His camp was swept by the American guns and his men were under arms night and day.American sharpshooters stationed themselves at daybreak in trees about the British camp and any one who appeared in the open risked his life.If a cap was held up in view instantly two or three balls would pass through it.His horses were killed by rifle shots.Burgoyne had little food for his men and none for his horses.His Indians had long since gone off in dudgeon.Many of his Canadian French slipped off homeward and so did the Loyalists.The German troops were naturally dispirited.A British officer tells of the deadly homesickness of these poor men.They would gather in groups of two dozen or so and mourn that they would never again see their native land.They died, a score at a time, of no other disease than sickness for their homes.They could have no pride in trying to save a lost cause.Burgoyne was surrounded and, on the 17th of October, he was obliged to surrender.
Gates proposed to Burgoyne hard terms--surrender with no honors of war.The British were to lay down their arms in their encampments and to march out without weapons of any kind.
Burgoyne declared that, rather than accept such terms, he would fight still and take no quarter.A shadow was falling on the path of Gates.The term of service of some of his men had expired.The New Englanders were determined to stay and see the end of Burgoyne but a good many of the New York troops went off.
Sickness, too, was increasing.Above all General Clinton was advancing up the Hudson.British ships could come up freely as far as Albany and in a few days Clinton might make a formidable advance.Gates, a timid man, was in a hurry.He therefore agreed that the British should march from their camp with the honors of war, that the troops should be taken to New England, and from there to England.They must not serve again in North America during the war but there was nothing in the terms to prevent their serving in Europe and relieving British regiments for service in America.Gates had the courtesy to keep his army where it could not see the laying down of arms by Burgoyne's force.
About five thousand men, of whom sixteen hundred were Germans and only three thousand five hundred fit for duty, surrendered to sixteen thousand Americans.Burgoyne gave offense to German officers by saying in his report that he might have held out longer had all his troops been British.This is probably true but the British met with only a just Nemesis for using soldiers who had no call of duty to serve.
The army set out on its long march of two hundred miles to Boston.The late autumn weather was cold, the army was badly clothed and fed, and the discomfort of the weary route was increased by the bitter antagonism of the inhabitants.They respected the regular British soldier but at the Germans they shouted insults and the Loyalists they despised as traitors.The camp at the journey's end was on the ground at Cambridge where two years earlier Washington had trained his first army.Every day Burgoyne expected to embark.There was delay and, at last, he knew the reason.Congress repudiated the terms granted by Gates.
A tangled dispute followed.Washington probably had no sympathy with the quibbling of Congress.But he had no desire to see this army return to Europe and release there an army to serve in America.Burgoyne's force was never sent to England.For nearly a year it lay at Boston.Then it was marched to Virginia.The men suffered great hardships and the numbers fell by desertion and escape.When peace came in 1783 there was no army to take back to England; Burgoyne's soldiers had been merged into the American people.It may well be, indeed, that descendants of his beaten men have played an important part in building up the United States.The irony of history is unconquerable.
