ON OCTOBER 6th our rations were diminished by one-third, because of a great shortage of provisions, but without exciting any murmur or complaint in the camp. We were already reduced to salt pork and flour, with a little spirits; not even the officers being able to procure tea, coffee, or fresh meat. Our regimental clothes were in a sad state, not having been renewed that year: they had become rotten from the great variety of weather in which we had worn them and ragged from the briars and rough country through which we had fought our way. Our horses also went hungry; for the river-side pastures were soon exhausted, and covering-parties to protect our foragers could not be spared. Most of all we felt the want of sleep, for the forests around us were alive with the enemy, who kept us continually upon the alert and compelled us to lie upon our arms for a great part of each night. The Americans even had the assurance to bring down a small field-piece to fire as their morning-gun, and so close to our quarter-guard that the wadding from its discharge flew against our works.
We had heard a great concerted howling two nights before from the right of our position, which disturbed our sleep; and the same noise arose again on the night following. General Fraser believed that it proceeded from dogs belonging to our officers, who had gone off by night to hunt; he ordered them to be confined, under pain of any stray dog being hanged by the Provost of the Division. However, upon the noise continuing and scouts going out to investigate, it was found that great packs of wolves had assembled and were howling as they scratched at the shallow graves of our poor comrades; nor would they be balked of their banquets, but continued their horrid cries until they had dug up the flesh and consumed it.
On this same night General Burgoyne called his chief officers to a Council of War. He told them, that our army had evidently been intended from the first to be hazarded and that it might now require to be devoted. He asked their advice. Generals Fraser and Riedesel were for retiring at once to Canada, General Phillips gave no opinion, General Burgoyne himself was for making one last attempt to force a passage to Albany. There being no objection raised to his view, about noon of the next day, October 7th, he took out fifteen hundred of us with ten guns, against the enemy’s left, in an attempt to turn them off Bemis Heights. The Generals above named commanded the three divisions. What was left of our army stayed in the camp, except the batmen who went out for forage under cover of this advance. Before we set out we were given our last issue of rum, to hearten us.
We advanced in good order to within a short distance of the enemy’s works, where we halted in a large field of uncut wheat and shook out along a zigzag fence, posting our cannon in rear. We were inviting an enemy attack, hoping to cause them heavy losses and then to press victoriously upon a rout with the bayonet. We of the Light Infantry held the right of the line, and my company, being the eldest there, held the extreme point. At four o’clock the battle began with an attack upon our left by many thousands of the enemy. There our Grenadiers sustained the attack with great firmness; but the Americans broke the Brunswick regiment to the Grenadiers’ right, and General Riedesel and his staff used their swords among the fugitives to rally them behind the guns. We were then quickly recalled from our position, where we were already hotly attacked by Colonel Morgan’s force, to save the Grenadiers from destruction. They were fighting hand to hand now against odds of ten to one, and some of our field-pieces had been taken and retaken five times.
To break off an action against superior numbers without loss is a matter of great difficulty; General Fraser accomplished it for us by ordering a charge-bayonet which sent the riflemen running. But, alas, to twelve marksmen had been consigned the task of aiming at the person of General Fraser and none other. Dressed in the full uniform of a general, with laced furniture upon his iron-grey charger, he presented a most conspicuous target. One bullet grazed the horse’s crupper, another passed through the mane, but a third pierced the General’s body, passing in close under the breastbone and out near the spine. He was carried away, mortally wounded, and the command of the right wing devolved upon Lord Balcarres.
This was the first occasion that I saw General Benedict Arnold in action. He had been forbidden by General Gates to leave camp, but had struck with his sword at an officer sent to restrain him, wounding him; and then galloped into the fray with oaths of fury. He was in an ecstasy of enthusiasm, to which resentment of General Gates, natural courage, and a great deal of hard liquor contributed perhaps in equal measure. He rode in undress, and bare-headed, directly across our front, waved a sword about his head, shouted in a cracked voice and grimaced in high excitement. The New England militia troops were inspired by him to unusual valour wherever he led. He carried three whole regiments of Massachusetts infantry with him in a dense body against the centre, where the remainder of the Germans broke before him at the second charge. A comic aspect of this heroism was provided by an aide-de-camp of Gates, who had orders to arrest General Arnold and bring him back to camp. The unfortunate man was made to play follow-my-leader throughout the day and led into some mighty hot spots, but never came near enough to lay his hand upon the angry man’s collar.
