Buckskin Pimpernel

by Mary Beacock Fryer

  His only solace was that he had saved most of his own men. All told, he soon learned that 1,500 men had been sent towards Bennington — Baum's 500 men, von Breymann's 500 reinforcements, and some 500 provincials. Of these, 1,220 were lost at Bennington.8

  Chapter 5

  Saratoga

  At Fort Miller, Brigadier Simon Fraser received the remnants of the Queen's Loyal Rangers kindly, assuring them that they were not to blame. He ordered the wounded Peters to rest in his own bed until tents could be erected for the men who had returned with him. Before Justus had recovered from the shock of the battle and the drain of the walk to the British camp, he discovered unrest in his company. On August 22 Lieutenant Edward Carscallan and his two sons, as well as Ensign John Wilson and most of the German-speaking Irishmen, in all twenty-five officers and men, were asking permission to transfer out of the Queen's Loyal Rangers and serve under Captain Samuel McKay, who had taken command of Pfister's corps.

  One exception gratified Justus. Sergeant John Dulmage, so valuable in communicating with the Germans, was standing by him, although David Dulmage, his brother, and Paul Heck, his brother-in-law, were among those who wanted to leave. If they did, Justus would have only nineteen men on his muster roll, and of these, four were prisoners of war, one had deserted, and another was with the bateaumen because he was unfit for duty with Fraser's vanguard. If the dissenters transferred to McKay, Justus would have only thirteen men on duty with him at Fort Miller. Questioning them, they admitted that McKay had told them they could be discharged sooner if they joined him, although their dislike of Yankees was the real reason for their desire to leave the Queen's Loyal Rangers.1

  Justus confronted John Peters, who summoned the would be defectors before him. With Justus standing by, he said they could remain with the regiment or face arrest. To Sherwood's chagrin all chose the latter, and were marched off to the guardhouse. He appealed to Burgoyne and was granted an interview in what locals called ‘the Duer House’, where the commander-in-chief was staying. He found the general sympathetic but unbending. Justus explained:

  the General said it was never his intention that they should leave me…. Desired me to make myself Fast and said that I should have Employ and Receive Capt. Pay wheather I had men or not I was obliged to put up with the wrong done me.

  Burgoyne felt he could do no less, for he had received many reports of Captain Sherwood's valour. Writing his own account, the general noted that Sherwood was forward in every service of danger to the end of the campaign.2 Finding Lieutenant Carscallan and the others adamant, Burgoyne ordered them sent to Captain McKay as the most expedient way of making them return to duty. With rations so short he could not afford to have men gobbling up food when they were not doing any work.

  Grieving and angry, Justus returned to the tents where his regiment was encamped. There Colonel Peters, irate at losing so many men to that scoundrel McKay, promoted John Dulmage to be Sherwood's lieutenant, and assigned Joseph Moss to replace John Wilson as the ensign. The Queen's Loyal Rangers had been decimated at Bennington and further depleted by losses to other units. Summing up the situation, Peters told Justus that before Bennington the regiment had had, in addition to himself as the lieutenant-colonel, Major Wright, four captains, two lieutenants, two ensigns and 311 rank and file. Of these, 111 all ranks had been killed or captured in the battle, leaving him with 200 officers and men once the stragglers reached Fort Miller. At the fort Peters discovered that Gershom French, Captain Jeremiah French's brother, had arrived there on August 16 with ninety recruits and three other officers, all of whom had received appointments from General Sir William Howe. That made a total of 294 men, but with the loss of those sent to Captain McKay, and others who had been relegated to the bateau service bringing up supplies and protecting the route back to Fort Ticonderoga, Peters was left with only 172 effectives.3

  Of some consolation was a general order from Burgoyne on August 25, by which all officers of provincials were to draw the same pay as the King's regulars. Justus received 61 pounds sterling for his services from June 25 to October 24 —122 days at 10 shillings per day.4

