“He was dark-skinned, with black hair, and middling height; there wasn’t any waste timber in him; he was our fighting general, and a bloody fellow he was. He didn’t care for nothing; he’d ride right in. It was ‘Come on, boys’—‘t wasn’t ‘Go, boys.’ He was as brave a man as ever lived.”
—An old soldier who fought alongside Arnold
at Bemis Heights, Isaac Newton Arnold, p. 29.
The chilly nights and spreading splashes of gold and red leaves warned Gentleman Johnny that New York’s brief summer was coming to an end, and with it his chances of success. Like Carleton before him, he must conquer or retreat. But how could he return to Canada without a battle? Writing gloomily to Lord Germain on August 20 from his camp near Saratoga he listed the many reasons the campaign was now likely to fail. “When I wrote more confidently,” he explained, “I little foresaw that I was to be left to pursue my way through such a tract of country and hosts of forces, without any co-operation from New York.” In truth when he left Canada he felt relatively confident he could manage without such help, but now his troops were dwindling, his supplies likewise. He was marooned with little sense of where the other British armies were. Two messengers sent to Howe had been captured on their journey and hanged. He wrote Germain that Howe’s messengers to him had doubtless met the same painful end.1 As his expedition marched farther and farther south, he now realized what ought to have been obvious from the start, that manning the forts he captured “would fall to my share alone.” He was particularly concerned with holding Ticonderoga: “A dangerous experiment would it be to leave that post in weakness, and too heavy a drain it is upon the life-blood of my force to give it due strength.”2 Yet the fortress was essential to secure a line of retreat. And retreat might be necessary.
He also had new respect for the locals. Those living in the Hampshire Grants, present day Vermont whom he judged “the most active and most rebellious race of the continent,” were threatening “like a gathering storm upon my left.”3 As for the loyalists who, he had been assured, would join his troops in large numbers, few were willing, and with good reason he doubted the sincerity of those who did. Instead he was marooned in hostile country where most people favored the Congress “in principle and in zeal.” Wherever he moved, he complained, within twenty-four hours the militia mobilized to oppose him, then returned to their farms. Further, Schuyler’s scorched-earth policies had removed cattle and destroyed crops so successfully that he was constantly short of supplies. Burgoyne had little respect for General Gates, but he reckoned the “old midwife,” had a larger army than his and “as many militia as he pleases.”4
Burgoyne concluded his letter defensively: “I submit my actions to the breast of the King, and the candid judgment of my profession, when all the motives become public, and I rest in the confidence that, whatever decision may be passed upon my conduct, my good intent will not be questioned.”5
How could Germain read this letter other than as his general’s excuse for impending failure? Still, Burgoyne had glossed over one bit of very bad news that contributed to his morose mood, the costly failure of his expedition to seize the enemy supply depot at Bennington, Vermont, insisting it had “little effect upon the strength or spirits of the army.” That was not quite true.
On Arnold’s return to northern army headquarters at Stillwater, flushed with joy at the bloodless victory at Fort Stanwix, he immediately focused on the larger threat to New York, Burgoyne’s army. He respected Schuyler and supported him, yet he had worked amicably enough with Gates a year ago as he prepared to challenge the British fleet on Lake Champlain and was ready to serve him again. Despite his own experience clashing with bitter personal enemies, Arnold was too preoccupied, perhaps too naïve, to appreciate the intense animosity Gates felt for Schuyler and for Arnold’s other patron, George Washington. Gates was expecting exclusive loyalty, not respect for his competitors. Arnold quickly found himself on the wrong side of his new commanding officer, whose passionate resentment would drive Arnold into disobedience and nearly cost the American cause its biggest victory.
The immediate cause of friction between them was Arnold’s appointment of additional staff. When Schuyler lost his command the young men of his staff lost their posts. Certainly Gates was unlikely to accommodate them. As a favor to Schuyler, Arnold agreed to add the capable and well-connected young men to his personal staff. Matthew Clarkson, then eighteen, from a New York mercantile family close to the Schuylers, already served Arnold as his aide-de-camp.6 Now he added nineteen-year-old Major Henry Brockholst Livingston, son of New Jersey’s governor, and twenty-four-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Richard Varick, Schuyler’s military secretary.7 Gates expressed his displeasure at these additions but Arnold did not dismiss them, angering Gates. Their two staffs were so personally hostile they got into brawls. Their vicious gossip stoked Gates’s resentment of Arnold. On such petty grievances great events ride.
