Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/155

 Rh too much a man of pleasure and of wit to win the confidence of the seriously-minded German officer. Riedesel complains that he was never consulted, and that Burgoyne's plans were not confided to him. It is plain that there was jealousy between the English and German troops, and that Riedesel felt that injustice was being done to himself and to his command.

The plan of operations, of which the main features were made out by Burgoyne himself, was very simple. The main body of the army was to advance from Canada up Lake Champlain to Ticonderoga. When that fort should have been taken, the army was to push still southward to Albany, where it was to meet the army of Sir William Howe, or a part thereof, coming up from New York. A body of light troops, under Colonel St. Leger, was to co-operate with Burgoyne, marching by Oswego to the Mohawk River, which it was to follow to its junction with the Hudson, above Albany, at which point this expedition was to unite with the main army.

The Brunswickers under General Riedesel's orders on the 1st of June, 1777, numbered four thousand three hundred and one officers and men on the rolls, with an effective strength of three thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight. The Hesse-Hanau regiment had sailed in the previous year, six hundred and sixty-eight strong, and had probably not fallen below six hundred men fit for service. This would make the total number of Germans in Canada at the opening of the campaign four thousand five hundred and