Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/88

80 Philips, insisted obstinately on his plan, which was that Baum should cross the Battenkill opposite Saratoga, move down the Connecticut River in a direct line to Bennington, destroy the magazine at that place, and mount the Brunswick dragoons, who were designated to form part of the expedition. In this latter order a fatal blunder was committed, by employing troops the most awkward and heavy in an enterprise where everything depended on the greatest celerity of movement—while the rangers, who were lightly equipped, were left behind!

Let us look for a moment at a fally-equipped Brunswick dragoon as he appeared at this time. He wore high and heavy jack-boots, with large, long spurs, stout and stiff leather breeches, gauntlets reaching high up upon his arms, and a hat with a huge tuft of ornamental feathers. On his side he trailed a tremendous broadsword; a short but clumsy carbine was slung over his shoulder; and down his back, like a Chinese mandarin's, dangled a long queue. Such were the troops sent out by the British general on a service requiring the lightest of light skirmishers! The latter, however, did not err from ignorance. From the commencement of the campaign, the English officers had ridiculed these unwieldy troopers, who strolled about the camp with their heavy sabres dragging on the ground, saying (which was a fact) that the hat and sword of one of them were as heavy as the whole of an English private's equipment. But, as if this was not sufficient, these light dragoons were still further cumbered by being obliged to carry flour and drive a herd of cattle before them for their maintenance on the way.

The result is easily foreseen. By a rapid movement of the Americans, Baum was cut off from his English allies, who fled and left him to fight alone with his awkwardly-equipped squad an enemy far superior in numbers. After maintaining his ground for more than two hours, his ammunition gave out, and, being wounded in the abdomen by a bullet, he was forced to surrender, having lost in killed three hundred and sixty men out of four hundred. Yet, even with all these disadvantages, it is doubtful upon whose banners victory would have perched, had not Burgoyne, though having ample time, failed to support Baum by keeping Breyman's division too far behind. In justice to the British general, however, it should be stated that he was fair enough to acknowledge the bravery of the Germans in an order from headquarters on the 16th of August.

With the failure of this expedition the first lightning flashed from Burgoyne's hitherto serene sky. The soldiers, as well as their officers, had set out on this campaign with cheerful hearts, for, the campaign successfully brought to a close, all must end in the triumph of the royal arms. "Britons never go back," Burgoyne exultantly had said as the flotilla passed down Lake Champlain. Now, however, the Indians deserted by scores, and an