Arnold’s desperate naval battle against the British fleet on Lake Champlain bought the patriot cause time. But time was now up. Back came British armies that summer, streaming down from Canada in even greater force than before, determined to seize New York State and cut the New England states off from the mid-Atlantic and southern states. Their campaign was more elaborate this time, more ambitious, better equipped. It was planned in Britain early that year by King George himself with Lord Germain, secretary of war, and Major General John Burgoyne. General Burgoyne, Gentleman Johnny as he was affectionately known to his troops, was the new commander in charge. Back in London for the winter meeting of Parliament where he represented a friend’s pocket boroughs, Burgoyne jockeyed hard to replace Carleton as field commander in Canada.1 The two men were a study in contrasts. Where Carleton was modest and pragmatic, expert on the Canadian situation, Burgoyne was flamboyant and cocksure. After a stint of active duty in Portugal where he led some three thousand men to victory in Valencia de Alcántara, Burgoyne had “made himself conspicuous chiefly by ornate speeches” in Parliament.2 He was regarded as a good soldier on both sides of the Atlantic, but also as a vain and pompous man. He had arrived in North America in 1775 to reinforce General Gage at Boston. Now he wanted Carleton’s job leading the expedition from Canada, and he got it. King George and Lord Germain agreed Burgoyne was more enterprising than Carleton. The task before him, though, was more formidable than he or his superiors in London realized.
The British campaign plan was three-pronged. Burgoyne was to lead the major force south up Lake Champlain to Albany. Where Carleton depended on a fleet Burgoyne would have a large combined force of British and Hessian regulars as well as Canadians and Indians. At Burgoyne’s suggestion a second assault force would create a diversion, traveling west up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and Oswego, then sweeping south to the Mohawk River in central New York and east to link up with the main army. Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger, forty-four and a veteran of frontier warfare, was to command this expedition. It was his first independent command and would be his last. The third, and more important prong, was the support of General Howe, Britain’s North American commander based in New York City. Howe was to bring his army up the Hudson to join Burgoyne in Albany. New York State would be sliced apart. Since many New York residents were loyalists, the British commanders counted on large numbers of them joining their armies.
There were two serious problems with this strategy, the first created by Lord Germain himself. On March 3, shortly after Germain had agreed Howe would move his army north to link up with Burgoyne in Albany, he also approved Howe’s suggestion that he attack Philadelphia to the south. Germain presumably believed Howe could capture Philadelphia quickly and then reverse direction and speed north to link up with Burgoyne.3 There was also a sense that perhaps Howe’s assistance wasn’t essential for Burgoyne, that the expedition from Canada needed no assistance. Indeed, before he set out from Canada Carleton had showed Burgoyne a letter from Howe warning that he would be unable to help Burgoyne unless Washington moved his army north.4 Burgoyne doesn’t seem to have been particularly worried by this. But Howe’s double mission was one of those battle plans that look perfectly logical until actually put into practice.
Burgoyne’s second problem was manpower. He worried, quite rightly, whether he would have sufficient men for the task and feared he could barely spare the small detachment of men for St. Leger’s campaign.5 To fill his ranks Burgoyne resorted to recruiting Indians. While he counted on their participation to terrorize Americans into surrender, he was concerned that any atrocities they perpetrated would damage, if not destroy, his hopes of attracting American loyalists. Indian massacres of men, women, and children when they were France’s allies during the French and Indian War were seared into everyone’s minds. There had been recent Indian atrocities as well. The Declaration of Independence charged George III with “endeavoring to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
Burgoyne’s solution to the problem was to lay down rules for his Indian recruits rewarding them for live captives while “calling them to account” for scalping innocent victims. Before the expedition set out in June he met with the Indian chiefs warning: “I positively forbid bloodshed, when you are not opposed in arms. Aged men, women, children and prisoners must be held sacred from the knife, hatchet, even in the time of actual conflict.”6 On the other hand he felt it necessary to placate Indians disappointed by the order:
In conformity and indulgence of your customs, which have affixed an idea of honor to such badges of victory, you shall be allowed to take the scalps of the dead when killed by your fire and in fair opposition, but on no account, or pretence, or subtilty, or prevarication, are they to be taken from the wounded or even dying; and still less pardonable, if possible, will it be held to kill men in that condition on purpose, and upon a supposition that this protection to the wounded would be thereby evaded.7
What the Indians made of this became clear in the following days.
