Patriots (66 page)

When the hour arrived, James Wilkinson went to Fishkill Creek, where he blindfolded the British officer and led him back to a room in Gates’s headquarters. General Burgoyne, knowing that
his letter would be read critically by George Germain in London, wrote that he had been determined to wage a third battle. Only the Americans’ superior numbers and his own humanity were leading him to propose a cessation of fighting while terms could be established.

Colonel Wilkinson was surprised when General Gates fished in his pocket and took out terms he had already prepared. His note was short and brutal: “
General Burgoyne’s army being exceedingly reduced by repeated defeats, by desertion, sickness, etc., their provisions exhausted, their military horses, tents and baggage taken or destroyed, their retreat cut off, and their camp invested, they can only be allowed to surrender as prisoners of war.”

Both sides agreed to an armistice until sunset while General Burgoyne and his council considered the demand for unconditional surrender. The British reply came with a flourish: “Lt. General Burgoyne’s army, however reduced, will never admit that their retreat is cut off while they have arms in their hands.”

Burgoyne was demanding that his defeated troops be allowed to surrender with full honors of war.

The next morning, Gates agreed to generous terms and spelled out the hour they should go into effect—3
P.M.
that same day for the capitulation, 5
P.M.
for the laying down of arms. The American generosity and haste made Burgoyne suspicious. Did Gates have better information than his own about Henry Clinton’s progress to Albany? To delay the surrender, Burgoyne added new requirements: His men must be allowed to march out with their weapons and must be permitted to return to England; they would promise only that they would not come back to America to fight.

Again, Gates quickly agreed.

Burgoyne now demanded that the word “capitulation” in the surrender document be changed to a more neutral term.

Gates agreed.

Further stalling seemed impossible. On behalf of the British, a captain named Craig signed a letter accepting the terms. It was now 11
P.M.
on Wednesday, October 15.

During the night, a British spy slipped into Burgoyne’s camp to report that Henry Clinton’s troops had reached the town of Esopus, which meant that even as Burgoyne was surrendering, his reinforcements might have entered Albany. The general reconvened his officers and put three new questions to them: Could
they honorably break their treaty? Was the news of Clinton’s approach reliable enough to justify sacrificing the advantageous terms they had negotiated? Was the army prepared to fight to the last man?

By a vote of fourteen to eight, Burgoyne’s council advised him that he could not renege on the treaty and that even if the information about Esopus was accurate, the reserves might still be too far from Saratoga to save them. Two thirds of the officers also said they doubted that their troops, if forced into another battle, would fight with much spirit. Burgoyne couldn’t accept that answer, and he went on inventing impediments to the signing. He informed Gates that he had heard that the Americans had broken the armistice by sending troops toward Albany, which meant he would be surrendering to a smaller army than the one that defeated him. He insisted that two British officers review the American ranks to determine whether the report was true.

Whether the rumor was correct hardly mattered to Burgoyne, but there was truth to it. A group of New York militia, whose term had expired, had packed their kit without Gates’s permission and were headed home. By now, General Gates also knew that Clinton had taken Esopus and set fire to it. He wanted Burgoyne’s surrender at once and sent Colonel Wilkinson to reject the latest demand about inspecting American troops. If the treaty was not signed at once, Wilkinson was to break off all further negotiation. But Burgoyne went on delaying, and Wilkinson was heading back to the American lines when a British officer overtook him and asked that he wait a little longer. General Burgoyne would deliver his final answer within two hours.

Wilkinson had waited those two hours and fifteen minutes more when he recognized a British lieutenant colonel named Sutherland across the creek and beckoned him over.

“Well,” Sutherland said as he drew nearer, “our business will be knocked on the head after all.”

Wilkinson asked why.

“The officers have got the devil in their heads and could not agree.”

Wilkinson tried to act cheerful about the prospect of more fighting. Early in the negotiations, Colonel Sutherland had asked, as a favor, that he be allowed to keep a firing device he had owned for thirty-five years. “I am sorry for it,” Wilkinson said now, “as you will not only lose your fusee but your whole baggage.”

Sutherland was clearly downcast about John Burgoyne going back on his word, but he said there was nothing he could do about it. As they stood commiserating, Wilkinson remembered the letter that Captain Craig had signed the night before. He pulled it from his pocket and read it aloud to Sutherland.

Sutherland hadn’t known about Craig’s letter, but he understood that it pledged the British in writing to accept the surrender treaty. If the other officers could see Craig’s signature, they would agree with him that Burgoyne must honor his commitment. Sutherland asked Wilkinson anxiously, “Will you give me that letter?”

Wilkinson said no, he would keep it as a demonstration of how much the good faith of a British commander was worth.

Sutherland grew excited. “Spare me that letter, sir, and I pledge you my honor I will return it in fifteen minutes.’

Wilkinson knew what Sutherland hoped to accomplish and handed him Craig’s letter. Sutherland ran the entire way to the British camp. As Wilkinson waited, a messenger from General Gates arrived with instructions to break off the negotiations if the treaty was not already ratified. Now it became Wilkinson’s turn to stall. He sent back a message to his commander that he was doing his best and would see him within half an hour.

As he had promised, Colonel Sutherland came bounding back, bringing Captain Craig with him. Craig handed Wilkinson the treaty, signed by John Burgoyne.

—

Horatio Gates’s first act after winning one of history’s great military victories was to send quantities of meat across Fishkill Creek to feed his starving enemies. The next morning, General Burgoyne called his officers together for the last time. Although he was almost too overcome to speak, he justified the decision he had made and left them to judge its wisdom.