Arnold, like Burgoyne, was alarmed that his correspondence seemed to have been intercepted. Since returning from Fort Stanwix he had written twice to his friend, John Lamb, but learned his letters had never arrived. “I am convinced,” he wrote Lamb, “by some villainy in the post riders, or negligence in those who carry letters; one-half of those directed to me, and those which I send, never come to hand. I have received but three letters, out of seven, wrote me by my sister.”8 Apart from Hannah’s letters with news of home, she had sent two horses to Peekskill for Arnold. Neither arrived. Although a well-bred horse was a more tempting target in the chaos of war than a letter, someone may have been keen to get his correspondence. At this dangerous time, facing what might be his last battle, he was cut off from news and support from home and friends. He wrote Lamb that September of the military situation and plans predicting: “This month, I believe, will be very important in the annals of America.”
Bad as the hand Burgoyne was dealt, he made matters worse by poor decisions. The delay in reaching Fort Edward from Skenesborough, due to taking the advice of Major Skene, a loyalist, was one. Instead of using the water route south through Lake George to transport his supplies, bateaux, and artillery, he ordered his men to cut a road through rugged terrain and thick forest. The speed and skill with which his army managed the twenty-mile construction was astonishing. In twenty days the troops built over forty bridges, some very lengthy. It was a superb effort but it delayed his progress and exhausted his men and supplies. That was the reason he launched the raid on Bennington’s supply depot some thirty miles southeast of Fort Edward. Burgoyne was badly in need of supplies. When his army crossed the Hudson all the supplies except for the basic essentials were left behind.9
Mistake two was his choice of the commander and troops to launch the surprise attack on Bennington. He could only spare five hundred men, but their success might have been greater had they not been led by Colonel Baum, a German officer who, as one of the members of the expedition sarcastically put it, “qualified for marching through a country of mixed friends and foes by speaking no English.”10 Baum’s expedition comprised 50 British sharpshooters, 100 German grenadiers and light infantry, and a mix of 300 loyalists, Canadians, and Indians, 170 German dragoons hoping to find horses, and, oddly for a surprise raid, a German band. Still, the officers were experienced, many having served in the French and Indian war. The Indians led the column.
The expedition came as no surprise to residents. Two outstanding local officers, John Stark and Seth Warner, rushed to Bennington’s defense. John Stark was an officer in Arnold’s mold and, maybe for that reason, had experienced some of the same treatment from Congress. In contrast to Arnold’s privileged boyhood on the coast though, Stark was raised in New Hampshire and came from a poorer family. He was at home in the forests of New England. During the French and Indian War Stark had served in Rogers’ Rangers, an innovative troop trained in guerrilla-type warfare. When the Revolutionary War broke out he rushed to Cambridge to help. It was Stark who commanded the American troops at Bunker Hill with fortitude and foresight. Like Arnold he was a daring field commander undeterred by the danger from constant fire. Burgoyne, who was present at that battle, described the orderly and defensive retreat Stark led, admitting it was “no flight, it was even covered with bravery and military skill.”11 None of this persuaded Congress to promote him. Indeed, so worried was Congress over officers becoming too popular, popularity probably worked against him. Like Arnold, Stark was passed over when five lower-ranking men were promoted to major general. Instead Congress promoted Benjamin Lincoln, a hefty farmer from a prominent Massachusetts family who had served in his father’s regiment but had seen no action. Unlike Arnold, however, Stark resigned his commission and went home, informing Congress, “I am bound in Honor to leave the service, Congress having tho’t fit to promote Junr. officers over my head.”12
With Burgoyne’s army threatening his home region, Stark offered to help, but only on condition he report to the New Hampshire legislature, not to the Continental Congress.13 With that caveat he proceeded to raise some fifteen hundred men in less than a week. He sent one thousand men to Seth Warner, a leader of the Green Mountain Boys, in Manchester. When Schuyler, who was still in command, ordered Stark to put some of his men under the command of now Brigadier General Lincoln, however, he flatly refused. Stark pledged however, he would beat the invader or “before night Molly Stark would be a widow.”14
