Mr. Pellew was attached to the army, with the command of a party of seamen, and during its advance, was again actively employed on the Lake. While on this service, he narrowly escaped a calamity, which would have clouded all his future life. His youngest brother had come out from England to join the army; and being appointed Aide-de-Camp to General Phillips, though only seventeen years of age, he was sent down the Lake in charge of the General's baggage. He was told that he had nothing to fear from the enemy, but that he would probably meet his brother; and, with the unthinking sportiveness of youth, as he knew that he was not expected, he determined to surprise him. Accordingly, he fell in with him in the night, and when hailed, answered, "A friend!" "What friend?" exclaimed his brother; "tell who you are, or I'll shoot you." "What! do not you know me?" "No!" said the other, presenting a pistol. "Your brother John!"
On the 21st of June, the army being encamped on the western side of the Lake, and a little to the north of Crown Point, General Burgoyne made a war-feast for the savages, and addressed them in a speech which enforced every motive calculated to restrain their ferocity. But, unfortunately, he hoped to terrify the inhabitants to submission by threatening them with all the horrors of Indian warfare; and a proclamation which he published to this effect, was remembered to his serious prejudice. After a short stay at Crown Point, the troops advanced along both sides of the Lake, accompanied by the squadron under Lieutenant Schanck; and on the 2nd of July, arrived before Ticonderoga, then garrisoned by General St. Clair, with nearly 5,000 men. Ticonderoga possessed great natural advantages. It was protected on three sides by the water, with very rocky shores; and on the fourth, partly by a morass, and where that failed, by a strong breast-work. It was, indeed, commanded by a neighbouring height, Sugar Hill, which the Americans had neglected to secure, presuming upon its almost inaccessible character. Opposite Ticonderoga, they had fortified a high conical hill, Mount Independence, and connected it with the fort by a very strong bridge, which was itself protected by a massy boom. The Americans had been employed for ten months, in giving to these works the utmost possible strength and solidity.
On the 5th, the British had nearly completed their preparations, and General Phillips had carried a road almost to the top of Sugar Hill, when General St. Clair determined to evacuate the fort. That night he sent away his stores and baggage in more than two hundred bateaux, under convoy of five armed gallies, to Skenesborough, a town about eight miles distant, at the head of a small inlet, South Bay, which branches off from the Lake at Ticonderoga. The troops marched to the same place, leaving more than a hundred guns behind.
Daylight showed the flight of the enemy. Reidesel and Frazer immediately followed in pursuit, while Burgoyne embarked the rest of the army on board the squadron. The boom and bridge, which had cost so many months of labour to complete, were presently cut through by the sailors and artificers. The squadron were enabled to pass at nine o'clock, and at three came up with the enemy near Skenesborough Falls. After a short resistance, two of the gallies surrendered, and the enemy set fire to the others, and to all their bateaux and stores.
Early next morning, Reidesel and Frazer overtook a strong body of the enemy, and defeated them, with the loss of their Commander, and nearly 1,000 men killed, wounded, and taken. Another division was encountered and routed by Colonel Hill. The fugitives escaped to Fort Edward, on the Hudson.
General Burgoyne might now have returned to Ticonderoga, and thence crossed to the head of Lake George, from which there was a waggon-road to Fort Edward, only eighteen miles distant. But fearing that a retrograde movement might check the enthusiasm of the army, now elated with their rapid career of victory, underrating the difficulties of the country, and too much despising an enemy who had been so easily dispersed, he determined to ascend Wood Creek as far as Fort Anne, whence the direct distance to the Hudson is shorter. He waited, therefore, a few days near Skenesborough for his tents, baggage, and provisions; employing himself, in the mean time, in clearing the navigation of Wood Creek, while his people at Ticonderoga were transporting the stores and artillery over the portages to Lake George.
The enemy offered little resistance in the advance to Fort Edward, but the difficulties of the country were almost insurmountable. So broken was it by creeks and morasses, that it became necessary to construct more than forty bridges and causeways, one of them over a morass two miles long. The enemy had created every possible obstruction by felling trees across the paths, and destroying the communications. Scarcely could the army advance a mile in a day, and it was the end of July before it arrived on the Hudson.
On the approach of the British, the enemy quitted Fort Edward, and retreated to Saratoga. All kinds of provisions and stores had already reached Fort George; but the means of transport were lamentably deficient, and the impossibility of bringing up supplies compelled the army to a fatal inaction. On the 15th of August, after a fortnight's incessant exertion, there were only four days' provisions in store.
Meantime, the enemy was daily becoming stronger. The conduct of the savages had roused the whole country; and the British bore the odium of excesses which the General could not prevent, and dared not punish. The loyalists could not remain near the army, for they were almost equally exposed to the cruelties of the savages, who spared neither age nor sex. Others, who would have gladly staid at home, found that their only safety was to take arms, and join the camp. Thus the British were left without a friend in the country, while the American commanders, who took every advantage of these atrocities, were soon at the head of an army more numerous and formidable than that which had been dispersed.
General Arnold was sent to command the force at Saratoga. He drew it back to Stillwater, a township about twelve miles down the Hudson, that he might check Colonel St. Leger, who, with 700 or 800 men, was besieging Fort Stanwix, on the Mohawk, and had given a severe defeat to a party sent to relieve it. General Burgoyne, desiring to effect a junction with St. Leger, moved down the east bank of the Hudson to Saratoga, where he threw a bridge of rafts over the river, and crossed an advanced corps. Being almost destitute of supplies, and too weak to maintain his communications with Fort George, he detached a force to surprise the enemy's magazines at Bennington; but on the 15th of August it was overpowered and defeated, with considerable loss. A week after, St. Leger was obliged to retire from before Fort Stanwix. General Gates, who was now the enemy's Commander-in-chief, detached Arnold against him with 2,000 men, and the savages, hearing of his approach, threatened to desert St. Leger if he remained, and even murdered the British stragglers on the retreat.