 were only freed from blame some time after at their 
 trials before a court martial. The English were 
 greatly elated at the easy conquest of a post made 
 famous in Europe by the struggles of the French 
 war. In England the king was wildly exultant, 
 rushing to tell the queen that he had beaten all the 
 Americans. 
 
 THE CHASE. 
 
 The English gave chase all the day of the sixth of 
 July which was very hot. Both armies were com- 
 pelled to stop for rest at nightfall. General St. 
 Clair encamped at Castleton and sent orders to the 
 officers of his rear guard commanded by Colonels 
 Francis, Hale and Warner, to advance within two 
 miles of his army before encamping. They however, 
 stopped at Hubbardtown, six miles behind the main 
 army. The pursuing English troops under Fraser 
 took up their march about daybreak on the morning 
 of the seventh of July and surprised the Americans 
 at Hubbardtown at their breakfast. The latter were 
 
46 
 
 hastily formed into line by their brave officers 
 Francis and Warner, Colonel Hale failing to make a 
 stand. Both English and Americans made a rush 
 for commanding ground to the west of the encamp- 
 ment and met in the attempt. The Americans were 
 driven back upon the spot where they had encamped, 
 fighting fiercely in frontier fashion from behind logs 
 and trees. The English drove them on and got be- 
 tween them and retreat to the main army at Castle- 
 ton. The Americans rallied and made a stand. 
 Again the English drove them in and they attempted 
 to retreat across the Pittsford Mountains but the 
 English getting in their rear they once more gave 
 battle and were likely to have gained the day when 
 the arrival of Riedesel's Germans, singing their 
 national hymn, decided the struggle in favor of the 
 English. Many Americans escaped through the 
 woods. 
 
 Though the English were victorious at Hubbard- 
 ton they were so far checked by the fierce resistance 
 of the Americans as to pursue St. Clair's retreating 
 army no farther. The general hearing that Bur- 
 goyne was advancing upon Whitehall struck 
 through the woods from Castleton and after a toil- 
 some and famished march reached Fort Edward in 
 safety with the main body of his troops which under 
 General Schuyler was to form the nucleus of the 
 northern army of defence. When St. Clair had left 
 Castleton Riedesel occupied it for about three weeks 
 at first to protect the English wounded which were 
 being laboriously carried in hand barrows back to 
 Ticonderoga. This position of the German wing of 
 
47 
 
 the army Burgoyne intended also as a kind of a 
 threat thrown out toward New England, and he be- 
 lieved it would have the good effect of keeping the 
 men of that region at home. 
 
 BURGOYNE AT WHITEHALL. 
 
 After breaking the American boom by a well-di- 
 rected cannon shot and hewing asunder the bridge 
 which connected Ticonderoga with Mount Inde- 
 pendence. Burgoyne, on the morning of the Ameri- 
 can retreat, sailed up the southern arm of Lake 
 Champlain in pursuit of the flying vessels loaded 
 with baggage, the women and the sick under the 
 guard of Colonel Long. He overtook the rear of 
 this retreating portion of the American army near 
 Skenesborough, now Whitehall. A smart action 
 followed in which two American galleys were cap- 
 tured. The others reached Whitehall where they 
 were they were blown up by the retreating Ameri- 
 cans, who also set fire to the storehouses, mills and 
 barracks here. This fire spread to the neighboring 
 forests and mountains making a sight grand and 
 novel to the English. Burgoyne established his 
 headquarters at Skenesborough House, the mansion 
 of Philip Skene who accompanied him thus retaking 
 his home by invasion. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF FORT ANNE. 
 
 The English Colonel Hill with a regiment of some- 
 thing over five hundred veteran soldiers was sent in 
 pursuit of Colonel Long who commanded about the 
 same number of men, some of whom were invalids 
 just recovering from an epidemic of the measles 
 which had raged in St. Clair's army. Colonel Hill 
 
48 
 
 overtook and captured some boatloads of women 
 and the sick making their way up Wood Creek* 
 When he arrived within a half a mile of Fort Anne, 
 being falsely informed that the Americans had been 
 reinforced and were strougly entrenched, he halted 
 and sent to Burgoyne for aid. The Americans, how- 
 ever, did not wait for an attaek but sallied out from 
 Fort Anne on the eighth of July. Long attacked 
 the English in front with a portion of his men while 
 the remainder under Colonel VanRennselear crossed 
 the creek and sought to gain the English rear, pour- 
 ing down upon them so hot a fire as to force them 
 to push up a hill for fear of being surrounded. 
 Here the Americans assaulted them again most 
 savagely, fighting for two hours. When their am- 
 munition was exhausted and the near approach of the 
 English reinforcements announced by the whoops of 
 proceeding Indians, the Americans withdrew but 
 not' without first burning Fort Anne. Though the 
 English claimed a victory they returned to White- 
 hall leaving the Americans free to reoccupy Fort 
 Anne which they did five days later and worked 
 their will about this region for some time after very 
 much to the damage of the roads through which 
 Burgoyne expected to pass in his advance upon the 
 Hudson. 
 
 The battle of Fort Anne was a most spirited strug- 
 gle on the part of a handful of hard pressed men 
 and did honor to American courage. Here and at 
 Hubbarton the English were obliged to admit that 
 Americans were no poltroons and a few were shrewd 
 enough to see that the invading army had gained 
 
4U 
 
 nothing but "honor" of the most barren sort, while 
 these two checks delayed the English and gave the 
 Americans what they most needed, time to recover 
 from the loss of Ticonderoga. Still success seemed 
 to be with the English and many royalists and Indi. 
 ans were encouraged to flock to Burgoyne's stand- 
 ard. 
 
 THF WORK OF OBSTRUCTION. 
 
 They were none too good in those days, the rude 
 forest-shaded tracks over rocks and stumps and end- 
 less marshes known as roads, and Major Skene, the 
 founder of Whitehall, is credited with having ad- 
 vised Burgoyne to proceed by Fort Anne instead of 
 . by Lake George against Fort Edward in order that a 
 new and improved military road might be left be- 
 hind by the conquering army for his future use. 
 Burgoyne seems to have chosen this route rather 
 than retire to Ticonderoga to descend by way of 
 Lake George largely because he had set for himself 
 the rule that a retreat must not be made. He feared 
 that a retrograde movement of any sort might put 
 him in a ridiculous position with his men. 
 
 General Schuyler at Fort Edward fervently wished 
 for only a few day's time which would, he believed, 
 enable him to prevent the enemy's reaching Albany 
 that year. The English general's dislike for back- 
 ward movements, the necessarily slow work of mov- 
 ing forward stores and a large park of artillery and 
 the checks at Hubbardton and Fort Anne gave him 
 the time he wished for. While the English were 
 firing feudejoye at Ticonderoga, at Whitehall and 
 at Castleton in honor of their successes he was en- 
 
50 
 
 gaged in saving the stores at the head of Lake 
 George and in obstructing the navigation of Wood 
 Creek by which heavy articles were then carried 
 some distance toward Fort Edward. He also caused 
 the road to be barricaded by felling the forests 
 across it and destroying what bridges existed. To 
 make Burgoyne's progress more difficult he ordered 
 all wagons, horses and cattle to be driven off and 
 fodder and grain to be destroyed. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES AND DISCOURAGEMENTS. 
 
 The Americans in the north were deeply disheart- 
 ened, many of the inhabitants of this part of the 
 country wavered toward the English cause, and 
 even the soldiers had such a superstitious terror of 
 Indians that on Burgoyne's descent of the Hudson it 
 was with difficulty that small bodies of men could 
 be persuaded to make a stand and skirmish with the 
 savages. Schuyler's troops had been robbed at a 
 blow by the sudden capture of Ticonderoga, of artil- 
 lery, tents, kettles, tools, ammunition, blankets, 
 everything, even to courage for after Burgoyne be- 
 gan at length to advance upon Fort Edward num- 
 bers of the American army deserted. Schuyler lay 
 now at Fort Edward with something over four 
 thousand men forced to sleep under dripping brush 
 in incessant rain. Meanwhile he. as well as St. Clair, 
 were blamed with the loss of Ticonderoga and the 
 most ridiculous stories were believed about them. 
 The rumor was circulated that they were traitors 
 and had been bribed to give up this post without 
 a blow, receiving their reward in silver bullets 
 which were shot into the works at Ticonderoga and 
 
51 
 
 which St. Clair had caused to be picked up and for- 
 warded to Schuyler. 
 
 In spite of the immense difficulty of his position 
 at this time Schuyler never for a moment despaired, 
 but strove to put heart into his alarmed countrymen 
 who appealed to him from the Mohawk country now 
 also threatened with invasion. He urged them in 
 stirring words to exert themselves, to prove them- 
 selves men by showing no signs of fear and predicted 
 that they would not only save their country but 
 gain immortal honor. When all were desponding 
 he reminded the people that once before an army 
 under Montcalm had been on the southern side of 
 Lake George and all had without reason despaired 
 almost to abandoning the upper Hudson without a 
 blow. He believed and declared that Burgoyne 
 would run himself into great danger by descending 
 the Hudson. 
 
 JANE McCREA. 
 
 Burgoyne remained nearly three weeks at White- 
 hall waiting to bring forward stores for his army, 
 clearing Wood Creek for navigation, cutting away 
 obstructions in the Fort Edward road and building 
 something like three miles of corduroy over marshy 
 road bed. It was the twenty-third of July when 
 his van reached Fort Anne. Burgoyne made Fort 
 Anne his headquarters while his advanced troops 
 moved upon Fort Edward five days later. As the 
 English approached Schuyler abandoned this post, 
 which like other forts of the French war, was ut- 
 terly untenable. The Americans fell down to Fort 
 
52 
 
 Miller and Moses Creek, leaving a small rear guard 
 at Fort Edward until the last moment. 
 
 The advance of the English was as usual preceded 
 by hordes of Indians who scattered in all directions 
 in search of plunder, of scalps and of prisoners. 
 They so laid this country waste that visitors to this 
 region at the close of the war were struck with the 
 desolation of burned farm houses everywhere to be 
 seen. The people of the country fled before the ap- 
 proach of the English army though some loyalists 
 lingered behind. Among these was Jane McCrea, 
 the daughter of a New Jersey Presbyterian clergy- 
 man. Her father being dead, she had been living 
 with her brother now a soldier in the American 
 army. She was, however, engaged to a young man 
 named David Jones who, being a loyalist, had joined 
 Burgoyne's army on its approach from Canada, and 
 was an officer in one of the loyalist regiments. The 
 young girl is said to have received a letter from her 
 lover promising to meet her at Fort Edward and she 
 was unwilling on the approrch of the English army 
 to retire to Albany with her brother's family but 
 went instead to the house of Mrs. McNeil, a loyalist, 
 and cousin of General Fraser of the English army 
 who naturally expected a warm reception from her 
 relative. One of the marauding parties of Indians, 
 however, fell upon Mrs. McNeill's house and drag- 
 ging her and Jane out of the cellar where they had 
 hastened to take refuge, carried them off prisoners. 
 The Indians were pursued by a party of American 
 soldiers from Fort Edward. When the pursuers 
 fired the fleeing Indians threw themselves and Mrs. 
 
53 
 
 McNeil to the ground to avoid their rifle balls. The 
 Indians had divided into two parties and Jane Mc- 
 Crea was taken off on horseback in another direc- 
 tion and Mrs. McNeil at once lost sight of her. The 
 older woman reached the English army in safety 
 though very angry for she was presented to her 
 cousin, the general, in a sad plight, having been 
 stripped by the Indians of almost every garment she 
 wore. She soon afterward recognized the scalp of 
 Jennie McCrea in the hands of some Indians wiio 
 averred that she had been shot by the pursuing 
 Americans. If there had been any reason to be- 
 lieve this story the English would gladly have 
 sheltered themselves from blame behind it for they 
 were deeply mortified at this unfortunate occurrence. 
 It has always been believed that the young girl 
 was killed by one of two Indians who quarreled as 
 to which was her captor. It has also long been the 
 story that one of the two Indians who quarreled 
 over her had been sent by her lover to bring her to 
 camp that the two might be married, but this is 
 doubtful. The only facts that are certain about the 
 death of this unfortunate girl are that she lingered 
 near the approaching army to which her lover was 
 attached and that she was captured and killed by 
 the Indians. Other royalists, whole families even, 
 are said to have suffered the same fate, the savages 
 knowing no difference between friends and foes to 
 the English cause and being eager for household 
 plunder which they carried off in the ticks of straw 
 beds, one fellow having even been seen with a look- 
 ing glass strapped upon his back. 
 
54 
 
 The death of Jane McCrea occurred on or about 
 the twenty-eighth of July when the advance of the 
 English army reached Sandy Hill. Burgoyne's 
 headquarters were still at Fort Anne. He went at 
 once to the Indian camp, called a council and rated 
 the Indians soundly. These people meekly promised 
 to leave off their time-honored mode of warfare but 
 though the general, for policy's sake pardoned Jane 
 McCrea's murderer, the Indians steadily deserted 
 from that day, carrying with them their ill-gotten 
 loads of plunder. 
 
 The Americans had meanwhile found the body of 
 Jane McCrea near that of Colonel VanVechten, who 
 had been killed in a skirmish the same day. They 
 carried them both to Moses Creek for burial. Jane 
 McCrea's remains were afterward removed to Fort 
 Edward and again to the Union Cemetery between 
 Sandy Hill and Fort Edward where they now are. 
 The story spread far and wide and was told with 
 various embellishments; the unfortunate girl was 
 surpassingly lovely and her hair was long, glossy 
 and black as a raven's wing when in reality she 
 seems to have possessed no great beauty and to have 
 had red or blonde hair. Her death greatly discour- 
 aged loyalists intent on joining Burgoyne's army, 
 was discussed with bitterness in Parliament and 
 struck a horror to American hearts that helped to- 
 arouse them to a more enthusiastic and determined 
 resistance. 
 
 FIRST MOVE UPON SARATOGA. 
 