Baum made the serious mistake of believing the country people who came to the British claiming to be friends, demanding weapons and assuring him that most of the people in Bennington were loyalists.15 One of his lieutenants wondered, “How Colonel Baum became so completely duped as to place reliance on these men, I know not.” As Baum and his men approached open country they heard musket fire and an advance patrol sent to investigate came rushing back in dismay. “[T]hose whom we had hitherto trusted as friends had only waited till the arrival of their support” to advance. Baum became alarmed at the number of militia he was facing and Burgoyne sent him German reinforcements. Fierce fighting broke out. After an initial skirmish the Americans decided to encircle the British force, but were delayed a day by heavy rain. When the rain stopped heavy firing resumed and the plan was put in place. Stark reported to Gates that the two-hour battle was “the hottest I ever saw in my life. It represented one continued clap of thunder.”16 The British, protected by two breastworks, were forced to retreat, abandoning their field pieces and baggage. Seth Warner’s men, fresh to the scene, pursued them through the forests. Fierce fighting continued until dark. The upshot was that instead of Burgoyne’s army capturing desperately needed supplies it was the Americans who captured British supplies—four cannon, hundreds of weapons, drums and about seven hundred prisoners including Baum.17 Between killed and captured Burgoyne had lost 15–20 percent of his troops.18
On September 1 Gates held a war council on Van Schaick Island in the midst of the delta where the Mohawk River empties into the Hudson. Arnold and Gates agreed Burgoyne was heading for Albany. Gates ordered Arnold to Loudon’s Ferry on the south bank of the Mohawk River, five miles from where it joined the Hudson, to take command of the brigades of Generals Poor and Learned, and Morgan’s Virginia battalion of sharpshooters. On September 9 he put the New York and Connecticut militia under Arnold’s command. Yet Gates was still brooding on Arnold’s unwillingness to dismiss Schuyler’s aides, and a day later in his general orders to the army Gates commanded the three New York militia regiments to report to General Glover’s brigade instead. John Glover was a fine commander whose Marblehead seamen had performed yeoman service rescuing Washington’s army at Long Island and later conveying it across the ice-choked Delaware. But the coming battle was not a river crossing. When Arnold complained that the sudden change “placed me in the ridiculous light of presuming to give orders I had no right to do, and having them publickly contradicted,” Gates pretended it was a mistake, but failed to correct it.19 Arnold’s new aides also suffered ill treatment from Gates and his supporters in Congress. An officer who attacked Varick and tried to stab him was not punished, and when Schuyler had given Livingston the honor of bringing news of the victory at Bennington to Congress, members refused to give Livingston the usual promotion, and had all record of the incident erased from the congressional record. 20
Gates’s approach to warfare was timid and defensive. He was a very competent administrator, but had little actual battlefield experience and little desire to get any. His plan was to confront Burgoyne’s army with a defensive stand at Stillwater, his present headquarters, a low, open area where the Mohawk meets the Hudson. Arnold was uneasy with that choice. Taking with him Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the army’s brilliant young Polish engineer, he went searching for a better location. He found it four miles farther north on the west side of the Hudson. Bemis Heights was a bluff overlooking the Hudson. The road Burgoyne had to take to Albany ran alongside the river beneath the Heights. On its other side the Heights was protected by ravines, ridges, and rough ground and flanked by forests. This was the perfect spot to confront the British who preferred fighting in open fields. Gates was typically cautious about the switch, and sent Wilkinson and Udney Hay to survey it. When they found it suitable he went himself, then gave his approval. Although willing to move his headquarters, Gates selected a spot for his new headquarters some distance south of the new breastworks, well behind Bemis Heights. He seemed unconcerned that he would be unable to see the battle from that location. Thirty years before, he and Burgoyne had served in the same regiment.21 Now their armies were pitted against each other in a battle that would decide the fate of the Revolution.
Thousands of men were immediately sent to prepare the Heights for battle, building redoubts and earthworks, digging trenches, and felling trees for barricades. Another group, led by Colonel Jeduthan Baldwin, built a nine-hundred-foot-long bridge of rafts across the Hudson for bringing supplies and artillery for the army. Breastworks three-quarters of a mile long were erected to protect the troops and the ground near the river and the bridge was fortified.
On September 12 the army took up its position on Bemis Heights. Arnold chose the home of John Neilson, a local farmer, for his headquarters. A day later Burgoyne crossed the Hudson with seven thousand men. Arnold led a scouting party to survey their camp. Two days afterward the fortifications on Bemis Height were complete. Nine thousand American soldiers and militia steeled themselves to confront the British army. Arnold, like many others, wrote his will.
Impatient as always for action, Arnold began sending men out to skirmish and worry the enemy. While all eyes were focused on the coming engagement near Saratoga, General Lincoln, who turned out to be a very competent commander, quietly sent three squads of soldiers to retake Forts Ticonderoga, Anne, and Edward, effectively cutting off Burgoyne’s line of retreat.