General Gates himself was not seen by his troops during this action: he spent the greater part of the day in discourse with a wounded prisoner, Sir Francis Clark, whom he was trying to persuade, by political argument, of the righteousness of the American cause. Sir Francis, who was dying, did not budge from his convictions, and, says General Gates to one of his aides, ‘Did you ever hear such an impudent son of a bitch?’
It was a stiff rear-guard action that we fought, some companies retiring while the others faced about and fired volleys with precision and effect. We were now covering the retreat of the centre and the left, but were sufficient to the task and came safe back at last into the camp, where we hurriedly refilled pouches and cartouche-cases. All the guns had been lost, by the shooting down of the teams: without these it was impossible to haul them back. Twenty-five officers had been killed and wounded in the space of less than an hour, and several experienced sergeants, including my friend and benefactor Sergeant Fitzpatrick, who died very easily, shot in the lungs. ‘Well, Gerry,’ he said panting, as I bent over him, ‘I believe I have got my furlough – to the Promised Land. The Rev. Charles Wesley always bade us build our hopes of what God might do for us hereafter on what He has done for us here. I trust to that. My loving duty to poor Mrs Fitzpatrick, my affectionate wishes to my niece Jane, my compliments to the Captain, and God bless you!’ Soon after, he expired.
General Burgoyne had escaped unwounded, though shots had pierced his hat and his waistcoat. The batmen had been surprised in the act of cutting fodder and came back empty-handed.
This was not the end of the day. General Arnold next rode against our camp with a brigade of Continental troops. He unwisely chose the position held by the Light Infantry and supported by heavy pieces of artillery. We gave his Americans musket-fire and grape as they tried to rush the open space in front of Freeman’s Farm; and repulsed them with great loss. Even this did not daunt General Arnold: in the fading daylight he effected a combined assault on the horseshoe redoubt which covered the right of our position. Here the German reserve was stationed, and his attack this time did not miscarry, for he broke through the weak Canadian companies that lay between the Germans and ourselves and took the position in rear. The Brunswick colonel was killed; his men fired a last volley and then surrendered. General Arnold was entering the sally-port, sword in hand, when his horse rolled over, stone dead. As he was pitched from the saddle, a wounded German fired at him point-blank and shattered the thighbone of the same leg that had been broken below the knee at Quebec. General Arnold prevented an American soldier from bayoneting his adversary, swearing that the German was a fine fellow and in the way of his duty. The pursuing aide-de-camp here finally caught up with General Arnold. ‘General Gates’s compliments,’ he gasped. ‘You are to do nothing rash, but return at once to the camp.’
General Arnold called a surgeon, who shook his head on examining the wound and recommended amputation. ‘Goddam it, sir,’ cried this remarkable man, ‘if that is all that you can do with me, I shall see the battle out on another horse.’
As for our people, they were greatly fatigued, and even the sentinels found it hard to keep their eyes open. I was busied with the wounded, until late that night, when an order came to us to abandon our post and take up a new position half a mile in the rear, on the height above our general hospital. This natural fortress lay close to the road and the river and was protected by a deep ravine. The order was obeyed with the greatest regularity and silence. We could hear the Americans bringing up their artillery for an attack at dawn, and thus the wisdom of the withdrawal became apparent, for our camp was not cannon-proof and the enemy had outflanked us by the capture of the horseshoe redoubt from the Germans.
Early in the morning General Fraser, who had dictated and signed a last Will, breathed his last: his request was to be buried by us without any parade within the great redoubt. All that day we offered battle, and several brigades of the enemy formed against us in the plain with the evident intention of assault. However, a howitzer shell from our batteries, bursting in the middle of a column, caused such carnage that they all ran off into the woods and showed no further inclination to attack. An assault across a level meadow against so strongly entrenched a force as ours was too much to expect of irregular troops; and it was a mistake on our part to discourage them by howitzer fire before the attack was well launched. To have met them in the open would have been a most agreeable change from the continual wood-fighting and skirmishing in which the advantages of our discipline had been lost. In a dense thicket every man is his own general, and subordination to orders where combined movements are impossible of execution becomes a vice rather than a virtue, for the most obedient soldier is at the greatest loss.