 It was about the twenty-ninth of July that the ad- 
 vance of the English army reached Fort Edward and 
 
55 
 
 camped on high ground near this post, the numer- 
 ous camp fires making at nightfall a beautiful sight. 
 The rear guard of German troops remained at Fort 
 Anne until August sixth to guard the provision train 
 following the army to Fort Edward. Meanwhile a 
 portion of Burgoyne's force was advancing by way 
 of Lake George with the cumbersome park of artil- 
 lery. 
 
 Burgoyne had now reached the Hudson and was 
 within fifty miles of Albany. He was informed that 
 St. Leger was before Fort Stanwix at the head of 
 the Mohawk valley. In order to cooperate with 
 him according to the original plan it was necessary 
 that he should at once move forward to the im- 
 portant triangle of Saratoga, there to make a junc- 
 tion with St. Leger, as he descended the Mohawk. 
 Such a movement would also have the advantage of 
 so fully occupying Schuyler as to prevent his send- 
 ing troops to the defense of the Mohawk valley. As 
 the surrounding country had been stripped bare of 
 food and of the horses and wagons needed for its 
 transport, it was necessary for the English to depend 
 solely on supplies of flour and beef cattle brought 
 by water four hundred miles from Quebec which 
 was trundled and driven at great labor and with 
 much waste of time over rough and hilly roads 
 from Lake George in the wagons with which the 
 army was but scantily provided. To carry these 
 necessary supplies down the Hudson in the absence 
 of a sufficient number of wagons, batteaux must be 
 dragged on wheels from Lake George and were so 
 damaged by the trip as to need fresh caulking at 
 
56 
 
 Fort Edward. After being loaded at this port these 
 boats could float but a few miles down the river be 
 fore they met an obstacle at Fort Miller Falls where 
 they must be unloaded and they and their contents 
 hauled around the falls to be once more launched 
 and loaded afresh. 
 
 To avoid these difficulties and the waste of 
 precious time which they entailed, Burgoyne be- 
 thought himself of robbing Schuyler's army of its 
 stock of flour, beef, cattle and wagons gathered 
 at Bennington, not far to the eastward. An expedi- 
 tion for this place would also carry out a cherished 
 plan of his which was to strike a blow at New Eng- 
 land while it would, so Major Skene assured him. 
 bring a number of loyalist recruits from the debate- 
 able land of Vermont. Another advantage which 
 was expected to flow from this raid would be 
 the capture of a number of horses with which to 
 mount the German dragoons who with their 
 weighty caps, long coat tails, enormous boots and 
 swords dangling to the ground, were not fitted for 
 other modes of locomotion. 
 
 On the ninth of August General Fraser with the 
 van of the English army, advanced to a point op- 
 posite Fort Miller to support the movement on Ben- 
 nington. A German officer, Colonel Baura, with a 
 body of German dragoons, and a few English rang- 
 ers, loyalists and savages, amounting to over five 
 hundred men, was despatched toward Bennington, 
 if so clumsy a soldier as a German dragoon can be 
 said ever to have been despatched anywhere. His 
 march was not rendered more expeditious by the 
 
57 
 
 flour he carried and the herd of beef cattle which 
 he drove with him for supplies. Baum was accom- 
 panied by Skene who was to enlist the loyalist in" 
 habitants of the region now known as Vermont, 
 while the country was to be scoured for horses with 
 which to mount the dragoons. Having secured the 
 stores at Bennington Baum was to despatch them 
 back to Burgoyne. after which his force having been 
 transformed by mounting into cavalry, he was to take 
 the main road for Albany while Burgoyne fell down 
 the other side of the Hudson through Saratoga 
 county toward the same goal. To be ready for the 
 latter rapid movement. Burgoyne's army moved 
 down the east bank of the Hudson to opposite Schuy- 
 lerville and the advance troops under Fraser crossed 
 the river near the mouth of the Battenkill on a 
 bridge of rafts linked together with chains, and en- 
 camped on Saratoga soil. The remainder of the 
 army lay opposite Fort Miller where Burgoyne es- 
 tablished his headquarters in the unfinished mansion 
 of a Mr. Duer. 
 
 FALLING BACK. 
 
 This forward movement of Burgoyne's army and 
 St. Leger's attack on the Mohawk Valley forced 
 Schuyler with the American army to retreat through 
 Saratoga county to the mouth of the Mohawk in 
 order to resist the invasion both from the north and 
 from the west. He still, however, made Stillwater 
 his headquarters. 
 
 For the English much hung on the expedition to 
 Bennington. This place was then but a cluster of 
 log huts and was, as Burgoyne knew, defended only 
 
58 
 
 by militia. By a lucky accident it happened, how- 
 ever, that General Stark, suffering from a slight 
 from Congress in regard to a matter of rank, had 
 refused to leave Vermont to join Schuyler's army. 
 When the invaders approached Stark gathered the 
 regular troops and militia at hand and marched to 
 meet Baum. This innocent foreigner having heard 
 much from Skene of the loyalty of the Vermont 
 people, received in a friendly manner the advances 
 of a number of men who had joined him four miles 
 short of Bennington and claimed to be loyalists. He 
 allowed them to hang about him and camp on either 
 side of his forces. 
 
 It was the fourteenth of August when Baum fell 
 in with General Stark. He at once retired to a hill, 
 entrenched and sent to Burgoyne for reinforcements. 
 A heavy rain prevented a battle on the following 
 day but on the sixteenth Stark attacked Baum while 
 the supposed royalists suddenly transformed into 
 veritable Green Mountain boys, proceeded to cut off 
 his retreat to the main army, The Americans as- 
 saulted the German entrenchments in the face of 
 two cannon, the Germans defended themselves 
 bravely and a hot battle followed which lasted for 
 two hours. The Americans at length captured the 
 German cannon and turned them against Baum, 
 who, his ammunition being now exhausted, at- 
 tempted to cut his way through the Americans with 
 bayonet and broadsword, but soon fell mortally 
 wounded. Most of the Germans were captured, the 
 fleeter footed Indians and English of the party es- 
 caping. Colonel Breyman with another body of 
 
59 
 
 German troops had been sent to Baum's aid and de- 
 tained by muddy roads and the heaviness of his 
 troops arrived on the battlefield just too late. He 
 at once attacked Stark's exhausted men who were 
 reinforced, however, at a lucky moment by the regi- 
 ment of Colonel Seth Warner. Breyman was beaten 
 and only saved from capture by a night retreat. 
 Burgoyne marched his whole army forward to the 
 Battenkill opposite Saratoga to cover this retreat. 
 The bridge of rafts on which General Fraser had 
 crossed the Hudson had meanwhile broken away in 
 the floods following the recent rains, leaving the ad- 
 vance guard of the English arm in Saratoga County 
 cut off from the main body on the other side of the 
 river. As no Americans were at hand the men were 
 got safely across in boats. 
 
 The immediate crossing of the whole army to 
 Saratoga was necessarily abandoned after the defeat 
 at Bennington. The rear of Burgoyne's army fell 
 back to Fort Edward that connections might be 
 kept up with Canada and food by way of Lake 
 George and Lake Champlain. Thus early was Bur- 
 goyne forced to make a retrograde movement which 
 was however somewhat concealed by the advance of 
 his own headquarters from Fort Miller to Battenkill 
 opposite old Saratoga, and from this time he dated 
 his letters from "Near Saratoga." 
 
 The success at Bennington was the first turn of 
 the tide for the Americans. They lost their earlier 
 awe of the Indians, of Germans and of English regu- 
 lars, they forgot the disheartenment which had fol- 
 lowed the fall of Ticonderoga and they flocked to 
 
60 
 Schuyler's standard for the defence of their country. 
 
 SARATOGA INVADED. 
 
 Notwithstandihg the threatening advance of a 
 portion of Burgoyne's army to the Saratoga bank of 
 the river and in spite of the advice of the timid, 
 Schuyler detached Arnold from his still weak army 
 to raise the siege of Fort Stanwix on the Mohawk. 
 The mere exaggerated rumor of Arnold's approach 
 was sufficient for the half -Indian force beleaguering 
 this post and they departed in the utmost haste. A 
 courier following an old Indian route by Saratoga 
 Lake and across the rive* at Glens Falls brought the 
 news to General Burgoyne of this misfortune. 
 
 The English were now beaten back on the right 
 and on the left. When the prospect of the Ameri- 
 can cause seemed at length more hopeful Schuyler, 
 who had borne the burden of misfortune with so 
 much spirit, was replaced by General Gates. There 
 was much local feeling at this time and Schuyler 
 was unpopular with the New England soldiers who 
 disliked "Yorkers," while many people had not yet 
 got rid of suspicions of Schuyler which such stories 
 as that of the silver bullets gave rise to. Gates had 
 been a regular English officer and was supposed to 
 be more experienced in military matters. 
 
 The American army was relieved by the retreat of 
 St. Leger of the necessity for opposing an invasion 
 from the Mohawk as well as from the upper Hudson 
 and advanced through Saratoga County to Bemis 
 Heights beyond Stillwater. This spot was chosen 
 by the Polish engineer, Kosciusko, for the reason 
 that the river valley is suddenly narrowed here to a 
 
61 
 
 few rods in width by the approach of the river hills 
 to the stream. It would be easier to defend this 
 narrow pass against the advance of the English upon 
 Albany, than to check them in more open ground. 
 
 Failing to get in the valley of the upper Hudson 
 any supplies other than a few sheep and horses 
 brought in by wavering inhabitants. Burgoyne was 
 forced to remain on the eastern bank of the Hudson 
 between Fort Edward and Battenkill for over three 
 weeks while by great efforts a sufficient amount of 
 supplies were brought from Lake George to last the 
 army for thirty days. Hopeful and self-confident 
 as he was, the English general seems not to have 
 been without his doubts at this time. He did not 
 know that through the carelessness of the English 
 ministry, the orders for Howe at New York to co- 
 operate with him had been pigeon-holed, but he 
 knew that Howe instead of ascending the Hudson 
 had gone southward. A more cautious general 
 would have intrenched himself behind the Hudson 
 and waited where he ran no risk of being cut off 
 from supplies and retreat. But Burgoyne had 
 staked all upon this campaign. He is said to have 
 boasted that he would eat his Christmas dinner in 
 Albany where his younger officers confidently ex- 
 pected comfortable quarters for the winter, intending 
 to dance the ladies of the town into submission. 
 He was above all a clashing man and not the one to 
 take the risk of being accused of cowardice for the 
 sake of saving an army. He called no council of his 
 general officers for fear of hearing ad vice he did not 
 wish to accept but resolved to cut himself loose 
 
62 
 
 from his connections by crossing the Hudson and 
 trust to pushing his way through to Albany within 
 the single month in which he could feed his men. 
 
 The batteaux of the army were linked together 
 into a floating bridge above the mouth of the Batten- 
 kill and the main army crossed the Hudson to the 
 Saratoga side on the thirteenth of September. At 
 the forward movement Burgoyne's spirits rose to 
 such a pitch that he exclaimed in the high-flown 
 English that he loved : 
 
 "Britons never retrograde !" 
 
 Tired of inaction all were elated and it was in a 
 most cheerful mood that officers and men set foot 
 on the soil of Saratoga. Women even caught the 
 infection and the possibility of disaster seemed to 
 enter no one's mind. The English army encamped 
 on a plain north of Fish Creek where the village of 
 Schuylerville now stands. On the other side of the 
 small stream lay the old village of Saratoga, and 
 here stood the handsome country residence of Gen- 
 eral Philip Schuyler, who had inherited the prop- 
 erty of his uncle, the Peter Schuyler who had been 
 massacred here in the third French war. There was 
 also a church and a flour mill belonging to the gen- 
 eral. The fields were waving with growing wheat 
 and oats in this region. The grain was at once har- 
 vested by the army, the wheat being ground at the 
 mill for the use of the men and the oats reserved for 
 the horses which drew the artillery and baggage. 
 Burgoyne made Schuyler's house his headquarters. 
 The Indians of his army are said to have resorted 
 
63 
 
 at this time to Saratoga Lake to procure fine trout 
 for his table. 
 
 On the fifteenth of September tents were struck, 
 the floating bridge was broken up and Burgoyne's 
 army moved southward through Saratoga County, 
 following the windings of the river down which the 
 batteaux floated loaded with the necessities of life. 
 It was necessary for one column of the army to 
 march along the crest of the wooded river hills to 
 protect the whole from surprise. The more cumber- 
 some portion burdened with artillery and baggage 
 streamed along the river road. The route lay 
 through beautiful and endless forests. The men 
 sang as they marched and longed for victory. The 
 army encamped for the night at Dovogat, now 
 Coveville, and remained in camp the following day 
 while advanced parties repaired the bridges ahead 
 over which it was to move. 
 
 The English army now amounted to about six 
 thousand men, portions of it having been detached 
 to man posts, others having been killed or taken in 
 the various engagements. Of the number of Indi- 
 ans who had originally joined Burgoyne's army there 
 remained but fifty ; there were besides three hundred 
 drivers, workmen and boatmen and nearly as many 
 women and camp followers. Several officer's wives 
 also accompanied the army. Among these was 
 Lady Harriet Acland, a handriome and ''delicate lit- 
 tle piece of quality" who had joined her husband 
 after he had been wounded at Hubbardton, and the 
 Baroness deRiedesel who, with three little children, 
 had followed the baron all the way from Germany 
 
64 
 
 and now traveled amidst the soldiers in a Canadian 
 calash attended by two maids and a cook. These 
 ladies had no doubt of spending a pleasant winter 
 in Albany and had not found it disagreeable to dine 
 in barns well attended. 
 
 On the morning of September seventeeth Bur- 
 goyne advanced only a short distance to a place then 
 known as Sword's farm, midway between Coveville 
 and Wilbur's Basin. He was now nearing the 
 American camp and there was ominous skirmishing 
 between the men sent ahead to repair bridges and 
 American scouting parties. Some women and sol- 
 diers who ventured out of the English camp to dig 
 potatoes in a field were captured after several had 
 been killed. 
 
 THE FIRST BATTLE OF SARATOGA. 
 
