General Burgoyne issued an Order of the Day to us on June 30th, to the effect that tomorrow we embarked for our assault upon Ticonderoga (which was fifteen miles distant from Crown Point, where we were assembled) and thence would drive forward into the interior of the enemy’s country. The services required, he declared, were critical and conspicuous; but at all events ‘this army must not retreat.’ The British regiments of the Line, besides The Ninth, that embarked upon this hazardous campaign were very reliable ones, viz. The Twentieth, Twenty-first, Twenty-fourth, Twenty-ninth, Thirty-fourth, Forty-seventh, Fifty-third and Sixty-second.
No one can deny that we did very well at Ticonderoga, which was a double fortress consisting of the old French works, greatly improved, lying on the western side of the water, and a heavily fortified hill named Mount Independence, on the eastern. These two positions were linked by a bridge more than three hundred yards long, of colossal construction and protected by a massive boom. It should be explained that a short distance below Ticonderoga, to the west, occurred the crooked northern passage to Lake George; the broad continuation of Lake Champlain to the southward was called the South River.
My company had been formed with the light infantry companies of the other regiments into a battalion commanded by Colonel Lord Balcarres, an experienced and courageous nobleman. We expected very severe fighting, for the defences of Ticonderoga showed an even more formidable aspect than they had done when we stopped short before them in the previous October. Yet the exertions we were called upon to make were in the pioneering, rather than the military, way. The fact was that the Americans, reduced by the negligence of their generals to but three thousand men, were hardly sufficient in numbers to man the existing works. They had therefore neglected to fortify Sugar Hill, a rocky eminence, rather less than a mile in their rear, which rose six hundred feet from the water at the point where the South River and the Lake George inlet divide. They fondly imagined that, because they could not spare troops to construct and man a redoubt on Sugar Hill, it was not only inaccessible to British artillery, but out of range; though, as we later learned from prisoners, General St Clair had a few months before satisfied himself by experiment that a twelve-pounder shell carried from the fortress to the summit, and could therefore carry in the contrary sense too.
General Phillips saw at a glance that Sugar Hill easily commanded the fortress; and remarked that ‘where a man can go, a mule can go; and where a mule can go, a gun can go.’ He called in the Lieutenant who was Engineer-in-Command of the Army, and asked whether he and his sappers could in a reasonably short time construct a road to the summit, up which gun-teams could haul howitzers of eight-inch calibre, light twenty-four pounders, and medium twelves. The Engineer visited this place – for we had by now environed the position for near three-fourths of its circuit, advancing through the woods with great caution on either side of the inlet, while the naval force kept in the centre – and was at first staggered by the broken rocks, the matted creepers, the huge fallen timber that encumbered its steep sides. Yet he undertook, if provided with sufficient fatigue-men, to make within twenty-four hours something that was worse than a turnpike road, but better than no road at all. So it was arranged, and my company was among those called upon to act as labourers upon this road. This was July 4th, the day which the Americans celebrated as Independence Day, and we could hear cheers for the United States of America coming down the wind to us. In the evening a dozen rockets were set off by them, and then one more, in honour of the thirteen States.
Under the Lieutenant’s direction we heaved, pushed, fetched, carried, and sweated. A spur to our exertions lay in the consideration that if we could not thus force the enemy to evacuate their works by a threat of being shelled into Glory, General Burgoyne would call upon us to make a frontal attack upon them. We did not fancy a second Bunker’s Hill victory; to advance across open country under fire of well-posted batteries, until we came to the tangle of forest-trees felled with their branches towards us, and finally, as we emerged in disorder from thence, to be picked off, one by one, by their excellent riflemen. A few lucky ones of us might make a lodgment and go at the enemy with the bayonet – who, as we knew, were ill-provided with this handy arm – but at a cost of perhaps half our force.
