authorities were always standing in his way. Although he succeeded in increasing his army to about four thousand men, he could hardly hope to accomplish much with such meager numbers.

THE SARATOGA CAMPAIGN

In the spring of 1777 the British authorities decided to renew their efforts to separate New England from the other states. This time they made preparations for a more comprehensive attack, and at the time all the chances appeared to be in their favor. General Burgoyne was picked to lead an army down from Canada, along the traditional route past Crown Point and TiconSkenesborough deroga to Albany. Colonel St. Leger was to take a force to Oswego, and then work eastward, through the Mohawk Valley, there to meet Burgoyne. Finally General Howe was to move his army up the Hudson, and by the time he reached Albany, the main objective of the British would have been achieved.

BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN

30

Early in June Burgoyne started south with an army of eight thousand men, large enough by itself to have given any army hitherto raised by the Americans a stiff fight. In the course of a month he had reached and captured Ticonderoga. The loss of this fort, though by no means a disaster to the American cause, was at least an indefensible blunder. General Gates, whose manner and bearing covered little but incompetence, had neglected to make the place impregnable

by fortifying a commanding hill less than a mile away. When the British occupied the summit, the fort became untenable, and the garrison retreated to Fort Edward.

After leaving Ticonderoga the British troubles really began. Because of the distance from Canada Burgoyne was compelled to rely upon the surrounding country for supplies. These, however, were pretty generally removed as he advanced toward Fort Edward. As his wants became serious, he determined to send an expedition over to Bennington, to seize American supplies stored there. This gave General John Stark, under a New Hampshire commission, an opportunity to make himself famous. The British and German raiding party was beaten, and the New England farmers began to hurry toward New York, hoping to capture Burgoyne's whole force.

St. Leger started from Oswego in July. He encountered various difficulties, though none were insuperable until he got almost within striking distance of a small force under Benedict Arnold. By a clever ruse on the part of Arnold, St. Leger's army was thrown into a panic, and virtually disbanded. With a few followers the Colonel himself made his way back to Montreal. Thus the expected union of the two northern forces failed to take place, and Burgoyne's situation became dangerous. Losses which he had necessarily incurred in getting down below Fort Edward had left him with only three thousand men. If he had been a free agent, with power to move his troops in accordance with his own obvious needs, he would have retired to Fort Edward, but his orders from England compelled him to push on toward Albany, to join Howe.

And where was Howe? Nowhere near Albany, but down on Chesapeake Bay, moving toward Philadelphia. Early in June he had received from the ministry the plan of the northern campaign, without, however, any instructions for himself. His own plan of capturing Philadelphia had been approved, and without appreciating the absolutely vital necessity of going north, he took fourteen thousand men to carry out his own campaign. On August 25, he received the first intimation that he had been expected to join Burgoyne at that very time, at Albany, obviously an impossibility then.

While Howe was marching toward Philadelphia, Washington delayed his progress. After the city itself was captured he narrowly missed defeating the British force at Germantown. During October and early November Howe was occupied in getting control of the Delaware, so that he might hold Philadelphia.

By way of preparation for a crushing blow at Burgoyne, Congress deprived the thoroughly competent, trustworthy General Schuyler

of his command of the northern army, and gave it to Gates. Never had the ignorance of Congress been demonstrated more effectively or more completely. Gates was generally incompetent, and had he really taken charge, it is barely possible that even the overwhelming numbers which the Americans then had would not have brought victory. As it was, Benedict Arnold did the work that forced Burgoyne into the corner at Saratoga, and so made his surrender inevitable. On October 14 he asked for terms, and three days later the "convention" was signed. According to the terms of the agreement, the British army was to go under guard to Boston, and from there to England, under promise not to serve again in the war. Congress, however, violated the agreement, and the troops were not allowed to go home. Burgoyne's surrender marked the turning point in the war. Hitherto, although the British had won no decisive success, neither had the Americans. Although Washington held New Jersey, his achievements there had had no appreciable effect on the policies of the British government, and it held out no hope of an early end to the war. But Burgoyne's surrender meant the complete failure of a most promising campaign. Furthermore it held out so much hope of an American victory that France became willing to enter the contest against Great Britain. The year 1777 closed with a far brighter outlook for the Americans than had 1776.