 On the morning of September nineteenth, 1777, 
 Burgoyne divided his forces into three columns and 
 marched upon the American encampment, deter- 
 mined to force his way past the army of Gates and 
 on to Albany. General Phillips with the heavy 
 park of artillery followed the river road and was 
 guarded on the east by General Riedesel who skirted 
 the river bank on his left. These generals advanced 
 straight toward the works with which the Ameri- 
 cans defended the pass between the river and their 
 camp on Bemis Heights. A central column under 
 Burgoyne advanced at the same time over the hills 
 to attack the Americans in front while a third 
 under Fraser marched through the forests still far- 
 ther to the west cutting as it went a part of what is 
 now the road from Quaker Springs to Schuyler ville. 
 
l»f rBottte oj Saratoga 
 
 
 £1?-*-' 
 
65 
 
 It was Burgoyne's plan that this most western col- 
 umn having made a circuit around the head of the 
 ravine should fall upon the left or west of the 
 American position while Burgoyne attacked it in 
 front and Phillips and Riedesel kept the Americans 
 occupied at the river bank. It was not thought 
 that the American works which were hastily thrown 
 up could stand artillery and it was expected 
 that when the Americans were driven in on the hills 
 by the combined attacks of Burgoyne and Fraser, 
 Riedesel and Phillips would be able to force their 
 way through the American right to the river's edge 
 and so continue the march toward Albany. There 
 were to be signal guns fired when Fraser had com- 
 pleted his more roundabout march and at this 
 moment the combined attack was to begin. 
 
 But the English were not destined to see the 
 American works that day. By mid-day Burgoyne 
 had reached a point a little north of Freeman's farm, 
 one of those settlers clearings to be found here and 
 there in the woods of those days. Canadians and 
 Indians were thrown out in advance of his column 
 to prevent a surprise. They had crossed the ravine 
 south of Freeman's farm when they fell in with the 
 Virginia Colonel Morgan, whose sharpshooters were 
 the dread of the English soldiers and who had been 
 sent by Washington to the aid of the invaded north. 
 Morgan attacked the Canadians and Indians, driv- 
 ing them across the ravine and backward toward 
 Freeman's farm until they were reinforced by a 
 strong body of English soldiers under Major Forbes. 
 A brisk little struggle followed and Forbes was 
 
66 
 
 presently forced to retreat to where the English col- 
 umn under Burgoyne was forming in an open pine 
 wood to the north of Freeman's farm. Morgan re- 
 tired from before the English front but being rein- 
 forced advanced again and attacked it. 
 
 Meanwhile Arnold's division of the American 
 army attempted to cut Fraser off by getting between 
 him and Burgoyne. The woods hid the movements 
 of both bodies of men, the one from the other, until 
 they finally met on some level ground to the west of 
 Freeman's farm. Here a fierce struggle took place 
 until when fresh troops being sent to Fraser's aid by 
 Burgoyne, Arnold's men were forced to retire. 
 Fraser kept his position to the west of Burgoyne 
 during the remainder of the day to protect him on 
 this side but there was no more fighting at this point. 
 
 All this was but the prelude to the real struggle. 
 There was a lull while the English drew up in line 
 of battle to the north and the Americans to the 
 south of Freeman's farm, and here the main battle 
 began at three o'clock in the afternoon. The fire of 
 the Americans from the cover of the thick woods to 
 the south was most galling in its perfection of aim. 
 Again and again the English charged them and 
 tried to dislodge them at the point of the bayonet but 
 were driven back across the fields of the little clear 
 ing. At one time the Americans pressed the Eng- 
 lish so hard that they must have given way had not 
 General Phillips marched through the woods from 
 the river road to Burgoyne's aid with some artillery. 
 There was a fierce struggle over the English artillery 
 posted on the little farm. When the Americans 
 
67 
 
 pursued the English back across the farm after 
 each bayonet charge they captured the pieces but 
 could neither carry them away, for want of horses, 
 nor turn them on the enemy for lack of a match 
 with which to touch them off. At the next charge 
 they fell once more into English hands only to be 
 again retaken and relinquished. 
 
 For four hours the battle raged back and forth 
 across the twelve or fourteen acres of the little 
 clearing. Several times the Americans brought 
 fresh troops to the attack while three English regi- 
 ments bore the brunt of the battle. The English 
 were at length pretty nearly surrounded on both 
 flanks and must have lost the day had not General 
 Riedesel guided by the firing made his way through 
 the woods from the river bank to their aid. Just at 
 the close of day, at between seven and eight o'clock 
 a final bayonet charge drove the Americans from 
 the field. 
 
 The English were the victors. They remained in 
 possession of the few bare little acres of Freeman's 
 farm, and Burgoyne included this spot in his camp, 
 declaring that thus his victory must be made so ap- 
 parent that it would be beyond the power of even an 
 American newspaper to explain it away. But 
 though the English were victorious they were so 
 nearly beaten as to be unable to follow up their vic- 
 tory on the following morning when had they but 
 known it they would have found the Americans 
 quite out of ammunition, an expected supply being 
 yet on the road from Albany. More than all, their 
 victory was a barren one for they were no nearer 
 
68 
 
 Albany than on the previous day and the Americans 
 were still strong in their front. 
 
 The American losses were from three to four 
 hundred, the English amounted to from six hundred 
 to a thousand. The English losses were greater 
 than those of the Americans, because of the greater 
 precision of aim of sharpshooters and settlers trained 
 to hunting from childhood. Though the Americans 
 were not victorious they were so encouraged by 
 their own success in making a stand against the in- 
 vaders that numbers flocked to Gates' standard after 
 the battle. 
 
 BETWEEN THE BATTLES. 
 
 Aftei the first battle of Saratoga Burgoyne en- 
 camped in a line from Freeman's farm on the west 
 to Wilbur's Basin on the river bank. He threw a 
 bridge of boats across the river to obtain forage for 
 his horses from the eastern shore. Three days after 
 the battle a messenger arrived from Sir Henry 
 Clinton at New York with the news that this gen- 
 eral intended to co operate with Burgoyne by as- 
 cending the Hudson. This gave fresh hope to the 
 English commanding officer who knew that General 
 Gates had a bridge across the river at his camp and 
 expected that the approach of an English army 
 from the south would force him to retreat across the 
 Hudson for the defense of New England or that he 
 would at least detach a part of his army for this 
 purpose and so weaken it. 
 
 For three weeks of charming fall weather the 
 English and American armies lay so near that the 
 wadding of an American morning and evening gun 
 
69 
 
 struck the English works, yet so hidden by inter- 
 vening woods that neither could get a sight of the 
 other and both were ignorant of each other's num- 
 bers or position. Both armies labored to strengthen 
 their works, the Americans adding to their's and ex- 
 tending them farther westward. 
 
 Two days after the battle the men in the English 
 camp heard a great deal of shouting and rejoicing 
 among the Americans. It was not until some days 
 later that Burgoyne learned that it was due to the 
 partial success of an American detachment under 
 Colonel Brown who had been sent to fall upon Ti- 
 conderoga. Colonel Brown had captured some Eng- 
 lish vessels, part of an English regiment and re- 
 leased a number of American prisoners at this post. 
 
 In the English camp the men lay on their arms in 
 constant dread of an attack, there were frequent 
 alarms and at night packs of wolves howled dismally 
 around the battlefield of the nineteenth scratching 
 up the scantily- covered bodies of the dead. By the 
 fourth of October Burgoyne's position was become 
 well-nigh intolerable. His provisions were running 
 low and it became necessary to put the men on half 
 rations while his horses were suffering severely for 
 want of forage. Riedesel and Fraser urged an im- 
 mediate retreat across the Saratoga ford to a posi- 
 tion above the Battenkill where communications 
 might be kept up with Canada through Lake George 
 and Lake Champlain. General Burgoyne having in 
 every way bound himself to advance was unwilling 
 to make any backward movement. He preferred to 
 hazard one more effort to force himself past the 
 
70 
 
 American army. He believed that on the west of 
 the American camp where the works were unfin- 
 ished cannon might be posted in such a way as te 
 command them and that they might be taken at 
 this point. It was impossible to be certain of this 
 without reconnoitering the western wing of the 
 American position which could not be done with 
 the usual small parties because of the disposition the 
 Americans showed to fight any body of men which 
 attempted to approach them. Burgoyne therefore 
 resolved to march with a force of fifteen hundred 
 picked men on the seventh of October to a clearing 
 southwest of Freeman's farm for the double pur- 
 pose of reconnoitreing and of harvesting the 
 standing straw in an abandoned wheat field 
 for the sustenance of his perishing horses. 
 If it was then found that an attack could 
 with any hope of success be made on the American 
 camp, Burgoyne proposed to give battle on the fol- 
 lowing day ; if not he intended to retreat that very 
 night. 
 
 A battle was not looked for on this day and 
 Madame de Riedesel expected all the generals of the 
 army to dine with her that very afternoon. She 
 was alarmed when she saw a movement among the 
 troops but was reassured when told that it was 
 merely a reconnaisance and her cook proceeded with 
 preparations for a dinner to be given in the one 
 room of a little farm house in which she was forced 
 to live. 
 
 THE SECOND BATT E OF SARATOGA. 
 
 Between ten and eleven o'clock on the morning of 
 the seventh of October, Burgoyne marched to the 
 
71 
 
 new clearing southwest of Freeman's farm. He 
 drew up his men around three sides of an oblong, 
 those on the left being on the crest of a gentle hill 
 at the eastern edge of the field, the main line facing 
 south and running through the woods to a little 
 knoll. When the men were formed in line they 
 were allowed to sit dow^n with their muskets be- 
 tween their knees while the foragers in their rear 
 cut the standing straw in the wheat field and several 
 officers climbed to the roof of the log farm house to 
 reconnoiter the western portion of the American 
 camp. A party of Indian and Canadian soldiers 
 were sent to create a diversion at the American 
 camp while Burgoyne reconnoitered. They got into 
 the rear of a log barn w r hich was the farthest west- 
 ern point of the American defenses but were driven 
 back after a smart skirmish. 
 
 A young American officer sent forward to discover 
 what the enemy was at gained the woods on the 
 other side of the ravine which skirted the left of the 
 field where the English were engaged in foraging. 
 He returned to General Gates and reported the 
 enemy's position. It was thought that Burgoyne 
 was offering battle. Troops were sent to fall upon 
 the English in front and on either side at the same 
 time. The English had nearly finished their recon- 
 noisance and in half an hour later would have re- 
 turned to their lines when at about three o'clock in 
 the afternoon the Americans fell upon them. Gen- 
 erals Poor and Learned having ordered their men to 
 hold their fire until they were "rising the hill," 
 pushed up the slope on the east where the English 
 
grenadiers were stationed forming the left flank of 
 the English position. The grenadiers greeted them 
 with a volley of grape and musketry, which being 
 aimed too high, went over the heads of the Amer- 
 icans who as they gained the summit of the rise 
 fired and opened to right and left to form on both 
 flanks of the grenadiers. At the top of the hill there 
 was a close and bloody struggle. One field piece 
 was taken and retaken fiive times, the Americans 
 finally holding it and having "sworn it true to 
 America," turned it on the grenadiers who were 
 forced to give away about the time that their major, 
 Acland. was severely wounded. While this was 
 going on upon the eastern part of the field Morgan 
 fell upon the English right wing to the west and 
 after a sharp struggle forced the enemy to break 
 and give way. The men were, however, rallied by 
 the Earl of Balcarras behind a rail fence but only to 
 be again forced in by superior numbers. The center 
 of the English position consisting mainly of Ger- 
 mans was attacked at the same time. The whole 
 English line being at length thrown into confusion 
 by the driving in of both wings a retreat began. 
 General Fraser formed a second line of battle in the 
 rear of the first position to cover the retjeat. While 
 he was riding about on a fine gray horse encourag- 
 ing the men to make a firm stand he was shot by 
 one of Morgan's sharpshooters by that officer's com- 
 mand, he having seen that the fate of the day prob- 
 ably depended on the life of this brave officer. 
 
 The Americans were reinforced about this time 
 by General Ten Broeck and three thousand New 
 
SARATOGA MONUnENT AT SCHUYLERVILLE. 
 
73 
 
 York militia and just at dusk the English were 
 forced to retreat in haste to their lines. As they 
 poured into the camp they were followed by General 
 Burgoyne who, with a face full of consternation, 
 rode about ordering the officers to defend the lines 
 while a man was left alive. The Americans followed 
 fast on the heels of the retreating English. They 
 assaulted the western part of the English works all 
 along the line most furiously. It was now dark and 
 the night was brilliantly illuminated with the flash 
 of cannon and small arms. The Americans forced 
 their way into the part of the lines commanded by 
 the Earl of Balcarras on or near the battlefield of 
 Freeman's farm but after a severe struggle they 
 were driven out again. Others at the same time at- 
 tacked the extreme right or most western part of 
 the English position were the German officer, Colo- 
 nel Breyman, was posted with a battery. While a 
 body of Americans attacked this post in front others 
 under General Learned drove back some Canadian 
 troops who occupied two block houses in a hollow 
 between Breyman and the main army. By the cap- 
 ture of these block houses the Americans were 
 enabled to get into the rear of the German battery 
 and in five minutes forced it, killed Breyman and 
 dispersed the German soldiers who defended it. 
 
 Arnold had no command in the second battle of 
 Saratoga, having quarreled with Gates. He became 
 madly excited as the battle progressed, once striking 
 an officer with his sword, an occurrence which he 
 did not at all remember on the next day. He rode 
 at one time from right to left of the American line 
 
74 
 
 between the ranks of both armies and exposed to 
 their fire. During the attack on Br ey man's battery- 
 he led platoons of men furiously here and there. 
 He entered the German battery at the moment of its 
 fall and received here a wound in his leg while his 
 horse was shot under him. Some accounts give 
 him the credit of having almost at the same time 
 forced the English works on the front where the 
 Americans struggled with the troops of the Earl of 
 Balcarras. His reckless courage has long made him 
 the popular hero of the second battle of Saratoga 
 though many more modest American officers fought 
 most bravely and are forgotten. The true heroes of 
 the day were the American farmers who flocked to 
 the defense of their country, and who fought in its 
 cause with unflinching ardor. 
 
