John Burgoyne, in a measure a soldier of fortune, was the younger son of an impoverished baronet, but he had married the daughter of the powerful Earl of Derby and was well known in London society as a man of fashion and also as a man of letters, whose plays had a certain vogue.His will, in which he describes himself as a humble Christian, who, in spite of many faults, had never forgotten God, shows that he was serious minded.He sat in the House of Commons for Preston and, though he used the language of a courtier and spoke of himself as lying at the King's feet to await his commands, he was a Whig, the friend of Fox and others whom the King regarded as his enemies.One of his plays describes the difficulties of getting the English to join the army of George III.We have the smartly dressed recruit as a decoy to suggest an easy life in the army.Victory and glory are so certain that a tailor stands with his feet on the neck of the King of France.The decks of captured ships swim with punch and are clotted with gold dust, and happy soldiers play with diamonds as if they were marbles.The senators of England, says Burgoyne, care chiefly to make sure of good game laws for their own pleasure.The worthless son of one of them, who sets out on the long drive to his father's seat in the country, spends an hour in "yawning, picking his teeth and damning his journey" and when once on the way drives with such fury that the route is marked by "yelping dogs, broken-backed pigs and dismembered geese."It was under this playwright and satirist, who had some skill as a soldier, that the British cause now received a blow from which it never recovered.Burgoyne had taken part in driving the Americans from Canada in 1776 and had spent the following winter in England using his influence to secure an independent command.
To his later undoing he succeeded.It was he, and not, as had been expected, General Carleton, who was appointed to lead the expedition of 1777 from Canada to the Hudson.Burgoyne was given instructions so rigid as to be an insult to his intelligence.He was to do one thing and only one thing, to press forward to the Hudson and meet Howe.At the same time Lord George Germain, the minister responsible, failed to instruct Howe to advance up the Hudson to meet Burgoyne.Burgoyne had a genuine belief in the wisdom of this strategy but he had no power to vary it, to meet changing circumstances, and this was one chief factor in his failure.
Behold Burgoyne then, on the 17th of June, embarking on Lake Champlain the army which, ever since his arrival in Canada on the 6th of May, he had been preparing for this advance.He had rather more than seven thousand men, of whom nearly one-half were Germans under the competent General Riedesel.In the force of Burgoyne we find the ominous presence of some hundreds of Indian allies.They had been attached to one side or the other in every war fought in those regions during the previous one hundred and fifty years.In the war which ended in 1763 Montcalm had used them and so had his opponent Amherst.The regiments from the New England and other colonies had fought in alliance with the painted and befeathered savages and had made no protest.Now either times had changed, or there was something in a civil war which made the use of savages seem hideous.One thing is certain.
Amherst had held his savages in stern restraint and could say proudly that they had not committed a single outrage.Burgoyne was not so happy.
In nearly every war the professional soldier shows distrust, if not contempt, for civilian levies.Burgoyne had been in America before the day of Bunker Hill and knew a great deal about the country.He thought the "insurgents" good enough fighters when protected by trees and stones and swampy ground.But he thought, too, that they had no real knowledge of the science of war and could not fight a pitched battle.He himself had not shown the prevision required by sound military knowledge.If the British were going to abandon the advantage of sea power and fight where they could not fall back on their fleet, they needed to pay special attention to land transport.This Burgoyne had not done.
It was only a little more than a week before he reached Lake Champlain that he asked Carleton to provide the four hundred horses and five hundred carts which he still needed and which were not easily secured in a sparsely settled country.Burgoyne lingered for three days at Crown Point, half way down the lake.
Then, on the 2d of July, he laid siege to Fort Ticonderoga.Once past this fort, guarding the route to Lake George, he could easily reach the Hudson.
In command at Fort Ticonderoga was General St.Clair, with about thirty-five hundred men.He had long notice of the siege, for the expedition of Burgoyne had been the open talk of Montreal and the surrounding country during many months.He had built Fort Independence, on the east shore of Lake Champlain, and with a great expenditure of labor had sunk twenty-two piers across the lake and stretched in front of them a boom to protect the two forts.But he had neglected to defend Sugar Hill in front of Fort Ticonderoga, and commanding the American works.It took only three or four days for the British to drag cannon to the top, erect a battery and prepare to open fire.On the 5th of July, St.
Clair had to face a bitter necessity.He abandoned the untenable forts and retired southward to Fort Edward by way of the difficult Green Mountains.The British took one hundred and twenty-eight guns.