At sunset, since the enemy did not attack, we buried General Fraser, carrying the corpse in procession up the hill in full sight of both armies. Generals Burgoyne, Phillips, and Riedesel joined the cortege. The Americans, regarding the prosecution of the war and the killing of our officers as of more importance than scruples of reverence to the dead, cannon-aded the procession; and their shots threw up the earth around us as we stood bare-headed at his grave, attentive to the service. I have since heard it said that on perceiving their error the Americans fired a minute-gun only, as a mark of respect; but if so, they used shot in mistake for wadding. The chaplain of the Artillery, Mr Brudenell, continued his steady reading of the office without alarm or hesitation throughout the cannonade.
At nine o’clock we were obliged to move back again, for the Americans were marching in great force to turn our right flank; we abandoned our general hospital, with five hundred sick and wounded, to the enemy. Terry Reeves was among the wounded, and I said farewell to him with a heavy heart, for he had fought very gallantly and proved a true comrade to me. Our company was with the rearguard, General Phillips commanding us. It was two hours before the order came to march, and we had for some time expected a night-assault by the enemy, who re-formed in the same place as they had left that morning. We could see the twinkling lanterns which the officers carried, and their movements up and down the lines. Yet, we came off safely, and the enemy did not pursue us until late on the following day, which was October 9th. For lightness of travel we had left behind our tents and other furniture.
This was a miserable journey, the rain pouring down without ceasing, and the road exceedingly bad and muddy. The Americans had again broken down the bridges over the creeks, which must be repaired to allow our wagons and guns to pass and then broken down once more to hinder the enemy’s advance. Our batteaux in the river which had kept abreast of our advance now returned with us, the crews poling them with difficulty up the shallows. The train of wagons, as the rain grew worse, became bogged and not to be extricated by any means, the horses being weak for lack of fodder and our own strength quite worn out. These wagons had been hastily constructed of green wood in Canada and the warping of the timber made them very stiff to drive, even in the best of weathers. We held no conversation among ourselves on this march, so heavy our hearts were, nor cracked a joke, nor sang a song. We halted for some hours, at Dovegat, where we formed in expectation of an assault. None came, and on we went.
I found myself in ill company, that day, trudging beside Richard Harlowe. The knowledge that he was indebted to me for his life seemed to embitter him yet further against me; but on the contrary (by a strange infirmity of human nature) warmed my heart towards him. This infirmity the great Shakespeare noted in his tragedy of Julius Caesar, where the memory of how he had once saved Caesar’s life from drowning weighed more with Cassius – when invited to join in murdering him – than any memory of kind treatment at Caesar’s hands. I even offered to carry Harlowe’s musket for him, since he limped from an inflamed heel and seemed unable to support the weight; but he sullenly refused and I did not repeat my offer.
So we continued in a silence disturbed only by the horrid imprecations of Corporal Buchanan, who had been sent to take Sergeant Fitzpatrick’s place in our company. At nightfall our vanguard reached the village of Saratoga, and found that a large body of the enemy had seized the rising ground on the near side of the Creek, where the Schuyler mansion stood, and were fortifying it. However, the rain prevented the enemy from using their rifle-guns and they were pushed across the ford by threat of bayonet; where they joined another large body that was fortifying the opposing bank in order to cut off our retreat. So fatigued were most of our people on arrival at Saratoga – we had spent near twenty-four hours in accomplishing a march of eight miles – that they were indisposed to cut wood for fires, to dry their drenched clothes, but lay down as they were upon the sodden ground. I remembered, however, the situation of a hen-house near General Schuyler’s range of barns and storehouses, and, with the permission of an officer, led my company to it out of the rain.
