Somewhat reduced, after the fac-simile in Wilkinson's Memoirs, i. 282.—Ed.
Burgoyne in a rich uniform, accompanied by his brilliant staff and general officers, rode, on October 17, to the headquarters of General Gates, who was simply attired in a plain blue coat. Reining up their horses, Burgoyne gracefully raising his cocked hat, said, "The fortune of war, General Gates, has made me your prisoner;" to which the victor, gracefully returning the salute, replied, "I shall always be ready to bear testimony that it has not been through any fault of your excellency."
WASHINGTON AND GATES.
From Bickerstaff's Boston Almanac. This is from the title of the number for 1778, and shows the kind of effigies popularly current in such publications.—Ed.
On the site of old Fort Hardy the Anglo-German army, October 17, grounded their arms at the command of their own officers, none of the American troops being present to witness this humiliation of the enemy. In the afternoon the captured troops crossed the Hudson, and, escorted by a company of light dragoons, were marched between the parallel lines of American soldiers, preceded by two officers, unfurling "the stars and stripes" just adopted by Congress. While this ceremony took place in the presence of Burgoyne and Gates, the former drew his sword and presented it to the latter, which being received was courteously returned, when both generals retired into Gates's tent.[728]
While the prisoners, under guard of General Heath, were marching to Boston, Gates hurried to Albany to oppose any movement of Sir Henry Clinton; and Major Wilkinson was sent to Congress to communicate the joyful tidings of Burgoyne's surrender. Rejoicings were heard throughout the United States, and the successful general was so elated and his vanity so stimulated that he aspired to supplant Washington, as he had Schuyler.
A few criticisms upon the plan of the campaign of 1777, and the mode of conducting it, may be permitted. The British cabinet wisely decided upon the seizure of the Hudson as the most efficient way of breaking the power of the revolted colonies; but, in carrying out its design, it violated a fundamental maxim of war. No principle of strategy is better established than the superiority of interior as against exterior lines of operation of armies, as was so admirably illustrated in the "Seven Years' War." Frederic the Great, without any frontier barriers and open to attack on all sides, from his central position kept at bay France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and the Germanic body, whose united population was over twenty times as great as that of Prussia, including Silesia, a recently conquered province. In like manner, the Americans, in July, 1777, were within a great circle,—Schuyler on the upper Hudson, Putnam at the Highlands, and Washington in New Jersey, within supporting distance of each other; while the British armies were widely separated upon its vast circumference,—St. Leger moving to the upper Mohawk, Burgoyne from Canada, Clinton at New York, and Howe sailing to the Chesapeake.
In the struggle for the Hudson, the two independent British armies—one in Canada and the other in New York—were expected to coöperate in order to attain a common object, while Burgoyne with the one was tied down by fixed orders, and Clinton with the other had no instructions as to the part he was expected to perform. Besides, their bases were separated by about four hundred miles of wild, hostile, and thinly populated country, rendering intercommunication so difficult that, of ten messengers sent out by different routes to Howe, not one returned to Burgoyne.
No precaution was taken to provide for the losses of Burgoyne's army, nor to supply the necessary drafts upon it to garrison the posts in his rear, guarding his communications with Canada. When he gained possession of Ticonderoga, he called upon Sir Guy Carleton to furnish the necessary force to hold the place; but Carleton did not feel justified, under his precise orders, to send troops beyond his jurisdiction. Consequently, Burgoyne "drained the life-blood of his force" in the field to provide for the defence of this and other works left behind.