By dawn of July 5th a sort of road had been completed up Sugar Hill and the guns hauled up it on pulleys, by the combined powers of men, mules, horses, and oxen. As daylight grew, we were rewarded for our exertions by being permitted to peep through telescopes at the enemy works, where it was possible to count the defenders of each redoubt, and the guns in each battery, and to observe the enemies’ vessels riding behind their gigantic bridge. Said General Phillips to us: ‘Thank you, my brave lads, for what you have done tonight. Let us rechristen this hill “Mount Defiance”.’ Then the guns were laid, and shells and grape were sent plunging down into Mount Independence, and into the old French fort.
It was an unpleasant awakening for General St Clair: he must choose either to hold his ground and lose his army, or quit his ground and lose his character. For the Americans had set great store by Ticonderoga ever since it had been captured from us, two years previously, by the fanatical Colonel Ethan Allen ‘in the name,’ as he said, ‘of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress’. To yield the place without a struggle would strengthen the factious power of the New England Congress-men against General Schuyler and himself. He called a Council of War of his colonels, and there urged that to take the less glorious course of retiring, while they still could, would be ultimately of more benefit to their country. They assented, and he made the most of the short time that remained for getting away what he could of his men, stores, and artillery. Nothing could be done by them until nightfall, on account of our observers on Mount Defiance; but the sun no sooner set than two hundred batteaux were laden with baggage and sent off under escort of the five galleys that still survived from General Arnold’s fleet; while the troops followed on foot. They did not take the usual route down the Lake George inlet, for the brigade in which we served commanded that water from a hill named Mount Hope, which we had seized without opposition and hastily fortified; we had two brigades of artillery there with us, besides. Instead, they took the only remaining route, which was down the South River, the troops in the old French fort marching over the great bridge and down the farther bank. A building was fired by one of their lesser generals, in spiteful disobedience to General St Clair’s orders, which lit up the scene and discovered great activity. However, it was doubtful whether they planned a sortie or a retirement, and we therefore stood to arms the greater part of the night. At daybreak an Indian scout, who had crept into the French fort under cover of darkness, reported that the enemy were gone. Immediately, we who were on piques duty were ordered to enter the works; where General Fraser himself planted the British flag upon the rampart. After a short examination of the place, to make sure that the enemy nowhere lay in ambush for us, we hurried to the great bridge in order to search the works on Mount Independence.
This bridge was supported by twenty-two sunken piers of timber, the interstices being filled with separate floats, fifty feet long and thirty wide, strongly fastened together with iron chains. It was likewise defended, on the Lake Champlain side, by a boom composed of very large pieces of timber, fastened together by riveted bolts and double chains. Through this bridge the British seamen from our fleet were busily cutting a passage to allow the frigates to sail in pursuit of the enemy galleys and batteaux. Some were demolishing the boom; others had already removed a part of the bridge itself, between two of the piers; a third party were unshackling one of the great floats, to tow it away. They reckoned, by nine o’clock in the morning, to have cleared away an obstruction upon which the Americans had bestowed incredible labour over a period of ten months. We were obliged to halt a few minutes while we built a slight gangway for our passage over the breach.
Upon reaching the farther side we possessed ourselves of the heavy battery that defended the brid
ge. There we came upon four Americans lying dead drunk upon the ground beside a cask of Madeira. We counted ourselves very fortunate in this, for we observed that the matches were lighted and they had evidently been left behind to fire the guns off at our approach and blow us to pieces; but the wine had allured them to forget their instructions and drown their cares. The heads of some powder-casks were also knocked off and powder strewed in a train to them, with the object of injuring our men as they gained the works. A number of Wyandot Indians had attached themselves to our party, from a hope of scalps and plunder, and were curious in examining everything that lay in their path. One of them caught up a match that lay upon the ground with some fire still alive in it and began waving it about, the sparks flying in all directions. ‘Down on your faces!’ I shouted in alarm to my comrades, and not an instant too soon, for a spark dropped upon the priming of one of the guns. It discharged with a great roar, but in any case would have done no injury, for by some error the muzzle was elevated above the level of our heads.
