STRATAGEM OF ARNOLD TO RELIEVE FORT STANWIX—YAN YOST CUYLER—THE SIEGE
PRESSED—INDIANS INTRACTABLE—SUCCESS OF ARNOLD’S STRATAGEM—HARASSED
RETREAT OF ST. LEGER—MORAL EFFECT OF THE TWO BLOWS GIVEN TO THE
ENEMY—BRIGHTENING PROSPECTS IN THE AMERICAN CAMP—ARRIVAL OF
GATES—MAGNANIMOUS CONDUCT OF SCHUYLER—POORLY REQUITED BY
GATES—CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GATES AND BURGOYNE CONCERNING THE
MURDER OF MISS MC CREA.
Arnold’s march to the relief of Fort Stanwix, was slower than suited his
ardent and impatient spirit. He was detained in the valley of the Mohawk
by bad roads, by the necessity of waiting for baggage and ammunition
waggons, and for militia recruits who turned out reluctantly. He sent
missives to Colonel Gansevoort assuring him that he would relieve him in
the course of a few days. “Be under no kind of apprehension,” writes he.
“I know the strength of the enemy, and _how to deal with them_.”
In fact, conscious of the smallness of his force, he had resorted to
stratagem, sending emissaries ahead to spread exaggerated reports of the
number of his troops, so as to work on the fears of the enemy’s Indian
allies and induce them to desert. The most important of these emissaries
was one Yan Yost Cuyler, an eccentric half-witted fellow, known
throughout the country as a rank tory. He had been convicted as a spy,
and only spared from the halter on the condition that he would go into
St. Leger’s camp, and spread alarming reports among the Indians, by whom
he was well known. To insure a faithful discharge of his mission, Arnold
detained his brother as a hostage.
On his way up the Mohawk Valley, Arnold was joined by a New York
regiment, under Colonel James Livingston, sent by Gates to reinforce
him. On arriving at the German Flats he received an express from Colonel
Gansevoort, informing him that he was still besieged, but in high
spirits and under no apprehensions. In a letter to Gates, written from
the German Flats (August 21st), Arnold says, “I leave this place this
morning with twelve hundred Continental troops and a handful of militia
for Fort Schuyler, still besieged by a number equal to ours. You will
hear of my being victorious—or no more. As soon as the safety of this
part of the country will permit, I will fly to your assistance.”[59]
All this while St. Leger was advancing his parallels and pressing the
siege; while provisions and ammunition were rapidly decreasing within
the fort. St. Leger’s Indian allies, however, were growing sullen and
intractable. This slow kind of warfare, this war with the spade, they
were unaccustomed to, and they by no means relished it. Beside, they had
been led to expect easy times, little fighting, many scalps, and much
plunder; whereas they had fought hard, lost many of their best chiefs,
been checked in their cruelty, and gained no booty.
At this juncture, scouts brought word that a force one thousand strong
was marching to the relief of the fort. Eager to put his savages in
action, St. Leger in a council of war offered to their chiefs to place
himself at their head, with three hundred of his best troops, and meet
the enemy as they advanced. It was agreed, and they sallied forth
together to choose a fighting ground. By this time rumors stole into the
camp doubling the number of the approaching enemy. Burgoyne’s whole army
were said to have been defeated. Lastly came Yan Yost Cuyler, with his
coat full of bullet holes, giving out that he had escaped from the hands
of the Americans, and had been fired upon by them. His story was
believed, for his wounded coat corroborated it, and he was known to be a
royalist. Mingling among his old acquaintances, the Indians, he assured
them that the Americans were close at hand and “numerous as the leaves
on the trees.”
Arnold’s stratagem succeeded. The Indians, fickle as the winds, began to
desert. Sir John Johnson and Colonels Claus and Butler endeavored in
vain to reassure and retain them. In a little while two hundred had
decamped, and the rest threatened to do so likewise, unless St. Leger
retreated.
The unfortunate colonel found too late what little reliance was to be
placed upon Indian allies. He determined on the 22d, to send off his
sick, his wounded, and his artillery by Wood Creek that very night, and
to protect them by the line of march. The Indians, however, goaded on by
Arnold’s emissaries, insisted on instant retreat. St. Leger still
refused to depart before nightfall. The savages now became ungovernable.
They seized upon liquor of the officers about to be embarked, and
getting intoxicated, behaved like very fiends.
In a word, St. Leger was obliged to decamp about noon, in such hurry and
confusion that he left his tents standing, and his artillery, with most
of his baggage, ammunition and stores, fell into the hands of the
Americans.
A detachment from the garrison pursued and harassed him for a time; but
his greatest annoyance was from his Indian allies, who plundered the
boats which conveyed such baggage as had been brought off; murdered all
stragglers who lagged in the rear, and amused themselves by giving false
alarms to keep up the panic of the soldiery; who would throw away
muskets, knapsacks, and every thing that impeded their flight.
It was not until he reached Onondaga Falls, that St. Leger discovered by
a letter from Burgoyne, and floating reports brought by the bearer, that
he had been the dupe of a _ruse de guerre_, and that at the time the
advancing foe were reported to be close upon his haunches, they were not
within forty miles of him.
Such was the second blow to Burgoyne’s invading army; but before the
news of it reached that doomed commander, he had already been half
paralyzed by the disaster at Bennington.
The moral effect of these two blows was such as Washington had
predicted. Fortune, so long adverse, seemed at length to have taken a
favorable turn. People were roused from their despondency. There was a
sudden exultation throughout the country. The savages had disappeared in
their native forests. The German veterans, so much vaunted and dreaded,
had been vanquished by militia, and British artillery captured by men,
some of whom had never seen a cannon.
