g St. Clair's rearguard before him on the
left, the British were giving chase to the American flotilla on the
lake. This had hardly reached Skenesborough, encumbered with the sick,
the baggage, and the stores, when the British gunboats came up with, and
furiously attacked, it. Our vessels could not be cleared for action or
make effective resistance. After making what defence they could, they
were abandoned, and blown up by their crews. Skenesborough was then set
on fire, the Americans making good their retreat to Fort Anne,[26] with
the loss of all their stores.

St. Clair heard of Warner's defeat and of the taking of Skenesborough
almost at the same hour. His first plan had wholly miscarried. His
soldiers were angry and insubordinate, half his available force had been
scattered at Hubbardton, his supplies were gone, his line of retreat in
the enemy's hands. Finding himself thus cut off from the direct route to
Fort Edward, he now marched to join Schuyler by way of Rutland,
Manchester, and Bennington. This he succeeded in doing on the twelfth,
with about half the men he had led from Ticonderoga. Warner, too,
brought off the shattered remnant of his command to Bennington.

On his part, Schuyler had promptly sent a reenforcement to Fort Anne, to
protect St. Clair's retreat, as soon as he knew of it. These troops soon
found other work on their hands than that cut out for them.

[Sidenote: July 7.]

Burgoyne was determined to give the Americans no time either to rally,
or again unite their scattered bands in his front. Without delay, one
regiment was pushed forward to Fort Anne, on the heels of the fugitives
who had just left Skenesborough in flames. When this battalion reached
the fort, instead of waiting to be attacked, the Americans sallied out
upon it with spirit, and were driving it before them in full retreat,
when the yells of some Indians, who were lurking in the neighboring
woods, spread such a panic among the victors that they gave up the
fight, set fire to Fort Anne, and retreated to Fort Edward with no enemy
pursuing them. The defeated British then fell back to Skenesborough, so
that each detachment may be said to have run away from the other.

General Burgoyne had much reason to be elated with his success thus far.
In one short week he had taken Ticonderoga, with more than one hundred
cannon; had scattered the garrison right and left; had captured or
destroyed a prodigious quantity of warlike stores, the lo