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Washington performed another signal service for Gates that summer. Alarmed by Burgoyne’s steady progress south from Canada, Washington grew convinced that only an “active, spirited officer” could stop him, and he recommended that General Benedict Arnold assist Gates: “He is active, judicious, and brave, and an officer in whom the militia will repose great confidence.”6 Washington also steered Daniel Morgan and five hundred sharpshooters to Gates. Many assigned the true credit for Saratoga to the impetuous Arnold, who had fought “inspired by the fury of a demon,” one eyewitness said, suffering a severe gash in one leg from a musket ball.7 Despite Arnold’s contribution, Gates grew puffed up with his own power after the victory. If “old England is not by this taught a lesson of humility,” he told his wife, “then she is an obstinate old slut.”8
On October 15 Washington a
All the while Washington quietly steamed that Gates hadn’t yet written to him. On October 24, when writing to John Hancock about a shortage of shoes and blankets, he confessed, “I am, and have been, waiting with the most anxious impatience for a confirmation of Gen[era]l Burgoyne’s surrender. I have received no further intelligence respecting it.”12 Characteristically, he saved the most explosive lines until the end, trying to pass them off as an afterthought. Also characteristically, he waited nearly a week to complain and didn’t mention Gates by name, as if he didn’t want to tip his hand. In reply, Hancock, then stepping down as president of Congress, told Washington, “I have not as yet heard a word from Gen[era]l Gates . . . and his army. Should the agreeable news reach” him before he left town, he promised, he would forward it to Washington.13 It was a bizarre situation: after one week, the outgoing president of the Continental Congress and the commander in chief still hadn’t heard from Horatio Gates about the war’s single most important development. When Washington received the articles of capitulation, signed by Burgoyne, they came via Israel Putnam. “As I have not rec[eive]d a single line from Gen[era]l 1 Gates, I do not know what steps he is taking with the army under his command and therefore ca
During this period Washington was camped at a farmhouse in Whitemarsh, Pe
If he was elated by Burgoyne’s capture, Washington also believed that many circumstances had favored Gates. The mid-Atlantic states, where Washington operated, was rife with Tories, while thousands of militiamen in upstate New York had harassed Burgoyne as his doomed soldiers struggled down the Hudson Valley.
“How different our case!” Washington complained, noting “the disaffection of [a] great part of the inhabitants of this state [and] the languor of others.” 16 Washington had also never faced an enemy in Burgoyne’s vulnerable situation of being dangerously cut off from supply lines. General Howe had never ranged far from his base in New York or other seaboard ports where he could fall back on British naval superiority, depriving Washington of a chance to strike a lethal blow. Still licking his wounds, Washington told Patrick Henry that he had been forced to defend Philadelphia “with less numbers than composed the army of my antagonist,” even though popular opinion had wrongly attributed to him twice as many men.17 Even Martha Washington heaved a weary sigh at the rank injustice of it all. Although she expressed “unspeakable pleasure” at Burgoyne’s surrender, she added, “Would bountiful providence aim a like stroke at Gen[era]l Howe, the measure of my happiness would be complete.”18
The Saratoga victory had a powerful resonance in European courts. Horace Walpole said that George III “fell into agonies” when he absorbed the terrible news.19 Among the opposition party in Parliament, the defeat hardened resistance to approving more money and troops for a costly, faraway war. The repercussions were no less momentous in France. When Jonathan Loring Austin, fresh from America, rode up to Benjamin Franklin in Paris in early December, the elderly statesman gazed up at the young man on horseback and asked, “Sir, is Philadelphia taken?” “Yes, sir,” replied Austin. Crestfallen, Franklin started to lumber off with a heavy heart. “But, sir, I have greater news than that,” Austin shouted after him. “General Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners of war!”20 An ecstatic Franklin used this unexpected news as his most potent argument in luring France into the war on the American side.
Since Washington believed there was a significant numerical imbalance between his forces in Pe