ave
numbered less than ten thousand men.

Taken as a whole, this army was justly thought the equal of twice its
own number of raw yeomanry, suddenly called to the field from the anvil,
the workshop, or the plough. Its strongest arm was its artillery; its
weakest, its Indian allies.

Burgoyne divided his force into three corps, commanded by Generals
Frazer, Phillips, and Riedesel,--all excellent officers. Frazer's corps
was mostly made up of picked companies, taken from other battalions and
joined with the 24th regiment of the line. As its duty was of the
hardest, so its material was of the best the army could afford. Next to
Burgoyne, Frazer was, beyond all question, the officer most looked up to
by the soldiers; in every sense of the word, he was a thorough soldier.
His corps was, therefore, Burgoyne's right arm. Phillips commanded the
artillery; and Riedesel, the Germans.

In the middle of June this army embarked on Lake Champlain. Of many
warlike pageants the aged mountains had looked down upon, perhaps this
was the most splendid and imposing. From the general to the private
soldier, all were filled with high hopes of a successful campaign. In
front, the Indians, painted and decked out for war, skimmed the lake in
their light canoes. Next came the barges containing Frazer's corps,
marshalled in one regular line, with gunboats flanking it on each side;
next, the Royal George and Inflexible frigates, with other armed vessels
forming the fleet. Behind this strong escort, the main body, with the
generals, followed in close order; and, last of all, came the camp
followers, of whom there were far too many for the nature of the service
in hand.

In the distance the American watch-boats saw this gallant array bearing
down upon them, in the confidence of its power. Hastening back to
Ticonderoga, the word was passed along the lines to prepare for battle.

For the Mohawk Valley expedition, St. Leger, who led it, took with him
about seven hundred regular troops, two hundred loyalists, and eight
guns. At Oswego, seven hundred Indians of the Six Nations joined him.
With these, St. Leger started in July for Fort Stanwix, which barred
his way to the Hudson, just as Ticonderoga blocked Burgoyne's advance on
the side of Lake Champlain.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] SOLDIERS WERE HIRED from the petty German princes for the American
war. The Americans called them all Hessians, because some came from the
principality of Hesse. George III. a