While Burgoyne was trying to keep his Indian allies in check, he had no reservations about threatening awful retribution against Americans who persisted in “the Phrenzy of Hostility.” His first proclamation to the Americans, printed on June 24, invited them to return to their allegiance and with it the blessings of legal government but then warned that he had “but to give stretch to the Indian forces under my direction, and they amount to thousands” who would overtake “the hardened enemies of Great Britain.”8
I trust I shall stand acquitted in the Eyes of God and Men in denouncing and executing the Vengeance of the State against the willful Outcast. The Messengers of Justice and of Wrath await them in the Field, and Devastation, Famine, and every concomitant Horror that a reluctant but indispensable Prosecution of Military Duty must occasion, will bar the Way to their Return.9
This approach was unlikely to succeed with Burgoyne’s Indian recruits or the Americans.
Arnold, Washington, and Schuyler, preoccupied with their own problems, would have taken some comfort had they known of those besetting the British. In addition to a smaller force than he asked for, Burgoyne was short of horses. His wagons were hastily built of green wood and kept breaking down, and there were too few of them to carry tents or the soldiers’ baggage. Yet rumor had it that twenty wagons were being used to haul Gentleman Johnny’s “necessaries,” a silver dining service, his wardrobe of fresh uniforms, and numerous cases of champagne.10 Worse, the expedition was only able to carry two weeks’ supply of food. Supplies would have to be found for hundreds of men along the way. He had personnel problems in addition to the difficulty of controlling his four hundred Indians. A crowd of some two thousand women and children were accompanying the troops. The British and Hessian officers disliked each other. Nonetheless it was a formidable force with thirty-seven hundred British and two thousand German troops and several hundred artillerymen.11 Burgoyne had hoped for two thousand Canadians but got only two hundred.12 The adviser he selected to work with the Indians, La Corne St. Luc, proved a regrettable choice if he meant to “keep up [the Indians’] terror and avoid their cruelty.”13 True, La Corne had decades of experience leading Indian raids on the frontiers but also, most notoriously, at Fort William Henry in 1757, where the Indians violated a truce agreement and slaughtered hundreds of men, women, and children promised protection by the French. When war between the British and Americans broke out La Corne offered his services to both sides. The Americans regarded him with suspicion and brought him to Philadelphia while they investigated his background. They found nothing and released him. April found him recommending to William Tryon, royal governor of New York, that he loose the Indians on the “miserable rebels,” urging, “Il faut brutalizer les affaires” (“We must brutalize the business”).14 It is hard to believe Burgoyne was unaware of La Corne’s views when he put him in charge of the expedition’s Indians. Perhaps he felt confident La Corne and his Indians could be induced to change their ways.
The patriot forces had their own problems with competition and animosity among generals. As the awful threat of the British invasion hung over their cause that summer the long-simmering friction between Horatio Gates and Philip Schuyler grew more virulent. It began a year earlier. Schuyler was commander of the northern army and Gates was given command of the American forces in Canada, just as they were retreating to America. There was therefore some confusion about Gates’s role. Indeed, Gates has been judged “possibly even more ambitious and political than Burgoyne.”15 In that sense they were two of a kind, as officers, however, Gates could not match Burgoyne for actual field experience and daring. He insisted on overall command of the northern army in place of Schuyler. Schuyler objected and Congress supported Schuyler. That winter Gates didn’t participate in Washington’s spectacular victories in Trenton and Princeton, having advised his commander to retreat to the hills instead. In February 1777 Congress appointed Gates as George Washington’s adjutant general to train the new three-year recruits. Gates refused the commission in high dudgeon. Congress then gave him an independent command of Fort Ticonderoga.