 The action closed with the complete fall of night. 
 The Americans were the victors and had gained a 
 great advantage with the possession of Breyman's 
 battery. They at once moved cannon forward with 
 the intention of falling upon the exposed western 
 end of the English line when day should have 
 dawned. To save himself from a position which 
 must have led to the destruction of his army Bur- 
 goyne was obliged to spend the night in drawing 
 his lines in toward the river bank in a position some- 
 what back of that he had formerly occupied. 
 
 The English losses were large in this battle and 
 over two hundred men were taken prisoners. The 
 American losses were small. In both the battles of 
 Saratoga many English officers were killed owing to 
 the exact aim of the American riflemen. Great was 
 
75 
 
 the consternatiou of Baroness de Riedesel when on 
 the afternoon of the battle General Fraser, wounded 
 and dying, was brought into the small farmhouse 
 which she occupied and stretched on the table where 
 dinner had been laid for the lady's expected guests. 
 The dying man exclaimed against ambition, mourned 
 for his wife, pitied General Burgoyne and frequently 
 apologized to the baroness for the trouble he was 
 giving her. When the latter saw toward morning 
 that he was dying she wrapped her sleeping child- 
 ren in blankets and carried them to the passage al- 
 ready crowded with the sick and remained there 
 till the last scene was over. She was obliged to sit 
 all the following day in the room where lay the gen- 
 eral's corpse wrapped in a sheet for burial. From 
 this day all was terror and confusion for the women 
 whom the confidence and indulgence of Burgoyne 
 had permitted to join the army. Lady Acland was 
 in deep distress because her husband had been sadly 
 wounded and was a prisoner. An effort had been 
 made to carry Acland off the field first by an officer 
 who was his friend and then by a soldier who was 
 offered fifty guineas for saving the wounded man 
 but the Americans followed so closely upon the heels 
 of the retreating English that the attempt had to be 
 given up. Wilkinson, the American adjutant gen- 
 eral crossed the part of the battlefield where the 
 grenadiers had been defeated late in the afternoon 
 and saw there within a space of fifteen yards eigh- 
 teen dying grenadiers and three officers propped up 
 against trees, two of them mortally wounded. 
 
 "Protect me, sir, against this boy," said a voice 
 near at hand. 
 
76 
 
 The young American officer turned to see Major 
 Acland helpless from his wounds while a boy of 
 fourteen was aiming a gun at him. Wilkinson dis- 
 mounted, took the major's hand and said that he 
 hoped that he was not badly wounded. 
 
 "Not badly," said the major, "but very inconven- 
 iently. I am shot through both legs. Will you, sir. 
 have the goodness to have me conveyed to your 
 camp." 
 
 Wilkinson ordered Acland to be put on his own 
 horse and taken to the American camp. Before the 
 battle was fairly over Acland's servant searched the 
 battlefield for the Major but received a wound in his 
 arm and was unable to find him. Lady Harriet 
 Acland was consequently left in great anxiety about 
 her husband's condition. 
 
 During the battle Gates had been in sufficient un- 
 certainty as to its outcome to cause the baggage 
 wagons to be loaded and ready to begin a retreat at 
 a moments warning. The first news which reached 
 the American army was that the English greatly 
 outnumbered the Americans, whereupon the wagons 
 began to move down the Albany road, but the rumor 
 was almost immediately contradicted and they were 
 ordered to halt. Several times during the battle 
 they were started and then stopped until at length 
 word came that the British had retreated. There 
 arose loud huzzas from the guard and teamsters. 
 The news spread at once to the surrounding country 
 and many people who lived in the neighborhood 
 hastened into the American camp to have a share in 
 the rejoicings. The American soldiers were in a 
 
77 
 
 delirium of joy and forgetting to be hungry neglec- 
 ted to draw their rations but pushed on eagerly to 
 the front of the English position to be ready for the 
 pursuit of the English army when it should retreat. 
 
 THE DAY AFTER. 
 
 Burgoyne expected that the Americans would 
 renew the battle on the next day. But Gates pro- 
 posed to risk nothing. He had already sent a body 
 of men to occupy the heights of Saratoga at the 
 ford which Burgoyne must cross in retreating north- 
 ward and he perhaps felt that he had the English 
 army in a trap. The Americans merely advanced 
 to a spot near the narrowed English front on the 
 river bank and kept up an incessant cannonade on 
 Burgoyne's encampment. Within the English line 
 a retreat was felt to be imminent and all the woun- 
 ded officers and men who could stand on their legs 
 staggered out of the hosptial at the river's edge and 
 up to the English lines that they might not be left 
 behind. 
 
 Toward evening the body of General Fraser was 
 carried, as he had requested, to the Great Redoubt 
 for burial. The remaining generals of the army, 
 Burgoyne, Phillips and Riedesel were standing to- 
 gether when the scanty funeral procession passed. 
 Fearing that they might seem to the soldiery to 
 slight the memory of a brave officer, the three fell 
 into line and followed it. The American gunners 
 seeing a group of men on the Great Redoubt turned 
 their cannon on them and while the chaplain read 
 in a steady voice the burial service, cannon balls 
 
plowed up the ground around the assembled heads 
 of the army. Madame de Riedesel. herself exposed 
 to the enemy's fire, watched in the English camp 
 this wanton risk of life in an agonized suspense. 
 The dramatic nature of this burial pleased Bur- 
 goyne's imagination and he afterward described it 
 in the overdrawn style in which he wrote. 
 
 THE RETREAT. 
 
 This scene was scarcely over when Burgoyne gave 
 the order for a night retreat. From nine to eleven 
 o'clock the army was silently filing out of its en- 
 campment and began "dancing the minuet back- 
 ward" as a German officer said. Brightly lighted 
 fires concealed the movement from the enemy and 
 served to keep up an appearance of life in the camp 
 for some time after it was deserted by all but the 
 few hundred wounded men left behind in the hos- 
 pital. A pouring rain added to the discomforts and 
 difficulties of the night march. The main body of 
 the American army had meanwhile returned to the 
 encampment on Bemus Heighths ; the men having 
 discovered by this time that they were hungry and 
 exhausted were obliged to retire to draw their 
 rations. Gates, indeed gave himself no great con- 
 cern over the English retreat when he heard of it 
 but put off going in pursuit until the rain should 
 have ceased. 
 
 Burgoyne pushed on through the greater part of 
 the night but halted before daylight at Coveville, to 
 the disgust of many people in his army, as eager 
 now to escape as they had once been to advance. 
 They did not however know the commander's diffi- 
 
79 
 
 culties. His flat bottomed battaux laden with the 
 remnant of provisions made but slow progress up 
 stream and as their loss would mean an immediate 
 famine he was obliged to wait for them. During 
 this halt Lady Harriet Acland distressed at being 
 carried farther away from her wounded husband 
 and dreading the being seperated from him for a 
 long time if the retreat should prove successful, re- 
 solved to go to the American camp in search of him 
 for though he was a rough man she was a devoted 
 wife. Provided with a note from General Burgoyne 
 to General Gates and fortified with a little rum and 
 muddy water she descended the river in a boat ac- 
 companied by her maid, her husband's wounded 
 valet and the good chaplain who had read the burial 
 service at Fraser's funeral. 
 
 The batteaux at length arrived and the men drew 
 rations. Some feared that it would be for the last 
 time for the Americans lay in wait along the oppo- 
 site shore of the Hudson and attacked the boats 
 from time to time as they followed the retreat of the 
 English army. Had Burgoyne pushed on more 
 rapidly it is thought that he might have captured or 
 dispersed the body of Americans rather carelessly 
 encamped at the Saratoga ford. There was time, 
 however, for a warning to reach them and as the 
 English approached these men crossed the river and 
 encamped on the opposite shore at the fording place, 
 an insurmountable obstacle to Burgoyne's retreat by 
 the road he had come. 
 
 The evening of the ninth brought the weary and 
 mud-stained English to the old village of Saratoga. 
 
80 
 
 The main army forded the Fish Creek waist deep 
 and the men lay down to rest for the night without 
 so much as building fires to dry their rain -soaked 
 clothing. The Baroness de Riedesel slept beside her 
 children in her wet garments on some straw before 
 a camp fire. Weary as she was she would gladly 
 have gone on for she was eager to escape capture 
 and she did not know that retreat across the river 
 by the usual route was already cut off. Burgoyne 
 did not fail of his night's revelry, for he had invited 
 his officers to a supper at the deserted mansion of 
 General Schuyler which was brilliantly lighted for 
 the purpose. A certain commissary's wife shared 
 in these feasts, where glass jingled and singing and 
 laughter went on for half the night. The morning 
 after his midnight supper at Saratoga Burgoyne 
 caused Schuyler's mansion to be burned lest it 
 should shelter the American troops in their pursuit 
 of the English. 
 
 THE PURSUIT. 
 
 The next morning revealed to the English the 
 body of Americans posted on the other side of the 
 river at the ford of Saratoga, where Burgoyne meant 
 to have crossed to comparative safety and communi- 
 cation with home and food. There was but one 
 way of escape left open and this was to continue up 
 the western bank of the river to Fort Edward and 
 to cross the Hudson at this point. Burgoyne now 
 sent a detachment ahead to open roads for this pur- 
 pose. 
 
 The Americans did not march in pursuit of the 
 English until noon of October tenth, the second day 
 
81 
 
 after the retreat. They reached Saratoga village at 
 four o'clock on the same afternoon, so short a dis- 
 tance had the English succeeded in retreating, ham- 
 pered as they were with the slow progress up stream 
 of the batteaux and burdened with artillery. The 
 Americans found the English army encamped on 
 their old ground to the north of Fish Creek, its boats 
 drawn up at the mouth of the little stream while 
 men hastily unloaded the few provisions left. From 
 the opposite bank of the river the American troops 
 stationed near the ford to prevent a crossing played 
 upon the English camp with artillery. 
 
 A TRAP FOR THE AMERICANS AT SARATOGA. 
 
 The next morning, October eleventh, there was a 
 heavy fog. Hearing of the march of the body of 
 English troops sent to clear the way to Fort Edward, 
 Gates supposed that the main body of the English 
 army was endeavoring to escape him in that way 
 and had left the few guards known to be in front of 
 the English camp at Saratoga to deceive him. He 
 ordered the American troops to cross the creek in 
 pursuit, part of them at the river road and others 
 above the mill dam to the west. The latter troops 
 under General Morgan were the first to cross. They 
 fell in with an English picket which fired upon them 
 and killed several men. Morgan did not like his 
 position with the creek behind him. He believed 
 that the English had not retreated as Gates had 
 supposed. Other troops under General Learned 
 were sent to his support. Wilkinson, the young 
 adjutant general, after having visited Morgan and 
 found that the body of American troops on the road 
 
had not yet crossed but were waiting for guides sent 
 to Gates who always kept well in the rear this mes- 
 sage: 
 
 "Tell the general that his own fame and the in- 
 terests of the cause are at hazard ; that his presence 
 is necessary with the troops." 
 
 He then guided the right column of the American 
 troops across the creek. Under cover of the fog 
 these men succeeded in capturing an English recon- 
 noitering party of thirty men. These prisoners said 
 that the English had not marched away but were at 
 their posts. Burgoyne had indeed ordered back the 
 troops sent toward Fort Edward and was eagerly 
 awaiting the struggle, in which he would be at such 
 an advantage that he had no doubt of success. No 
 one had any authority to stop the movement across 
 the creek as Gates was still a mile away and 
 twelve or fifteen hundred men were soon on the 
 other side of the stream. At this critical moment 
 the fog suddenly lifted and the whole English army 
 could be seen under arms and drawn up in order of 
 battle. The park of English artillery was directly 
 in front of the Americans and the main English 
 force was massed on their left. The English at once 
 opened a heavy fire and the Americans, under so un- 
 expected an attack recoiled, broke and retreated 
 across the creek in haste. Wilkinson now thought 
 of the other Americans who had crossed to the west- 
 ward above the mill. The standing orders were 
 that in case of an attack at any point, Americans 
 were to fall on the enemy at all quarters. The offi- 
 cers of these men would certainly take the firing 
 
83 
 
 near the river's edge for such an attack and must 
 inarch upon the English only to be captured or de- 
 stroyed. He hastened to follow them and found 
 that they had advanced toward the strongest part 
 of the English position upon the crown of a hill west 
 of the river and were already within two hundred 
 yards of it. Wilkinson rode up to Generol Learned 
 who was now in command at this point and told 
 him that he must retreat. 
 
 "Have you orders ?" demanded the officer. 
 
 Wilkinson said that he had not as there was not 
 time to go in search of General Gates. 
 
 "Our brothers are engaged on the right" said 
 General Learned "and the standing order is to at- 
 tack.' 1 
 
 ' 'Our troops on the right have retired and the fire 
 you hear is from the enemy," replied Wilkinson. 
 "Although I have no orders for your retreat'" he 
 added, "I pledge my life that the general will ap- 
 prove." 
 
 It was decided to retire- and the Americans had no 
 sooner faced about than the English fired upon them 
 killing several before they were hidden by the 
 neighboring woods. It was a bitter dissappoint- 
 ment to Burgoyne to see the Americans retreat. He 
 expected this day to have retrieved all his mis- 
 fortunes for he would have had the Americans at 
 the sort of disadvantage for which he had so long 
 sought in vain and would have been able to have 
 used to advantage the cumbersome park of artillery 
 he had trundled through the wilderness to no pur- 
 pose. 
 
84 
 
 THE CANNONADE. 
 
 The English proposed as a last resort to abandon 
 baggage and artillery and beat a hasty retreat up the> 
 the west side of the river. But before this move- 
 ment was begun scouts arrived with news that Fort 
 Edward was already in possession of the Americans. 
 All hope was now at an end for the English army. 
 American troops lay south, east and west of it, while 
 to the northward the crossing places in the river at 
 Fort Edward and Glens Falls were disputed by- 
 bodies of men. 
 