September 19 dawned cold and damp. Lower-lying areas were blanketed in fog. The two armies were so close they could hear each other’s drums. As the fog lifted American pickets could see the British beginning to advance. Gates had given Arnold command of the left wing of the army, an excellent force with Poor’s and Learned’s men, Morgan’s sharpshooters, and light infantry commanded by Dearborn, with some New York and New Hampshire troops and Connecticut militia. The army’s right wing, comprised of Glover’s, Nixon’s, and Paterson’s Continentals was to be commanded by General Lincoln. Lincoln was absent at the moment so Gates took charge.
Burgoyne began by sending some loyalists, Canadians, and Indians to take possession of an undefended height overlooking the American army. His main army was to advance in a three-pronged attack: one column led by the German General Friedrich von Riedesel would advance along the river while Burgoyne would lead the center group and General Simon Fraser the wing. Fraser’s men were to make a wide arc and together with Burgoyne turn the American flank with their columns meeting up near Freeman’s Farm. These three columns were to set off at the same time. Once they were in place three heavy guns would fire signaling the attack was to begin. The coming battle was to focus on Isaac Freeman’s modest farm, with his cabin and fifteen acre clearing.
The terrain had been wisely chosen by Arnold and favored the Americans, since Burgoyne’s troops had to advance through thick woods and cross two large ravines in sight of the American forces. Despite these advantages Gates intended to take a defensive position. This is what Burgoyne had anticipated. He later wrote Germain that he expected the ever-cautious Gates to “receive the attack in his lines,” affording him an opportunity to establish “a position he could have maintained.” It was Arnold who altered that strategy.
American lookouts high in the trees were watching British movements. By ten o’clock in the morning the news reached Gates’s and Arnold’s headquarters that the British were advancing and, as predicted, were struggling with the rugged terrain. They were vulnerable, yet Gates preferred to sit back and wait. Arnold, on the other hand, was eager to attack, and after much pleading got Gates’s permission to send Morgan’s sharpshooters and Dearborn’s light infantry to scout the enemy. Arnold advanced with them to select their positions. Just after noon they spotted the British advance force of Canadians and Indians. Morgan’s marksmen, hidden in the trees, couldn’t resist firing. Their rifles were more accurate than the Brown Bess smoothbore muskets of the British, and their withering and deadly attack killed or wounded every officer but one in the group, sending the British troops into a panicky retreat. In great excitement Morgan’s sharpshooters threw caution aside and pursued the survivors right back into a main force of British infantry who were in the process of bringing up a cannon. Now Morgan’s men were being bloodied in their turn. Off they fled leaving Morgan, according to some reports, “alone and almost in tears.” Pulling himself together he blew loudly on his signature turkey call and managed to rally his troops. Additional regiments quickly joined them. Despite Gates’s insistence on playing defense, the battle became more general. Fighting was intense.
Burgoyne and his column reached Freeman’s Farm as Fraser continued trying to turn the American left wing. Arnold led his division into the thick of the fighting, trying to cut Fraser off from Burgoyne. One of Dearborn’s soldiers saw Arnold, “riding in front of the lines, his eyes flashing, pointing with his sword to the advancing foe, with a voice that rang clear as a trumpet and electrified the line.”22 Another described how Arnold fell upon the foe “with the fury and impetuosity of a tiger,” encouraging his troops “by voice and action.”23 Initially Fraser had greater numbers than Arnold, but Arnold was reinforced and, screened by the woods, emerged to attack Fraser again, trying to break through his lines where he was most vulnerable. Now other units including the troops led by Philips rushed to reinforce Fraser. The noise of guns and artillery was tremendous. “Such an explosion of fire I never had any idea of before,” a British officer wrote.24 “For four hours a constant blaze of fire was kept up.” General Glover was convinced “both armies seemed to be determined to conquer or die.”25 Field pieces were taken and retaken, the men “often mingling in a hand to hand wrestle and fight.”26 At this crucial juncture, with victory in the balance, Arnold urged Gates to send more reinforcements, in particular to help Poor’s brigade. Gates flatly refused. Desperate, Arnold dashed up to Learned’s regiment and asked for three hundred volunteers to assist Poor. Four companies were quickly mustered. Arnold returned to headquarters to plead with Gates for an all-out attack on the British lines. Gates finally sent reinforcements but refused to order his men to be fully engaged.
Night fell. In the growing dark the British nearly fired on a troop of their own German soldiers. The armies drew back leaving the wounded and dead where they lay on the damp ground between the two armies.27 Gates and the men under his direct command never took the field.