When he reached Albany on his way to Ticonderoga, he discovered, to his delight, that Schuyler had gone to serve as a delegate from New York to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Schuyler, a proud and diligent man, had grown increasingly dismayed by the vicious aspersions on his character Congress was hearing and upset by delegates’ insulting reaction to his complaints. Like Arnold he resolved to defend himself in person to clear these stains on his honor. He traveled to Kingston to inform the New York convention. After hearing his concerns the members appointed him one of their delegates to the Congress. He arrived in Philadelphia in April writing his secretary that the reports had “gone too far, and all that stands on their journals injurious to me must be expunged or I quit the service.”16
Gates never completed his journey to Ticonderoga. He took advantage of Schuyler’s absence to seize the coveted command of the northern department. This was a step too far for Congress. Despite Gates’s many supporters among the New Englanders who liked Gates and resented the imperious manners of this Dutch New Yorker, Congress made it clear they wanted Schuyler in that post. A committee had looked into the allegations against Schuyler, and he had been vindicated. Gates was outraged and returned to Philadelphia to protest in person. On June 17 he was given permission to address the Congress and used the occasion to launch so vicious an attack on the New York delegation that he was asked to leave the chamber. One observer characterized his manner as “ungracious, and totally devoid of all dignity; his delivery incoherent and interrupted with frequent chasms, in which he was peering over his scattered notes; and the tenor of his discourse was a compound of vanity, folly and rudeness,” adding, “I can assure you that notwithstanding his conduct has been such as to have eradicated from my mind every sentiment of respect and esteem for him, I felt for him as a man, and for the honor of human nature wished him to withdraw before he had plunged himself into utter contempt.”17 Congress ordered Gates to report to Washington who offered him the post of adjutant general once again, which again Gates refused.
While Congress and Washington were dealing with Gates’s determination to replace Schuyler, all was going well for the British. On July 1 Burgoyne’s advance corps led by Brigadier General Simon Fraser had come in sight of Fort Ticonderoga. By July 3 they had cut the fort off from its hinterland and two days later had dug a road up Sugar Loaf mountain overlooking the fort and planted a British flag on the summit. With cannon installed on the mountain they were poised to bombard the fort. Arthur St. Clair was commanding the besieged garrison. Like Gates and Montgomery, St. Clair was a veteran of the British army who had resigned his commission, married an American, and settled in the colonies. When war broke out Congress appointed St. Clair to the rank of colonel. He led a Pennsylvania regiment that supported Arnold’s retreat from Canada ,and was then promoted to brigadier general. Unlike Gates, St. Clair took part in Washington’s daring crossing of the Delaware and subsequent battles. St. Clair was assigned to serve at Ticonderoga under the command of General Gates. When Gates abandoned that commission in his zeal to take command of the northern department, the command of Ticonderoga fell to St. Clair. He took up the post on June 12 and found to his dismay that emergency repairs on the fort were still incomplete and the garrison of 2,200 far too weak. St. Clair believed at least ten thousand troops were required. Even those few soldiers based at the fort were poorly supplied. Had Gates actually assumed the post as ordered, some of the problems might have been rectified. Good officer that St. Clair was, he had no stomach for a desperate and unequal fight. The day after spotting the British flag on the mountain, he and his outnumbered troops abandoned Ticonderoga without firing a shot. Americans were shocked at the news. They had regarded Ticonderoga as impregnable. St. Clair and Schuyler and their men began battling their way south on a hundred-mile retreat.
