The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [94]
The regiment became lost at one point and spent an entire day wandering through a wooded area before stumbling upon the cabin of a man who sent them back in the proper direction. They completed several hazardous crossings of fast-running creeks and rivers in Massachusetts and New York. They had to pile all of their baggage onto rafts and pole their way across a turbulent Connecticut river; the crossing took five exhausting hours. It was impossible to simply ford one creek and the men had to spend an afternoon chopping down trees to lay across it as a bridge and then carefully walk across the round logs. Many of the men could not sleep on some evenings because the howls of wild animals kept them awake. At one point they ran out of provisions and in order to stay alive were forced to eat only green corn that they found in a field. The trip had been filled with rain, and it poured all night on August 31, the day they finally arrived at Ticonderoga, where Wild served as a guard and, already inoculated, was safe from the smallpox that killed so many troops there.
Finally, on December 22, his enlistment up, Wild was furloughed and sent home to Braintree. He arrived on January 2, 1777. The corporal spent nine weeks at home and decided to rejoin the army, in Vose’s First Massachusetts regiment. This time he was promoted and made a sergeant and began his journey to Saratoga.
Burgoyne’s large army arrived on the heavily wooded eastern bank of the Hudson River on September 13. By now, most of his Indians, unreliable throughout the trip, had departed, leaving him with few natives who knew the area and who could scout the enemy without drawing attention. The Americans had plenty of scouts, however, and they had been watching the British commander for days with their spyglasses. They could not miss him. As usual, the highly visible, flamboyant British general was marching with all of his troops together, his flags unfurled and flying high in the autumn breeze. His bands played British military music loud enough to be heard from some distance.9 His column of supply wagons, cannon, and nearly eight thousand troops stretched for several miles. He moved slowly, too, because the Americans had wrecked nearly every bridge on his route, forcing him to continually stop to rebuild them.
General Gates, with seven thousand men, had blocked any route down the western side of the Hudson by building a series of earthworks around a camp that extended westward past land owned by a farmer named Freeman. The earthworks formed three sides of a square, with the open side on the south guarded by a deep ravine. Each side was about three-quarters of a mile in length. The area was thickly forested, except for a few large, open meadows within the confines of local farms, such as Freeman’s. With plenty of time, the Americans had also positioned their cannon where Gates believed they would have the most effect. The American camp lay on what was known as Bemis Heights, named after a local tavern keeper, and was two hundred feet above the Hudson, giving the Americans excellent location.10 The general was prepared for a defensive battle and awaited Burgoyne’s arrival.11 On September 15, two nights after the British crossed, all the American troops were put in readiness. “We had orders to lay upon arms and not pull off any of our clothes,” wrote Wild.
Few slept. At 2 a.m., Wild wrote, his regiment was awakened and ordered to construct even more earthworks in the dark. The officers were certain that Burgoyne would attack them that day. The British did not and three more days passed. Burgoyne hesitated because he only had a vague idea of the terrain around him and the strength of the enemy. He did not know Gates’s position and had, in fact, practically marched right into the American forces after he crossed the Hudson.
On September 16 and 18, Wild wrote, more