The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [90]
Lieutenant James McMichael had no need of prostitutes, though, because he had his passionate wife Susanna and visited her whenever he could. McMichael spent the rest of the summer of 1777 on routine work as his regiment camped in New Jersey and saw little action. He was sent on several more missions back to Pennsylvania to hunt for deserters, trips that were unproductive. On one in July, he spent the night at the Spread Eagle Tavern, in Chester County, following an afternoon ride that took him “past the Valley Forge,” a remote ironworks twenty miles northwest of Philadelphia. He rode by the small forge and the wide plateau adjacent to it, on the banks of the Schuylkill River, and thought nothing of it.
Chapter Seventeen
SARATOGA, 1777:
The Arduous Journey of Sergeant Ebenezer Wild, Nineteen
The War
England’s most flamboyant General, “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne— fashion plate, gambler, playwright, dancer, raconteur, much-in-demand London dinner guest, and daring military leader—was given command of the large force gathered in Canada in the summer of 1777 and ordered to travel south to New York. He was to sail down Lake Champlain and capture Fort Ticonderoga and any other American garrisons he passed, sink any American ships he found, and then move south to smash the Continental force’s northern army, headquartered at Albany. Generals Howe and Clinton would then travel north up the Hudson River to meet him, and with their combined army would split the colonies in two, using part of their force to render New England helpless to the north and another part to chase and destroy George Washington’s main army to the south. If all went well, the American Revolution would be over before Christmas.
General Horatio Gates planned on halting the march of Burgoyne’s army somewhere along the western banks of the Hudson River, using the farms and hills of the area, plus earthworks his men would build, to form a defensive line. To stop Burgoyne, aided by several thousand Hessians, Gates knew he had to bring in more men. He also had to deal with the obstinate Benedict Arnold, now one of his commanders.
Ebenezer Wild’s journey to Saratoga had been a difficult one. No soldier in his regiment, the First Massachusetts, was happier to pitch his tent in a field that overlooked headquarters at Bemis Heights, a plateau south of the village of Saratoga, than the nineteen-year-old sergeant when he arrived with the rest of the men just after 5 p.m. on July 31, 1777.
Wild had left his home in Braintree, Massachusetts, to rejoin the Continental Army in Boston on April 9 following a furlough. His commander, Colonel Joseph Vose, let his men spend an enjoyable afternoon drinking at the Punch Bowl Tavern, the crowded, raucous, popular Boston bar, before they began marching southwest to meet up with the northern army commanded by General Gates. An overweight, ruddyfaced, former British officer who wore thick glasses, he was called “Granny Gates” by some of his men.
Congress awarded Gates the command in mid-August, replacing General Philip Schuyler after some nasty army infighting and the loss of Ticonderoga. Gates claimed that Schuyler was not capable of commanding a large army. Schuyler, though, said that Gates had engaged in an underhanded scheme to replace him.1 Gates’s scheming would soon result in nearly tragic consequences for the army when he would become connected to a duplicitous plan to supplant Washington as commander in chief. Gates moved swiftly to enlarge the size of his forces and to improve morale upon assuming command. He issued general orders for more and better training, increased cleanliness, and pushed officers to persuade their men to work harder. He told his soldiers that they had to build “confidence in themselves.”2
It was a long