We rattled over a bridge, and had a fine view of the mouths of the Mohawk. Here are numerous islands, with steep sides and piny summits, to which the American General Schuyler retreated before Burgoyne, and prepared to sustain an investment. While arranging his defences, he was unjustly deprived of his command, at the very moment when, by the arrival of additional force, he would have been enabled to turn upon his pursuers; and thus the laurels of the subsequent victory were put into the hand of General Gates, while the worst effects of the expedition fell upon the estates of Schuyler, which were ravaged by the advancing foe. Gates appears to have been in all respects inferior to the gallant officer whom he superseded; and as he had the full advantage of Schuyler's preparatory measures, there is a deep jealousy of his fame, which must account for the fact noticed by the author of "Hochelaga," that he is by no means credited by his countrymen with the vastly important consequences of the capture of Burgoyne. "Gates has been called the hero of Saratoga,"—says an American biographer,—"but it has a sound of mockery."
The county of Saratoga through which we were now passing, if not in these parts remarkable for scenery, is nevertheless full of interesting places, as having been the field of some of the warmest contests of the American Revolution. Traditions also still linger among its inhabitants of the earlier battles with the Indians and French; and authentic anecdotes are frequently reviving upon the road, which those who are familiar with the romances of Cooper will recognise, at once, as the ground-work of some of his fictions. So far as is possible, therefore, in America, we were now on historical ground. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the valley of the Mohawk was filled with those fierce nations of savages called the Iroquois. The shores of the St Lawrence harboured their deadly enemies, the Adirondachs, who belonged to the powerful race of Algonquins. At the same time, the advance-guard of English adventure was pressing up through the Hudson; and from Quebec, the pioneers of New France were pushing their way towards the Mohawk. The inveterate foes of two continents thus encountered one another in the passes of Lake George and Lake Champlain; and these natural channels of reciprocal invasion became, of course, the scenes of frequent collision and deadly strife. When these preliminary feuds were ended, and the power of England reposed on both banks of the St Lawrence, the earliest and fiercest affrays of the war of Independence found here their inevitable fields. The first years of the present century were again disgraced by war between England and America, and instinctively the tide of battle returned to its old channels; and if ever—which God forefend—the mother and the daughter should fall out again, it cannot be doubted that the same passes must echo once more to the tread of martial men, and the same waters be crimsoned with the blood of brethren. They are the very breeding-places of border-feud; and Nature has furnished them with that wild luxuriance of beauty with which she loves to prepare for history, and by which she seems to challenge her to do as much again, in adorning it with romantic associations.
For several miles between the towns on the left bank of the river, we had nothing else in view more interesting than a dull canal connecting Lake Champlain with the Hudson, at Albany. But the river itself is always beautiful. Even here it is a fine wide stream, and seems to scorn the beggarly ditch that drudges like a pack-horse by its side. But at certain seasons it is too low for boating, and at all seasons is rendered unfit for navigation by numerous rocks. It was a relief to shut my ears to the perpetual humour of Freke, and watch the course of the stream through the broad meadows; sometimes refreshing us with cool sounds where it foamed over shelving shoals, and then dazzling our eyes with the reflected sunbeam, glancing from its deep smooth breast, on which the blue heavens looked down without a cloud.
We came to Stillwater, which deserves its name, if it has any reference to the Hudson. A ridge of hills stretching inland, in this neighbourhood, is the memorable scene of the two engagements which sealed the fate of Burgoyne's expedition, and which are thought to have been the decisive blow in the revolutionary struggle of America. Here also is shown the miserable wooden shed of a house in which the gallant and accomplished General Frazer died of his wound. It stands near the river, and at the foot of a hill, on the top of which the General was buried. Though the remains have long since been disinterred, and returned to England, the spot is marked by several pines, and is constantly visited by tourists. The house is a mere tap-room, and must, at any time, have been a miserable hovel to die or live in. Yet it once was dignified as the temporary abode of high-born and elegant women. During the battles, it was the receptacle of the dying and wounded British officers, and the scene of many of those tender acts of self-denying mercy, by which woman, in the hour of suffering and extremity, becomes transfigured into a ministering angel.
