Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/87

Rh centuries back. The romantic story of the Maid of Orleans has, also, recently been tampered with; and, notwithstanding a late history of the ill-fated girl, two or three learned French antiquaries have become convinced that the burning at the stake is a myth, and that the maiden, rescued at the stake, became a wife and mother, and that some of her descendants are now living in the south of France.

There has recently appeared in Germany a history of the "German Auxiliary Forces in the war of North American Independence," which illustrates this characteristic of the present age in a remarkable manner. This work, which is made up of some sixty hitherto unpublished manuscript journals and orderly-books written during the Revolution by Brunswick and Hessian officers, who served here during that time, throws a flood of light upon the period of our national history to which they refer, and especially upon the campaign of General Burgoyne. And while the evidence there presented dissipates, in a great measure, the halo which remoteness has thrown around the great generals of that period—blinding us to their deficiences—yet the errors that have hitherto obtained concerning that campaign are of such a serious nature as to justify an attempt to place before American readers the plain truth in relation to an event which, in its results, was the most important of any in our Revolutionary annals.

The campaign of General Burgoyne is to be ascribed more to his own blunders and incompetency than to any special military skill on the part of his conquerors. Up to the time that, having forced the evacuation of Ticonderoga, he took possession of Skeensborough (Whitehall) all had gone well. From that point, however, his fortunes began to wane. His true course would have been to return to Ticonderoga, and thence down Lake George to the fort of that name, whence there was a direct road to Fort Edward, instead of which he determined to push on to Fort Ann and Fort Edward over roads that were blocked up by the enemy—a course which gave Schuyler ample time to gather the yeomanry together and effectually oppose his progress. Nor was this all. On his arrival at Fort Ann, instead of advancing at once upon Fort Edward, and thence to Albany before Schuyler had time to concentrate his forces in his front, he sent a detachment of Brunswickers, under Colonel Baum, to Bennington to surprise and capture some stores which he had heard were at that place. General Riedesel, who commanded the German allies, was totally opposed to this diversion, but being overruled, he proposed that Baum should march in the rear of the enemy, by way of Castleton, toward the Connecticut river. Had this plan been adopted, the probability is that the Americans would not have had time to prevent Baum from falling unawares upon their rear. Burgoyne, however, against the advice of Riedesel and