Part 4

The story of Saratoga cannot easily be limited to Saratoga Springs, although it has fifteen thousand inhabitants who retain their quaintly rural government and cling to the appellation of “village.” Village though it be, it is imposing with its stately hotels, spacious streets, large business houses, many beautiful villas, fine public halls, handsome churches, and numerous valuable mineral springs; which, like the residences, are set amid magnificent trees, forest pines and cultivated elms that rival the famous trees of New Haven. From the surrounding hills the village seems to nestle in the original wilderness. But it is always active,—in winter with its toboggan slide, snow-shoe club, trotting matches on the ice-bound lake, and snow-bound streets rolled to marble smoothness for gay and luxurious sleigh-riding; in summer, its brilliancy is often compared with that of Paris. In the loss of the old-time social exclusiveness it has gained in cosmopolitan character and in the rich variety of its life and amusements.

In considering the story of Saratoga, we cannot confine our attention to the town of Saratoga Springs, with its sharply defined boundaries and rectangular lines of political division which mark the limit of the voters for supervisor at the annual town-meeting. But if we include the county in our narrative, then, indeed, may we recall the vision which presents the individuality of the name Saratoga. For Saratoga County is outlined by a great eastward and southern sweep of the Hudson River for seventy miles from its narrow gorge at Luzerne, where the wild savage chief of colonial days leaped across the mighty river to escape his pursuing foe, down over the precipitous Palmer’s Falls, and over the cavern-haunted Glen’s Falls, and onward to old Fort Edward, where its waters turn shortly to the south and pursue their troubled way along the “hillside country,” which received here its Indian name, “Se-rach-ta-gue,” which means “hillside country of the great river.” It is also said that in the Indian language Sa-ragh-to-ga means the “place of the swift water,” in allusion to the rapids and falls that are in contrast with the “still water” a few miles below. Thence the Hudson flows on until it receives the four sprouts or mouths of the Mohawk River, which spreads out from the precipitous falls at Cohoes. This great intersecting western valley separates the northern from the southern highlands of New York, and is, like the great northern valley, a natural highway and thoroughfare. In the angle formed by the junction of these two long, deep valleys or passes through the mountain ranges, “in the angle between the old Indian war-trails, in the angle between the pathways of armies, in the angle between the great modern routes of travel, in the angle formed by the junction of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers,” is Saratoga County, the Saratoga of history and romance. Not only the stealthy tread of the Iroquois sped over these hills, not only the swift canoe of the Algonquin shot over these streams, but also the disciplined armies of France and of England marched and countermarched, fought by day and bivouacked at night on this ground, from the time that Hendrick Hudson opened the lower valley of the Hudson River, and Samuel Champlain discovered the broad lake that bears his name, until the Revolutionary period closed.

While Jamestown was still struggling for existence, and Plymouth Bay was still unknown, the contest had already begun in the northern valley of the Hudson which initiated its long service to the progress of the western world. This remarkable triangle, the Saratoga and Kay-ad-ros-se-ra of the Indian occupation, and the Saratoga County of the present time was, like Kentucky, “the dark and bloody ground,” the hunting- and fishing-place of the Five Nations on the south, and their enemies, the Algonquins, on the north. Here each summer, in search of fish and game, they built their hunting lodges on Saratoga Lake, called by the Dutch, who believed it to be the “head-waters” of the Hudson, “Aqua Capita.” Every season brought conflict between the savage tribes, and later the French, year after year, marched down from Quebec and Montreal to intimidate their unceasing foes on the Mohawk.

In 1642, and again in 1645, the Iroquois in retaliation hastened along the old war-trail at the foot of Mount McGregor and returned each time laden with their tortured captives, the French prisoners and their Indian friends. The two famous expeditions of Courcelle, Governor of Canada, and of Lieut.-Gen. de Tracy, made their way in 1666 through the valley; first on snow-shoes, to starvation and despair—and again with the buoyant tread of a victorious legion. In 1689 the Iroquois followed the old trail on their way to that massacre of Montreal which emphasized what is justly called the “heroic age” of that poetic and devoted settlement. The French and Algonquins again in 1690 bivouacked at these springs as they descended to the cruel massacre of Schenectady. And in the same year the English, led by Fitz John Winthrop, made a fruitless march over the historic war-path.