  By the 26th, Burgoyne had sufficient supplies brought forward and he ordered the vanguard to break camp and resume the southward march down the Hudson. Ponderously the entire army moved, dragging too much artillery, Justus thought. He counted no less than forty-two guns, many of them 24-pounders. Time was running out and the nights were growing chilly. In spite of food shortages, the women who had come from Fort St. Johns remained with the expedition, and their ranks had been reinforced at Fort Edward. On August 14, the eve of the slaughter at Bennington, the Baroness von Riedesel had driven into the village with her daughters, aged six, three and one year, and an entourage of nurses, servants and baggage. The Baron had written from Skenesborough informing her that the country was quiet and it would be safe for her to join him. So it was, Justus reflected, then.5

  As August drew to a close, news arrived of another setback to Burgoyne's aspirations. Colonel Barry St. Leger, in command of the small expedition through the Mohawk Valley, could not reduce rebel-occupied Fort Stanwix, about 170 kilometres west of Albany. With his regulars, Sir John Johnson and his men, Iroquois warriors and loyalists led by Major John Butler, St. Leger had withdrawn to Oswego to await the arrival of heavy guns from Fort Niagara. Burgoyne sent him orders to abandon the Mohawk Valley venture and come to reinforce the army on the Hudson River. He also sent urgent appeals to Sir Henry Clinton, in command at New York City, to dispatch what troops he could spare northward towards Albany.

  Each day refugees arrived at the British camp, to be sent on to Fort St. Johns, where Sir Guy Carleton's officers would make arrangements for their welfare. Among them came Paul Heck's wife, Barbara, driving a wagon loaded with five small children and a large grandfather clock. Paul was one of the men who had defected from Sherwood's company and joined Captain McKay.

  By September 13, the Queen's Loyal Rangers again with Brigadier Fraser's vanguard, Justus and his men crossed a temporary bridge built by Lieutenant William Twiss, the engineer. Now they were on the west bank of the Hudson above Saratoga, and when every man and piece of equipment belonging to Burgoyne's army had joined them, the bridge was removed. Now retreat meant handing the rebels a handsome gift of heavy artillery. Their fate was Albany or surrender. Again, as on the march to Fort Edward, Justus found the countryside bare of anything that could be of value to the British expedition. From scouts Fraser had sent towards Albany, Justus learned that General Philip Schuyler had been blamed for the loss of Forts Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. General Horatio Gates, a one time major of British regulars who had served under Burgoyne, had been given command of the rebels' Army of the North, but Schuyler remained in command of the military department in Albany. He had made sure that the British force would be entirely dependent on the long lines of supply stretching back to Fort St. Johns.

  Their dwindling provisions in bateaux, the army marched down the Hudson Valley, a long height of land to the right. In his red coat, Justus felt dangerously conspicuous. The regulars were puzzled by the lack of opposition, but Justus was not fooled. The rebels were waiting on the heights for the right moment to strike with effect. Then parties of rebels began appearing to fire a few rounds, answered by Justus, who led his company in small skirmishes that helped chase them away.

  At night, the enemy began launching small raids against the margins of the British and German encampments. With food not plentiful, parties of foragers left camp without permission, sometimes never to return. When a party of thirty regulars was captured by the rebels, Burgoyne ordered that any man caught leaving camp would be denied a soldier's rights. Instead of a firing party, he would be hanged like a common criminal. Justus, who had led parties himself when hunger drove him to it, admitted that the risk was now too great, both from within and without.

  On the afternoon of September 18, Burgoyne halted his army, now strung out along the Hudson forty kilometres north of Albany
. In the lull Justus and the other officers of the Queen's Loyal Rangers enquired of Colonel Peters what was to happen next. From scouts Peters had learned that the enemy was encamped five kilometres ahead, on high ground overlooking the Hudson at a place called Bemis Heights. Then the colonel received orders from Brigadier Fraser for his regiment to make camp. Burgoyne intended to attack the rebel position at first light.

  As September 19 dawned, fog blanketed the landscape. While waiting for the mist to lift Burgoyne divided his army into three columns. When the visibility allowed, von Reidesel began his march along the Hudson, while Burgoyne and Fraser marched their columns up on the heights, moving due west. At an open valley Burgoyne and the men of his centre split from Fraser's right wing and turned south down this valley. Fraser directed the Queen's Loyal Rangers to follow a small party of Indians onward towards the west, and to send scouts to report any sign of the rebels. Then the brigadier rode back to the head of his regulars.