About the middle of the night I was overcome by a terrible nightmare. In this dream I fancied that I was caught in a raiding party of Wyandot Indians, my arms were pinioned and I was led away to be burned. I struggled against my captors with all my strength, but unavailingly, and was lashed with strips of elm-bark to a stake. There a fire was kindled about my feet. The Indians mocked and jeered me, seizing brands of hickory wood from the fire and scorching my flesh with it in every part of my body, without pity. Foremost among my persecutors was Richard Harlowe, who at last seized a bucket of red-hot embers and emptied it on my head, crying: ‘Coals of fire! Coals of fire! There’s nothing burns the head like coals of fire!’ Then the Reverend John Martin appeared in the guise of a Wyandot sachem. He grinned at me and, said he, ‘Here I am again. Ye’ll never be rid of me. I am here, there, and everywhere, like the Royal Artillery.’
The heat was unbearable, the flames roared high, I was choking with the smoke; and then some one seized me by the middle and threw me across his back. He staggered with me out through the flames, and laid me upon the grass. I awoke then, to know that the fire at least had not been a dream, and that Smutchy Steel had rescued me from the blazing hen-house, when I was near smothered. The fire had been providentially noticed by Lieutenant Kemmis as he went to his lodging at the mansion; he ran up and shouted a warning. My comrades awoke, but could not escape, for the door proved to have been secured from the outside with a stout snib. Had the Lieutenant not been at hand to enlarge us, by turning this snib, we should infallibly have burned to death.
Some flaming straw from the hen-house, being carried upwards by the heat, now lodged in the roof of a barn near by and the whole range of buildings caught fire. We were hard put to it to rescue from the flames the sick and wounded who had been housed there. My two hours of sleep before the conflagration were the first that I had enjoyed since the third night before; and I slept no more that night, neither, Our company discussed together who could have been the incendiary, but came to no conclusion. It was remarked that, of those who had taken shelter in the hut, only Richard Harlowe was absent when the alarm was given. But, there being no other circumstance to incriminate him, he was not charged with arson, and the matter subsided.
On the next day, October 10th, the batteaux, with what little provisions remained in them, were constantly fired upon from the other bank of the river, which was distant but thirty yards. Many fell into the hands of the enemy, and several of the boatmen were killed or wounded. We now recrossed the Fishkill Creek, and General Burgoyne sent a force of artificers up the river, under a sufficient escort, to occupy and repair the pontoon-bridge built for us four weeks previously. They found it still afloat and the task would have been completed by the following daybreak had not their escort been urgently recalled by General Burgoyne, who wished every available soldier to be present with him for a battle which he hoped might be decisive for our arms. A company of Loyalists, left behind as a guard, fled upon the approach of a small body of the enemy, and the artificers were forced to do likewise. But General Burgoyne at least succeeded in sending his military chest safe back into Canada, under slight escort, assisted by the Indians.
We were entrenched on the low ridge of hills overlooking Fishkill Creek and its artificial islands, and a broad space was now cleared of everything that could afford cover to the enemy. By an unkind necessity of war, the Schuyler mansion on the opposite side of the creek was, at General Burgoyne’s order, burned to the ground, for it afforded an admirable shelter behind which General Gates’s army might mass for the assault. My heart was sore to see this noble house and the mills beside it go up in flames; and my high estimation of General Schuyler’s character was confirmed when later I learned that he bore us no ill will for this destruction, declaring that, had he been in General Burgoyne’s shoes, he would have done the same. He had, indeed, in the first year of this war, ruined the beautiful estate of his neighbour Sir William Johnson, Bt. (father of Colonel Guy and Sir John Johnson), which was situated in the Mohawk valley: carrying off his Scottish tenantry as prisoners and killing his famous herd of peacocks, the feathers of which his militiamen stuck in their caps as trophies.
