While the battle thus rages, the intrepid Brooks leads his party, as ordered, against the stockades, which are carried in a moment at the point of the bayonet; and the rest of the brigade assault the lines, though manned by twice their number. After an ineffectual resistance, the enemy are compelled to abandon their position and flee, which lays open the flank of the right defence, consisting of the Germans under Col. Breyman. It consists of a breast-work of timbers piled in a horizontal manner between pickets driven perpendicularly into the earth, and is covered on the right by a battery of two guns, posted on an eminence.
Galloping on to the left, Arnold orders Weston’s and Livingston’s regiments, with Morgan’s corps, to advance and make a general assault, and then returning, he places himself at the head of the regiment under Brooks, and leading it on himself, makes a furious attack upon the German works, which is vigorously resisted. Undismayed, he pushes forward a platoon, and having found the sallyport, forces his way through with his men, and rides triumphantly into the encampment of the enemy. The terrified Germans retreat, yet deliver a fire as they run, by which the steed of the dauntless general is killed, and himself wounded. The same leg which was wounded in storming Quebec, is again shattered by a musket ball. Here Maj. Armstrong, who had been sent by Gen. Gates to order him back from the field, first comes up with him and delivers his message. Retiring to their tents the Germans find the assault general, throw down their arms, or retreat hurriedly to the interior part of the camp, leaving their commander, Col. Breyman, mortally wounded on the field, with many privates killed and wounded, and their tents, artillery, and baggage in possession of the victors. The dislodgement of the German troops effected an opening into the British lines, which exposed the entire encampment. Gen. Burgoyne, therefore, immediately ordered its recovery, but the darkness of the night, and the fatigue of the troops, prevented this attempt at recovery on the part of the British, or any effort on the part of the Americans to improve the advantages it offered. About 12 o’clock at night, Gen. Lincoln, who, during the action, had remained in camp with his command, marched out to relieve the troops that had been engaged, and to possess the ground they had gained. The American loss in this action was about one hundred and fifty, killed and wounded; that of the enemy was much greater, among which were some of their best officers. The enemy lost in addition nine pieces of artillery, and the encampment and equipage of a German brigade.
As the Americans, with fresh troops prepared for action, held possession of a part of the British camp, which exposed their entire defences, a change of position, before the following morning, was rendered necessary to the British commander. During the night, therefore, he executed a removal of his army, camp and artillery, to his former position, about a mile further north, in view of a retreat. To guard against this, Gen. Gates had detached a party higher up the Hudson to hang upon his rear, should he attempt to force a passage.
During the 8th of October, the troops were under arms, in expectation of an attack, and a cannonade was kept up at intervals during the day. About sunset, according to directions which he had given, the corpse of the brave Gen. Frazer, attended by his suite, and by the Generals Phillips, Reidesel, and Burgoyne, was carried to the great redoubt, and there buried. A cannonade was kept up for some time on the procession, till the Americans discovered its character, when they ceased, and fired minute guns in honor of the deceased. The following description of the melancholy scene is from the pen of Gen. Burgoyne himself.
“The incessant cannonade during the solemnity; the steady attitude, and unaltered voice with which the clergyman officiated, though frequently covered with dust, which the shot threw up on all sides of him; the mute but expressive mixture of sensibility and indignation on every countenance; these objects will remain to the last of life on the mind of every man who was present. The growing duskiness, added to the scenery, and the whole marked a character of this juncture, that would make one of the finest subjects for the pencil of a master that the field ever presented. To the canvas and to the page of a more important historian, gallant friend, I consign thy memory. There may thy talents, thy manly virtues, their progress and their period, find due distinction; and long may they survive, long after the frail record of my pen shall be forgotten.”
In relation to the death-wound of Gen. Frazer, it is generally believed to have been from Timothy Murphy, a celebrated marksman, with a double rifle, whose aim was unerring as fate. The death of Frazer is said to have made a deep impression upon Morgan, and to have given him uneasiness even on his dying-bed. I receive the account coming through his minister. Gen. Frazer himself said that he saw the rifleman that shot him, and that he was up in a tree. The range of the wound proved this to be a fact. Consequently, it could not have been one of the file Morgan selected, unless we suppose they ascended trees.