  The rangers spread out in three lines of widely spaced men, Peters' company followed by Major Wright's, and then Sherwood's. On they marched until they heard the boom of cannon from below them and, breaking into a clearing Justus beheld smoke rising. Fraser, with a small escort, rode in shouting orders to follow him with all speed. Peters ordered a close formation and his men jogged after the brigadier, the regulars close behind them. Burgoyne had engaged the rebels in overwhelming numbers at Freeman's farm, and had ordered Fraser to come and reinforce him. Down the slope the Queen's Loyal Rangers ran, keeping right behind Fraser. Through the woods they dashed, deafened by the noise of the guns.

  Justus saw Fraser astride his horse, waving his sword and bellowing at Peters to place his men on the flank. The regulars ran past the Queen's Loyal Rangers and formed into tight lines, firing their volleys in support of Burgoyne, while Peters led his men and some Indians into the woods, picking off rebels who were trying to turn the British flank. Justus and his company aimed at men in frontier dress or the beige, gray or blue coats of men in the Army of the North.

  They found many opportunities to skirmish, for small parties of rebels were trying to reach the rear of Burgoyne's lines. Then suddenly the firing ceased and Captain Alexander Fraser came riding through the woods ordering all the provincials to come to the battlefield. The rebels had taken to their heels and Burgoyne controlled Freeman's farm.

  Arriving with his company Justus was grieved but hardly surprised to discover that many of the officers, mounted on horses, gorgets flashing in the sun, had fallen. Such offered frontier riflemen targets they could not miss. Burgoyne was proclaiming a victory, but Justus suspected that the battle statistics were not impressive. Darkness fell as the army waited for the return of the rebels. The men lay beside their arms, listening for any signs of a pending attack until dawn.

  After touring the field with Colonel Peters and Major Wright, Justus counted 57 Queen's Loyal Rangers among the dead.6 Several were his own men and he ordered a detail to bury them. Once all the dead had been counted and the toll of prisoners taken, Burgoyne had lost 600 men while another 200 had been captured; the rebel losses were 65 killed, 300 wounded, some of whom were now prisoners. Justus and his fellow provincial officers were dumbfounded. A few more such victories and Burgoyne would not have an army.

  Next, Burgoyne ordered the troops to dig in and build barricades, despite the fact that the land around Freeman's field was an exposed position where rebel snipers would have a heyday. While his men were starting on a barricade, Justus faced the truth. The rebels were little more than thirty kilometres from Albany, their source of supply. Burgoyne's lines now stretched nearly 350 kilometres back to Fort St. Johns. The British expedition was doomed. Burgoyne should abandon his heavy artillery while he still had time and withdraw to Ticonderoga. After the losses at Bennington and Freeman's farm, the rebel army must now outnumber the British force. If Burgoyne surrendered, Justus and all the other provincials were as good as dead. His only salvation was desertion, unthinkable for he was an honourable man.

  September 20 dawned foggy and this time the mist did not lift. The 21st was sunny, disturbed by sporadic bursts of firing from the trees around the British encampment. The other provincials heard that Burgoyne had sent Joseph Bettys, of McAlpin's unit, south in search of news of Sir Henry Clinton. Bettys was from Ballstown, north of Schenectady. A member of the rebel militia, he was captured while serving with Benedict Arnold's fleet in October of 1776. Wearied of life as a prisoner of war, Bettys offered his services and McAlpin vouched for him. Justus thought Bettys a buccaneer, but if anyone could get through the rebel lines that man was Joe Bettys.7

  On October 4 Bettys returned, and reported that Sir Henry Clinton was moving north, with a small force but only as far as Forts Montgomery and Clinton, near the mouth of the Hudson. All Sir Henry could do was try and lure away some of the swarm of rebels then menacing Burgoyne's army by staging a diversion against these forts: one named, Justus learned, after the general's own first cousin, George Clinton, the rebel governor of New York State. Justus thought of his own family, his uncles Seth and Adiel, zealous rebels, all their sons except Thomas on the rebel side. Sir Henry Clinton, too, came from a family divided by rebellion.