 An incessant cannonade was opened upon the 
 English camp. The dreaded sharpshooters also 
 climbed trees the better to pick off men and horses 
 for the latter were now in a starving condition and 
 often escaped from the ditches which afforded them 
 shelter to the tempting green meadow near old Fort 
 Hardy only to fall speedy victims to rifle and cannon 
 balls. Provisions were well nigh exhausted and in 
 the confusion and danger of the cannonade thos& 
 that were left were not always distributed. 
 
 After her first night in the rain on the straw, 
 Madame de Riedessel took refuge in a farm house 
 somewhat north of the English army. As she rode 
 to this house in her calash she was aimed at by five 
 or six men from the other side of the river. She 
 threw her children down and herself on top of them 
 to protect them from the rifle balls, which broke the 
 arm of a wounded English soldier, who stood behind 
 them. Soon after she had taken refuge in the house 
 together with other women and the wounded, the 
 building was cannonaded. Having seen so many 
 
85 
 
 enter it the Americans believed it to be headquart- 
 ers. The cannonade obliged the inmates to take 
 refuge in the cellar. The next morning when the 
 cannonade had taken for the time a different direc- 
 tion the inhabitants of the cellar left it that it might 
 be cleaned. There was a rush for it again when 
 firing began afresh and many took refuge there 
 under a pretense of being ill who proved afterwards 
 to be well'enough. Eleven cannon balls went through 
 the house at this time, one of them taking off the 
 second leg of a poor man w T ho was about to have the 
 first amputated. It was about this time that a hasty 
 retreat up the western bank of the river to Fort 
 Edward was thought of. General de Riedesel had a 
 horse in readiness for his wife's flight and some 
 wounded officers who occupied the cellar swore that 
 each would take one of the children on his 
 horse in the rush for escape. All the officers' wives 
 who had made the campaign with the baroness had 
 had their husbands either killed or wounded and she 
 trembled hourly for the Baron and wondered if she 
 could be the only one to have the happiness to escape 
 such a 1 sorrow. Riedesel thought of sending her to 
 the American lines for safety but she could not bear 
 to be separated from him and often crept at night 
 up the cellar stairs to assure herself that the English 
 army had not marched away and left her behind. 
 When she saw the soldiers near their watch fires she 
 was reassured. Her cook, who was a great rascal 
 and often during the campaign had forded streams 
 and stolen sheep and fowls from American farmers 
 for which he charged his master as though he had 
 
paid for them, still supplied the Baroness with food 
 but drink was lacking. The inmates of the cellar as 
 well as the whole of the English army suffered for 
 water for the Americans fired upon every one who 
 approached the river. A soldier's wife was at length 
 found who brought water to the sufferers in the 
 cellar. The Americans respected her sex and did 
 not fire upon her when she came to the water's edge. 
 After the surrender her apron was filled with gold 
 coins as a reward for her services. A woman in 
 another part of the encampment had a sadder fate, 
 for she was killed by an American sentinel while 
 getting water at a little brook near Fish Creek be- 
 cause she did not answer his challenge. A cannon 
 ball is said to have rolled across the table at which 
 Burgoyne and his officers sat deliberating. Accord- 
 ing to another account it carried away a leg of mut- 
 ton off of which they were about to dine. 
 
 THE 6URRENDER. 
 
 On the thirteenth of October Burgoyne called a 
 council of his officers at which it was decided that a 
 surrender was the only thing left for the English 
 army. The next day he opened negotiations with 
 Gates. A truce was agreed upon and the cannonade 
 ceased to the great relief of the inmates of the cellar. 
 Gates demanded an unconditional surrender. Bur. 
 goyne in his playwright's style made answer that 
 rather than this his troops would "rush on the 
 enemy determined to take no quarter." In truth as 
 he very well knew the men had got the capitulation 
 in their heads by this time and disheartened and 
 harrassed as they were would hardly have taken it 
 
87 
 
 kindly to be asked to risk their lives again in a losing 
 cause. 
 
 It was finally agreed that the English army should 
 surrender on condition of being allowed to return to 
 England with the promise of not again taking arms 
 in America during the war. Burgoyne saved his 
 pride a little by calling this a convention rather than 
 a capitulation. Gates would not have granted such 
 liberal terms to Burgoyne who was wholly in his 
 power, had he not heard of the ascent of the Hudson 
 by Sir Henry Clinton, news which must have seemed 
 very formidable and alarming to him. 
 
 The terms of the surrender were already agreed 
 upon by the officers who acted for the two generals 
 and lacked only a formal signature when a spy got 
 through to Burgoyne with the news of Clinton's 
 move up the Hudson coupled with the false rumor 
 that the general had already reached Albany. These 
 tidings threw Burgoyne into indecision again. He 
 wished that he had made no agreement with Gates. 
 He called his officers together to determine whether 
 he were bound in honor to stand by what had al- 
 ready been done. The majority of them thought 
 that he was, but Burgoyne, to gain time and an ex- 
 cuse for breaking off the negotiations, accused Gates 
 in a letter of having despatched a part of his army 
 to Albany against Clinton. Gates had in fact sent 
 some regiments of militia southward for this pur- 
 pose on the day before the negotiations were opened 
 between him and Burgoyne. He could however say 
 in answer to Burgoyne that he had just been rein 
 forced and that his army numbered many more than 
 
88 
 
 that of the English general. Early on the morning 
 of the seventeenth of October he drew up his troops 
 in order of battle and sent word to Burgoyne that he 
 proposed at once to attack him if he did not stand 
 by his word. Burgoyne then hastened to sign the 
 articles of capitulation, known as the Convention of 
 Saratoga. 
 
 At eleven o'clock on the same morning, Burgoyne, 
 in full court dress, attended by his aids, one of 
 whom was a lord and the other a young gentleman 
 who became in after life an earl and followed by 
 the generals Phillips and Riedesel, rode to the head 
 of the American camp where he was met by General 
 Gates in a plain blue frock coat. The two generals 
 approached to within sword's length of each other 
 and when they had been introduced by the attend- 
 ing American officer, Burgoyne said: 
 
 "The fortune of war, General Gates, has made me 
 your prisoner." 
 
 "I shall always be ready to bear testimony," 
 Gates replied, "that it has not been through any 
 fault of your excellency."' 
 
 At eleven o'clock on the same morning the Eng- 
 lish troops marched to the meadow near old Fort 
 Hardy and oppressed with the stench of dead horses 
 made short work of laying down their arms. With 
 a delicacy appreciated by the English officers the 
 troops of the American army were kept out of sight 
 during this mortifying scene. The English soldiers 
 next crossed the creek and marched through the 
 double ranks of the American army. The American 
 flag had recently been adopted and its earliest use is 
 
89 
 
 said to have been at Saratoga when it was borne be- 
 fore the conquered army. Yankee Doodle also 
 seems first to have been played here as a national 
 tune and the English soldiers were not a little 
 mortified to make their first steps as prisoners to 
 time with the mocking gaiety of the homely ditty, 
 which reminded them that their conquerers were 
 the very Yankees they had so despised at the open, 
 ing of the summer. 
 
 As the English troops passed the combined log 
 hut and cave dug by some settler in a bank that 
 served the purpose of American headquarters, Gates 
 and Burgoyne stepped out and the usual ceremony 
 was observed, the English general presenting his 
 sword to the American and the latter returning it 
 with a bow. During this time when the eyes of all 
 in the conquering army were on the captive troops 
 the Americans showed not the least sign of exulta- 
 tion over a fallen enemy. Their faces expressed 
 rather "pity and mute astonishment.'' It was ob- 
 served that the American soldiers wore no uniform 
 being dressed in their common clothes while the 
 officers' uniforms varied greatly and were evidently 
 home made. The Americans, however, commanded 
 respect by their attitude which was "erect and 
 soldierly" and as one of their prisoners said, they 
 were so "slender, fine-looking and sinewy that it was 
 pleasant to look at them." 
 
 The Baroness de Riedesel followed the fallen army 
 into the American camp with many forbodings. 
 The sight of a mother and her little children in cap- 
 tivity aroused however only compassion in the 
 
90 
 
 hearts of the honest American soldiers and the lady 
 could not but see in the faces of all their kindly feel- 
 ings toward her. General Schuyler as he helped the 
 little family to alight from the calash kissed the 
 children and with tears in his eyes led them to his 
 tent where he regaled them and their mother with 
 smoked tongues, beefsteak, potatoes and fresh but- 
 ter and bread. Schuyler insisted upon entertaining 
 this lady and her children at Albany. With his 
 usual delicacy he promised to direct Burgoyne to a 
 comfortable lodging in this town which proved also 
 to be his own handsome mansion. Burgoyne on 
 first being introduced to Schuyler apologized for 
 having burned his Saratoga house and Schuyler at 
 once set him at ease by begging him to think no 
 more of it since the rules of war justified its de- 
 struction. 
 
 Schuyler has been always regarded as more than 
 any other the real hero of Burgoyne's campaign, 
 having borne the brunt of its difficulties and ac- 
 cepted the mortification of unjust suspicion with 
 patient patriotism. Gates afterwards lost the name 
 he gained at Saratoga in the battle of Camden, 
 where he is said to have fled with a retreating por- 
 tion of his troops after saying that he would "bring 
 the rascals back." Burgoyne returned to England 
 to be cast aside by minister and king. They chose 
 that he should bear the blame of failure rather than 
 that their own negligence and unwisdom should be 
 revealed. Burgoyne was not the man to endure 
 such treatment patiently and defended himself 
 vigorously. In doing justice to himself and his 
 
91 
 
 army he testified to the courage, resolution and de- 
 termination of the Americans. 
 
 The American Congress very unjustly kept Bur- 
 goyne's army on various pretexts captive that it 
 might not by being returned to Englanh enable 
 other troops to be sent in its place to America. The 
 Baroness de Riedesel counted herself happy in being 
 able to share her husband's captivity and did not 
 regret the hardships she had endured at Saratoga. 
 Major Acland recovered sufficiently from his 
 wounds to be able to return to England but died 
 soon afterward. The romantic tale long believed in 
 America that Lady Harriet Acland afterwards 
 married the chaplain who accompanied her on her 
 night ride down the Hudson to the American army 
 is not true. The faithful lady lived for many years 
 a widow and did nothing more uncommon than to 
 erect a monument to the American maid who had 
 accompanied her through the trials of Burgoyne's 
 campaign and afterwards served her for many years. 
 
 RESULTS OF THE SARATOGA CAPITULATION. 
 
 The second battle of Saratoga has been ranked 
 as one of fifteen decisive battles in the world's his- 
 tory, battles which turned events from the course 
 which they otherwise have followed. The first of 
 these decisive battles was Marathon, the last Water- 
 loo; Saratoga was the thirteenth. As a result of 
 this victory the reputation of the young nation at 
 once rose high in all the civilized countries of the 
 wo^ld. Before the capture of Burgoyne's army the 
 colonies sought in vain for the open aid of France, 
 whose interests and pride led her to wish for the 
 
93 
 
 humbling of England, but who feared that the uni- 
 ted American colonies could not long withstand the 
 arms of the mother country and hesitated to join a 
 losing cause. The complete capture of a whole 
 English army at Saratoga by a body of Americans 
 without any outside aid reassured France and she at 
 once plunged into war with England. Had it not been 
 for the European war which ensued the independ- 
 ence of the United States could not have been 
 gained. 
 
 Burgoyne's was the sole English army which dur- 
 ing the Revolution ventured far from sustaining 
 fleets, only to find itself cut off from supplies and 
 surrounded by overpowering numbers of farmer 
 soldiers intent on the defense of their homes. No 
 other English army again tried the experiment. 
 Burgoyne dragged with him a fine park of brass 
 cannon to dislodge the Americans from the breast- 
 works these experienced woodsmen made so handily 
 out of surrounding trees. The Earl of Balcarras 
 afterwards remarked that the Americans never de- 
 fended their breastworks during this campaign. The 
 members of the English House of Commons, who 
 were examining him. were surprised that he should 
 say this when he wished to insist on American 
 prowess, but the Earl added dryly that the reason 
 why the Americans never defended their works was 
 that they always marched out of them to attack the 
 English. 
 
 The results of the struggle in the valley of the up- 
 per Hudson made the name of Saratoga famous the 
 world over. After this, as a French traveler re- 
 
93 
 
 marked, for the man who loved Americans it was 
 no bad thing to be able to say, "I have seen Sara- 
 toga." The name clung chiefly around the place of 
 Burgoyne's surrender until the world-wide fame of 
 the watering place connected it more in men's 
 minds with the famous springs than with the scene 
 of a struggle between the two English speaking 
 nations for supremacy. In name and in situation 
 the two spots are linked together in the world's his- 
 tory. He who visits the springs cannot fail to find 
 a fresh interest in this region from the knowledge 
 of its historical importance. 
 
 Since the Revolution, from Washington down, 
 distinguished visitors without number have sought 
 the Saratoga battle ground and the scene of the sur- 
 render to trace the movements of the two armies, 
 movements the success or failure of which were to 
 decide the fate of a great nation. 
 
 SARATOGA SPRINGS. 
 
 At the close of the war of the Revolution, in 1783 
 a solitary settler again sought the neighborhood of 
 High Rock Spring. He was the son of the Arnold 
 who had lived here before the war. The same year 
 General Schuyler, ever a pioneer in this region, cut 
 a road from the old village of Saratoga to the spring 
 and built here a rude frame house probably the first 
 summer cottage in America. A few hardy visitors 
 began to appear. The first of these were Washing- 
 ton, Governor Clinton and Alexander Hamilton who 
 lost their way in seeking for the spring. A settler 
 named Tom Connor w T ho had before directed them 
 when applied to a second time answered: 
 
94 
 
 '•I tell you, turn back, take the first right-hand 
 path into the woods and then stick to it— any 
 darned fool would know the way. " 
 
 He was afterwards greatly mortified to find that 
 the man whom he had answered in this way was 
 General Washington. 
 