While the British campaign to capture New York State was advancing nicely, Arnold lingered in Philadelphia to deal with Congress’s humiliating inquiry into John Brown’s complaints about his military expenditures. How outrageous that he who had willingly paid his men from his own pocket, left his shipping business to flounder, and risked his life time and again for the cause, should have to suffer this. Congress had begun an investigation but was in no hurry to get on with it. On July 11, with Washington bracing for an attack by Howe, Schuyler desperately trying to stop Burgoyne’s advance into New York, and St. Leger forging up the St. Lawrence, Arnold resigned his commission. In his letter to Congress Arnold explained that he was forced to take this step by a sense of the injustice he had suffered. He dearly loved his country and was ready to risk his life for it again, but “honor is a sacrifice no man ought to make; as I received, so I wish to transmit it inviolate to posterity.”18
Just the day before Arnold submitted his resignation, Washington wrote John Hancock, president of the Congress, about the dire situation in New York and his inadequate force to defend it. He was uncertain whether Burgoyne had captured the forts along his route, but there was “an absolute necessity” for the militia “turning out to check General Burgoyne’s progress, or the most disagreeable consequences may be apprehended.”19 Washington was painfully aware of Arnold’s frustration with congressional charges of financial impropriety and his threat to resign. He needed an officer of Arnold’s obvious talents badly. Politely but firmly he advised Hancock that since Arnold was the very man to animate the militia in this crisis, military necessity ought to take priority over any issue Congress might have with Arnold:
Upon this occasion, I would take the liberty to suggest to Congress, the propriety of sending an active, spirited officer to conduct and lead them on. If General Arnold has settled his affairs, and can be spared from Philadelphia, I would recommend him for the business, and that he should immediately set out for the northern department. He is active, judicious, and brave, and an officer in whom the militia will repose great confidence. Besides this, he is well-acquainted with that country, and with the roads and more important passes and gorges in it. I do not think he can render more signal services, or be more usefully employed at this time, than in this way.20
Washington then reminded Hancock of the high esteem in which he held Arnold and what Arnold had done for the cause: “I could wish him to be engaged in a more agreeable service, to be with better troops, but circumstances call for his exertions in this way. And I have no doubt of his adding much to the honor he has already acquired.”
Hancock wasted no time. The following day he wrote Arnold, ignoring the letter of resignation and ongoing financial investigation, but enclosing an extract of Washington’s letter calling for “a brave, active, and judicious officer” to be “immediately employed in collecting the Militia” to oppose Burgoyne. The Congress, Hancock added, “concurring in opinion with General Washington, who had strongly recommended you for this purpose, have directed you to repair immediately to headquarters to follow such orders as you may receive from him on the subject.”21
Once more Arnold responded to a call to arms and withdrew his resignation.
Arnold reported to Washington, who ordered him to take command of Fort Edward. The fort stood just fifty miles north of Albany at the first navigable place on the Hudson River that Burgoyne would reach as he moved south. Arnold arrived at the fort on July 21. Two days later Congress cleared him of all John Brown’s charges. The conditions Arnold found when he arrived at Fort Edward were grim.22 The woods around the fort were already full of Indians, Canadians, and regulars. He needed better intelligence but didn’t even have enough supplies to equip scouts. The Indians were scalping men they caught. A day after Arnold arrived he wrote Washington they “attacked our picket guard, killed & scalped five men, wounded nine and took one prisoner. On the 24th they killed & scalped two officers” and two days later one of Arnold’s pickets was attacked in force. A lieutenant and five privates were killed and scalped. That same day, Arnold reported, Indians seized two women from a house near the fort and brutally scalped and mutilated one of them, a young woman named Jane McCrea. Arnold immediately sent out one thousand men hoping to ambush the Indians, but a heavy rainstorm soaked their weapons and ammunition providing the Indians time to retreat.23 News of the scalping of poor Jane McCrea spread quickly throughout the country provoking just the sort of outrage Burgoyne most feared, with important repercussions for Arnold and his cause.
There has been confusion over many details of Jane’s murder, but this much seems certain. She was the daughter of a Scots minister in a family of five sons. Three of her brothers would fight for the American cause, two for the British. The family lived in New Jersey but after her parents died Jane, then sixteen, moved to New York to live with her brother John on his farm near Fort Edward. She was described as a beautiful and well-mannered young woman with striking long reddish hair.24 In her new home she was reunited with a childhood friend, David Jones. They fell in love and planned to marry. Her brother John had joined the militia while Jones joined the British. With the fighting closing in John’s family fled to Albany, but Jones asked Jane to wait for him. She moved in with Mrs. Sarah McNeil, an elderly widow and cousin of British general Simon Fraser. With the British army close to Fort Edwards Jones sent for Jane and arranged for an Indian chief and his men to protect her as she walked the four miles to the British camp.