  Three days after Bettys' return, Colonel Peters received orders to prepare his remaining rangers for a reconnaissance near the rebel position at Bemis Heights. With 1,500 men and two 12-pounder guns, Burgoyne would lead the attack from his centre. Brigadier Fraser, with companies of light infantry and the remaining provincials not bringing up supplies, was to move by secret paths through the woods behind the rebels' position and engage them from the rear, to prevent too much strength being thrown against the centre of the British line. Again, Justus found himself close to the front, with Fraser behind the Queen's Loyal Rangers at the head of his regulars. They had not gone far when Peters received orders to turn back. The enemy had broken through Burgoyne's line, and the men of the 24th Regiment — Fraser's own — were keeping a path open for their commanding officer's men to regain the British camp at Freeman's farm. In the headlong dash Justus noticed Fraser, bleeding from a wound in his stomach, being held on his horse.

  Towards dusk the Queen's Loyal Rangers and the other provincials were sent to reinforce Colonel von Breymann — the officer who had been leading the reinforcements near Bennington — at a redoubt on the north side of the British camp. The Germans were under attack by Kentuckian Daniel Morgan and his corps of riflemen, and a few snipers of provincials might help turn the tide. As night fell the rebels overran the men at von Breymann's redoubt. Justus was ordering his men back within the camp when he felt hot iron pierce his thigh and he staggered and lost his balance. Lieutenant John Dulmage, swimming before his eyes, aided by a German soldier, was lifting him from the redoubt. As the second Battle of Freeman's Farm was ending, Dulmage, aided by men from the company, carried Justus past Burgoyne's own headquarters to the hospital tents on the north side of the camp, near the bank of the Hudson where the provision bateaux were tied up.8

  The hospital was a madhouse of shrieking men, surgeons sawing shattered limbs on tables slimy with blood. Dulmage found an empty straw palliasse, and joined by Thomas Sherwood and Elijah Bothum, both very alarmed, they laid Justus down gently. With a knife his lieutenant cut away the breeches from around the bloody hole. In his agony Justus heard John say that he had stopped a musket ball but the bone was intact. Elijah brought a tumbler full of rum, which Justus sipped while awaiting a surgeon to attend to him. Dulmage left to look after the company, while Thomas and Elijah sat with Justus and held him steady until the surgeon had extracted the ball. With teeth clenched, Justus wondered why the rum was doing so little good.

  Throughout the night Justus lay comforted by more doses of rum. In the morning Thomas Sherwood came in, and on asking about Brigadier Fraser, Justus was saddened to learn that he had died before dawn at the house where the Baroness von Riedesel was staying. The army's present predicament was not Fraser's doing. After a moment's silence Thom
as reported that Burgoyne had ordered a withdrawal up the Hudson. The vanguard was leaving, although rain teemed down, beating on the walls of the tent. Outside the road was a sea of mud, guns towed by emaciated horses and oxen, pushed by men who had scarcely the strength to walk, let alone salvage the artillery. The most severely wounded men would be left behind, but John Dulmage had men making a litter for Justus. All refused to forsake their captain.

  Early on the morning of the 9th, Dulmage, Thomas and Elijah carried Justus, praying that he would have the strength to reach Ticonderoga and the garrison Burgoyne had left there. The rest of the company in command of Ensign Moss had set out with the first wave of Burgoyne's rearguard, trudging through the mud after the rest of the army. Twelve kilometres to the north they found the army halted at the village of Saratoga, the troops digging in. After the retreat under such appalling conditions, Burgoyne had decided they could go no farther.

  When they reached Saratoga, John Dulmage, Thomas and Elijah took Justus to the newly pitched hospital tents and found him another pallet. There an anxious Colonel Peters visited him. Burgoyne was ordering his provincials to escape in small groups and try to reach Ticonderoga, for he was fearful he might not be able to protect them at the inevitable surrender. Many had already left, but Peters was hoping that Sherwood and ten privates who had also been wounded might be able to march soon.

  On the 14th, Peters visited Justus again. The colonel had procured written permission from Burgoyne to remove the Queen's Loyal Rangers, for the rebels would slaughter them after the capitulation. While others had left, Peters decided to seek the permission in writing lest superior officers he might encounter on the way to Ticonderoga consider his men deserters. Justus could walk a little, but a long march was out of the question; his wound was healing slowly owing to inadequate food and the rawness of the weather.