Before dawn on September 21 Burgoyne received a most welcome letter from General Clinton agreeing to lead his army from New York City to attack south of West Point. Believing he was finally to get some relief and that Clinton meant to march north to join him, Burgoyne decided to postpone another assault and wait for relief to come. He urged Clinton to hurry as he could not hold off longer than October 12 before retiring to Ticonderoga for the winter. Not until a British prisoner escaped from the American camp did Burgoyne learn that the Americans had retaken Ticonderoga. While Burgoyne anxiously awaited help from Clinton, Clinton never received Burgoyne’s letter urging haste, or Howe’s ordering him to take his men 160 miles up the Hudson.28 Ignorant that these letters had been intercepted, Burgoyne dug in to await relief.
The continuing praise for Arnold’s valiant part in the battle in contrast to the little attention given Gates’s own role only stoked the commander’s jealousy and anger. Gates was not only a timorous and unimaginative leader, he was vindictive and jealous, and now determined to punish Arnold regardless of the impact on the success of their mission. The day after the battle he reverted to his defensive mode. Arnold, as always, was eager to renew the attack and, probably unwisely, wrote Gates in his bluff manner: “The army is becoming vigorous for action.” The militia, some one-quarter of the force, were “threatening to go home.” Even a fortnight’s inaction, he argued, “will, I make no doubt, lessen your Army by sickness and desertion, at least four thousand men, in which time the enemy may be reinforced and make good their retreat.”29 Arnold added, “I have reasons to think that had we improved the 20th of September, it might have ruined the enemy. That is past; let me entreat you to improve the present time.” While this may have been sound advice it was not a letter designed to endear Arnold to his commander.
In retaliation his report informing Congress of the battle never even mentioned Arnold. Gates’s loyal aide and deputy adjutant general, James Wilkinson, furthered his commander’s vendetta against Arnold by writing Arthur St. Clair shortly after the battle that Arnold had remained in camp during the entire action. 30 Still Gates was not satisfied. On September 22 he removed Morgan’s corps from Arnold’s command. Deeply upset, Arnold burst in on Gates to protest, and a shouting match ensued. Gates claimed he didn’t know Arnold was a major general and since General Lincoln was returning as a division commander, Arnold was no longer needed. Arnold returned to his own headquarters where he wrote a stinging letter to Gates laying out the history of his orders that Arnold take command of Morgan’s men among other units.31 As to the recent battle, he reminded Gates that when the enemy was advancing Arnold had followed orders in sending out Morgan’s men, eventually needing to send his whole division. “No other troops were engaged that day except Colonel Marshall’s regiment of General Paterson’s brigade,” he added. Nevertheless he had learned that in Gates’s report to Congress his troops were merely described as “a detachment from the Army” and in the orders of the day Morgan’s corps were said not to belong to any division and ordered to report directly to headquarters. This report was insulting to him and to the men of his division. “I mention these matters as I wish justice due to the division, as well as particular regiments or persons.”32 Gates failed to take his advice, behaving toward him with “the greatest coolness at headquarters” where he was “often treated in such a manner as must mortify a person with less pride than I have and in my station in the Army.” Gates had now told him that once Lincoln returned, “I should have no command of a division, that you thought me of little consequence to the Army and that you would with all your heart give me a pass to leave it whenever I thought proper.” Since Lincoln had arrived Arnold asked for a pass to join Washington where he “may possibly have it in my power to serve my country, though I am thought of no consequence in this department.” Gates refused instead, sending Arnold an unsealed note addressed to John Hancock granting him permission to report to Congress where Gates had strong support.
Arnold’s aide, Henry Brockholst Livingston, wrote Schuyler in desperation that Arnold was to leave the army “at this important crisis.”33 Arnold was, he argued, “the life and soul of the troops. Believe me, Sir, to him and to him alone is due the honor of our late victory. . . He enjoys the confidence and affection of officers and soldiers. They would, to a man, follow him to conquer or death. His absence will dishearten them to such a degree as to render them of but little service.” He explained that Arnold had received dismissive treatment from Gates but “has pocketed many insults for the sake of his country. Which a man of less pride would have resented.” Livingston attributed Gates’s hostility to “simply this—Arnold is your friend.” What Schuyler’s staunch friend expected him to do is unclear, but his description of the dismay the troops felt about Arnold’s impending departure was not exaggerated. A petition, signed by every officer except Gates and Lincoln, was presented to Arnold, pleading with him to stay. Moved and keenly aware that a British attack was expected at any time, Arnold agreed to remain. It was unclear what his role would be. Gates still refused to recognize Arnold’s status and denied him any command. So Arnold remained, braced for what must be the pivotal British attack, without any command but with the hopes and deep respect of the officers and men who were depending upon him to lead them.