Burgoyne Prepares to Advance

Had Gates acted promptly, he might have ended the campaign in the Northern Department, within a fortnight after his arrival. But he lingered twenty days in needless inactivity near the mouth of the Mohawk River, nine miles above Albany, to which place Schuyler, pursuant to a decision of a council of officers, had removed the army from Stillwater. At the end of the twenty days, Gates moved up the valley of the Hudson with an effective force of nine thousand men; and upon Bemis's Heights, an elevated rolling plain a short distance above Stillwater, he established a fortified camp, having Kosciuszko, the brave Polish patriot, as chief engineer. In the meantime, one hundred and eighty boats had been brought over the country by teams and soldiers, from Lakes Champlain and George, with a month's provisions for the use of Burgoyne's army, then reduced to less than six thousand men.

Seeing the advance of Gates, Burgoyne called in his outposts, and with his shattered forces and his splendid train of artillery, he crossed the Hudson River over a bridge of boats on the 13th of September, and encamped on the heights at Saratoga, where Schuylerville now stands. There he made immediate preparations to attempt to force his way to Albany. He then knew that Howe had sailed southward and would not co-operate with him; and he perceived the necessity of acting promptly, for General Lincoln was gathering a force of New Englanders on his flank, and detachments of Republican troops were menacing his communications with his base of supplies. The American army, every day increasing in strength, were well posted on Bemis's Heights. Their right rested upon the Hudson River below the Heights; their left was upon gentle hills that could not be commanded by hostile cannon from any point; and a well-constructed line of intrenchment stretched along their front. Here an army more numerous than that of Burgoyne lay directly across his path to Albany, and must be dislodged before he could go forward.