Andro Linklater - An Artist in Treason - The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson

Even after he finally arrived in York, Wilkinson made the exasperated delegates wait yet another day while he assembled all Gates’s papers in the correct order. Impatiently Samuel Adams exclaimed that such a laggard should be presented with “a horsewhip and spurs.”

Despite the irritation caused by their late arrival, the documents dispelled the delegates’ gloom and despondency. Between September 19, Burgoyne’s first defeat at Freeman’s Farm, and the final surrender on October 17, almost nine thousand British and Hessian troops had been killed, captured, or rendered incapable of fighting. The total represented close to one quarter of all the British forces on American soil. Their weapons, 4,647 muskets, together with bayonets, cutlasses, and 72,000 rounds of ammunition, fell into American hands, as well as 42 cannon, more than 1,000 cannonballs, and dozens of barrels of gunpowder. For an army as starved of equipment as Gates’s, this feast was as welcome as the 5,791 enemy who were now their prisoners. But the wider implications of the victory made the news of Saratoga even more welcome.

Within hours of receiving Gates’s report, Congress sent off a summary to Benjamin Franklin and his fellow ambassadors in France saying, “We rely on your wisdom and care to make the best and most immediate use of this intelligence to depress our enemies and produce essential aid to our cause in Europe.” In particular, news of the British surrender was to be employed to secure the “public acknowledgment of the Independence of these United States,” and to remind France and her allies “how essential European Aid must be to the final establishment and security of American Freedom and Independence.” A similar message went to American negotiators attempting to borrow money in the Netherlands.

Franklin used the information well, but so, too, did the newspapers and a flood of private letters. Once news of Burgoyne’s capitulation reached Europe, neither French ministers nor Dutch bankers could mistake the fighting in North America for a short- lived rebellion. Within four months the conflict would be transformed into an international war.

To express the overwhelming significance of Saratoga, Congress called for a day of thanksgiving to be celebrated throughout the United States on December 18. “Your Name Sir,” Henry Laurens assured Gates, “will be written in the breasts of the grateful Americans of the present Age & sent down to Posterity in Characters which will remain indelible when the Gold shall have changed its appearance.”

In the elated atmosphere, it was impossible to deny General Gates anything. The delegates ordered a gold medal to be struck in his honor, and they passed a vote of thanks to him, to each of his two senior commanders, Benedict Arnold and Benjamin Lincoln, and to all the officers and men of his army. But one request stuck in the congressional craw, his wish to have his chief of staff, James Wilkinson, promoted to the brevet rank of brigadier general.

The idea of a twenty-year-old general was startling in itself, but it also offended the principle that promotion should take place strictly on grounds of seniority, with rare exceptions being made for outstanding bravery on the battlefield. Wilkinson was no more than a staff officer who had never actually led troops in battle, and scores of more senior colonels were desperate to be considered for the next opening as a general. Yet he had unmistakably earned Gates’s admiration and trust—“I have not met with a more promising military genius,” the general declared unequivocally, and Wilkinson’s services were “of the [highest] importance to this army.”

No one wanted to confront the Revolution’s savior head-on, but the question of Wilkinson’s promotion served as an excuse for Washington’s supporters, primarily from the south, to criticize Gates’s judgment on other matters. While they discussed the recommendation, Wilkinson was left to kick his heels in the narrow streets and crowded taverns of York. In a letter sent on November 1 to “My dear General and loved Friend,” he affected to be unconcerned by the delay to his promotion—“my hearty contempt of the follies of the world will shield me from such pitiful sensations”— but the rest of his message showed how closely he had been listening to the talk in Congress. Gates had failed to inform Washington of his victory, a deliberate breach of military protocol that amounted to insubordination, and this had aroused particular resentment among southerners. And Gates had left himself vulnerable through the lenient terms of surrender that he had offered to Burgoyne. “Excuse me,” Wilkinson ended, “had I loved you less, I should have been less free.”

The “treaty of convention” signed by Burgoyne had not technically amounted to a surrender, and it had stipulated that his men were not to be treated as prisoners, but repatriated to Britain on condition that they did not again take up arms to fight the United States. This last requirement, releasing prisoners on parole, was common practice—hundreds of captured American soldiers had been set free on an equivalent understanding— but the sheer numbers involved at Saratoga caused consternation. Besides, once home, Burgoyne’s men would be assigned duties that would release thousands of other troops for service in America. Gates seemed to have let an enemy who was at his mercy wriggle away almost unscathed. South Carolina’s Henry Laurens voiced the southerners’ concern by suggesting that Gates had become “a little flattered” by Burgoyne and been “too polite to make [him] and his troops prisoners.”

Colonel Wilkinson was summoned to explain how this had come about and, in doing so, demonstrated why Gates thought so highly of him. With the confidence of an officer who had seen the battlefield and conducted much of the negotiation in person, the young colonel pointed out that military necessity had dictated the terms offered by General Gates. Burgoyne’s forces were well entrenched in a strong defensive position, and another British army, four thousand strong, was approaching up the Hudson River threatening Gates’s supply lines. The situation made it essential to negotiate a quick surrender or to assault Burgoyne’s position. “Had an Attack been carried against Lt. General Burgoyne,” Wilkinson explained, “the dismemberment of our army must necessarily have been such as would have incapacitated it for further action [in] this Campaign. With our armies in Health, Vigour and Spirits, General Gates now awaits the commands of the Honourable Congress.”

The New Englanders seized on Wilkinson’s masterly presentation. Not only did it clear Gates of incompetence and show him instead to be the master of a dangerous military situation, it offered Congress a way of circumventing his promise to repatriate British troops. Since Gates was not acting freely but under pressure from British attack, the United States need not feel honorbound to abide by the spirit of the agreement. Once the letter of convention was examined, the lawyers in Congress easily picked it apart to prevent repatriation.

The next day, November 6, 1777, on the recommendation of the Board of War, the Continental Congress resolved, “That Colonel James Wilkinson, adjutant general in the northern army, in consideration of his services in that department, and being strongly recommended by General Gates as a gallant officer, and a promising military genius, and having brought the despatches to Congress giving an account of the surrender of Lieutenant General Burgoyne and his army on the 17 day of October last, be continued in his present employment, with a brevet of brigadier-general in the army of the United States.”

Thus, at the age of twenty, James Wilkinson became a general. Brevet rank was temporary and confined to a particular campaign, but for the moment he was the youngest American-born general in the Continental Army. The opportunities that awaited him were almost unlimited.