About three o’clock in the afternoon, the troops were drawn up on each side for a regular engagement. There was an oblong clearing in front of Freeman’s Cottage, about sixty rods in length from east to west, and containing from fifteen to eighteen acres. This field sloped gently down toward the south and east, and was bounded upon the north by an eminence, and a thin grove of pines, and on the south by a dense woods. The British line, with Burgoyne at its head, was formed within the grove of pines upon the north of the clearing mentioned above; and the American line under Arnold within the dense woods. The British advanced to the attack with the most determined bravery, and the action began with great spirit, and was maintained with animation.
Preferring to receive the enemy with the advantages of their position, the Americans kept, in a measure, within cover of the wood in which they were posted, and poured upon the advancing British a destructive fire, which compelled them to falter. Now pressing upon the enemy, the Americans advanced in their turn, till they came within the fire of the British line, and fell back toward their position in the wood. The engagement waxed hot and obstinate, and a destructive fire was kept up, principally between Hamilton’s brigade, consisting mainly of the twentieth, twenty-first, and sixty-second British infantry, and the brigade of Poor, and Morgan’s corps on the part of the Americans. The British centre was severely pressed, and began at length to give way, when General Phillips, who, with infinite labor, had made his way from the left through the intervening woods, brought up a brigade of artillery under the brave Captain Jones, and some grenadiers, and restored the action. The artillery was posted near Freeman’s Cottage, and gave the enemy a decided advantage, for, owing to the impracticable nature of the ground, the Americans could not bring up any artillery during the day to support their fire.
The action now became general. A quick fire ran from right to left along the whole line of battle; the musketry peeled like the continuous roll of a thousand drums; the heavy discharges of artillery with the roar of thunder shook the hills around, and died in sullen echoes down the valleys; while the battle raged tumultuous, like a stormy sea, over the plain intervening between the woods. The contest was obstinate and bloody—a succession of advances and retreats; a scene of daring and destruction; of blood and carnage. The British rushed forward to the very woods, but fled before the murderous fire of the Americans from their covert. The latter in their turn pursued the British to their line, but fell back from the resistance in front and the hot fire that assailed them on the flanks. Major Hull, with a bravery that is some relief to his dark cowardice in the late war, repeatedly charged and took the enemy’s guns; but as the Americans had no means to bring them off, or turn them against their owners, they remained at length with the British.
The action continued without the least intermission, and Arnold in directing the movements of the troops did every thing that a skillful and active officer could accomplish. Finding the enemy reinforced by Gen. Phillips from the left, he ordered out the remaining regiments of Learned’s brigade, and sent to Gen. Gates for a part of the troops under his command. But the general either still fearing the advance of the enemy’s left upon him, and unwilling to weaken his right, or not wishing to give Arnold any efficient support, merely sent him a single regiment, Col. Marshall’s, of Patterson’s brigade. Had he promptly supported Arnold’s division by either of the three brigades under his command, there is no doubt the action would have been a decisive one.
The arrival of the last reinforcements infused a degree of renewed vigor into the Americans; the contest deepened, maddened into a final effort, and raged with destructive fury as the sun set upon the scene of carnage, and the pall of night came down upon the dead and dying. The last troops engaged were those of the brave Lieut. Col. Brooks, in command of Jackson’s regiment, the eighth Massachusetts. He penetrated as far as the extreme right of the British, and became engaged with a part of Breyman’s riflemen, who had acted before but occasionally during the action. Waiting for orders to return, he did not leave the field of battle till near ten o’clock at night. This was the most obstinate battle that had yet been fought, in which the Americans, both regulars and militia, displayed all the bravery of the most hardy veterans.
The American loss fell chiefly upon Morgan’s corps and Poor’s brigade. The regiment of Colonel Cilley, of New Hampshire, and that of Col. Cook, of the Connecticut militia, suffered the most severely. Major Hull’s detachment sustained a loss of nearly one half in killed and wounded. The twentieth and twenty-first regiments of the enemy encountered severe loss, and the sixty-second, under the brave Col. Anstruther, was literally cut to pieces. The colonel himself, and the major, Harnaye, were both wounded, and, of the six hundred men which the regiment numbered on leaving Canada, but sixty men and five or six officers remained fit for duty. The gallant Captain Jones, who commanded the enemy’s artillery with so much effect, fell at the side of his guns, and thirty-six of his forty-eight artillerists, and all the officers, except Lieutenant Hadden, were killed or disabled. His escape was remarkable, for the cap was shot off his head by a musket ball, while engaged in spiking the guns.
The Americans had about three thousand men in the engagement, the British three thousand five hundred. Both parties claimed the victory; though it is evident all the advantages of the contest were in favor of the Americans. The British lay upon their arms, with the intention of renewing the battle next day, but abandoned that design in the morning, and within cannon-shot of the Americans threw up a line of intrenchments, with strong redoubts across the plain to the hills; with an intrenchment also and batteries across the defile at the northern extremity of the flats. The Americans, in the meantime, made great exertions to complete their defences, and render them impregnable.
The position of the Americans was the same as before; the British troops were posted within their intrenchments in the following order: Col. Breyman with the Hessian rifle corps occupied the extreme right, or flank defence; the light infantry, under Lord Balcarras, and the élite of Frazer, were encamped around Freeman’s Cottage, and extended toward the north ravine, flanked by Hamilton’s brigade and the grenadiers; Phillips and Reidesel, with their respective commands, occupied the plain and the ground north of Wilber’s Basin; while, for the protection of the batteaux and hospitals, the Hessians of Hanau, the forty-seventh regiment and a detachment of loyalists, were encamped upon the flats by the river-side.
A serious difference now arose between Generals Gates and Arnold, owing to the jealousy of the former, and the intriguing disposition of his adjutant, Col. Wilkinson. Although the late action had commenced at the instance of Arnold, had been fought under his direction, and by the troops of his division alone, with the exception of a single regiment, yet in his dispatches to Congress, General Gates simply stated the action was fought by detachments from the army, without mentioning either Arnold or his division. In addition to this injustice, Gen. Gates, at the suggestion of Wilkinson, in his general orders immediately after the battle, required that Col. Morgan, whose troops had been for some time a part of Arnold’s command, and by whose assistance, in a great measure, the late battle was won, should “make returns and reports to head-quarters only; from whence alone he is to receive orders.” A correspondence and an angry conference took place that resulted in Gates’ depriving Arnold of the command of his division, which he assumed himself, assigning to Gen. Lincoln, who arrived on the twenty-ninth, the command of the right wing. I will more particularly refer to this misunderstanding, at the close of this article.
The two armies lay encamped within sight of each other from the nineteenth of September till the seventh of October, without any thing taking place, except an occasional affair of pickets. In expectation of a coöperation with Sir Henry Clinton, from New York, and of aid from St. Leger, the British commander was compelled, by the difficulties of procuring provisions, to put his troops upon short allowance, which they bore with a patience and cheerfulness that did them great honor. The American troops in the meantime, fearful of the expedition from New York in favor of Burgoyne, were clamorous for action, and Gen. Arnold, forgetting all the injustice and indignity with which he had been treated, addressed a letter to General Gates, which any generous mind would have considered, in the circumstances, as an overture for reconciliation, made known to him the impatience of the troops for battle, and suggested the dangers of delay and the necessity of an immediate attack. General Gates still remained inactive within his intrenchments, till Gen. Burgoyne, pressed to extremity for provisions, and despairing of assistance, prepared for a second attempt upon the American lines, which gave him the advantage of a defensive action.