Read Online An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson by Andro Linklater - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Andro Linklater
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Despair may Dictate to him, to risque all upon one Throw,” he confessed to a friend; “he is an old gamester & in his time has seen all chances.”
On October 7, the old gamester made his last throw. A force of fifteen hundred men attempted to circle round the American position once more. They aimed at surprise, but were detected at once. On almost the same ground, almost the same battle was fought, but this time the result was different. Gates immediately sent out Morgan and the rifle corps, who had time to get beyond the British, outflanking them and picking off their officers with murderous accuracy.
At the critical moment, however, Arnold simply ignored Gates, Wilkinson, and the entire chain of command and seized control of Learned’s brigade, leading it on horseback to capitalize on the confusion the riflemen had caused. “Our cannon were surrounded and taken,” Lieutenant Digby wrote in his journal that night, “the men and horses were all killed—which gave [the Americans] additional spirits, and they rushed on with loud shouts . . . we drove them back a little way, [but] with so great loss to ourselves that it evidently appeared a retreat was the only thing left for us.”
Among the casualties of the last British resistance was Benedict Arnold, wounded while still at the head of Learned’s men. The bullet struck him on the right leg, where he had been hit at Quebec, but this time it took him high above the knee, shattering the bone and leaving him with a limp from which he never recovered. The battle of Bemis Heights was the last occasion that he led American troops in combat, and his record as a tactical commander was not surpassed until General Nathanael Greene’s southern campaign in 1781.
The defeat at Bemis Heights cost Burgoyne’s army the loss of another seven hundred men and sealed its fate. Two days later, he led it squelching through heavy rain toward Saratoga and found a defensive position on high ground beside the Hudson River. But it could retreat no further. New England militia to the east of the river prevented any crossing in that direction, and in the north more citizen soldiers under General Benjamin Lincoln had taken up position and were about to recapture Ticonderoga. Sharpshooters surrounded the British army. An exposed sentry was shot where he stood, and cannonballs raked through the medical officers’ operating theater. Burgoyne was bottled up. The last scenes of the great victory of Saratoga concerned the terms of his surrender.
M ANY YEARS LATER, Matthew Lyon told Thomas Jefferson that, having observed Wilkinson’s conduct during the campaign, he had thought him “the likeliest young man I ever saw.” General Horatio Gates certainly shared that opinion. Not only had his youthful chief of staff deftly stabbed Arnold in the back at a critical moment, he had proved a reliable link to the demanding and difficult subordinates, and, at least by Wilkinson’s account, in the second battle at Bemis Heights he had saved the general by countermanding an order that would have sent General Poor into direct view of British artillery.
That Gates trusted his twenty-year- old protégé unreservedly was made clear on October 14 when Burgoyne sent his emissary, Major Kingston— “a well-formed, ruddy, handsome man,” as Wilkinson remembered— to the American camp to request a cease-fire and ask for terms of surrender. Wilkinson met him and acted as his general’s representative throughout the subsequent negotiations.
For three days, helped by an officer with legal training, William Whipple, Wilkinson hammered out the details of the surrender with two British officers, Captain James Craig and Colonel Nicholas Sutherland, in a tent pitched midway between the two armies. With news coming in that British troops from New York under General Henry Clinton were approaching Albany, Gates wanted a speedy settlement. He offered major concessions, including free passage to Britain on condition
On October 7, the old gamester made his last throw. A force of fifteen hundred men attempted to circle round the American position once more. They aimed at surprise, but were detected at once. On almost the same ground, almost the same battle was fought, but this time the result was different. Gates immediately sent out Morgan and the rifle corps, who had time to get beyond the British, outflanking them and picking off their officers with murderous accuracy.
At the critical moment, however, Arnold simply ignored Gates, Wilkinson, and the entire chain of command and seized control of Learned’s brigade, leading it on horseback to capitalize on the confusion the riflemen had caused. “Our cannon were surrounded and taken,” Lieutenant Digby wrote in his journal that night, “the men and horses were all killed—which gave [the Americans] additional spirits, and they rushed on with loud shouts . . . we drove them back a little way, [but] with so great loss to ourselves that it evidently appeared a retreat was the only thing left for us.”
Among the casualties of the last British resistance was Benedict Arnold, wounded while still at the head of Learned’s men. The bullet struck him on the right leg, where he had been hit at Quebec, but this time it took him high above the knee, shattering the bone and leaving him with a limp from which he never recovered. The battle of Bemis Heights was the last occasion that he led American troops in combat, and his record as a tactical commander was not surpassed until General Nathanael Greene’s southern campaign in 1781.
The defeat at Bemis Heights cost Burgoyne’s army the loss of another seven hundred men and sealed its fate. Two days later, he led it squelching through heavy rain toward Saratoga and found a defensive position on high ground beside the Hudson River. But it could retreat no further. New England militia to the east of the river prevented any crossing in that direction, and in the north more citizen soldiers under General Benjamin Lincoln had taken up position and were about to recapture Ticonderoga. Sharpshooters surrounded the British army. An exposed sentry was shot where he stood, and cannonballs raked through the medical officers’ operating theater. Burgoyne was bottled up. The last scenes of the great victory of Saratoga concerned the terms of his surrender.
M ANY YEARS LATER, Matthew Lyon told Thomas Jefferson that, having observed Wilkinson’s conduct during the campaign, he had thought him “the likeliest young man I ever saw.” General Horatio Gates certainly shared that opinion. Not only had his youthful chief of staff deftly stabbed Arnold in the back at a critical moment, he had proved a reliable link to the demanding and difficult subordinates, and, at least by Wilkinson’s account, in the second battle at Bemis Heights he had saved the general by countermanding an order that would have sent General Poor into direct view of British artillery.
That Gates trusted his twenty-year- old protégé unreservedly was made clear on October 14 when Burgoyne sent his emissary, Major Kingston— “a well-formed, ruddy, handsome man,” as Wilkinson remembered— to the American camp to request a cease-fire and ask for terms of surrender. Wilkinson met him and acted as his general’s representative throughout the subsequent negotiations.
For three days, helped by an officer with legal training, William Whipple, Wilkinson hammered out the details of the surrender with two British officers, Captain James Craig and Colonel Nicholas Sutherland, in a tent pitched midway between the two armies. With news coming in that British troops from New York under General Henry Clinton were approaching Albany, Gates wanted a speedy settlement. He offered major concessions, including free passage to Britain on condition
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