It was raining still, and indeed rain fell continuously for a whole week from the time of our retreat. ‘So much the better for us,’ we thought, fingering our bayonets with expectant ardour. In the middle of the morning the American attack was launched under cover of a thick fog. Their vanguard, consisting of above a thousand of their regular troops, covertly passed over the Creek and advanced towards us up the slope. At that moment the fog lifted and their whole line was disclosed. We gave them grape-shot and platoon-fire and waited for their nearer approach in order to charge with the bayonet; but they broke and ran in remarkable disorder. We expected them to re-form and return to the assault, but in vain. Instead, their centre halted and took post, facing us, on the other side of the Creek, while Colonel Morgan led his large command two miles upstream and there crossed; wheeling round, he then halted on the fringe of the forest which bordered our right flank. Three thousand more Americans pushed along the farther bank of Hudson’s River, now denuded of our forces, capturing a number of our batteaux with their crews. Opposite us they posted batteries of guns which could rake our position from end to end. They also placed guards on all the fords and ferries as far upstream as Fort Edward, and built a redoubt commanding our pontoon-bridge.
General Riedesel now proposed to General Burgoyne to abandon our baggage and guns and retreat during the night, forcing a passage over a ford four miles below Fort Edward, and striking across the forest to Fort George before the enemy beyond the river could be reinforced. General Burgoyne refused, still hoping that the Americans would dash their army against us in a wild onslaught.
On the following morning, October 11th, some of us were given the dangerous and difficult duty of transporting the sacks of provisions from the batteaux upon our shoulders into the camp, and rolling up the barrels. Musketry and shell-fire from across the river killed many of our number.
Very great indeed were the distresses which we were called upon to suffer, yet they were borne with fortitude; and we were still ready to face any danger when led on by officers whom we loved and respected. Numerous parties of the militia now joined the American forces, so that General Gates was soon at the head of twenty thousand men. They swarmed around us like birds of prey. By our losses we had been reduced from the seven thousand men with whom we set out from Canada to half that number, not two thousand of whom were British.
Our camp was a mile and a half long, and half a mile broad. We were exposed to continual round-shot from the enemy batteries, which made it inadvisable to light fires: for the smoke or flame provided a target at which aim was immediately taken. Thus we were obliged to subsist upon raw victuals – salt pork and a paste made with flour and water. Moreover, the whole army was provided with but one spring of water, which was muddy, and we were feign to drink puddle-water or rain caught in our caps. To fetch water from the Creek by day was to be shot dead; and three armed parties who went down under cover of darkness did not return. We were greatly galled by popping shots from the riflemen in the tree-tops; and, in the small redoubt where we were huddled, would amuse ourselves by hoisting a cap upon a stick above the parapet. Instantly shots would be fired at it, and it would be perforated by two or three balls. We were forbidden to reply, in order to save our ammunition for the general assault that was still expected, and took this very hard. Soon we were beyond caring for the cannonades. We lighted fires, regardless of the danger, baking our flour paste into the usual cakes upon stones laid in the embers. Our store of spruce-beer was expended and any one who possessed a reserve of rum could kind a ready market for it at one guinea the pint.
At another Council of War on the next day, October 12th, General Riedesel prevailed upon General Burgoyne to attempt the retirement that he had refused to make two days before. Five days’ rations – all that remained – were therefore issued to us by the Commissaries, and we awaited orders to issue from the works when dark came. However, our scouts reported that the enemy had sent out so many detached parties that it would now be impossible to execute this retreat without setting the whole American army in motion against us. General Burgoyne therefore changed his mind once more, for though he trusted General Riedesel, he did not trust the Germans under his command. It was notorious that they were suffering too greatly to be dependable marching companions; and had concerted to fire one volley only, if attacked, and then to club their arms in token of surrender.
I was now assisting the surgeons in a building which was a principal target of the American artillery – a log-house of two storeys well advertised to them as constituting our general hospital. It was suspected by these over-ingenious people that our generals would be smart enough to make the hospital serve a double purpose, by sheltering themselves and their families under a roof that invited a humane respect. Some slight colour for their belief was provided by Madame Riedesel’s ornamental calash which stood near the door; this pretty blue-eyed lady and her three young children having taken refuge in the cellar of the building. Therefore the round shot came bounding in and out of the upper chambers where we were at work. A surgeon, Mr Jones, had his leg so crushed by flying masonry that we were obliged to amputate it. In the middle of this operation, which he endured with great fortitude, another ball came roaring from across the river, and when the dust had cleared we found that Surgeon Jones had been dashed from the table on which he was laid and was lying groaning in a corner: his other leg had been taken clean off! This was only one of many horrible happenings, of which a full Detail would turn the stomach.
