opposed a vigorous resistance, but a large body of his militia retreated, and left him to sustain the combat alone, when the firing of Reidesel's advanced guard was heard, and shortly after his whole force, drums beating and colors flying, emerged from the shades of the forest; and part of his troops immediately effected a junction with the British line. Fraser now gave orders for a simultaneous advance with the bayonet, which was effected with such resistless impetuosity that the Americans broke and fled, sustaining a very serious loss. St. Clair, upon hearing the firing, endeavored to send back some assistance, but the discouraged militia refused to return, and there was no alternative but to collect the wrecks of his army, and proceed to Fort Edward to effect a junction with Schuyler.
Burgoyne lost not a moment in following up his success at Skeenesborough, but dispatched a regiment to effect the capture of Fort Anne, defended by a small party under the command of Colonel Long. This officer judiciously posted his troops in a narrow ravine through which his assailants were compelled to pass, and opened upon them so severe a fire in front, flank, and rear, that the British regiments, nearly surrounded, with difficulty escaped to a neighboring hill, where the Americans attacked them anew with such vigor that they must have been utterly defeated, had not the ammunition of the assailants given out at this critical moment. No longer being able to fight, Long's troops fell back, and, setting the fort on fire, also directed their retreat to the head-quarters at Fort Edward.
Nothing, as Botta remarks,[1] could exceed the consternation and terror which the victory of Ticonderoga, and the subsequent successes of Burgoyne, spread through the American provinces, nor the joy and exultation they excited in England. The arrival of these glad tidings was celebrated by the most brilliant rejoicings at court, and welcomed with the same enthusiasm by all those who desired the unconditional reduction of America. They already announced the approaching termination of this glorious war; they openly declared it a thing impossible, that the rebels should ever recover from the shock of their recent losses, as well of men as of arms, and of military stores, and especially that they should ever regain their courage and reputation, which, in war, always contribute to success, as much, at least, as arms themselves. Even the ancient reproaches of cowardice were renewed against the Americans, and their own partisans abated much of the esteem they had borne them. They were more than half disposed to pronounce the colonists unworthy to defend that liberty, which they gloried in with so much complacency. But it deserves to be noted here especially, that there was no sign of faltering on the part of the people, no disposition to submit to the invading force. The success of the enemy did but nerve our fathers to
- ↑ "History of the War of Independence," vol. ii., p. 280.
