In the spring of 1777 St. Clair was designated for the command at Ticonderoga, the advanced post against the invasion of Burgoyne (St. Clair Papers). The light-headed Sullivan thought it unfair that he was not selected for the post (Correspondence of the Rev., i. 352). The British onset was appalling. James Lovell, in March, wrote, "It is plain that we must look forward for another summer's bloody work" (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., April, 1860, p. 9). Congress was emphasizing the stories of British brutality (Journals of Congress, ii. 97).
On May 22d Schuyler had been confirmed in his command of the Northern department, and Gates had gone to Philadelphia to lay his grievances before Congress (Lossing's Schuyler, ii.; Irving's Washington, iii.). Burgoyne (Fonblanque, App. E) was talking to his Indians in June, and two days later he made his famous proclamation to frighten or allure the country people. Fonblanque (p. 23) is not unmindful of its unworthy bombast, and Lecky (vi. 64) says it was "greatly and justly blamed."[816]
There will be occasion later to enumerate the maps illustrating the successive stages and conflicts of the campaign; but it may be well at this point to append in a note the principal maps of the entire movement of the British army, which cover also the field of its actions on both flanks.[817]
The most important source respecting the siege and evacuation of Ticonderoga is the Proceedings of a General Court Martial, held at Whiteplains, N. Y., for the trial of Maj.-Gen. St. Clair, Aug. 25, 1778 (Philad., 1778).[818] It was reprinted in the Collections of the N. Y. Hist. Soc. in 1880. It includes various letters of Schuyler and St. Clair in June (pp. 14, 101, 121, etc.), the doings of the council of war, July 5th, which decided upon a retreat (p. 33), and the letters of St. Clair at Ticonderoga, and one to Hancock, July 14th, from Fort Edward (p. 69, etc.). Three days later, July 17th, St. Clair sent an account from Fort Edward to Washington, which, with the letter of Schuyler, likewise to Washington, is in Sparks's Corresp. of the Rev., i. 393, 400.[819] Much of this material is also included in the published St. Clair Papers.[820] Sparks had earlier added copies of some of the St. Clair papers to his Collection of Manuscripts.[821]
On the English side, Burgoyne's letters are in Fonblanque's Burgoyne (p. 248), Gent. Mag., Aug., 1777, and Dawson's Battles. Anburey's Travels (letter xxx.) throws some light.
For the effect of the evacuation on the country, see Journals of Congress, iv. 719; Wells's Sam. Adams, ii. 485, 488; Diplomatic Correspondence of the Amer. Rev., i. 315. The apprehension felt in the adjacent country is shown in letters of Ira Allen and others in the N. H. State Papers, viii. 632, 633, 643, 644, 648, 651.
We have some contemporary maps of Ticonderoga previous to and during the siege. In August, 1776, Colonel John Trumbull made a plan which is engraved in his Autobiography (N. Y., 1841, p. 32),[822] and is reproduced herewith.[823] The map used at the trial of St. Clair is engraved in the Proceedings; and from a MS. copy made for Sparks, and now at Cornell University, the annexed sketch (p. 353) is drawn.
On the affair at Hubbardton, July 7th, the official accounts of St. Clair (July 14th) and Burgoyne (July 11th) are given in Dawson's Battles (i. 224, 229, 231), and other contemporary accounts in the Vermont Hist. Soc. Coll., i. p. 168, etc.[824]
In Burgoyne's State of the Expedition is a "plan of the action at Huberton under Brig.-Gen. Fraser, supported by Maj.-Gen. Riedesel, on the 7th July, 1777, drawn by P. Gerlach, engraved by Wm. Faden", and published at London, Feb. 1, 1780.[825] Three days later, Burgoyne (July 10) issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Vermont, and Schuyler (July 13) made a counter proclamation.[826]
The chief sources of documentary evidence regarding the movements in 1777 around Fort Stanwix are 5 Force's Archives (vols. i., ii., and iii.) and the Gansevoort Papers (copies in Sparks MSS., lx.), including a letter of Arnold, August 22, 1777, dated at German Flats, which Sparks has indorsed "evidently intended to be intercepted." On the American side, we have further Colonel Willet's letter[827] to Trumbull, Aug. 11th, in Dawson (i. 248); the account in the Penna. Evening Post, given in Moore's Diary (i. 477); Wilkinson's Memoirs (pp. 204, 212); the Journals of the New York Provincial Congress (vol. i.); and Sparks's Corresp. of the Rev. (ii. 578). Gordon gives some details from eye-witnesses, mainly through reports made to him by the Rev. Samuel Kirkland. Dwight picked up anecdotes about the battlefield in 1799, which he prints in his Travels (vol. iii.). The best eclectic accounts are those by William L. Stone, father and son,—the elder giving us his Life of Brant (i. ch. 10 and 11), and the younger, his Orderly-book of Sir John Johnson during the Oriskany campaign, 1776-1777, annotated by William L. Stone. With an historical introduction illustrating the life of Sir John Johnson, by J. Watts De Peyster. And some tracings from the footprints of the tories or loyalists in America contributed by Theodorus Bailey Myers (Albany, 1882), being no. 11 of Munsell's historical series.[828] The younger Stone's labors took a wider range in that portion of his Campaign of Lieutenant-Gen. John Burgoyne which is given to the expedition of St. Leger, though he followed in the main his father's Life of Brant. In the Orderly-book, just mentioned, however he modified some of his views.