 When Elkanah Watson visited the spring in 1790, 
 he found here about a dozen people of respectability, 
 living at the one wretched little tavern in the wilder- 
 ness kept by Arnold. They drank the exilerating 
 water of High Rock Spring and bathed in an open 
 log hut hard by, rolling off of a bench into a trough 
 which received the spring water. This same year a 
 Vermonter named Risley bought the original cabin 
 of Schouten and opened in it a rival tavern to that 
 of Arnold, which was probably not less wretched in 
 its accomodations. 
 
 August, 1792, found Governor John Taylor Gil- 
 man of New Hampshire, a visitor at Saratoga 
 Springs. While hunting in the neighborhood he 
 discovered a jet of water spouting from the rocky 
 bank of the stream just below a little waterfall. He 
 tasted it and finding it to be mineral water, returned 
 to the little hamlet near High Rock Spring to an- 
 nounce his discovery. The handful of people living 
 there at once visited the new spring which was 
 named the Congress, as Governor Gilman had been 
 a member of the Continental Congress. 
 
 In 1800 Gideon Putnam bought an acre of ground 
 on the present site of the Grand Union and clearing 
 it of its pine forests built the first of Saratoga's 
 great hotels. Congress Hall followed in 1815 and 
 
95 
 
 the United States in 1824, each recording in its 
 name the patriotic spirit of the day. By this time 
 the Hamilton, Columbia, Flat Rock, Monroe, Presi- 
 dent, and Red Springs had been discovered. 
 
 From the frontier hamlet in the woods Saratoga 
 suddenly came to be the great watering place of the 
 country, a gay and fashionable resort. Crowds of 
 people from the northern states congregated here 
 each summer and southern families from as far as 
 New Orleans made the voyage to New York and 
 proceeded north by water and stage to spend the 
 season at the now famous resort. No distinguished 
 visitor to America from the ex-king Joseph Bona- 
 parte to Harriet Martineau failed to visit the new 
 world watering place, already a village of hotels, 
 clustering between its two sets of springs, one to the 
 north and the other to the south. 
 
 The situation of Saratoga is remarkable for the 
 salubrity of the air, for it lies at the very gateway to 
 the Adirondacks from whence its waters spring. 
 Accessible to it is the fine scenery of Lake George 
 and Lake Champlain and within easy driving dis- 
 tance is the battle ground which will render the 
 name of Saratoga famous in history to all time. 
 
 THE PERILS OF TRAVEL ON LAKE OHaMPLAIN IN 
 1807. 
 
 In November, 1807, an Englishman named John 
 Lambert set out to visit the United States upon the 
 only inland route of that day by way of Lake Cham- 
 plain. He traveled from Montreal to the village of 
 St. Johns. After waiting two days at this place the 
 vessel in which he had engaged passage sailed in the 
 
t 96 
 
 night without him. a favorable wind having at that 
 time sprung up. He was forced to spend three days 
 more in a very indifferent tavern with no amuse- 
 ment but reading the one book of the house known 
 as the Independent Wig. At length a small sloop 
 from Burlington landed at the town. She was at 
 once engaged by Lambert and three merchants also 
 waiting to get passage to Whitehall. The Dolphin, 
 the sloop in which these four gentlemen embarked f 
 was a wretched little vessel which had formerly 
 been a regular trader but was laid by at Burlington, 
 where she was bought by four men for one hundred 
 dollars, the money to be returned if she were seized 
 by government officers as un seaworthy. Two of the 
 owners, one as captain, the other as crew, had 
 brought her to St. Johns with a cargo of butter and 
 cheese. Being offered a good price to take the four 
 gentlemen to Whitehall and taking on board a cargo 
 of some barrels of potash and kegs of butter as wall 
 as two other passengers bound for the neighborhood 
 of Cumberland Head, they set sail although they 
 knew nothing of the navigation of the lake and 
 were no sailors. The vessel was but a crazy, leaky 
 affair, there was no boat in which to take refuge in 
 case she sank, the sails were ragged, the pumps 
 choked or broken and the passengers were obliged 
 to fall to work and bale water from under the cabin 
 every two hours. 
 
 The weather being fine they were troubled with 
 no fears but amused themselves with those of the 
 captain who was so little used to sailing that he 
 kept a good hold on the peak halyards, and, when- 
 
97 
 
 ever a puff of wind arose, hastily lowered the peak, 
 crying, 
 
 "What an awful *wind. It blows nation stout." 
 The weather was frosty and the cabin passengers 
 were obliged to make a fire in an old pitch pot to 
 warm themselves. They dined off of some cold 
 boiied meat with which they had provided them- 
 selves and potatoes cooked in the ship's sole utensil, 
 an old iron tea kettle. When night came some of 
 the passengers wrapped themselves in overcoats and 
 buffalo robes and slept in the cabin; others were 
 forced to spend the night on deck as there were not 
 berths for all. The moon luckily shown and guided 
 the unskilful seamen away from rocks. 
 
 At midnight the Dolphin reached Cumberland 
 Head where the captain ran her on the rocks to save 
 the trouble of anchoring her. The passengers came 
 on deck and spent an hour hailing a tavern on shore 
 in hopes of a boat coming off to them. A man 
 finally put off with a canoe, half full of water. A 
 tin pail was handed down to him but his boat was so 
 leaky as to fill almost as fast as it was emptied. The 
 captain and one of the passengers finally got into 
 the crazy craft which promptly upset with them. 
 The men on board the Dolphin w r ere casting about 
 to find a rope to throw to the men floundering in 
 the water w hen they saw that they had gained their 
 feet and were making for the shore up to their 
 necks in water. The tin pail was lost with the cap- 
 sizing of the canoe and the tea kettle had now to do 
 duty as a bailing utensil. The gentleman who had 
 gone ashore in hopes of getting something hot at the 
 
98 
 
 tavern had but a cold reception there being refused 
 admittance. He returned in ten minutes to the 
 sloop with his wet clothes frozen upon him. The 
 captain was in a similar plight when he also re 
 turned after reporting at the custom house. It now 
 took all hands two hours to get the sloop off the 
 rocks. 
 
 At four o'clock in the morning the vessel arrived 
 opposite a small bay in the township of Shelburne 
 and here passengers and crew went ashore and 
 walked into a farm house where the door stood on a 
 latch. The voyagers dried and warmed themselves 
 before a good fire and rejoiced over a bountiful 
 "American breakfast" of beefsteak, fried pork, 
 eggs, apple pie, pickles, cheese, cider and milk 
 toast. The farmer asked but a York shilling for 
 this meal but was paid the usual tavern price. He 
 was an ingenious nlan and had contrived a churn on 
 which one of his boys could ride as on a rocking 
 horse while he churned. 
 
 The travelers sailed again at eight in the morning 
 admiring Lake Champlain, beautifully diversified 
 with islands, the numerous farms and pleasant 
 bouses near the water's edge, the bold and elevated 
 portions of the shore to be seen here and there and 
 the fine distant view of the Green Mountains. But 
 the leaks in the vessel were a great drawback and 
 the' water constantly gained upon them if they 
 stopped to gaze at the scenery. Lambert finally 
 went below among the kegs of butter and barrels of 
 potash with some oakum and a calking iron. After 
 some search he found the principal leak and stopped 
 
99 
 
 it being careful not to hammer hard lest his iron 
 should go completely through the rotten wood of the 
 ship's hull. This done the passengers were not 
 much troubled with the work of bailing and the old 
 tea kettle had a rest. 
 
 Having entered the narrow portion of the lake be- 
 low Crown Point the Dolphin ran aground and it 
 became necessary to call to her assistance a man 
 from the shore into whose scow some barrels of 
 potash were put to lighted the vessel in ord«-r that 
 she might float off of the shoal. When she had been 
 reloaded with the potash the passengers hired the 
 man of the scow to accompany the vessel as a pilot. 
 All this detained the Dolphin until nearly dark. 
 The wind began to blow from the northeast and the 
 vessel was compelled to crash through shell ice. 
 The one nun of her crew, known as David, began to 
 cry out at this that the ice would cut her bows in 
 two and sink her, putting the passengers in heart 
 by telling them how a sloop had lately been sunk in 
 these waters in this way and several people drowned 
 
 The Dolphin did not venture into the narrow 
 southern arm of Lake Champlain leading to White- 
 hall until the the next morning when she passed 
 "Old Ti" as David called Ticonderoga and sailed be- 
 tween two piles which had stood in the channel 
 since the time when the Americans had had a float- 
 ing bridge between this fort and that of Mount In- 
 dependence. The intricacies of the channel beyond 
 Ticonderoga alarmed the passengers whose new 
 pilot proved to be an uncertain guide and now con- 
 fessed that it was long since he had been that way. 
 
100 
 
 The wind still blew hard with sudden flaws from the 
 mountains which several times very nearly upset the 
 ship. Once the boom made an unexpected sweep 
 across the deck, knocking down two of the passen- 
 gers and carrying away the hat of one. Lambert 
 found the scenery sublime though forbidding at this 
 season of the year. At three miles above Whitehall 
 the sloop was brought to a complete stop by ice in 
 the channel. She ran some hundreds of yards 
 through it but her bows wearing badly the passen- 
 gers feared her rotten hull would not long stand the 
 cutting of the ice. She was run ashore, tied to a 
 tree and with their baggage on their backs her pas- 
 sengers clambered through the forests to Whitehall. 
 Lambert returned to Canada the following spring 
 taking a stage from Boston to Burlington. Travelers 
 from Boston to Burlington at this time had some 
 difficulty in finding their way for finger boards fre- 
 quently hung parallel with the post to which they 
 were attached and mile posts often lay on the 
 ground. One traveler once got out of his vehicle to 
 read one of the reclining milestones and found 
 written beneath its illegible inscription, "No re- 
 liance can be placed on the milestones all the way 
 to Burlington for they lie, every one of them." The 
 town of Burlington, which thirty years before had 
 been represented by one log hut in the woods now 
 contained twenty-five hundred inhabitants, brick 
 houses and a college. Trade with Canada had been 
 the making of this town. The inhabitants of this 
 region groaned sadly at this time under the embargo 
 act which for the time completely cut off their 
 business. 
 
I 
 
 ilia 
 
101 
 
 "It's tarnation provoking," said one rustic, '"that 
 we can't swop goods with the Canadians. What ha s 
 England or France to do with Lake Champlain? 
 They don't search our vessels and take our seamen 
 there. " 
 
 Another declared his determination to "wagon" 
 his ashes as he Called potash to Canada through by- 
 roads "in spite of their O-grab-me laws." 
 
 Lambert proceeded by land from Burlington to 
 St. Albans, riding in the mail wagon, a springless 
 country cart furnished with chairs for seats. He 
 was unmercifully shaken over the rudest of forest 
 roads. He was obliged to wait at a small house in 
 St. Albans Bay for the wind to subside before cross- 
 ing the flooded waters to where a ferry boat could 
 be obtained being obliged to make this first part of 
 the trip in a miserable canoe scarcely safe in fine 
 weather. The ferry boat proved to be a flat bot- 
 tomed scow which with foursto^t rowers reached in 
 an hour a narrow portion of North Hero Island 
 where the boat was pulled across the land and being 
 launched again crossed Lake Champlain and 
 ascended the (hazy River to the village of the same 
 name, after a row of twenty miles. From here 
 Lambeit proceeded to Canada with an agreeable 
 memory of his last view T of Lake Champlain. its tree 
 covered islands, its distant mountains and its noble 
 stretches of placid water. 
 
 It was but shortly after this and not long after the 
 invention of the steamboat that one was placed on 
 Lake Champlain, and the old travel by sloops and 
 scow ferry boats came for ever to an end. Many a 
 
102 
 
 man took his first steamboat trip on Lake Cham- 
 plain and thought it "the most delightful kind of 
 conveyance" he had ever tried. But there were not 
 wanting old lady passengers who annoyed such gen- 
 tlemen with anxious inquiries as to whether they 
 thought "all was safe," wished to know "how hot 
 they kept the furnace" and timorously forecast an 
 accident at which passengers would have only a 
 choice between death by "hot water on deck or cold 
 water below." 
 
 THE BATTLE OF PLATTSBURGH. 
 
 A final attempt to invade New York by way of the 
 Champlain Valley was made in the last war with 
 England. Had this expedition succeeded the havoc 
 must have been great for this now populous region 
 including the summer resort of Saratoga must have 
 fallen a prey to all the ruin and horrors of an in- 
 vasion. Four years before war broke out the gov- 
 ernment recognizing the danger sought to secure 
 this important "doorway of the country" as the In- 
 dians had called Lake Champlain by building two 
 gunboats upon it. In 1813 two armed sloops, the 
 Eagle and the Growler, were launched. These ves- 
 sels afterwards fell victims to a body of English 
 troops who attacked them with musketry in a nar- 
 row part of the lake. The Eagle sank from the 
 opening of her seams caused by the discharge of her 
 own guns while the Growler unable to make a re- 
 treat because of the high wind, struck. 
 
 That a more efficient defense might be made, a 
 young naval officer, Captain Thomas McDonough, 
 who fought with Decatur at Tripoli, was now sent 
 
103 
 
 by the United States government to biild and hav- 
 ing built to command a fleet on Lake Champlain. 
 McDonough had so few men to assiit him that he 
 labored with his own hands at the work of ship 
 building. While he was thus busy in 1813 the Eng- 
 lish with the two captured American sloo| s and 
 some gunboats and batteaux made a descent upon 
 Plattsburgh destroyed some American stores at this 
 place and captured trading vessels plying the lake. 
 
 The following year, 1814. an English army of 
 about fourteen thousand men under Sir George Pre. 
 vost, assembled at Montreal for the invasion of 
 northern New York by way of the Champlain Val- 
 ley. The army was to advance southward along the 
 western shore of the lake, sustained by an English 
 fleet strong enough to command these waters. The 
 English and Americans worked hard during the 
 early part of the summer to add to their squadrons. 
 McDonough launched his last vessel about the mid- 
 dle of August, the English their's on the twenty- 
 fifth of the same month. McDonough was ready to 
 set sail a few days before the English. He advanced 
 at once to Cumberland Bay where the Americans 
 proposed to make a stand against the invaders. 
 Fifteen hundred militia had gathered near the town 
 of Plattsburgh for this purpose while McDonough's 
 squadron rode the waters of the bay. 
 
