ed
round Burgoyne. The New Englanders whipped one division at Bennington,
and the New Yorkers shattered another at Oriskany and Fort Schuyler.
The country people turned out in defense of their invaded homes and
poured into the American camp. Burgoyne struggled and advanced,
fought and retreated. Gates, stupid, lethargic, and good-natured, did
nothing, but there was no need of generalship; and Arnold was there,
turbulent and quarrelsome, but full of daring; and Morgan, too,
equally ready; and they and others did all the necessary fighting.

Poor Burgoyne, a brave gentleman, if not a great general, had
the misfortune to be a clever man in the service of a stupid
administration, and he met the fate usually meted out under such
circumstances to men of ideas. Howe went off to the conquest of
Philadelphia, Clinton made a brief burning and plundering raid up the
river, and the northern invasion, which really had meaning, was left
to its fate. It was a hard fate, but there was no escape. Outnumbered,
beaten, and caught, Burgoyne surrendered. If there had been a
fighting-man at the head of the American army, the British would have
surrendered as prisoners of war, and not on conditions. Schuyler, we
may be sure, whatever his failings, would never have let them off
so easily. But it was sufficient as it was. The wilderness, and the
militia of New York and New England swarming to the defense of their
homes, had done the work. It all fell out just as Washington had
foreseen and planned, and England, despising her enemy and their
commander, saw one of her armies surrender, and might have known, if
she had had the wit, that the colonies were now lost forever. The
Revolution had been saved at Trenton; it was established at Saratoga.
In the one case it was the direct, in the other the indirect, work of
Washington.

Poor Gates, with his dull brain turning under the impression that this
crowning mercy had been his own doing, lost his head, forgot that
there was a commander-in-chief, and sending his news to Congress, left
Washington to find out from chance rumors, and a tardy letter from
Putnam, that Burgoyne had actually surrendered. This gross slight,
however, had deeper roots than the mere exultation of victory acting
on a heavy and common mind. It represented a hostile feeling which
had been slowly increasing for some time, which had been carefully
nurtured by those interested in its growth, and which blossomed
rapidly in the heated