The French, urged by Frontenac, came down the valley in 1693, destroyed the castles of the Mohawks, and started on their return with three hundred prisoners. The news created intense excitement through the whole Province of New York. Governor Fletcher hurried up from New York City, Major Peter Schuyler hastily gathered three hundred white men and three hundred savages for defence, and was joined by Major Ingoldsby from Albany with an additional force. Coming along the old trail, the French and Indians halted with their captives about six miles north of the village of Saratoga Springs, at a point near Mount McGregor at King’s Station. The battle-ground lies on the terrace, which is distinct from the foothills of the mountains, and has long been known as the “old Indian burying-ground.” On this plateau, so near the gay streets of Saratoga, the camp-fires of a thousand hostile men throwing up entrenchments flared through the night. On the following day the English sustained successfully three fierce assaults on their works, and the French, worn with the long journey, were glad to retreat in the darkness of a raging storm, as night fell on their wounded and captives.

Again, during Queen Anne’s War, beginning in 1709, old Saratoga, which lies at the mouth of the Fishkill, was so seriously threatened that Major Schuyler built a fort below the mouth of the Batten Kill. In 1731, the French built Fort Frederick at Crown Point. From this stronghold, during King George’s War, which began in 1744, they swung their forces with deadly effect upon the English settlements. The forts at Saratoga were then refitted and manned, but not in time to prevent the terrible massacre of old Saratoga in 1745.

History has recorded and poetry sung the woes of Wyoming and of Cherry Valley, but the silence of the virgin forest has encompassed the tragic events that occurred at Saratoga on the fatal morning of the 17th of November, thirty years before the Revolution.

“Profound peace had reigned in the old wilderness for a generation, and the fertile soil had filled the smiling land with fatness. Many dwellings and fruitful farms dotted the river bank; long stables were filled with sleek cattle, and around the mills were huge piles of timber waiting the market down the river.”

The scowling portholes of the old Schuyler mansion seemed to laugh between the tendrils of the creeping vines. Suddenly, in the early morning, the scene of peace and prosperity was changed to slaughter, pillage, and destruction. Philip Schuyler, the elder, was offered immunity in the midst of the fray, but he spurned safety at the expense of his neighbors, and was shot to death in his own doorway. The houses and forts were burned to the ground, the cattle killed or burned in their stalls, and only one or two inhabitants escaped to tell the tale.

This war was a prelude to the French and Indian, or Seven Years’ War, which, with its five campaigns, raged continuously through the war-worn valley of the grand northern waterways. Nearly a century and a half of struggle, first of the French discoverers and missionaries with the savages, and then of the Frenchmen and Iroquois, and later the French, the Indians, and the English, had proved the importance of this valley as the northern doorway to the country. Of the three expeditions first planned to be sent simultaneously against the French—one under Braddock against Fort Duquesne, another under Shirley against Niagara, and another under Johnson against Crown Point,—the third was considered the most important.

In August, Major-General William Johnson took command in person and pushed on to the outlet of Lake George, intending to build a fort at Ticonderoga as a defence against Crown Point, to which the French had extended their possessions in the last interval of peace. Before his design could be accomplished, desperate warfare disturbed the placid waters of the beautiful lakes and so discolored their outlying waters that time has not yet effaced the name of “Bloody Pond.”

Abercrombie’s campaign in 1758 was a fatal mistake. The brilliant hope inspired by his fine army of Regulars with their splendid accoutrements, his thousands of boats paraded on the broad lake with banners flying and strains of music unknown in the wilderness, was turned to gloom when a few days later the boats returned laden with the dead and dying, and carrying the body of the beloved Lord Howe.

Again, in 1759, the war-trail of old Saratoga was trodden by an English army, twelve thousand strong, under the command of the successful Lord Amherst. In the autumn the final conflict came when the death of Wolfe signalled the triumph of England, and the great waterways passed under the sovereignty of the Anglo-Saxons.

For some years, Sir William Johnson suffered from the effects of a wound received in the hip during the war. In 1767, his Indian friends told him about the “Great Medicine Waters” of Saratoga, and carried him by boat and on a stretcher to the mysterious spring. The waters proved so beneficial that he was able to return over the “carrying-place” unaided and on foot. The waters which he drank were taken from the High Rock Spring of Saratoga Springs. Once they overflowed the cone-like rock through which they now rise and from which they are dipped, and the rock was gradually deposited and formed by the overflow. The process has lately been repeated by new springs like the Geyser and the Champion, which for some years threw the water several feet into the air, leaving a heavy cascade-like deposit about the opening. Gradually the waters subsided, the geyser effect was lost, and like the High Rock Spring they have fallen below the level of the ground.

In the year (1767) of Sir William Johnson’s expedition, the old land troubles with the Six Nations were settled amicably at the Fort Stanwix conference, where over three thousand red men met the English commissioners. The complaints of alleged frauds in purchase and surveys included the Kayadrossera patent, which covered 700,000 acres lying between the Hudson and the Mohawk, obtained by grant in 1703 and confirmed in 1708.