Here, though I fear to impair the verisimilitude of my story with anything so preposterous, I cannot forbear to mention an incident which had occurred on the previous day. There were, as it happens, many reliable witnesses of it, and Lieutenant Anburey of The Fourteenth has recorded it in his well-known Travels Through the Interior Parts of America. A little after dawn, Smutchy Steel, being a sentinel of our piquet guard, observed a man in the woods reading a leather-bound book. He challenged him, with ‘Who goes there?’, but the man was so closely intent upon his studies that he did not reply ‘Friend’ nor make any other response. Smutchy abstained from use of the bayonet, but ran up and seized him by the collar of his coat. Awaking from his reverie, the intruder said very calmly that he was Chaplain to the Forty-seventh Regiment, but could otherwise give no account of his presence there. Smutchy bade him stay where he was until the relief came; whereupon he was taken before Captain Montgomery, the nearest officer, who sent him under escort to General Fraser. General Fraser suspected him to be a spy, for The Forty-seventh were stationed two or three miles in the rear, and he thought himself acquainted with the face and name of every clergyman attached to the forces. He began to ask him several questions about the Americans, remarking that if he consented to answer them fairly he would escape hanging. The stranger pretended to be perplexed and persisted in his first story.
‘Come, come,’ said General Fraser, ‘a person in your dishabille cannot pretend to be a man of God going about on his lawful occasions. Own to the cheat, pray, or it will go hard with you.’
‘Sir,’ said the prisoner, ‘you have only to send to the Colonel of The Forty-seventh, and he will inform you who I am. I reported for duty at his headquarters yesterday evening with a letter of credit from the Governor-General of Canada.’
‘And your name?’
He gave his name.
He was sent for examination to General Burgoyne, where his story was confirmed. I had no share in these proceedings, but Terry Reeves came running up to me at about seven o’clock with pale cheeks, and ‘Oh,’ he cried, stuttering, ‘I have seen him.’
‘Seen whom, Moon-Curser?’ asked I. ‘It was a ghost or banshee, by the look on your face.’
‘Worse,’ said he. ‘It was the Devil. Him whom we last saw in the Newgate tap-room, the day that little Jimmy was tucked up.’
I shuddered involuntarily. ‘You are dreaming, dear Terry,’ says I. ‘Or is it the apple-brandy?’
‘Gerry Lamb,’ he replied very solemnly. ‘Would I ever mistake the sallow face, and the loose, wet lock, and the ugly chin to him, this side the grave? Or would you yourself, Gerry?’
I have already confessed to my superstitious weakness in the matter of the Holy Thursday candle. It will not therefore seem surprising to my readers to learn that this appearance, or apparition, of the Reverend John Martin worked strongly upon my imagination. It seemed a presage of the utmost calamity to our forces, though our great successes of the following week seemingly belied it. What is more curious still, this Popish priest, or Methodist minister, or Chaplain of the Established Church, this Reverend John Martin, once more disappeared so soon as he rejoined The Forty-seventh; but reappeared as suddenly, a fortnight later at Skenesborough, for a single day, and was thereafter lost to us. It has ever teased me to know whether or not the letter of credit from General Carleton was a forgery, or whether he had actually imposed himself upon that excellent personage.
We now explored Mount Independence; it was clear of Americans; and the rest of the brigade coming up, we set off again in pursuit of the enemy. The day was sultry, with the sun boiling behind a thin screen of clouds. We marched without a halt from dawn until one o’clock over a number of steep and woody hills, by a very rough track. A party of Indians went ahead, who being unencumbered by packs and heavy clothing could advance far more smartly than we; they brought back a score of stragglers to us, and we learned from these that the American rear-guard was composed of chosen marksmen under the command of a Colonel Francis, one of their best officers. General Riedesel’s Brunswickers were in our support, but they could not keep up with us on the march on account of heavy accoutrements and old age.
We were taking the Hibberton road, a roundabout route to Skenesborough, which was the American base near the extremity of the South River. We had halted about two hours and partaken of our dinners when General Riedesel rode up. He appeared in considerable excitement, and, ‘Why, Red Hazel, my old friend,’ General Fraser bantered, ‘what means this flashing eye, this surly visage?’
He answered in tolerably good English that his Goddamned old pigs were straggling and he could not prevail upon them to mend their pace.
