"About four o'clock in the afternoon, instead of the guests whom I expected, General Fraser was brought on a litter, mortally wounded. The table, which was already set, was instantly removed, and a bed placed in its stead for the wounded general. I sat trembling in a corner; the noise grew louder, and the alarm increased; the thought that my husband might, perhaps, be brought in, wounded in the same manner, was terrible to me, and distressed me exceedingly. General Fraser said to the surgeon, 'Tell me if my wound is mortal; do not flatter me.' The ball had passed through his body, and, unhappily for the general, he had eaten a very hearty breakfast, by which the stomach was distended, and the ball, as the surgeon said, had passed through it. I heard him often exclaim, with a sigh, 'O fatal ambition! Poor General Burgoyne! Oh! my poor wife!' He was asked if he had any request to make, to which he replied that, if General Burgoyne would permit it, he should like to be buried at six o'clock in the evening, on the top of a mountain, in a redoubt which had been built there. I did not know which way to turn; all the other rooms were full of sick. Toward evening I saw my husband coming; then I forgot all my sorrows, and thanked God that he was spared to me. He ate in great haste, with me and his aid-de-camp, behind the house. We had been told that we had the advantage over the enemy, but the sorrowful faces I beheld told a different tale; and before my husband went away, he took me aside, and said every thing was going very badly, and that I must keep myself in readiness to leave the place, but not to mention it to any one I made the pretense that I would move the next morning into my new house, and had every thing packed up ready.
"I could not go to sleep, as I had General Fraser and all the other wounded gentlemen in my room, and I was sadly afraid my children would wake, and, by their crying, disturb the dying man in his last moments, who often addressed me and apologized 'for the trouble he gave me.' About three o'clock in the morning I was told that he could not hold out much longer; I had desired to be informed of the near approach of this sad crisis, and I then wrapped up my children in their clothes, and went with them into the room below About eight o'clock in the morning he died.
"After he was laid out, and his corpse wrapped up in a sheet, we came again into the room, and had this sorrowful sight before us the whole day; and, to add to the melancholy scene, almost every moment some officer of my acquaintance was brought in wounded. The cannonade commenced again; a retreat was spoken of, but not the smallest motion was made toward it. About four o'clock in the afternoon I saw the house which had just been built for me in flames, and the enemy was now not far off. We knew that General Burgoyne would not refuse the last request of General Fraser, though, by his acceding to it, an unnecessary delay was occasioned, by which the inconvenience of the army was much increased. At six o'clock the corpse was brought out, and we saw all the generals attend it to the mountain. The chaplain, Mr. Brudenell, performed the funeral service, rendered
Burial of Fraser.—Humanity of the Americans.—Lady Harriet Ackland.
unusually solemn and awful from its being accompanied by constant peals from the enemy's artillery. Many cannon-balls flew close by me, but I had my eyes directed toward the mountain * where my husband was standing amid the fire of the enemy, and of course I could not think of my own danger."
It was just at sunset, on that calm October evening, that the corpse of General Fraser was carried up the hill to the place of burial within the "great redoubt." It was attended only by the members of his military family and Mr. Brudenell, the chaplain; yet the eyes of hundreds of both armies followed the solemn procession, while the Americans, ignorant of its true character, kept up a constant cannonade upon the redoubt. The chaplain, unawed by the danger to which he was exposed, as the cannonballs that struck the hill threw the loose soil over him, pronounced the impressive funeral service of the Church of England with an unfaltering voice. *** The growing darkness added solemnity to the scene.