A romantic interest is thrown around the incidents of this campaign by the sufferings of several accomplished and excellent ladies, that followed the fortunes of their husbands, who were officers in the army. On the 19th of September, they followed the route of the artillery and baggage, and when the action began, the Baroness Reidesel, Lady Harriet Ackland, and the wives of Maj. Harnaye, and Lieut. Reynell, of the sixty-second regiment, had possession of a small hut which the surgeons soon occupied. Their sensibility was continually affected by the pitiable sights that were presented as the wounded were brought in, while their terrified imaginations looked forward to similar calamities to their husbands. How afflicting were their circumstances when, during the day, Maj. Harnaye was brought in severely wounded, and intelligence came that Lieut. Reynell was killed. The Lady Harriet’s husband was wounded in the action of the 7th of October, and fell into the hands of the Americans, when, with the greatest heroism, she solicited permission from Gen. Burgoyne, and went over to the American army, that she might wait upon her husband. She accompanied Maj. Ackland to Canada in 1776, and was called to attend on him, while sick in a miserable hut at Chamblee. In the march upon Ticonderoga she was left behind and enjoined not to expose herself to the hazards of the expedition, but joined her husband immediately after his receiving a wound at the battle of Hubberdton, and would not leave him afterward, but shared his fortunes and fatigues. The narrative of the Baroness Reidesel, which gives an account of the expedition, and their own particular sufferings, is as interesting as a romance.
Fearing from some movements of the Americans that they would turn his right and surround him, Gen. Burgoyne, on the 8th, abandoned his hospital with the sick and wounded, whom he recommended to the humanity of Gen. Gates, and commenced a night retreat toward Saratoga, immediately after the burial of Gen. Frazer. In preparation for the retreat they felt severely the loss of this accomplished officer, who prided himself upon generalship in this respect. During the war in Germany, he made good his retreat with 500 chasseurs, in sight of the French army, and often said that if, in the present expedition the troops were compelled to retreat, he would insure, with the advanced corps, to bring them off in safety. About 9 o’clock at night the army began to move, Gen. Reidesel in command of the van-guard, and Gen. Phillips in command of the rear-guard. Delayed by the darkness of the night, the incessant rains, and the bad condition of the roads, liable at any time to an attack in flank, front, or rear, the royal troops reached Saratoga late at night on the 9th, so harassed and weary, that without strength even to cut wood and make fires, the men lay down upon the cold ground in their wet clothes, and the generals themselves lay upon their matresses with no other covering than an oil-cloth.
Gen. Burgoyne detached from this place a working party, under a strong escort, to repair the roads and bridges toward Fort Edward; but on finding the Americans in force on the heights south of Saratoga creek, and evincing a disposition to cross over and attack him, the escort was recalled, and the Provincials, sent to cover the working party, fled at the first attack. The general-in-chief now resolved to abandon his artillery, baggage, and encumbrances of every kind, and make a night march to Fort Edward. The soldiers were to carry their arms and provisions upon their backs, and force a passage at the fording, either above or below the fort. But learning from his scouts that the Americans had a camp in force on the high grounds between Fort Edward and Fort George, as well as parties along the whole shore, he was compelled to abandon the design.
Worn down by a series of toils and attacks; abandoned by the Indians, Provincials, and Canadians; the regulars greatly reduced by the late heavy losses, and by sickness; disappointed of aid from Sir Henry Clinton; suffering from want of provisions; invested and almost surrounded by an army of triple numbers, without the possibility of retreat; exposed to an incessant cannonade, and receiving in camp even the musket balls of his enemy, the British general perceiving that future efforts would be unavailing, convened a council of the generals, field-officers, and commanders of corps, in which it was unanimously resolved to send a communication to Gen. Gates, touching a surrender. A treaty was accordingly opened, and a convention agreed upon on the 16th of October, embracing the following prominent conditions.