Synopsis
July 4, 1776.
The Continental Congress adopted a Declaration
of Independence. This courageous act of rebellion against
the King was quickly overshadowed by a number of disastrous
defeats of the plagued by small pox, desertion, scarcity of
supplies, and lack of discipline Continental Army under George
Washington— a great man and leader but lousy commander. The
American Revolution was on the verge of collapse.
Fraction fighting in the Continental Congress fueled by
an animosity between the states, personal politics, and jealousy
added to the sorry state of the affairs.
To deliver a
knockout blow the British
planned an advance of three armies: two southward from Canada
and one northward from New York. They would make a juncture in
Albany, isolate New England--the seed of evil--and finish off
the rebellion.
The author of the plan, a fiercely ambitious Maj. Gen. John
Burgoyne, would lead the main army from Canada. Known as
“Gentleman Johnny” for the humane treatment of his soldiers,
Burgoyne was a gambler, bon vivant, womanizer, and
playwright--but also great soldier and admired by the troops
commander. He traveled with thirty carts of personal belongings:
champagne, clothes, furniture, and a courtesan. Gen. St.
Leger--a Burgoyne wannabe, who surpassed his role model in
drinking, but totally lacked his military skills--led the second
army from the north. The British Commander in Chief sir. William
Howe was in charge of the third army in New York.
The highly classified Burgoyne’s plan of crushing the
rebellion through the Lakes was leaked to the press in Montreal
and widely publicized. Burgoyne was puzzled. And so were the
Americans; the publicity surrounding the plan made it look more
like a British ploy. Meticulously gathered intelligence, which
the Americans trusted more than the Montreal papers, suggested
something else: Burgoyne planned in fact to attack Boston or
sail to New York and--with Howe--attack Philadelphia… and that
turned out to be the real British ploy; the Americans fell for
it.
Fort Ticonderoga--“the Gibraltar of America”--stood at a key
point between Lake Champlain and the Hudson River, guarding the
northern frontier. The safety of the country depended on
the strength of that post. In early spring 1777 the post was
particularly weak and vulnerable, lacking manpower, cloths,
muskets, gunpowder, and tents. Kosciuszko, who arrived here on
May 12th, 1777, had to share a blanket with Gen.
Horatio Gates’ aide-de-camp James Wilkinson.
Horatio Gates was a British soldier born to a servant, who could not
advance in the ranks beyond his birth. In search of a promotion,
he quitted the
service, moved to America, and joined the rebels. He was
locked in a bitter dispute with an aristocratic
New Yorker Gen. Philip Schuyler
over the command of the Northern Department. An underdog himself, Gates befriended the foreigner
Kosciuszko and became his protector.
Kosciuszko arrived in Ticonderoga with a mandate from
Gates to examine the defenses, and found “all blockhouses
erected in the most improper places.” His key suggestion was
to station artillery on the nearby Sugar Loaf Hill overlooking
the fort—a great idea, which was met with a great resistance.
It lacked credibility--spoken in a tortured English by a
“timidly modest” foreigner. It undermined the authority of a
self-taught local engineer Jeduthan Baldwin, who ridiculed it.
It angered Gen. Schuyler, who had superseded Gates, because it
came from the protégé of his enemy. Personal politics, petty
jealousy, and Kosciuszko’s modesty prevented the
implementation of the plan. It was the British who proved
Kosciuszko right, placing heavy weaponry on the Sugar Loaf Hill
within days of their arrival and putting the Americans in an
untenable position. Kosciuszko was vindicated—paradoxically,
in the face of the American defeat. On July 5th,
1777, in a matter of minutes, the Patriots decided to evacuate
the fort, which they laboriously mended for months. One day
after the celebration of the first anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence, drunk and desperate they escaped in
panic under the cover of night, leaving behind cannons, stores,
and some of the sick. Fire set to a house by an infuriated
Frenchmen in the rebels’ service betrayed the escape route of
the Americans. The British pursued them vigorously.
The humiliating and chaotic abandonment of Fort Ticonderoga
shocked the nation and sunk the morale of the army; the country
fell into a “miserable state of despondency and terror.”
Schuyler and his second in command St. Clair stood accused of
treason, cowardice, and neglect of duty.
On the first anniversary of the Declaration of Independence--the
independence of the colonies was nothing but a declaration.
Kosciuszko played a key role in the hasty withdrawal of the
remnants of the American army. Ill-disposed towards Kosciuszko
Schuyler put at his disposal a horse and half of the army.
Under the Pole’s command a thousand men fell trees,
destroyed bridges, and flooded large areas of land, creating
marshes and bogs, in which drowned the carts with Burgoyne’s
champagne, clothes, furniture, and the mistress. Kosciuszko
reduced the advance of the British to as little as a mile a day,
giving the colonists a desperately needed time to catch a breath
and regroup.
On August 19th Gen. Gates managed to regain
through political maneuvering the command of the Northern Army,
closing yet another chapter in the bitter tug of war between him
and Gen. Schuyler. He
immediately put Kosciuszko in charge of making new defensive
lines. Kosciuszko selected Bemis Heights on the Hudson River and
built there impregnable fortifications. Burgoyne attacked
unsuccessfully suffering heavy losses. The British army “must
not retreat.” A counterattack by Gen. Benedict Arnold--a
military genius, American hero and traitor--inflicted even more
damage. The British army had to retreat.
To make things worse, defeated St. Leger retreated to
Canada. Gen. Howe in New York was Burgoyne’s only hope.
According to the plan, he would move north to make a juncture in
Albany. Well, he didn’t. He sailed south instead to attack
Philadelphia. Burgoyne was alone.
Within weeks the colonists encircled him, eventually
forcing to surrender. On October 17th for the first
time in the history of the Empire the entire British army
surrender on the battlefield. It was the beginning of the end of
the British in America. The genius plan of Burgoyne had turned
into a total disaster.
Had
it not been for the Kosciuszko’s ingenious and skillful
engineering during the entire Campaign, and, in particular, the
strength of his fortifications at Bemis Heights, the outcome of
the Campaign and the American Revolution may have been quite
different. “Let us be honest.”—Said Gates of his protégée
Kosciuszko—“In war, as in medicine, natural causes not under
our control do much. In the present case, the great tacticians
of the campaign were hills and forests, which a young Polish
Engineer was skilful enough to select for my encampment.” The
importance of the British defeat cannot be overestimated, for it
was the victory at Saratoga that finally persuaded France and
Spain to officially ally with the Continental government, a
full-scale involvement that would prove to be a key factor in
the colonists’ ultimate victory. |
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