The guns of Stanwix thunder to the skies;
The rescued wilderness replies;
Forth dash the garrison!
And routed Tories, with their savage aids,
Sink reddening through the sullied shades—
From lost Oriskany.
Charles D. Helmer.
Saint Leger rallied his shaken columns and settled down to besiege the fort, which laughed at his summons to surrender. Soon afterwards, news of Oriskany and of the siege arrived at General Schuyler's headquarters at Stillwater, and Benedict Arnold set out at once for Fort Stanwix at the head of twelve hundred men. Such exaggerated reports of the size of his force were conveyed to Saint Leger that, on August 22, he raised the siege and retreated to Canada.
SAINT LEGER
[August, 1777]
From out of the North-land his leaguer he led,
Saint Leger, Saint Leger;
And the war-lust was strong in his heart as he sped;
Their courage, he cried, it shall die i' the throat
When they mark the proud standards that over us float—
See rover and ranger, redskin and redcoat!
Saint Leger, Saint Leger.
He hurried by water, he scurried by land,
Saint Leger, Saint Leger,
Till closely he cordoned the patriot band:
Surrender, he bade, or I tighten the net!
Surrender? they mocked him, we laugh at your threat!
By Heaven! he thundered, you'll live to regret
Saint Leger, Saint Leger!
He mounted his mortars, he smote with his shell,
Saint Leger, Saint Leger;
Then fumed in a fury that futile they fell;
But he counselled with rum till he chuckled, elate,
As he sat in his tent-door, Egad, we can wait,
For famine is famous to open a gate!
Saint Leger, Saint Leger.
But lo! as he waited, was borne to his ear—
Saint Leger, Saint Leger—
A whisper of dread and a murmur of fear!
They come, and as leaves are their numbers enrolled!
They come, and their onset may not be controlled,
For 'tis Arnold who heads them, 'tis Arnold the bold—
Saint Leger, Saint Leger!
Retreat! Was the word e'er more bitterly said,
Saint Leger, Saint Leger,
Than when to the North-land your leaguer you led?
Alas, for Burgoyne in his peril and pain—
Who lists in the night for the tramp of that train!
And, alas, for the boasting, the vaunting, the vain
Saint Leger!