Yet quiet did not prevail. The restless spirits of the wilderness were stirred by their first political aspirations. The Schuylers, whose possessions extended over the old Saratoga hunting-ground, awoke the farmers to an interest in the burning questions of the day. Sloops sailing up the Hudson brought rumors of riots in New York City, and of the resistance offered by the Sons of Liberty to the execution of the Stamp Act. When news came that no good patriot would wear imported garments, the women redoubled their efforts to produce from spinning-wheel and loom the homespun fabric. As the King grew more determined, and the people learned more clearly what rights were theirs, the British soldiers became violent and the patriots more indignant and outspoken. The first military order of the home government to put the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga on a war basis was quickly followed by the tramp of soldiers through the wilderness. The rumble of artillery and of commissary wagons broke once more the stillness of the forest. The farmers who lived along the old war-trail revived by the evening fireside the stories of the French and Indian wars. The Indians, quick to discern the coming storm, began once more, under the influence of the Johnson family (allied to them through Brandt and his sister), to destroy property and massacre the unprepared. The settlers of the “long valley” were bearing at this time the brunt of the preliminary warfare of the American Revolution. They met the issue bravely. While they fought, their wives and daughters gathered in the crops, melted into bullets the treasured pewter teapots and sugar-bowls, learned to shoot, to barricade their houses or their little forts, and to conceal themselves from prowling bands of Indians and savage Tories. It was then that the Royalist Governor Tryon, taking refuge on a war vessel, exclaimed, “The Americans from politicians are now becoming soldiers.” Had he witnessed the courageous deeds of the women of the great waterways, he would perhaps have added, “The women from housekeepers are becoming farmers and fighters.”

New anxieties arose in the Province of New York as rumors multiplied of the advance in stately procession of a new and splendid army of the British, recently arrived in Canada, down the old war-path through Champlain and Lake George on the way to Albany to unite with the British wing ascending the Hudson River. Inspired by General Schuyler, commanding the American army, the farmers seized whatever firearms they could find and hurried to his camp. The women of Albany hammered the leaden weights from the windows of their houses, moulded them into bullets, and urged on the men. The militia of New England, aroused by the invasion, came by hundreds and by thousands until the river hills were covered. The hasty breastworks planned by Kosciuszko were completed, and the rude recruits were hurriedly formed into regiments and brigades. Gates, who superseded Schuyler, lay with his staff in the rear of the army, while Morgan with his riflemen held guard at the western extremity of the entrenched camp on the hills, with his headquarters at Neilson’s. This was the defensive camp of the Americans at Bemis Heights, and it stretched from the river bank westward over the hills about two miles and faced the north. Here they lay in wait for Burgoyne, who had rallied from his repulses at Bennington and Fort Stanwix, and was pressing down the bank of the Hudson River toward Albany from Fort Edward.

On the 13th of September, a bridge of boats was stretched across the Hudson River—just below the mouth of the Batten Kill—for the passage of Burgoyne’s army. They halted for the first night amid the charred wheat-fields of General Schuyler’s farm on the south side of the Fishkill. On the morrow they hastened on to Coveville, and thence to Seward’s house, where again their white tents were spread over the country.

On September 19th Burgoyne moved forward to outflank the American camp on the west. An obstinate fight of many hours about the old farm-well and in the great ravine followed, and the British failed in their attempt to pass the Americans or to weaken their line. But they held persistently to the position they had taken at Freeman’s Farm and at the close of the battle fortified their camp from the point on Freeman’s Farm in a line to the eastward on the bank of the river, where they built three redoubts upon three hills. The fortified camp of the Americans lay about a mile and a half below in a line parallel with the British. Here, within bugle-call of each other, for two weeks, the hostile forces sat upon the hills of Saratoga, frowning defiance at each other, and ready to open the conflict at a moment’s warning.

Burgoyne waited in vain for the Americans to attack him behind his works, and for a message, hourly expected, that Clinton would come from New York to his relief. Hunger pressed sorely upon the army. The brilliant conquests he had pictured to himself were fading from his grasp. He called his officers together in council. Silence and gloom hung over them. Should they advance or retreat? His imperious will dictated the advice he desired. Finally Fraser sustained the commander. An advance was ordered. On the 7th of October the British marched from their entrenchments in battle array. Burgoyne led the centre; Fraser a flanking column to the right; the royal artillery to the left, and the Hessians in reserve. Like a great bird of prey they settled in line of battle upon the broken ground that separated them from the American camp. Gates took up the gauntlet thus thrown down and exclaimed, “Order out Morgan to begin the game.” With a word to his command the watchful and heroic Morgan dashed into the struggle, scattered Burgoyne’s advance-guard, rushed on against the trained forces of Fraser, and swept them from the position to the left which they had taken in advance. With masterly skill and courage, Fraser rallied his men, and was forming a second line of defence, when he fell mortally wounded.