Means were now augmenting in Schuyler’s hands. Colonels Livingston and
Pierre van Cortlandt, forwarded by Putnam, were arrived. Governor
Clinton was daily expected with New York militia from the Highlands. The
arrival of Arnold was anticipated with troops and artillery, and Lincoln
with the New England militia. At this propitious moment, when every
thing was ready for the sickle to be put into the harvest, General Gates
arrived in the camp.
Schuyler received him with the noble courtesy to which he pledged
himself. After acquainting him with all the affairs of the department,
the measures he had taken and those he had projected; he informed him of
his having signified to Congress his intention to remain in that quarter
for the present, and render every service in his power; and he entreated
Gates to call upon him for council and assistance whenever he thought
proper.
Gates was in high spirits. His letters to Washington show how completely
he was aware that an easy path of victory had been opened for him. “Upon
my leaving Philadelphia,” writes he, “the prospect this way appeared
most gloomy, but the severe checks the enemy have met with at Bennington
and Tryon County, have given a more pleasing view of public affairs.
Particular accounts of the signal victory gained by General Stark, and
of the severe blow General Herkimer gave Sir John Johnson and the
scalpers under his command, have been transmitted to your Excellency by
General Schuyler. I anxiously expect the arrival of an express from
General Arnold, with an account of the total defeat of the enemy in that
quarter.
“I cannot sufficiently thank your Excellency for sending Colonel
Morgan’s corps to this army. They will be of the greatest service to it;
for, until the late success this way, I am told the army were quite
panic-struck by the Indians, and their tory and Canadian assassins in
Indian dress.”
Governor Clinton was immediately expected in camp, and he intended to
consult with him and General Lincoln upon the best plan to distress,
and, he hoped, finally to defeat the enemy. “We shall no doubt,” writes
he, “unanimously agree in sentiment with your Excellency, to keep
Generals Lincoln and Stark upon the flank and rear of the enemy, while
the main body opposes them in front.”
Not a word does he say of consulting Schuyler, who, more than any one
else, was acquainted with the department and its concerns, who was in
constant correspondence with Washington, and had co-operated with him in
effecting the measures which had produced the present promising
situation of affairs. So far was he from responding to Schuyler’s
magnanimity, and profiting by his nobly offered counsel and assistance,
that he did not even ask him to be present at his first council of war,
although he invited up General Ten Broeck of the militia from Albany to
attend it.
His conduct in this respect provoked a caustic remark from the
celebrated Gouverneur Morris. “The commander-in-chief of the Northern
department,” said he, “may, if he please, neglect to ask or disdain to
receive advice, but those who know him will, I am sure, be convinced
that he wants it.”
Gates opened hostilities against Burgoyne with the pen. He had received
a letter from that commander, complaining of the harsh treatment
experienced by the royalists captured at Bennington. “Duty and
principle,” writes Burgoyne, “made me a public enemy to the Americans
who have taken up arms; but I seek to be a generous one; nor have I the
shadow of resentment against any individual who does not induce it by
acts derogatory to those maxims upon which all men of honor think
alike.”
There was nothing in this that was not borne out by the conduct and
character of Burgoyne; but Gates seized upon the occasion to assail that
commander in no measured terms in regard to his Indian allies.
“That the savages,” said he, “should in their warfare mangle the unhappy
prisoners who fall into their hands, is neither new or extraordinary;
but that the famous General Burgoyne, in whom the fine gentleman is
united with the scholar, should hire the savages of America to scalp
Europeans: nay more, that he should pay a price for each scalp so
barbarously taken, is more than will be believed in Europe, until
authenticated facts shall in every gazette confirm the horrid tale.”
After this prelude, he went on to state the murder of Miss McCrea,
alleging that her murderer was employed by Burgoyne. “Two parents,”
added he, “with their six children, were treated with the same
inhumanity while quietly resting in their once happy and peaceful
dwelling. Upwards of one hundred men, women and children, have perished
by the hands of the ruffians, to whom it is asserted you have paid the
price of blood.”
Gates showed his letter to General Lincoln and Colonel Wilkinson, who
demurred to its personality; but he evidently conceived it an
achievement of the pen, and spurned their criticism.[60]
Burgoyne, in a manly reply, declared that he would have disdained to
justify himself from such rhapsodies of fiction and calumny, but that
his silence might be construed into an admission of their truth, and
lead to acts of retaliation. He pronounced all the intelligence cited
respecting the cruelties of the Indians to be false, with the exception
of the case of Miss McCrea. This he put in its true light, adding, that
it had been as sincerely lamented and abhorred by him, as it could be by
the tenderest of her friends. “I would not,” declared he, “be conscious
of the acts you presume to impute to me, for the whole continent of
America; though the wealth of worlds was in its bowels, and a paradise
upon its surface.”
We have already shown what was the real conduct of Burgoyne in this
deplorable affair, and General Gates could and should have ascertained
it, before “he presumed to impute” to a gallant antagonist and a humane
and cultivated gentleman, such base and barbarous policy. It was the
government under which Burgoyne served that was chargeable with the
murderous acts of the savages. He is rather to be pitied for being
obliged to employ such hellhounds, whom he endeavored in vain to hold in
check. Great Britain reaped the reward of her policy in the odium which
it cast upon her cause, and the determined and successful opposition
which it provoked in the American bosom.
We will now shift the scene to Washington’s camp at Wilmington, where we
left him watching the operations of the British fleet, and preparing to
oppose the army under Sir William Howe in its designs upon Philadelphia.