Unfortunately the day she set out a band of Hurons massacred the nine members of loyalist John Allen’s family then attacked Arnold’s picket led by young Lieutenant Tobias Van Vechten, chasing them into Jane’s path. A letter related the fate of Van Vechten and his men: “Lt Van Vechten was most inhumanly butcher’d and Scalped, two Serjeants and two privates were likewise killed and Scalped—one of the latter had both his hands cut off.”25 Jane fled back to Mrs. McNeil’s house. Just as the two women were climbing into the cellar the Hurons broke into the house and seized them, then set out with them to Fraser’s camp. On the way the Hurons ran into Jane’s Indian escort. The two groups of Indians argued. In a fit of anger the Huron chief threw his hatchet, striking Jane and killing her.26 He then scalped her, stripping and mutilating her body. A British officer in Fraser’s camp wrote that in the evening her bloody scalp and that of Van Vechten’s were brought into Fraser’s camp by the Indians “which they danced about in their usual manner.”27 He added, “the cruelties committed by them were too shocking to relate, particularly the melancholy catastrophe of the unfortunate Miss McCrea, which affected the general and the whole army with the sincerest regret and concern for her untimely fate. . . . She fell a sacrifice to the savage passions of these blood thirsty monsters.” Jane’s fiancé was horrified when he recognized her splendid hair. He pleaded to be discharged from the army. When this was denied he fled to Canada where he is said to have lived a solitary life.
This terrible incident was damning in itself, but Burgoyne’s response was worse. He was outraged at first and went to the Indian camp to demand Jane’s murderer be handed over to be hanged. But La Corne advised him that if he persisted the Indians would desert en masse and were likely to commit further atrocities on their way north.28 Fraser agreed. Burgoyne decided it was wiser to leave punishment to the Indian chiefs. The result was no punishment at all.
The story of the lovely young woman basely slaughtered and mutilated by Burgoyne’s Indian allies spread quickly by word of mouth, by letters, and then newspapers from Massachusetts to Virginia.29 The terrible atrocity effected the military fortunes of both sides. Indeed Jane’s brothers served on both sides. While her wanton murder was just one of dozens committed by Burgoyne’s Indian allies against friend and foe alike, it caught the imagination of her countrymen as an especially horrible example of the terror the King intended to let loose. Suddenly there was new passion to volunteer for the militia, new determination to fight more fiercely rather than suffer a similar fate, and, most fatal to Burgoyne’s hopes, disgust among loyalists about aiding an army whose Indian allies were butchering entire families of the King’s loyal supporters.
With the British campaign for New York closing in on Albany and the Mohawk River Valley, Washington decided Arnold was more badly needed at Fort Stanwix than defending Fort Edward. Even before Arnold’s first report from Fort Edward Washington was recommending to Schuyler that Arnold “or some other sensible spirited officer,” be sent to Fort Schuyler, the renamed Fort Stanwix, “to take care of that post, keep up the spirits of the inhabitants, and cultivate and improve the favorable dispositions of the Indians.”30 Fort Stanwix was destined to be a prime target for St. Leger. Its garrison was frantically preparing to withstand a siege.
This was a terrible time for confusion over the command of the northern department, but Gates and his supporters were busy in Philadelphia lobbying hard to replace Schuyler. In Arnold’s letter to Washington from Fort Edward, he expressed his wholehearted support for General Schuyler, despite the loss of Ticonderoga and the long, discouraging retreat south. Arnold was aware of the chorus of Schuyler’s detractors and could fully appreciate the anguish this caused his commander and friend: “Justice obliges me to observe I believe Genl Schuyler has done everything a man can do in his situation. I am very sorry to hear his character has been so unjustly aspersed & slandered.”31 Washington too supported Schuyler, alerting him a year earlier to “insidious diabolical acts and schemes” which he believed were spread about by Tories to create division and dissension.”32 Schuyler was accused of neglecting the troops in Canada to ensure their defeat, and embezzling money. While Congress was being regaled with all Schuyler’s supposed failings, Schuyler was desperately trying to slow Burgoyne’s advance. He had one thousand men at work felling trees along the British route and diverting marshes to flood their path. To deprive the British troops of supplies, he resorted to a scorched-earth strategy, leaving no crops, cattle, or supplies along their path. But with all this Schuyler had not forgotten the plight of Fort Stanwix, and shared Washington’s fear that it might not be able to hold out against St. Leger’s army.