The sharp whistle of Morgan called his men once more to action. They charged, while Poor and Larned attacked the centre and the right. The battle swayed back and forth through the great ravine. Another charge from Morgan and the British retreated to their entrenchments. At this moment the impatient Arnold, stung to madness by the slights put upon him by Gates, dashed across the field. He gathered the regiments under his leadership by his enthusiasm, bravery, and vehemence. He broke through the lines of entrenchments at Freeman’s Farm. Repulsed for a moment, he assailed the left and charged the strong redoubt of Breyman which flanked the British camp at the place now called Burgoyne’s Hill. The patriot army, fired with hope and courage, crowded fearlessly up to the very mouth of the belching guns of the redoubt, won the final victory of the day, and then, exhausted by the desperate fight, dropped down for a few hours’ rest before they took possession of the British camp.

But there was no rest for the defeated army. Silently and sullenly during these hours, they withdrew from the works at Freeman’s Farm, and huddled closely together under the three redoubts by the river. Here the women, Madam Riedesel, Lady Ackland, and others, trembled and wept over the dying Fraser. Here the hospital stood with its overflowing throng of the wounded and the dead. The great and princely army waited in doubt and despair while their commander wavered in his plans. Should he try to hold his dangerous ground, should he risk another engagement, should he retreat? The last course was chosen. On the following night a retreat began as the last minute-guns were fired magnanimously by the Americans, in honor of Fraser’s funeral, which took place at sunset. The sun fell behind the heights upon which the exultant Americans lay; heavy clouds followed, and quickly after, amid the drenching rain, the army of Burgoyne, abandoning their sick and wounded, began the retreat up the river.

Retracing their steps from Bemis Heights, the scene of their disaster, they followed up the river road to the Fishkill and the Schuyler mansion, which they burned to the ground. Failing here in an attempt to make a stand against the advancing Americans, they fell back, formed an entrenched camp, and planted their batteries along the heights of old Saratoga. In this camp they still hoped to hold out until relief should come up the Hudson from New York. Here the romance and pathos of the campaign culminated, as described by Madam Riedesel, the accomplished and beautiful wife of the Hessian general, in her thrilling account of the retreat and of the agonizing days that followed. At the Marshall house, where she had taken refuge, the cannonballs thrown across the river crashed through its walls, and rolled along the floor, so that the sick and wounded were driven into the cellar where she and her children and the broken-hearted widows of the dead were suffering, watching, and starving. Frail by birth and rearing, Madam Riedesel stood in the doorway of the cellar, and with arms outspread across the open door held at bay the selfish, brutal men who would have crowded out the sick and dying. Burgoyne and his army, entrenched on the hills, and with the river below, yet had no water to drink, except a cupful brought now and then for the faint and wounded from the river by the British women, on whom the gallant Americans, ever tender toward woman, would not fire.

Finally, driven to the last extremity, with the Americans on the north, where Stark had seized Fort Edward, to the east, where Fellows held the river bank, and to the south, where Gates had thrown his victorious army, Burgoyne sent in his terms of surrender. Almost on the site of old Fort Hardy, his brave but unfortunate troops laid down their arms, and near the site of the old Schuyler mansion, which they had so recently burned, Burgoyne surrendered his sword to General Gates. Along the road, just across the Fishkill, the American army stretched in two lines, between which the disarmed prisoners were marched to the shrill notes of the fife and the measured beat of the drum, to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” played for the first time as a national air.

General Schuyler, the hospitable and magnanimous, was on the ground. Neither the slight he had received from Congress nor the injuries inflicted on him by the British could quench his generous nature. He rejoiced with his victorious countrymen, he sympathized with the fallen enemy, he protected and cared for the helpless women.

During the summer of 1777 he had cut a road from his farm at old Saratoga through the wilderness to the High Rock Spring, already famous for its medicinal properties. He built a small frame house on the ledge of rocks overhanging the spring, and here for several summers his family came with him for rest and recreation as they had formerly gone to the comfortable mansion at old Saratoga. This was replaced by a rude cabin, and there, in 1783, Washington was entertained when, with General Clinton, he came to visit the Saratoga battle-ground. The party proceeded northward to Ticonderoga, and on their return stopped at High Rock Spring. General Washington was so strongly impressed with the value of the water and the beauty of the region that shortly afterward he tried to buy the property, but Livingston, Van Dam, and others had already secured it.