At 10
A.M.
the British troops paraded out with drums beating and the full honors of war, as Burgoyne had insisted. But the inspiring marches sounded shamefaced, and men fought their tears. James Wilkinson was escorting Burgoyne to Horatio Gates, and as they reached the Fishkill Burgoyne looked down doubtfully and asked whether the creek could be forded.

Certainly, sir, Wilkinson replied. Don’t you see the people on the opposite shore?

“Yes,” Burgoyne said, with resignation. “
I have seen them too long.”

Accompanied by his adjutants and aides, Burgoyne crossed the creek and rode through the meadow to the front of the American camp, where General Gates was waiting for him. Burgoyne had not changed his clothes for more than two weeks before the armistice, even after bullets had torn his hat and waistcoat. But for today’s ceremony he had put on his richest scarlet uniform. Horatio Gates wore a plain blue coat. When Wilkinson introduced the two generals, John Burgoyne raised his hat gracefully.

“
The fortunes of war, General,” he said, “have made me your prisoner.”

Returning the courtly salute, Gates seemed to have prepared his remarks for the occasion. He said without hesitation, “
I shall always be ready to bear testimony that it has not been through any fault of Your Excellency.”

At that, one of Burgoyne’s generals came forward. He had served with Gates in the British Army, and the two men saluted and shook hands warmly. The commanders then withdrew to Gates’s hut on the front lines. During the negotiations, there had been nothing but a mattress in one corner, but now the Americans had made a table by laying bare planks across empty barrels. There were only four plates, but there was plenty of roast beef, and two glasses for the opposing generals to offer
toasts in rum and water. Burgoyne raised his glass to George Washington, Gates to the British king. Quips and joking soon began among the other officers, and within minutes the entire party was laughing hilariously with exhaustion and relief. Philip Schuyler, who had ridden up from Albany for the occasion, escorted the wife of the ranking German general to a separate meal of smoked tongue and beefsteak. He explained that it might be embarrassing for her to dine with so many gentlemen.

One British artillery major was unsettled by the contrast between the carnage of the past weeks and the merriment today, and he turned to an American captain at his side to share his musing. Here they were, the best of friends, and only a fortnight ago they had been enemies trying to kill each other. It was, the major reflected, an odd old world.

General Gates had put his underlings in charge of taking the weapons of the British and German soldiers. That humiliation occurred
in a meadow north of the creek, out of sight of the American soldiers. When the vanquished men had stacked their arms, they crossed the creek for their ritual march between the American ranks. The Americans were intensely curious about the British prisoners, who included the finest of Britain’s fighting aristocracy. Besides Burgoyne, some dozen members of Parliament, English lords and Scottish knights had been taken, and, accompanying them, many of their ladies. In all, General Gates’s Northern Army had captured seven generals and three hundred other officers, plus 3,379 British soldiers and 2,412 Germans. At Saratoga, John Burgoyne had lost everything, including 1,429 men either killed or wounded.

The defeated men marched with pets they had adopted during the long campaign—young foxes, a raccoon, a deer, even a bear. Among the camp followers at the rear came the three hundred women who had been entertaining the troops between engagements.

The British prisoners were impressed by the absolute stillness of their conquerors. The Americans said nothing and weren’t leaning over to murmur to their neighbors. Certainly there were no jeers or gloating. When an American regimental band struck up a triumphant “Yankee Doodle,” it was the one discordant note of a day almost religiously solemn.

After the last British troops reached General Gates’s hut, Gates emerged with General Burgoyne. A new American flag of Grand Union had been pieced together from military coats and run up a pole. In view of both armies, John Burgoyne surrendered his ivory-handled sword to Horatio Gates, who took it with a courteous nod and instantly handed it back to him.

As the British captives were marched down the road to Albany, Burgoyne felt as though every American on the continent had turned out to witness his disgrace. From a doorway, one brazen Dutch woman shouted the crushing epitaph for his twenty-eight months in America. Above the crowd she kept crying, “
Make elbow room for General Burgoyne!”

George Washington at Valley Forge

VALLEY FORGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

H
ORATIO
G
ATES
may have been gracious and considerate to John Burgoyne, but he didn’t extend the same courtesy to his own commander in chief. Gates announced his victory at Saratoga directly to the Congress at York and left George Washington to hear the news in a note from Israel Putnam. Washington rose above any annoyance and staged a fitting celebration for his cold and hungry men. They fired a thirteen-gun salute and listened to their chaplains
praise the American triumph. But General Washington was aware of the contrast between Gates’s fortunes and his own. After another small skirmish between Washington and Howe in Pennsylvania at White Marsh, the British general had returned to his winter of ease, while Washington was still shifting camp from place to place, looking for a site to house his men before a winter freeze overtook them.

General Gates had sent James Wilkinson to convey his message to the Congress, but along the way the colonel stopped off to spend some time with his sweetheart. When he finally got to York, the members had already known of Burgoyne’s surrender for twelve days, and Samuel Adams made a motion that the Congress reward Colonel Wilkinson with a pair of spurs. But the delegates were euphoric about the American victory and named Wilkinson a brigadier general, jumping him ahead of colonels with greater battlefield experience.

The members couldn’t know, as they bestowed that honor, that Wilkinson had made a blunder during his leisurely trip south that would convulse the American high command. Stopping at a tavern, Wilkinson had told an officer about a letter he had come upon to Horatio Gates from another general, Thomas Conway, that praised Gates at Washington’s expense. Quoting from memory, Wilkinson repeated its gist—“
Heaven has determined to save your country, or a weak general and bad counsellors would have ruined it.”