St Leger had left Montreal on June 23. Like Burgoyne, St. Leger’s Indian recruits were to play a key role in his campaign. He was even more dependent on the Indians than Burgoyne since he had only 340 regulars and Hessians, and 800 loyalists and Canadians. The remainder of his 2,000-man army, some 860 men, were Indians. St. Leger was in such a hurry to launch his expedition. There was a portage problem between Lake Ontario and the Mohawk River.
He hadn’t brought artillery necessary for a proper siege. He had been warned by Indians that Fort Stanwix was being strengthened and had a garrison of nearly six hundred men, but he didn’t believe the reports. The rebuilding of the fort and strengthening its garrison was still underway when St. Leger came within sight of it. His advance force reached Fort Stanwix just in time to see a convoy with two hundred more men and additional supplies disappear inside.
The surrender of Ticonderoga made the prospect of losing Fort Stanwix more devastating. St. Clair had taken responsibility for the surrender of Ticonderoga and the wisdom of his decision had become clear. Gates’s supporters now shifted their argument claiming that the New England militia disliked Schuyler and would refuse to volunteer if he remained in command. This was a terrible aspersion on the loyalty of New Englanders, especially now that their region was threatened by the British army and its terrifying Indian allies. In the end neither Arnold’s nor even Washington’s views mattered to the delegates in Congress. Gates had lobbied long and hard for the honor of commanding the northern department. He had neither the temperament nor the experience necessary. His penchant for lobbying rather than remaining in the field, his pudgy body, balding head, the glasses perched at the end of his nose earning him the name “Granny Gates,” were a startling contrast to the dignified presence and selfless dedication of Schuyler. But lobbying and contacts paid off. On August 1 the New England delegates sent a message to Washington asking that he remove Schuyler and appoint Gates.33 Washington had had enough personal contact with Gates to politely pass the decision on to Congress.
But the war would not wait for these machinations. A day after the New Englanders approached Washington St. Leger called upon the garrison at Fort Stanwix to surrender. Three days later Congress acted, appointing Gates to replace Schuyler. On August 19 Gates arrived at Albany to take command. Despite Gates’s personal attack on his abilities, Schuyler, the man New Englanders branded imperious, graciously offered to help Gates in any way he could. In a response that betrayed the measure of the man, Gates spurned the offer, treating Schuyler in a rude and disrespectful manner.
The garrison at Fort Stanwix was commanded by two experienced officers, young Colonel Peter Gansevoort from Albany and his second officer, Lieutenant Colonel Marinus Willett. Both had served under Montgomery at Montreal and Quebec. Gansevoort had been in command of Fort George for most of the previous year. St. Leger made the mistake of trying to intimidate the garrison by parading his troops around the fort’s walls. It was particularly counterproductive since the Americans took note how few regulars he had and how many Indians. Their disgust at the scalping of Jane McCrea made them all the more determined to stand fast. St. Leger’s call for surrender was spurned. The officers were awaiting a force of militia some eight hundred strong led by Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer to relieve the siege. St. Leger had learned of the relief force and dispatched four hundred loyalists and Indians under the command of Chief Joseph Brant of the Mohawk Indians to ambush Herkimer and his men.
