*** Report to the Board of War.
**** Lieutenant-colonel Kingston, the adjutant general, before a committee of Parliament.
*v The particular troops engaged in this action were, of the British, the ninth, twenty-first, sixty-second, and twentieth of Hamilton's brigade; the twenty-fourth, belonging to Fraser's brigade; Breyman's riflemen;
a corps of grenadiers; a part of the artillery, and a motley swarm of Indians and loyalists. The American troops in action were those under Morgan and Dearborn; the first, second, and third New Hampshire regiments; the eighth, ninth, and tenth Massachusetts regiments; the second and third of New York, and a Connecticut regiment of militia.
Baroness Reidesel's Notice of the Battle.—Major Hull.—Narrow Escape of Burgoyne.—Arnold, and the Testimony of History
of Hamilton's brigade, which consisted of six hundred when it left Canada, was so cut in pieces, that only sixty men and five officers were left capable of duty. The commander, Colonel Anstruther, and Major Harnage, were both wounded.
The Baroness Riedesel, wife of General Riedesel, who accompanied her husband through this whole campaign, wrote an admirable narrative of the various events connected there with. In relation to the battle of the 19th of September, she says, "An affair happened, which, though it turned out to our advantage, yet obliged us to halt at a place called Freeman's farm. I was an eye-witness to the whole affair, and, as my husband was engaged in it, I was full of anxiety, and trembled at every shot I heard. I saw a great number of the wounded, and, what added to the distress of the scene, three of them were brought into the house in which I took shelter. One was a Major Harnage, of the sixty-second regiment, the husband of a lady of my acquaintance; another was a lieutenant, married to a lady with whom I had the honor to be on terms of intimacy; and the third was an officer by the name of Young."
More than one half of an American detachment under Major Hull, * consisting of two hundred men, was killed or wounded. Some of the Americans ascended high trees, and from their concealed perches picked off the British officers in detail. Several were killed by the bullets of these sure marksmen. Burgoyne himself came very near being made a victim to this mode of warfare. A bullet, intended for him, shattered the arm of Captain Green, aid-de-camp to General Phillips, who at that moment was handing a letter to Burgoyne. The captain fell from his horse. In the confusion of the smoke and noise, it was supposed to be Burgoyne, and such was the belief, for some hours, in the American camp. Among the Americans who were killed in the battle were Colonels Adams and Colburn, valuable officers. But it is unpleasant and unprofitable to ponder upon the painful details of a battle, and we will pass on to the consideration of subsequent events.
Let us pause a moment, however, and render justice to as brave a soldier as ever drew blade for freedom. Although in after years he was recreant to the high and sacred responsibilities that rested upon him, and committed an act deserving the execrations of all good men, strict justice demands a fair acknowledgment of his brave deeds. I mean Benedict Arnold