 The English land force advanced against Platts- 
 burgh on the sixth of September, attacked as they 
 neared the town by American militiamen from be- 
 hind fences and stone walls. They pushed on after 
 some skirmishing as far as the north iside of the 
 
104 
 
 Saranac but were repulsed by the Americans when 
 they attempted to cross the stream. They then pre- 
 pared to lay a regular siege to the American forts 
 on the south side of the Saranac and waited for the 
 English fleet to come to their aid. The Americans 
 galled them meanwhile with incessant skirmishing. 
 The English are said to have lost on land over a 
 thousand men in killed, wounded and prisoners near 
 Pittsburgh. 
 
 An American guard boat was constantly on the 
 watch in the main lake for the English squadron. 
 Soon after sunrise on the eleventh of September the 
 boat pulled in to Cumberland Bay with the news 
 that the enemy's ships were approaching. Mc- 
 Donough at once ordered his vessels cleared for 
 action. So completely was the deck of the Saratoga 
 swept of encumbernnces that some hen coops were 
 even thrown overboard and the chickens allowed to 
 wander al.iout the ship 
 
 The upper sails of the English vessels soon hove in 
 sight over Cumberland Head. The English squadron 
 consisted of a large ship, the Confiance, a brig, the 
 Linnet, and two sloops, the Chubb and the Finch. 
 The Americans had also four vessels, the Saratoga. 
 a ship, the Eagle a brig, a schooner called the 
 Ticonderoga and a sloop named the Preble. The 
 Americans had ten gunboats, the English twelve ; 
 the English squadron carried more and larger 
 cannon than the American and was manned with a 
 greater number of men. The English flagship, the 
 Confiance, was the largest ever seen in these waters, 
 having the gun deck and the armament of a heavy 
 
105 
 
 frigate. She was also provided with a furnace for 
 heating shot for the purpose of setting the American 
 vessels on fire. The Americans had eighty -five guns 
 and eight hundred men, the English ninety-five 
 guns and one thousand men. 
 
 McDonough anchored his four vessels in a line 
 across Cumberland Bay with their sides toward the 
 enemy. He threw out kedge anchors on either side 
 of his flagship, the Saratoga, to enable her to be 
 warped around. Back of his vessels and command- 
 ing the spaces between them he anchored the gun- 
 boats. 
 
 The English army on land hailed the appearance 
 of the English fleet with joyous shouts. The Eng- 
 lish vessels formed in line south of Cumberland 
 Head and then moved in toward the American line. 
 The English vessels came bows on. The cannon 
 of the American vessels were all loaded and a 
 solemn silence preceded the opening of the battle. 
 As the enemy's ships approached the Eagle suddenly 
 fired a broadside from her four long eighteen pound 
 cannon. Startled by this noise a young game 
 rooster on the Saratoga flew upon a gun slide, 
 flapped his wings and crowed. He seemed to be 
 bidding the enemy defiance and the crew of the ship 
 gave three ringing cheers and went into battle with 
 heightened spirits. 
 
 The English gunboats opened fire but McDonough 
 still withheld the order to the waiting gunners on 
 the Saratoga. He was watching the shots of the 
 Eagle and saw that they fell short of the enemy. At 
 length when they took effect he sighted a gun him- 
 
106 
 
 self and a cannonade was opened all along the 
 American line. The effect was terrible on the Eng- 
 lish vessels as they slowly approached bows on. 
 They came on steadily however for Captain Downie, 
 the English commander, felt sure of success if he 
 could but gain a position near enough to the Ameri- 
 can vessels to bring^his superior cannon to bear 
 upon them with the best effect. At length the 
 American fire could no longer be born and the Eng- 
 lish squadron anchored about a quarter of a mile 
 short of the American fleet. The English brig, the 
 Linnet, as she came around fired a broadside into 
 the Saratoga but the Confiance held her fire until 
 she was anchored when her whole side seemed for a 
 moment a sheet of flame as she sent a broadside into 
 the Saratoga with terrible effect. The shock over, 
 Captain McDonough looked about him to see half of 
 his crew prostrate on the deck. Almost a fifth of 
 them, about forty men, had been killed or wounded, 
 the others were only knocked down by the force of 
 the blow. The dead so cumbered the deck that it 
 •was found necessary to unfasten the hatches and 
 pass them below. 
 
 In a few minutes the Saratoga had recovered from 
 the shock and returned the fire. The battle went 
 steadily on but the force of the broadsides gradually 
 decreased as gun after gun became injured. The 
 English sloop, Chubb, was soon disabled by a broad- 
 side from an American brig, the Eagle, and drifted 
 down between the two squadrons until forced by a 
 shot from the Saratoga to surrender. She was 
 towed in to Plattsburgh by a boat's crew in command 
 
04 
 
107 
 
 of a young midshipman. Nearly half of the crew of 
 this vessel was found to be killed or wounded. A 
 half an hour later the English sloop Finch was 
 driven out of line by the Ticonderoga and drifted 
 upon a shoal at Crab Island where a shot or two 
 from an American battery forced her to strike and 
 she was taken possession of by invalids from the 
 American hospital. 
 
 The English gunboats meanwhile struggled des- 
 perately with the American sloop Preble and finally 
 forced her to fall back into the bay where she was 
 of no more service. These smaller craft now fell 
 upon the American schooner Ticonderoga. Her cap- 
 tain, Lieutenant Cassin, walked the taffrail amidst a 
 hail of grape and cannister shot and caused her 
 cannon to be loaded with bags of musket balls. 
 Several times the crews of the English gunboats at- 
 tempted to board the Ticonderoga. The loss of this 
 vessel would have meant the exposure of the rear of 
 the American line and the defeat of the squadron, 
 but the spirited commander beat off the boarding 
 parties with such showers of missiles as they could 
 not endure and in the end drove the English gun- 
 boats back to a respectful distance. 
 
 At the other end of the American line the Eagle 
 was forced to bear the broadsides of the Linnet as 
 well as part of the fire of the Confiance at a time 
 when she was disabled by losing the hawsers 
 attached to her cables intended to draw her around 
 to where she could bring her guns to bear upon the 
 enemy. The captain of the Eagle finally cut her 
 cable, ran down behind the American line and 
 
108 
 
 anchored between but in the rear of the Ticonderoga 
 and Saratoga now the only ships remaining in line- 
 With his other broadside turned toward the enemy 
 he was able to use his fresh guns. The Saratoga, how- 
 ever, was exposed by this movement to the full fire 
 of both the Linnet and the Confiance, the Linnet 
 raking her bows. 
 
 The guns of the Saratoga were now almost 
 silenced on the side toward the enemy. Some had 
 been injured by cannon shot, others dismounted and 
 still others had been ruined by overcharges due to 
 the eagerness of the American gunners to do execu- 
 tion. Twice the ship had been set on fire by hot 
 shot from the furnace of the Confiance. At length 
 the Saratoga's last gun flew off of its carriage and 
 down the main hatchway of the vessel. The Sara- 
 toga must either strike or turn completely around 
 and bring a fresh broadside to bear on the enemy. 
 By pulling on the hawsers attached to kedge or 
 warping anchors the ship was slowly brought half 
 way around and hung in this position exposed to a 
 raking broadside from the Linnet. It was only by a 
 great effort that she was drawm somewhat further 
 around until some of her aftermost guns could be 
 brought to play upon the Confiance. She could De 
 moved no farther, there being no favoring wind to 
 aid in the labor of warping. At this critical moment 
 and when a little more delay would have lost the 
 day the ship's master contrived to draw one of the 
 ropes attached to a kedge anchor under the vessel's 
 bow. The Crew then pulled upon it and the Sara- 
 toga swung slowly around with her other side 
 
109 
 
 toward the enemy. This bit of masterly seaman- 
 ship won the day. The Confiance attempted to 
 make the same maneouver but was only forced ahead. 
 When she could no longer endure the fresh broad- 
 sides of the Saratoga and her guns were well nigh 
 silenced she lowered her flag. The seamen of the 
 Saratoga now pulled upon her hawser until they 
 brought her broadside guns to bear upon the Linnet 
 which struck fifteen minutes later. At this the gun- 
 boats which had been driven backward about a 
 mile lowered their colors. Of sixteen English flags 
 flying in Cumberland Bay that morning all were 
 down. Not a mast was standing on either the cap- 
 tured English or the victorious American ships to- 
 which a sail could be attached and it was impossible ■■ 
 to send any vessel to take possession of the Englishi 
 gunboats, which at first made off slowly as though 
 doubting their liberty and then when the situation 
 dawned upon their officers hastened to escape. 
 
 The American commander, McDonough, was 
 twice knocked senseless during the action, once 
 while he was aiming a favorite gun by the falling 
 of a broken spar upon his back and again when a 
 shot drove the captain of his gun in upon him and 
 threw him upon the deck, covered with blood. Cap- 
 tain Downie, the English commodore, was killed 
 during the action by the driving in of a cannon 
 upon him, an American shot having struck the 
 muzzel of the gun behind which he stood. The 
 Saratoga received fifty-five round shot in her hull , 
 and the Confiance one hundred and five. The Eng- 
 lish guns on this ship were not well aimed after the 
 
110 
 
 first broadside which took so much effect on the 
 Saratoga. They damaged the rigging of the Sara- 
 toga more than her crew and her hull. The Ameri- 
 cans aimed with the same precision they often 
 showed in land battles. The English admitted a 
 loss of eighty -three killed and one hundred and ten 
 wounded, though this did not include the killed and 
 w^ounded on the gunboats. The Americans are said 
 to have lost but fifty-two killed and fifty-eight 
 wounded. Two American officers fell, one being 
 completely cut in two by a cannon ball. It is a 
 gruesome fact that one officer was knocked down by 
 the flying head of a seaman. 
 
 The American and English armies as well as 
 numerous spectators watched the action from the 
 shores of Cumberland Bay. The inhabitants of the 
 country trembled with anxiety for the fate of the 
 American squadron, the defeat of which meant all 
 the horrors for them of an invasion. Cheers arose 
 when one by one the English colors were lowered. 
 Sir (jeorge Prevost had spent the hours of the battle 
 in making confident preparations to lay siege to the 
 Americans at Plattsburg. When, however, he found 
 that the English fleet was defeated he beat a hasty 
 retreat, leaving behind him many cannon and much 
 stores. 
 
 Very old people living in the neighborhood of 
 Lake George have told me how their parents and 
 crowds of other people from the country around 
 drove to Lake Champlain after the battle to see the 
 shattered vessels of the English fleet, on the decks 
 of which could still be seen the blood and hair of 
 killed and wounded men. 
 
Ill 
 
 By the well fought battle of Plattsburgh the beau- 
 tiful Champlain and Saratoga region was relieved 
 from further invasion save that of the summer 
 tourists who makes the northern campaign every 
 summer, traversing this region in search of recrea - 
 tion and health. To such the delights of this land 
 of rest and pleasure can "not but be enhanced by a 
 knowledge of the heroic struggles fought out upon 
 this soil enriching it forever with historic associa- 
 tions. 
 

 JHotel 
 
 Gkamplairx 
 
 Vast Panoramic Views of Lakesi 
 
 Mountains and Islands. 
 459 Acres of Park; Miles of Walks 
 
 J459 Acres of Park; Miles of Walks f 
 
 and Drives in Hotel Grounds. A 
 
 A Perfect Golf Course for Scientific J 
 
 f Playing. f 
 
 ▼ Finest Summer Resort in the North. * 
 Three miles south of Plattsburgh, 
 on the 
 
 Delaware and Hudson R. R. 
 
 The Shortest, Quickest and Best 
 Line from Montreal to New York. 
 Tourists Through Lake Cham = 
 plain spend the night at Hotel 
 Champlain. 
 
 © 9 © 
 
 ALL TRAINS AND BOATS STOP. 
 
 f 
 

 m 
 
 TJ/ie Juincoin Spring. 
 
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 Lincoln Spring was discovered in 1896 by drill- 
 ing through the earth's surface to a distance of \$Jft 
 425 feet. The water has been analyzed by Prof- 
 essor Perkins, of Union Coilege. His analysis 
 discloses the presence of many valuable proper- 
 ties similar in general character to those of the 
 most celebrated Saratoga springs, but combined 
 in such a manner as to produce one of the most- 
 effective and desirable waters found at this cele- 
 brated spa. The water is a saline-alkaline, very 
 agreeable to the taste, and acts with the best re- 
 sults on the kid >eys, stomach and bladder. The 
 lithia it contains is valuable in kidney and blad- 
 der troubles, and the magnesia serves to correct 
 and regulate the stomach, which may be disturbed 
 by indigestion or other harmful causes. Lincoln 
 Spring water is a great blood purifier, and has a 
 //A\\ soothing, quieting effect on the system, producing 
 influences which promote sleep and rest and tone 
 up the system. It is a delicious table water, well 
 suited to all the purposes of the dinner, and may 
 be used freely without any harmful effects. It 
 acts as a tonic when imbibed in small quantities, 
 and serves as a cathartic when taken half an 
 hour before breakfast. It is not injurious toper- 
 sons who are well and do not need medicine, but 
 tends to keep the system in a healthy condition. 
 
 The water is bottled at the spring in all its 
 natural purity in such a manner as to retain the 
 natural carbonic acid gas with which it is so 
 abundantly charged, and which physicians so 
 highly recommend. A drive or walk from the 
 village to the spring and return will amply repay 
 all visitors at this famous resort. 
 
 
PAUL SMITH'S 
 
 FOUQUET HOUSE 
 
 JAMES HANEY, Manager, 
 
 PLATTSBUBGH, 2ST. IT. 
 (Directly Opposite D. & H. R. R. Station ) 
 
 This old established house has been for years the resting place- 
 for Tourists going through Lake Champlain, or into the Adirondack^. 
 It is the Largest and Finest Hotel in Flattsburgh, Lighted Through- 
 out with Electric Lights, and has all other modern improvements. 
 
