If, notwithstanding the inconveniences of such a presence, the residence of these ladies in the British camp had thrown additional radiance on the sunniest days of hope and success, it may well be imagined that they seemed as angels in the eyes of wounded and dying men, to whom they ministered like sisters or mothers. The Baroness herself has left a touching account of the scenes through which she passed, in that rude shed on the Hudson. "On the 7th of October," she says, "our misfortunes began." She had invited Burgoyne, with Generals Phillips and Frazer, to dine with her husband; but, as the hour arrived, she observed a movement among the troops, and some Indians, in their war finery, passing the house, gave her notice of the approaching battle by their yells of exultation. Immediately after, she heard the report of artillery, which grew louder and louder, till the skies seemed coming down. At four o'clock, her little table standing ready, instead of the cheerful guests for whom she had prepared, General Frazer was brought in helpless and faint with his wound. Away went the untasted banquet, and a bed was set in its place, on which the pale sufferer was laid. A surgeon examined the wound, and pronounced it mortal. The ball had passed through the stomach, which was unfortunately distended by a bountiful breakfast. The general desired to know the worst, and, on learning his extremity, simply requested that he might be buried on the hill, beside the house, where a redoubt had been erected, at the hour of six in the evening; but the Baroness afterward heard him sigh frequently,—"Oh, fatal ambition—poor General Burgoyne,—oh, my poor wife!" The wounded officers were continually brought in, till the little hut became an hospital. General Reidesel came to the house for a moment, towards nightfall, but it was only to whisper to his wife to pack up her movables, and be ready at any moment to retreat. His dejected countenance told the rest. Soon after, Lady Ackland was informed of her husband's misfortune, and that he was a prisoner in the American camp.
Consoling her distressed companion, and ministering to the wounded gentlemen—hushing her little ones lest they should disturb General Frazer, and collecting her camp-furniture for the anticipated remove—thus did the fair Reidesel spend the long dark night that followed. Towards three in the morning, they told her that the General showed signs of speedy dissolution; and, lest they should interfere with the composure of the dying man, she wrapped up the little ones and carried them into the cellar. He lingered till eight o'clock, frequently apologising to the lady for the trouble he caused her. All day long, the body in its winding-sheet lay in the little room among the sufferers, the ladies moving about in their charitable ministries, with these lamentable sights before them, and the dreadful cannonade incessantly in their ears. General Gates, now in possession of the British trenches, was assailing the new position of the troops, which, with the house occupied by the Baroness, was becoming every hour more untenable. Burgoyne had decided upon a further retreat; but, magnanimously resolved to fulfil General Frazer's request to the letter, would not stir till six o'clock. This was the more noble, as the enemy was now advancing, and had set fire to a house not far off, which was building for the better accommodation of the Reidesel. At the hour, the corpse was brought out, amid these impressive scenes of fire and slaughter, and under the constant roar of artillery. It was attended by all the generals to the redoubt. The procession not being understood, and attracting the notice of the American general, was made the mark of the cannon, and the balls began to fall thick and heavy around the grave. Several passed near the Baroness, as she stood trembling for her husband at the door of the lodge. Burgoyne himself has described this remarkable funeral, to which, owing to the intrepidity of the priest, the rites of the Church were not wanting. The balls bounded upon the redoubt, and scattered the earth alike upon the corpse and the train of mourners; but, "with steady attitude, and unaltered voice," says Burgoyne, the clergyman, Mr Brudenel, read the burial service, rendered doubly solemn by the danger, the booming of the artillery, and the constant fall of shot. The shades of a clouded evening were closing upon that group of heroes, and they seemed to be standing together in the shadow of death; but some good angel waved his wing around the holy rite, and not one of them was harmed.
That night the army commenced its retreat, leaving the hospital with three hundred sick and wounded to the mercy of General Gates, who took charge of them with the greatest humanity. Lady Ackland demanded to be sent to her husband; but Burgoyne could only offer her an open boat in which to descend the Hudson, and the night was rainy. Nothing daunted, she accepted the offer, to the astonishment of Burgoyne, who on a piece of dirty wet paper scrawled a few words, commending her to General Gates, and suffered her to embark. What a voyage, in the storm and darkness, on those lone waters of the Hudson! The American sentinel heard the approach of oars, and hailed the advancing stranger. Her only watchword was—a woman! The sentinel may be forgiven for scarce trusting his senses, and refusing to let such an apparition go on shore, till a superior officer could be heard from; but it was a cheerless delay for the faithful wife. As soon, however, as it was known that Lady Ackland was the stranger, she was welcomed to the American camp, where, "it is due to justice," says Burgoyne, "to say that she was received with all the humanity and respect that her rank, her merits, and her fortunes deserved."