Said General Fraser: ‘Do not blame them, General. I remember no march so fatiguing as this in the whole course of the Seven Years’ War in Germany. Here, accept a present of gingerbread. It was taken from the Americans at Ticonderoga out of a parcel left over from their celebrations of Independence.’
General Riedesel scrutinized the gingerbread, which was gilt and baked in the form of a mermaid. He gave her an amorous leer, then, with a sudden snap he bit her head clean off, and burst into an enormous peal of laughter – which so infected those who stood by that all immediately were convulsed with mirth. The mermaid’s head then becoming lodged in the General’s windpipe, he had like to be choked, but that Captain Montgomery, who rode up, smote him in the back with his fist. The gobbet shot out across the road, and he subsided, gasping and wheezing.
We marched on towards the enemy, who had gained Hibberton. When our scouts reported that they had halted three miles from us, about two thousand in number, we chose a defensible situation and lay that night on our arms. We slept until three o’clock in the morning, much tormented by the insects, and then renewed our march in the half-light. Two hours later we came up with the Americans and found them busily employed in cooking their provisions, though with piquets posted.
Then began a skirmish which, since the Americans were compelled to fight, became a pitched battle. When the piquets were driven in, our Grenadier battalion was sent round to cut them off from the Skenesborough Road, which ran through Castleton; so they turned instead towards Pittsford which was thirty miles to the east, along a steep, rocky road. The Grenadiers, to intercept them, climbed a hill so sheer as to seem inaccessible; they could only gain the summit by laying hold of the branches of trees and hauling one another up the rocks by main force. Being thus headed off, the Americans showed fight and, while some attacked the Grenadiers, others turned about and fired at our light infantry companies as we hurried after them. Those Americans who had axes hurriedly felled trees, to serve as a breastwork behind which to receive us.
The brushwood was exceedingly thick and tangled, and their marksmen took careful aim at us as we stumbled up against the breastwork. I was proud to find how steadily our men behaved, though we could preserve no sort of order or dressing, nor use the manual exercise for platoon firing in which we had been perfected during our
training. We made an improvement ex tempore upon it, however, by abstaining from any use of our ramrods: after loading and priming we merely struck the breech of the firelock to the ground, which sent the cartridge down, brought it to the present, and fired. We maintained a certain unity of action by singing in unison Hot Stuff, a rousing song that now enjoyed the same popularity among us as the famous Liliburlero (that chased King James out of three kingdoms) had enjoyed among our predecessors of The Ninth at the relief of Londonderry, the capture of Athlone, the victory of Boyne Water. With dry throats and swelling hearts we sang:
From rascals as these may we fear a rebuff?
Advance, Grenadiers, and let fly your hot stuff!
Each side in this engagement, which lasted near two hours, afterwards claimed to have been greatly inferior in numbers to the other. My belief is that the sides were about equal, though the tenseness of the woods and the excitement of the occasion ruled out any counting of polls. It ended when General Riedesel, who had been impatiently waiting for his lagging troops to appear on the field and have their share in the glory, hauled forward fifty men of his vanguard and brought them into action. He bade them beat drum, blow fife and bugle, shout, sing battle-hymns and fire their muskets into the air to suggest to the enemy that they were the whole Brunswick Brigade; and this they did. The hullabaloo turned the scale: the Americans, who had lost their brave Colonel Francis, slackened their fire, and we charged with the bayonet. They did not receive us, but all ran off – except those who surrendered, and one or two lurking fanatics who remained behind, concealed in bushes, waiting for the chance to shoot at the ‘tyrannical British officers’. One of these succeeded in killing a well-beloved captain of ours, as he was examining some official papers taken from Colonel Francis’s pocket-book, and escaped unavenged. As I ran in the direction of the shot, I came upon Sergeant Fitzpatrick kneeling alone and bareheaded in a little hollow. He was giving thanks to God that his life had once more been spared, in the solemn words of the Psalmist: ‘O God the Lord, the Strength of my Salvation: Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.’ His calm and tranquil aspect checked me in my bloody course; I returned to my comrades.