This was true, in spite of the hardships of Washington's army in winter quarters at Valley Forge. There, because of the shortcomings and incompetence of the commissary department, while ample supplies were held up for want of transportation, Washington's three thousand men were left literally naked, and almost starved. The surprising thing is that they endured as much as they did. Perhaps the absence of mutiny or absolute disintegration of the army can be explained by the almost continuous change of regiments, as one short term enlistment gave way to another. But in spite of the difficulties, Baron Steuben used the winter to give the men something which many apparently had never received before, the rudiments of regular army training.

While the Americans were suffering at Valley Forge, the British were living in splendid luxury in the aristocratic city of Philadelphia. With an impartial attitude not wholly admirable the inhabitants bestowed upon the British just as much cordiality as they had only a short time before shown the American Congress.

CHAPTER XVIII

REVOLUTIONARY PROBLEMS

Important as the military movements may have been during this first part of the Revolution, from 1775 through 1777, there were various other activities going on, some of which were intimately concerned with both the contemporary and succeeding development of the young nation. The outbreak of war meant the annihilation of British authority in all the regions not actually occupied by royal troops. The time required for the completion of this process varied in the different colonies, but after New York had accepted the Declaration of Independence little more work of this kind remained to be done. The overthrow of the old system necessitated the establishment of a new one, and while the Americans were practicing the art of war, they were experimenting with the science of government.

Under certain conditions the repudiation of the established political system might plunge a whole population into anarchy, but the separation from England did not carry the Americans quite so far. During the colonial period the various governments had acquired, through their elective assemblies, a preponderant influence in public affairs. Then, as the revolutionary movement gained headway, the radicals who had assumed leadership took on more and more the functions of executive bodies. Thus, while the external shell of the old system remained until the end, the organism within had almost completely changed. When the break came this revolutionary organism was all ready to come into the open, and in so doing it enabled the people to preserve a semblance of order until something better could be evolved. The committees of correspondence and of safety, the county conventions, and the provincial congresses all reveal the importance of the ruling group of radicals.

REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES

But the Revolution could not proceed without certain dangerous approaches toward what the eighteenth century philosophers liked to call "a state of nature," and before well ordered new governments

could be started there were signs of danger in all directions. During the preliminary contests the leaders had generally come from the ruling class, but they had called upon the unprivileged for assistance. The participants in Stamp Act mobs or in the parties for subjecting importing merchants to tar and feathers had thoroughly enjoyed their novel apprenticeship in politics. Once aroused, they were ready to try their own hands at running the state, and their efforts alarmed their former managers. Artisans, farm laborers, small farmers, almost everybody in fact who had been on the outside of the old government seemed determined to have a voice in the new. In this determination they found ample encouragement in the prevailing revolutionary political philosophy. The radical leaders had talked much of liberty, of representation, of the tyranny of government, of the horrors of servitude. All this appealed to the population. If the colonies as a whole could throw off the rule of the Empire, why should the citizens not do the same thing with the authority of the state? Liberty is a word capable of various interpretations, and it seemed that almost everybody had translated it into his own particular terms.

The year 1776 especially was a time of innovation, when it seemed that almost everything was to be altered. Perhaps one of the most alarming symptoms appeared in Massachusetts, the original home of the public school system. Various observers reported that the towns were dismissing the teachers, because they could not keep the schools going and support the war at the same time. With the schools closed, the children were left in idleness and mischief, "given up to all evil," so Abigail Adams wrote.

Nor was this all. For a time it seemed that the Revolution was upsetting the very foundations of organized society. Government and property had so long been indissolubly connected that any attack upon one was certain to invite attacks upon the other. Even in 1775 the Provincial Congress in Massachusetts reported that in the minds of some people there was an alarming abatement of the sense "of the sacredness of private property." This was natural. The unprivileged elements had been not only permitted but encouraged to destroy private property before war came, and when they got the chance they turned the same methods to account for themselves. Everywhere debtors were refusing to pay debts, and when their creditors resorted to the courts, the courts were overthrown. In