The Hudson girdled the forlorn intrenchments to which the British general now retired, and its fords were all in possession of the American forces. By means of these fords they had regained the forts on Lake George, and the road to Skenesborough, and all retreat was cut off—even the desperate retreat which Burgoyne had proposed, of abandoning artillery and baggage and carrying nothing away but bodies and souls. Yet for six days his proud soul stood firm, unable to endure or even face the thought of surrender. The American batteries were constantly at play upon his camp. Blood was the price of the water which they were forced to bring from the river. The house which contained the Baroness and her children, hiding in the cellar, was riddled with shot. A soldier, whose leg was under the knife of the surgeon, had the other carried off by a ball as he lay upon the table. After six such days, even Burgoyne saw that there was no hope. He signed "the articles of Convention," and the next day surrendered in the field of Saratoga. "From that day," says a British writer, "America was a nation."
After the surrender, the Baroness Reidesel went to join her husband in the American camp. Seated in a calash with her children, she drove through the American lines, presenting such a touching picture of female virtue, as awed even the common soldiers, and moved them to tears as she passed along. She was met by a gentleman who had once enjoyed the command of the army in which she thus became a guest; one whose patriotism no injury from his country could disaffect, and whose gallantry and politeness no severity from his foes could disarm. Taking the children from the calash, he affectionately kissed them, and presenting his hand to their mother, said pleasantly,—"You tremble, madam! I beg you not to be afraid." She replied,—"Sir, your manner emboldens me; I am sure you must be a husband and a father!" She soon found that it was General Schuyler: and he afterwards had the happiness of entertaining both her and General Reidesel, with Lady Ackland, her husband, and Burgoyne himself, at his hospitable mansion in Albany, "not as enemies," says the Baroness, "but as friends." While thus entertained, Burgoyne said one day to his host,—"You show me much kindness, though I have done you much harm." "It was the fortune of war," answered Schuyler; "let us say no more on the subject." The author of "Hochelaga" adds the following painful story, with reference to Colonel Ackland. On a public occasion in England, he heard a person speaking of the Americans as cowards. "He indignantly rebuked the libeller of his gallant captors; a duel ensued the next morning, and the noble and grateful soldier was carried home a corpse."
Of poor General Burgoyne, we have partially anticipated the subsequent history. His military career closed with this defeat; and though, on his return to England, he took a seat in parliament, his chief business, as a senator, appears to have been his own defence against repeated assaults from his enemies. Though he is said to have carried to his grave the appearance of a discouraged and broken man, he amused himself with literary pursuits, and in 1786 was the popular author of a successful play, entitled "The Heiress." About six years later, he was privately committed to his grave, in Westminster Abbey.
At this distance of time, I see no reason why the field of Saratoga may not be regarded by Englishmen, as well as by Americans, with emotions as near akin to pleasure as the horrors of carnage will allow. It is a field from which something of honour flows to all parties concerned, and in the singular history of which even our holy religion, and the virtues of domestic life, were nobly illustrated. On the one side was patriotism, on the other loyalty; on both sides courtesy. If the figures of the picture are at first fierce and repulsive—the figures of brethren armed against brethren, of mercenary Germans and frantic savages, Canadian rangers and American ploughmen, all bristling together with the horrid front of war—what a charm of contrast is presented, when among these stern and forbidding groups is beheld the form of a Christian woman, moving to and fro, disarming every heart of every emotion but reverence, softening the misfortunes of defeat, and checking the elation of victory! The American may justly tread that battle-ground with veneration for the achievement which secured to his country a place among the nations of the world, but not without a holy regard for the disasters, which were as the travail-throes of England, in giving her daughter birth. And the Briton, acknowledging the necessity of the separation, as arising from the nature of things, may always feel that it was happily effected at Saratoga, where, if British fortune met with a momentary reverse, British valour was untarnished; and where History, if she declines to add the name of a new field to the ancient catalogue of England's victories, turns to a fairer page, and gives a richer glory than that of conquest to her old renown, as she records the simple story of female virtue, heroism, fidelity, and piety, and inscribes the name of Lady Harriet Ackland.