[153] Irving’s Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 396.
[154] General Burgoyne was a natural son of Lord Bingley. He was of active mind, and ready wit, and as a man of fashion, in all convivial scenes, stood preëminent. Gambling was then the common vice of the British aristocracy. But Junius accuses Burgoyne of cheating at cards. Both Washington and Napoleon endeavored to drive the foul practice of gambling from their armies. But for this vice, the brave and able General Arnold would probably now be enrolled among the most prominent of American patriots.
[155] “Lieutenant Jones is said to have been completely broken in spirit by the shock of her death. Procuring her scalp, with its long silken tresses, he brooded over it in anguish, and preserved it as a sad, but precious relic. Disgusted with the service, he threw up his commission and retired to Canada; never marrying, but living to be an old man, taciturn and melancholy and haunted by painful recollections.” Irving’s Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 378.
[156] “Old neighbors met in deadly feud; former intimacy gave bitterness to present hate; the bodies of combatants were afterward found, on the field of battle, grappled in death, with the hand still grasping the knife plunged in a neighbor’s heart.
“The very savages seemed inspired with unusual ferocity, by the confusion and deadly struggle around them, and the sight of their prime warriors and favorite chiefs shot down. In their blind fury they attacked the white men indiscriminately, friend or foe. So that in this chance medley fight many of Sir John’s greens were slain by his own Indian allies.” Irving’s Life of Washington, vol. i. p. 380.
[157] The British officers did not very highly esteem their German allies. “The very hat and sword of one of them,” it was said, “weighed nearly as much as the whole equipment of a British soldier. The worst British regiment in the service would march two miles to their one.”
[158] Washington has been censured, by foreign writers, for fighting this battle under such disadvantages. But Congress and the country were clamorous for a battle. Had he surrendered Philadelphia to the English without firing a gun, it would have been the ruin of his reputation. The defeat was certainly less injurious upon the public mind than a continued retreat would have been.
[159] In reference to this conflict, Washington wrote to the President of Congress, “But though we fought under many disadvantages, and were, from the causes above mentioned, obliged to retire, our loss of men is not, I am persuaded, very considerable. I believe much less than that of the enemy. We have lost seven or eight pieces of cannon, according to the best information I am able, at present, to obtain. The baggage having been previously moved off, is all secure, saving the men’s blankets, which, being at their backs, many of them are doubtless lost. Divers officers were wounded, and some slain; but the number of either cannot now be ascertained.”
[160] Burgoyne wrote: “From the 20th of September to the 7th of October, the armies were so near that not a night passed without firing, and sometimes concerted attacks on our pickets. I do not believe that either officer or soldier ever slept, in that interval, without his clothes; or that any general officer or commander of a regiment passed a single night without being constantly upon his legs, occasionally at different hours, and constantly an hour before day light.”—Burgoyne’s Expedition, p. 166.
[161] The surrender of Burgoyne, though mainly the result of Washington’s far-seeing plans, had suddenly trumped up Gates into a quasi rival.—Irving’s Life of Washington, Vol. II., Mount Vernon edition, p. 429.