The wounded were crying out for water, and we had none to give them. A batman volunteered to run down to the Creek and bring up water in a pail, but he was struck down before he had gone many steps. Then the same Jane Crumer, who had assisted me at Fort Anna, and whose husband was among the gravely wounded, cried out that the Americans were not such beasts that they would fire at a woman. She went leisurely out from the hospital, paused by the dead man to unclasp his fingers from the pail that they still clutched; then, waving amiably to the enemy across the river, she continued to the water-side, drew water, curtsied her gratitude and returned. Not a shot was fired at her. She went to and fro with her pail until she had fetched sufficient for all.
On October 13th, General Burgoyne summoned yet another Council, to which all officers from the rank of Captain upwards were invited. It is said, that to Major Skene, who was present, General Burgoyne remarked with a pardonable show of irritation: ‘Sir, you have been the occasion of getting me into this quagmire. Now be good enough to show me the way out.’ To which Major Skene made the absurd reply: ‘Scatter your baggage and stores in every part of the camp, and while the rebel militia are scrambling for the plunder, you will have time to get away in safety.’ This remark, however, was not recorded in the minutes of this proceeding, which may best speak for themselves.
Minutes and proceedings of a Council of War, consisting of all the general officers, field officers, and captains commanding corps, on the Heights of Saratoga, October 13th, 1777:
The Lieutenant-General having explained the situation of affairs as in the preceding Council, with the additional intelligence that the enemy was intrenched at the fords of Fort Edward, and likewise occupied the strong position on the pine plains between Fort George and Fort Edward, expressed his readiness to undertake, at their head, any enterprise of difficulty or hazard that should appear to them within the compass of their strength and spirit. He added that he had reason to believe a capitulation had been in the contemplation of some, perhaps of all, who knew the real situation of things; that, upon a circumstance of such consequence to national and personal honour, he thought it a duty to his country, and to himself, to extend his council beyond the usual limits; that the assembly present might justly be esteemed a full representation of the army; and that he should think himself unjustifiable in taking any step in so serious a matter, without such a concurrence of sentiments as should make a treaty the act of the Army as well as that of the General. The first question he desired them to decide was:
Whether an army of three thousand, five hundred, fighting men, and well provided with artillery, were justifiable, upon the principles of national dignity and military honour, in capitulating in any possible situation?
Resolved, nem. con. in the affirmative.
Question 2: Is the present situation of that nature?
Resolved, nem. con. that the present situation justifies a capitulation upon honourable terms.
General Burgoyne then drew up the following letter directed to General Gates, relative to the negotiation, and laid it before the Council. It was unanimously approved, and upon that foundation the treaty opened:
After having fought you twice, Lieutenant-General Burgoyne has waited some days in his present position, determined to try a third conflict against any force you could bring to attack him.
He is apprized of the superiority of your numbers, and the disposition of your troops to impede his supplies and render his retreat a scene of carnage on both sides. In this situation he is compelled by humanity, and thinks himself justified by established principles, and precedents of State and of War, to spare the lives of brave men upon honourable terms.
Should Major-General Gates be inclined to treat upon that idea, General Burgoyne would propose a cessation of arms, during the time necessary to communicate the preliminary terms by which in any extremity he, and his army, mean to abide.
General Gates then transmitted the following proposals to General Burgoyne; whose answers are appended:
(1) General Burgoyne’s army being exceedingly reduced by repeated defeats, by desertion, sickness, etc., their provisions exhausted, their military horses, tents, and baggage taken or destroyed, their retreat cut off, and their camp invested, they can only be allowed to surrender prisoners of war.
Answer: Lieutenant-General Burgoyne’s army, however reduced, will never admit that their retreat is cut off while they have arms in their hands.
(2) The troops under His Excellency General Burgoyne’s command, may be drawn up in their encampments, where they will be ordered to ground their arms, and may thereupon be marched to the river side to be passed over in their way towards Bennington.
Answer: This article inadmissible in any extremity; sooner than this army will consent to ground their arms in their encampment, they will rush on the enemy determined to take no quarter. If General Gates does not mean to recede from this article the treaty ends at once. The army will to a man proceed to any act of desperation rather than submit to this article.