 The Finest Dining Room in Northern New York. 
 
 AND THE ONLY HOTEL IN TOWN 
 
 Fitted and Located for the Summer Travel 
 
 Tourists going through Lake Champlain will 
 find it to their advantage to 
 
 STOP OVER NIGHT AT THE FOUQUET 
 
 And have a good night's rest, the Fouquet House being only two- 
 minutes' walk from all Steamers on Lake Champlain. In rear of 
 the House are the New Goverment Barracks. This Hotel is also- 
 the nearest to the Catholic Summer School. 
 
 The House has been Thoroughly Overhauled, Re-painted Inside 
 and Out, and stands today one of the finest Hotels in the country.. 
 
CONGRESS SPRING 
 
 A Saline Water, 
 Cathartic and Alterative, 
 Of High Medicinal Virtues. 
 
 By its efficacy, parity, and acknowledged sani- 
 tary properties and the happy proportions of its vari- 
 ous ALKALINE salts, the CONGRESS WATEc* 
 stands UN T RIVAL LED, as attested by the great 
 Mineral Water drinking public, who might have been 
 seen the past season at Saratoga hurrying to slake 
 their thirst at this HEALTHFUL FOUNTAIN. 
 
 While the water is now as strongly cathartic as 
 at any p-riod since its discovery— over one hundred 
 years ago -it still retains its DELICIOUS FLAVOR 
 AND SVIOOTH CATHARTIC ACTION that has al- 
 ways been charter istic of this famous water. 
 
 It is carefully packed for shipment in cases of 4 
 and 2 dozen pints and 2 dozen quarts. 
 
 Analysis, Pamphlets, etc., at our offices. 
 
 At all druggists, grocers, hotels, and 
 
 CONGRESS SPRING COMPANY, 
 
 Saratoga Springs, N. Y. 
 
Rogers Rock Hotel 
 
 ON LAKE GEORGE. 
 
 OPEN FROM JUNE TO NOVEMBER. 
 
 This hotel occupies a bold promontory a little to the 
 north of Rogers' Slide, and accommodates 125 guests. It is 
 the farthest north of any Lake George ho 'el, and is 110 feet 
 above the water. Every window affords a lake view. 
 
 W. D. TREADWAY, Prop. 
 
 P. 0. Address, Rogers' Rock, Essex Co., N. Y. 
 
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The Central House 
 
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 T*HIS commodious and thoroughly refitted house with 
 modern improvements has accommodations for ioo 
 
 £» people, and will be open to the public from June first 
 
 until October first. The house is situated in the quiet 
 and shady little village of Lake George, in the town of 
 Caldwell, at the head of the famous and most beautiful 
 of all the Adirondack lakes — Lake George — and is sur- 
 rounded by scenes of historical interest pertaining to 
 the days of colonial and Indian warfare. Running past 
 the north end of the house is a short street leading 
 down to the lake and Pine Point Park, called Amherst 
 street in memory of General Amherst, who embarked at 
 this point with 11,000 men and captured Fort Ticonder- 
 oga in 1759. The Central House has been practically 
 
 W rebuilt and newly furnished during the past year and 
 
 is furnished with bathrooms and electric bells. 
 
 © 
 
 Arlington Hotel 
 
 TTHE Arlington Hotel, situated a little south of the 
 Central House, is open all the year round, and is 
 popular with Commercial travelers. It is comparatively 
 a new house, and contains many modern conveniences, 
 including steam heat, making it a desirable place for 
 people wishing to spend the autumn months at the 
 Holy Lake. While Mr. Worden is proprietor of the 
 two houses, he aims to make the management of each 
 entirely distinct, affording guests a choice, as their 
 tastes suggest. 
 
 RATES. 
 
 CENTRAL HOUSE— $2 per day; §9 to $12 per week. 
 ARLINGTON HOTEL— $2 per day; S7 to $9 per week. 
 Special rates for families, and to people making prolonged 
 
 stays. 
 For further information address the proprietor, 
 
 EDWIN J. WORDEN, Lake George, N. Y. 
 
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CHATEAUGAY * RAILROAD 
 
 Lessee Saranac and Lake Placid Railroad. 
 
 Between 
 
 PLATTSBURGH-dth, 
 
 ADIRONDACK 
 
 Chazy *£a/ee, Chateaugay JLa/ce, jCoon 
 jCakc. Saranac yCci/ce and UJake J f acid 
 
 Three Trains Daily Each Way. 
 
 Drawing Room Cars on all Trains. 
 
 Wagnsr pila:e sleeping cars on all night trains, and 
 Wagner drawing room cars on all day trains between 
 
 NEW YORK AND PL/VTTSBURGI1. 
 
 Tickets, Sleeping and Drawing Room Tar Accommoda- 
 tions, and Baggage Checked from all Stations. 
 
 J. N. STOWER, W. W. CONAUQHTY, Supt., 
 Gen'i Manager. Plattsburgh, N. Y. 
 
THE WINDSOR HOTEL 
 
 Saratoga Spripijs. 1^. Q. S/nytl?, proprietor 
 
THE LEVENGSTON HOTEL 
 
 RESTAURANT AND CAFE, 
 
 (American and European,) 
 
 BROADWAY SARATOGA 
 
 Forty Rooms. Steam Heat. 
 
 Electric Bells. Rate $2 Per Day. 
 
 OPEN JILL THE YEAR. CENTRALLY LOCATED 
 
 ONE BLOCK FROM D. & H. DEPOT. 
 
 F. N. BOYNTON, Proprietor. 
 
 E. D. 5TARBUCK & CO. 
 
 408, 410, 412 BROADWAY, 
 
 SARATOGA SPRINGS, N. Y. 
 
 DEALERS IN 
 
 Dry Goods, . o . Mattings, 
 
 Ladies' Suits, i Curtains, 
 
 cloaks, II Upholstery, 
 
 Waists, ^ Men's 
 
 Separate Skirts, # Furnishings. 
 
 Carpets, Rugs, § Bicycles, 3S&. 
 
 MAIL ORDER DEPARTMENT. 
 
Champlain Transportation Co, 
 
 Lake George Steambcat Company. 
 
 "The Gateway of the Country/' 
 
 Magnificent Sidewheel Steamers make double 
 daily service through Lake Champlain and Lake 
 George, passing some of the grandest scenery on 
 this Continent. 
 
 Historic Ruins, sites of early land and naval 
 battles, rugged shores, picturesque mountains, 
 make a trip through these lakes one never to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 Through service from May 30th to October 
 1st. Local service on Lake George by Steamer 
 Mohican in May and October. Steamer Chateau- 
 gay on Lake Champlain from April to January. 
 Excellent cuisine, attentive officers and clean 
 boats are our special features. 
 
 r lhe popular route between New York, Al- 
 bany, Troy, Saratoga, Catholic Summer School, 
 Platt^burgh, Adirondacks, White and Green 
 Mountains, Ausable Chasm, Ottawa, Montreal, 
 Thousand Islands and Quebec. 
 
 Close connections with all trains at terminal 
 points. Tickets reading via, D. &. H. R. R. ac- 
 cepted for passage on Lake Champlain. 
 
 Send for "A Summer Paradise" and Fine Map with 
 Time Tables. 
 
 General Office:, GEORCE RUSHLOW, 
 BURLINGTON, VT., GEN'L MANAGER. 
 
Prospect riountain I 
 
 2000 Feet Above Lake George. # 
 The Grandest View in America. $ 
 
 Embracing the Adirondacks, Green, White and Catskill 
 Mountains, the Berkshire Hills and 30 miles of Lake George. 
 
 REACHED BY THE 
 
 Otis Inclined Cable Railway 
 
 FROM THE VILLAGE OF CALDWELL, 
 MAKING THE ASCENT IN TEN MINUTES. 
 
 Cars leave the foot of the mountain every thirty minutes, 
 from 9 A. M. to 7 P. M. Special trips at other hours on appli- 
 cation to the superintendent. 
 
 Stages will be in waiting at the Delaware and Hudson R. R. 
 station and steamboat landing to carry passengers to the foot 
 of mountain. 
 
 Lunch and Refreshments atthe c L u ino mit 
 
 Grand Pavilion for Picnic Parties, 
 
 Bowling Alley, Electric Lights, 
 
 Beautiful Walks, Woods and Sunsets. 
 
 Tickets may be purchased at Casino for dinners at the Lake 
 House, including return trip to the top of mountain. These 
 tickets will be sold at summit only. 
 
 Special Entertainments for Moonlight Evenings, will be 
 Advertised During the Season. 
 
 ROUND TRIP TICKETS, - - 50 CENTS. 
 
TAYLOR HOUSE AND 15 COTTAGES 
 Or> Sebroor) Lal^e, [S. Y. 
 
 The Taylor House is surrounded by 4,000 native pines and com- 
 mands a view of the lake and mountains for miles. 
 
 All Modern Improvements. 
 
 Milk Cream and Vegetables 
 
 from own Dairy Farm. 
 
 C. A. TAYlOR & SON, 
 
 Taylors-on-Schroon, N. Y. 
 C. F. TAY OR, Jr , Manager. 
 
 RIVERSIDE s HOTEL 
 
 LIVERY 
 TO 
 
 Potter-sVille,, Ch^-ster, 
 Scn/oo^ Lake, Frieftd'5 Lake, 
 Brat\t Lake, Loot\ Lake, 
 Joh>\5k>urcjr\, WeaveKoWn, 
 North, Creek, Schroorv Village, 
 Horicorv, Hill Brook. 
 
 F. F. MARQUETT, Prop., 
 
 .P. O., Riparius, Warren County, N. Y. 
 
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THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The heart of this wonderful region of mountains, 
 lakes and streams is traversed by the Adirondack 
 Division of the New York Central and Hudson 
 River R. R. and to more fully inform the public 
 regarding its beauties and easy means of access 
 the Passenger department has just issued a book 
 entitled "In the Adirondack Mountains," describ- 
 ing in detail each resort, and containing also a 
 large map in colors, giving a list of hotels, camps, 
 lakes, etc., together with their location on the 
 map. It has also issued a large folder with map, 
 entitled "The Adirondack Mountains and How to 
 Reach Them," giving complete and comprehen- 
 sive information regarding stage lines, steamers, 
 hotels, etc. 
 
 A copy of the book will be sent to any address 
 on receipt of two 2-cent stamps, or the folder for 
 a 2-cent stamp by George H. Daniels, General 
 Passenger Agent, Grand Central Station, New 
 York. 
 
AMERICA'S GREAT RESORTS. 
 
 Of eourse. you are thinking of going somewhere 
 this summer, and. while you have this subject in 
 mind it will perhaps pay you to investigate the 
 many hundreds of beautiful resorts located along 
 the lines of the New York Central <& Hudson 
 River R. R. You cannot get a better list to choose 
 rom. The Adirondack Mountains, Saratoga, 
 Lake George, Lake Champlain, the Berkshire or 
 Litchfield Hills, the Catskill Mountains, Niagara 
 Falls, the Thousand Islands, the Lake Region of 
 Central New York and many others, equally as 
 good, are briefly described in a neat folder issued 
 by the Passenger Department of the New York 
 Central, entitled "America's Great Resorts." 
 A eopy will be sent to any address on receipt of 
 2-cent stamp by George H. Daniels, General 
 Passenger Agent, Grand Central Station, New" 
 York 
 
CHAMPLAIN ASSEMBLY 
 
 CLIFF HAVEN, N. Y. 
 
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 tfiy. The site of this delightful resort adjoins the famous 
 
 nM/ Hotel Champlain, at Bluff Point, on Lake Champlain. 
 It is connected by an Electric Road with Plattsburgh. 
 The grounds ovcrl ok the scene of the Battles of Platts- 
 burgh and Valcour. 
 
 Its location is superb. Every portion of it's prop 
 erty commands beautiful views of Lake Champlain, the 
 Adirondacks and Green Mountains. Barding accom- 
 modations are provided tor about four hundred, ex- 
 clusive of private cottages. The corporation owns five 
 handsome furnished cottages, supplied with every 
 modern convenience, which are leased to families for 
 the season. 
 
 The Champlain Club owns a magnificent Club 
 House. Its membership is made up of gentlemen re- 
 siding in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Montreal 
 and other cities. The overflow at Cliff Haven finds 
 pleasant' accommodations in the hotels and private 
 boarding houses at Plattsburgh, between which there is 
 a ten-minute Electric Street Car Service. Cottage as- 
 sociations, made up of persons of congenial spirits, have 
 been formed in various cities, for the purpose of estab- 
 lishing summer homes at Cliff Haven. Philadelphia, 
 New York, Boston and Rochester have already erected 
 handsome, commodious buildings. The New York 
 Cottage has accommodations for sixty persons. The ^.^ 
 Philadelphia, Boston and Rochester about forty each, ^(V^ 
 
 Among the handsome private cottages may be men- 
 tioned those of Prof. Arthur H.Dundon, Vice-Principal of 
 the New York Normal College, and Rev. Dr. Gabriel ,.v 
 fliH\ Healey, of New York. The session begins July nth and MM 
 ' ends August 28th. The Dining Hall will be open ^V»T 
 after June 26. Courses of lectures on topics of in- (/[w 
 terest are continued through the session. Special lec- 
 tures and courses will be given by eminent men. Satur- 
 days and the afternoons of other days are devoted to *». 
 rest and amusements. Golf, tennis, bowling, boating, VU^ 
 fishing and excursions to Ausable Chasm, the Adiron- /^ 
 dacks, Montreal and other points of interest occupy the 
 leisure hours of visitors. The Assembly is under the 
 auspices of the Catholic Summer School of America, a 
 corporation haying a charter from the regents of the 
 University, Members of all denominations are wel- 
 comed. For prospectus, rates for board and rental of 
 cottages, address E. E. STEWART, Supt. Cliff Haven, 
 Clinton Co., N. Y. For Prospectus of Champlain Club, 
 address H.J. HEIDENIS, 348 West 55th. St., New York 
 

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}UN 29 1898 
 
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