Herkimer had met with Brant in July to try to convince him that the Mohawks should remain neutral in the struggle between the American and British forces. He failed, and the Mohawks sided with the British. Now Brant was leading the men bent on decimating Herkimer and his militia to prevent them reaching the fort. It was Brant’s sister, Molly, who warned St. Leger about the relief force. Herkimer was worried about an ambush at Oriskany where the road descended into a ravine. It was the shortest route to the fort though. When other officers actually questioned his patriotism and time being of the essence, he decided to chance it. The trap was sprung. Despite the advantage of surprise St. Leger’s men had, a fierce, six-hour battle ensued. Herkimer’s horse was shot and the ball penetrated into his leg shattering it below the knee. With extraordinary presence of mind and great personal courage, he sat propped up against a tree calmly smoking a pipe while he directed his men. When the British force finally withdrew with considerable losses, Herkimer was taken home, a painful forty-mile journey over rough ground. His wound never healed. His leg was amputated several days later, but the blood vessels were not properly sealed, and he died. The relief force on which the fort depended, however brave, was not able to complete its mission. On the other hand one third of St. Leger’s force at Oriskany was lost.
Fort Stanwix’s commanders had taken advantage of the absence of some of St. Leger’s men—one group to ambush the relief force and another to cut a road through the forest to bring up artillery—to raid his camp. St. Leger’s remaining troops were taken by surprise and many fled. Twenty-four wagonloads of British food, drink, blankets, clothes, tools and ammunition were hauled into the fort.
Schuyler, like Washington, was afraid the fort might fall. After the loss of Ticonderoga another surrender had to be avoided. Time was running out for the defenders, but there were fears a relief force might be ambushed just as Herkimer’s was. “Gentlemen, I am willing to take responsibility upon myself,” he told his assembled officers, “where is the Brigadier who will take command of the relief? I shall beat up for volunteers tomorrow.”34 This task was just the sort of challenge Arnold couldn’t resist. Much to Schuyler’s satisfaction, he immediately volunteered.35 By noon the next day eight hundred men from General Learned’s brigade were ready to march with him to rescue the fort.
Shortly after Arnold and his men left Schuyler was removed and Gates took command. Gates arrived at Albany on August 19, immediately writing Arnold for information about his progress, quite anxious to have his help in Albany. The message caught up with Arnold at German Flats, the location of the town of Herkimer. He sent word that his force had grown to twelve hundred Continentals and militia, and that he was continuing that very morning to the besieged fort. “Nothing shall be omitted that can be done to raise,” he assured the new commander. “You will hear of my being victorious or no more and as soon as the safety of this part of the country will permit I will fly to your assistance.”36
Despite his assurances to Gates Arnold was afraid he might not arrive before the fort surrendered. He needed a quicker alternative. As luck would have it an opportunity presented itself. A Dutchman, Hon Yost Schuyler, a distant cousin of Philip Schuyler, had been arrested and sentenced to hang for rallying men to assist the British. Yost had a reputation of being wild, even out of his wits. His mother and brother rushed to Fort Dayton where he was being held and pleaded with Arnold for mercy. At the suggestion of one of his colonels, Arnold agreed to pardon Yost if he would bring a message to Fort Stanwix telling the British that Arnold was approaching with a huge force. Yost’s coat was shot full of holes to make his story of fleeing the death sentence more convincing. An Oneida Indian, from an area tribe that had allied with the Americans, agreed to accompany him, and Yost’s brother was left with Arnold to ensure his good behavior.
Off Yost and his Indian assistant went. Upon reaching the British army they headed for a council where St. Leger’s Indians were deciding whether to stay with the expedition after their losses fighting Herkimer. Yost told them Arnold was arriving with a huge force, and when they asked how many men Arnold had, Yost gazed up at a nearby tree and pointed to the leaves. The Oneida accompanying Yost confirmed this tale.
This was more than enough for St. Leger’s Indian allies. They fled, pausing only long enough to break into the liquor supply and plunder some clothing. With half of his men having fled or been killed, St. Leger concluded he had no choice but to abandon the mission. He and his army promptly retreated, some say fled, back to Canada, abandoning much of their equipment, tents, and artillery. By the time Arnold and his men arrived at Fort Stanwix the enemy had disappeared. It was a wonderful, bloodless victory. Arnold could now return to Gates’s army and the coming battle against Burgoyne. It was to be the high point of his career and decisive to his nation’s cause.