In reality Gates had almost nothing to do with the surrender of Burgoyne. The strategy which led up to the battles of Saratoga was the work of General Schuyler, who was forced out of command by intrigue and superseded by Gates just before the crowning triumph. The battles themselves had not been fought under the personal orders of the new commander, but under Benedict Arnold and Gen. Daniel Morgan, with the help of the Polish General Kosciuszko in planning defenses. It was pure luck, therefore, which brought Gates the fame; but, being a man of more ambition than good judgment, with an excellent opinion of himself, he was the last person in the world to discourage praise of his ability.
Discontent against Washington was fanned by born intriguers like the Irish General Conway and by the more despicable Gen. Charles Lee, a traitor at heart. Lafayette became involved quite innocently, in the plot against him, known to history as the Conway Cabal. Two things, good in themselves, were responsible for it. One was his optimistic belief in human nature; the other, his increasing military renown. The latter was the result of a very small engagement in which he took a very large part shortly after rejoining the army. The main camp was then about fifteen miles from Philadelphia, but General Greene had taken his division over into New Jersey, where he was endeavoring to make life uncomfortable for General Howe. Lafayette obtained permission to join him as a volunteer, and on the 25th of November went out with about three hundred men to reconnoiter a position held by the British at Gloucester, opposite Philadelphia. He could clearly see them carrying across the river the provisions they had gathered in a raid in New Jersey, and they might easily have killed or captured him had they been on the lookout. Some of his men advanced to within two miles and a half of Gloucester, where they came upon a post of three hundred and fifty Hessians with field-pieces. What followed is told briefly in his own words. "As my little reconnoitering party was all in fine spirits, I supported them. We pushed the Hessians more than half a mile from the place where their main body was, and we made them run very fast." The vigor, of his attack made Cornwallis believe General Greene's entire division was upon him, and he hurried to the relief of his Hessians. This was more than Lafayette bargained for, and he drew off in the gathering darkness with the loss of only one man killed and five wounded, carrying with him fourteen Hessian prisoners, while twice that number, including an officer, remained on the field.
General Greene had described Lafayette to his wife as "one of the sweetest-tempered young gentlemen." Now his soldierly qualities impressed him. "The marquis is determined to be in the way of danger," was the comment he appended to his own account of the affair; and he ordered Lafayette to make his report directly to Washington, which the young man did in the boyishly jubilant epistle written in quaint French English which told how the Hessians "ran very fast." The letter fairly bubbled with pride over the behavior of his militia and his rifle corps; and, not content with expressing this to his Commander-in-chief, he lined them up next morning and made them a little speech, telling them exactly how he felt about it. An Englishman or an American could scarcely have done it with grace, but it was manifestly spontaneous on his part—one of those little acts which so endeared Lafayette to his American friends both in and out of the army.
Washington sent on the news to Congress with the intimation that his young friend had now proved his ability and might be trusted with the command he so longed for. "He possesses uncommon military talents," Washington wrote, "is of a quick and sound judgment, persevering and enterprising without rashness, and, besides these, he is of conciliating temper and perfectly sober—which are qualities that rarely combine in the same person." At that moment of bickering in the army and of popular criticism of himself they must have seemed exceptionally rare to Washington. Congress expressed its willingness, and we learn from a long letter written by Lafayette to his father-in-law and carried across the ocean by no less a personage than John Adams, when he went to replace Silas Deane at Paris, that Washington offered him the choice of several different divisions.
He chose one made up entirely of Virginians, though it was weak "even in proportion to the weakness of the entire army," and very sadly in need of clothing. "I am given hope of cloth out of which I must make coats and recruits out of which I must make soldiers in almost the same space of time. Alas! the one is harder than the other, even for men more skilled than I," he wrote, just before the army went into its melancholy winter quarters at Valley Forge. "We shall be in huts there all winter," Lafayette explained. "It is there that the American army will try to clothe itself, because it is naked with an entire nakedness; to form itself, because it is in need of instruction; and to recruit its numbers, because it is very weak. But the thirteen states are going to exert themselves and send us men," he added, cheerfully. "I hope my division will be one of the strongest, and I shall do all in my power to make it one of the best."
He was striving to make the most of his opportunity. "I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and upon the result of all this I endeavor to form my opinion and to put into it as much common sense as I can. I am cautious about talking too much, lest I should say some foolish thing; and still more cautious in my actions lest I should do some foolish thing; for I do not want to disappoint the confidence the Americans have so kindly placed in me."
There was not much to do after the army went into winter quarters; and France seemed very far away. "What is the use of writing news in a letter destined to travel for years and to reach you finally in tatters?" he wrote Adrienne on November 6th. "You may receive this letter, dear heart, in the course of five or six years, for I write by a crooked chance, of which I have no great opinion. See the route it will take. An officer of the army carries it to Fort Pitt, three hundred miles toward the back of the continent. There it will embark on the Ohio and float through a region inhabited by savages. When it reaches New Orleans a little boat will transport it to the Spanish Isles, from which a vessel of that nation will take it (Lord knows when!) when it returns to Europe. But it will still be far from you, and only after having passed through all the grimy hands of Spanish postal officials will it be allowed to cross the Pyrenees. It may be unsealed and resealed five or six times before reaching you. So it will be proof that I neglect not a single chance, even the remotest, to send you news of me and to repeat how much I love you.... It is cruel to think ... that my true happiness is two hundred leagues distant, across an immense ocean infested by scoundrelly English vessels. They make me very unhappy, those villainous ships. Only one letter from you, one single letter, dear heart, has reached me as yet. The others are lost, captured, lying at the bottom of the sea, to all appearances. I can only blame our enemies for this horrible privation; for you surely would not neglect to write me from every port and by every packet sent out by Doctor Franklin and Mr. Deane."
On his part, he neglected not a single opportunity. On one occasion he even sent her a letter by the hand of an English officer, a Mr. Fitzpatrick, with whom he had begun a friendship during his visit to London. This gentleman had come to Philadelphia with General Howe, and Lafayette learned in some way that he was about to return to England. "I could not resist the desire to embrace him before his departure. We arranged a rendezvous in this town (Germantown). It is the first time that we have met without arms in our hands, and it pleases us both much better than the enemy airs we have heretofore given ourselves ... there is no news of interest. Besides, it would not do for Mr. Fitzpatrick to transport political news written by a hand at present engaged against his army."
It was this friendly enemy, Mr. Fitzpatrick, who lifted his voice in the British House of Commons in Lafayette's behalf, when the latter was a prisoner in Germany.