Several miles above, we crossed the Fishill, a little river by which the Lake of Saratoga discharges its waters into the Hudson; and shortly after we passed the domain of General Schuyler, and the site of his mansion, which was burned by a foraging-party during the advance of Burgoyne. Of the adventures of a single night spent at Saratoga, it is not necessary to say any thing here, as in less than twenty-four hours we were again on our immediate route. At Fort Miller the road crosses the river, and from thence we went along the eastern shore of the Hudson, eight miles, to Fort Edward. It was here that Burgoyne began to encounter those difficulties of his situation, which rapidly increased upon him, till they became insurmountable. He had forced his way from Whitehall to this place, through an obstinate fight, and over bad roads, encumbered by all the mischief that a retreating foe could leave behind them. Here, falling short of stores and ammunition, his only resource was to transport them from the head of Lake George, where one of his officers had captured a fort. This occasioned that fatal delay of more than a month, during which the American army changed commanders, was recruited with fresh troops, and returned from the Mohawk to show fight. As he was roundly censured for his sluggishness in the British parliament, and pleaded in excuse the extraordinary face of the country, over which he was forced almost to construct a road; it is but justice to his memory to quote, on this point, the corroborative evidence of an eminent American geologist. "I was much struck," says Professor Silliman, "with the formidable difficulties which General Burgoyne had to encounter in transporting his stores, his boats, and part of his artillery over this rugged country: at that time, without doubt, vastly more impracticable than at present."
But Fort Edward is chiefly memorable for the horrible murder of Miss M'Crea, by a party of Indians, in circumstances peculiarly tragic and affecting. It was an event which not only spread horror and alarm throughout America, but was related with thrills of indignation in England, and particularly in the debates of parliament. The vehement remonstrance of Burke against Indian alliances seems to have been in a measure inspired by the sensation which it produced; and it was doubtless fuel to the fire of old Lord Chatham, when, a few months after the butchery of Fort Edward, he blazed out in that fierce philippic against Lord Suffolk, who had spoken of savages as instruments "which God and nature had put in our hands." Detestable as was a confederacy with Indians, however, and instinctively as the English conscience recoiled from the alliance, it must be remembered that in America it was at least no novelty. It is remarked by Silliman that the French, the English, and the Americans themselves had all partaken in this sin, in the various early wars of the continent.
About half a mile from Fort Edward, and hard by the road-side, still stands a venerable pine-tree, from a mound at whose roots gushes a clear crystal spring. This is pointed out as the spot where the mangled corpse of Miss M'Crea was found. The tree is scored with the scars of bullets, and marked with the lady's name, and the date 1777. To this tree her body is said to have been bound, and pierced with nearly a score of wounds, which crimsoned the spring with her blood. On the same day were massacred a young officer, and a party of soldiers under his command, whose bodies were left in the same place, covered only with some brushwood and ferns.
At Sandyhill, where we paused for an hour, we encountered traditions of Indian barbarities, in the history of the old French war of 1758, which, without any romance, were singularly revolting. Fort Anne, at the end of our next stage, was the scene of a hot action, in the advance of Burgoyne, in which the Indians were thought to have contributed something to his success, but even this is doubtful. We had now an easy stage of ten miles to Whitehall, during which we debated with Freke on the merits of the unfortunate general, whose history we had retraced on the road.
The moon was rising over the ravine in which Whitehall appears to be built, when we reached it, and were set down at our inn. This place is the Skenesborough of Burgoyne's despatches, and must have changed its name soon after the close of the war. It so happened that we were detained at this place somewhat longer than we desired to be, and when we got under weigh down the lake, we seemed to have begun a new journey. If I may be allowed to make a similar pause in my story, I will venture, before going further, to recur to the history of Burgoyne's expedition, which, with the knowledge of places that I have endeavoured to impart, may possibly be as interesting to others, as it has proved to myself.
These places, and the incidents at which I have rapidly glanced, were, at the close of the last century, as familiarly known in England as those of the Peninsular war are at present. While the issue of the revolt was yet undecided, the eloquence of Parliament, and the conversation of fashionable circles, kept them continually before the world: and long after the termination of the contest, mutual recriminations and impassioned self-defence would not suffer their memory immediately to die. Succeeding events enabled men to forget America for a long while; and when they again recurred to her affairs, it was with no disposition to contend with the award of Providence which had made her a nation. The history of America was English history no more. Yet there is a period in her history up to which an Englishman should be familiar with it; for he who reads the speeches of Burke and Chatham, or reverts to the Johnsonian age of literature, will otherwise be often at a loss how to regard events and facts to which the men of those days always referred with the warmth of political party, but which we can now examine with candour, and judge without prejudice or passion.