of the gallies surrendered, and the enemy set fire to
the others, and to all their bateaux and stores.

Early next morning, Reidesel and Frazer overtook a strong body of the
enemy, and defeated them, with the loss of their Commander, and nearly
1,000 men killed, wounded, and taken. Another division was encountered
and routed by Colonel Hill. The fugitives escaped to Fort Edward, on the
Hudson.

General Burgoyne might now have returned to Ticonderoga, and thence
crossed to the head of Lake George, from which there was a waggon-road
to Fort Edward, only eighteen miles distant. But fearing that a
retrograde movement might check the enthusiasm of the army, now elated
with their rapid career of victory, underrating the difficulties of the
country, and too much despising an enemy who had been so easily
dispersed, he determined to ascend Wood Creek as far as Fort Anne,
whence the direct distance to the Hudson is shorter. He waited,
therefore, a few days near Skenesborough for his tents, baggage, and
provisions; employing himself, in the mean time, in clearing the
navigation of Wood Creek, while his people at Ticonderoga were
transporting the stores and artillery over the portages to Lake George.

The enemy offered little resistance in the advance to Fort Edward, but
the difficulties of the country were almost insurmountable. So broken
was it by creeks and morasses, that it became necessary to construct
more than forty bridges and causeways, one of them over a morass two
miles long. The enemy had created every possible obstruction by felling
trees across the paths, and destroying the communications. Scarcely
could the army advance a mile in a day, and it was the end of July
before it arrived on the Hudson.

On the approach of the British, the enemy quitted Fort Edward, and
retreated to Saratoga. All kinds of provisions and stores had already
reached Fort George; but the means of transport were lamentably
deficient, and the impossibility of bringing up supplies compelled the
army to a fatal inaction. On the 15th of August, after a fortnight's
incessant exertion, there were only four days' provisions in store.

Meantime, the enemy was daily becoming stronger. The conduct of the
savages had roused the whole country; and the British bore the odium of
excesses which the General could not prevent, and dared not punish. The
loyalists could not remain near the army, for they were almost equally
exposed to the cruelties of the sav