General Gates did recede from this article, and the following was substituted in its stead:
The troops to march out of their camp with the honours of war, and the artillery of the entrenchments, to the verge of the river, where their arms and artillery must be left. The arms to be piled by word of command from their own officers. A free passage to be granted to the army under Lieutenant-General Burgoyne to Great Britain, upon condition of not serving again in North America during the present contest; and the port of Boston to be assigned for the entry of transports to receive the troops whenever General Howe shall so order.
It becoming generally known to both armies that the articles of capitulation were being discussed, the enemy’s fire slackened; and, though the rain continued, our condition was sensibly bettered. Our remaining oxen and other cattle were slaughtered and some fresh meat distributed to us. Our people began to greet and discourse with the Americans on the opposite bank of Hudson’s River; and a few riflemen even emerged from the forest on our right and exchanged rations and keepsakes with the Light Infantry and Grenadiers. On the morning of October 18th Mad Johnny Maguire came down to the river with me and several others. My comrades began shouting across the water friendly challenges to wrestling and boxing matches, and a big fellow with a gun seven foot long cried out, evidently to me: ‘You now, the tall sergeant with the moon face, will you kindly oblige me with a sweet turn at the blackthorn stick?’
These were the accents of the city of Dublin, and I burst into loud laughter. ‘No, my Kevin Street bully,’ I replied. ‘The small sword is my weapon.’
The American grew very wrath and ‘Don’t you dare to laugh at Cornelius Maguire, you rascal lobster,’ he said, ‘or I’ll swim over this stream and scuttle you with one blow, so I will.’
At this, something appeared to strike Mad Johnny Maguire’s mind very forcibly. He darted from our midst and plunged into the river. ‘Och, Corny, Corny,’ he cried, ‘I hardly knew ye.’
Cornelius Maguire, seized by a similar impulse, plunged in to meet him. They found their feet on a shallow place near the middle, where they hung on each other’s necks and wept. Their ‘Och, Johnny, my darling brother’, and ‘Och, Corny, my jewel’, soon cleared up the mystery for us. Cornelius Maguire had emigrated to America twenty years previously, at about the same time that Mad Johnny Maguire had entered the British Army. Each had been totally ignorant that he was engaged in hostile combat against the other’s life.
Our minds were set at rest on October 18th, when we learned that General Gates had yielded to General Burgoyne’s threat of a desperate assault, should his demand for honourable terms be rejected, and that the articles were now signed. It was consoling that we had preserved the dignity of the British character and extorted from a successful foe, vastly outnumbering us and straining every nerve to tarnish our honour, so plain an admission of the awe in which they held our enfeebled arms. We were aware, however, that General Gates was prompted to rapid compliance not only by our resolute front but by news of Sir Henry Clinton’s capture of Forts Montgomery and Clinton with a charge-bayonet five days before. The Seventh, Twenty-sixth, Sixty-third, Fifty-second, and Fifty-seventh were the regiments employed on this honourable service. The great iron chain-boom, weighing fifty tons, there stretched by the enemy at prodigious expense across the river, had been speedily removed, and our ships freed to sail up the river as far as Albany. General Gates feared for his arsenal in that town and resolved to finish off one business before becoming involved in another. It consoled us for the surrender of our thirty-five pieces of brass ordnance and our five thousand muskets, to learn that General Clinton had captured more than that amount of cannon, together with great stores of powder and provisions, in Fort Montgomery.
Our minds were filled with delightful thoughts of a safe and prompt return to our own land, where we might hold up our heads as men who had fought stoutly, and where we would also find great arrears of pay awaiting us to console us for our present indigence and hardships.
Mad Johnny Maguire and his brother fell into a severe dispute, since they were resolved never again to part, as to whether Johnny should now discharge himself from the British Army and settle down with Corny on his farm at Norwalk in Connecticut, or Corny should quit the American Army and the two together go west into the new territory of Kentucke. The moral issue was debated with great warmth and, their fraternal love being as strong as their respective loyalties, it was with difficulty that we could restrain them from reciprocal injury.