Desperate Hours
Day was breaking in the wilds of what is now western Vermont on Monday, July 7, 1777, as two lines of British light infantrymen broke into a run up a steep, overgrown hill. That hot morning the soldiers had dressed for heavy going, in black leather caps and shortened red woolen uniform coats. At the lead was Brigadier General Simon Fraser. The Scottish-born Fraser, 48, meant to earn the trust his commander, Lieutenant General John Burgoyne, had shown in assigning him this mission. Ahead waited a rebel contingent Fraser intended to smash—which he did, in a stand-up, four-hour slugfest. The New England Continentals and militia got a harsh taste of their preferred mode of warfare, as a British officer observed, “in a wood, in the very style that the Americans think themselves superior to regular troops.” But while Fraser and his men won the day, the long game went to the foe. In that one midsummer clash may have lain the fate of a campaign, a war, and perhaps a country.
The ruling-class Britain of the late 1700s was an intimate world. John Burgoyne, 55, naturally knew King George III and his cabinet ministers. An army officer since 14, Burgoyne had wed an earl’s daughter, marrying into a seat in Parliament, elbow room at London’s best gaming tables, and camouflage for his questionable parentage. In the Seven Years’ War, Burgoyne had made enough of a name that Portugal’s king, grateful still to have his throne thanks to Burgoyne’s battlefield victories, bestowed a five-carat diamond ring on the young general.
