Note 848 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

The accounts of the day, as Marshall says, give him the command, and in his Life of Washington, first edition, that writer so states it. Wilkinson, who was with Gates two miles from the fight, said in his Memoirs that there was no general officer on the field; and this led Marshall in his second edition to leave the question open. A letter of R. R. Livingston, Jan. 14, 1778, to Washington (Correspondence of the Revolution, ii. 551) is capable of counter conclusions on this point; and Mr. Bancroft (orig. ed., ix. 410) who holds that Arnold was not engaged during the day, judges that a letter of Colonel Richard Varick to General Schuyler, written on the day of battle, supports that view. Bancroft's opinion is maintained by J. A. Stevens in his paper "Benedict Arnold and his apologists", in the Mag. of Amer. Hist. (March, 1880). That the victory was won largely by Arnold's personal exertions is the opinion of nearly every other writer, and they find in the letters of Livingston and Varick as much to sustain their view as Bancroft does to support his. Wilkinson writes to St. Clair: "Gen. Arnold was not out of camp during the whole action" (St. Clair Papers, i. 89, 443). The evidences in rebuttal of Wilkinson, who is the only positive witness on the negative side, are numerous, and have been best arrayed by Isaac N. Arnold in his Life of Arnold (p. 175), and in the paper "Benedict Arnold at Saratoga" (United Service Mag., Sept., 1880; also printed separately), in which he added much new testimony, gathered after he had published his Life of Arnold. This consists of the statements in The Revolutionary Services of General Wm. Hull (N. Y., 1848); in a MS. account by Ebenezer Wakefield, who was in Dearborn's light infantry, and written after Wilkinson, whom he controverts, had published his Memoirs; in the narratives of the Germans Von Eelking and Riedesel. Moore (Diary of the Revolution, p. 498) cites a letter of Enoch Poor, which seems to allow Arnold's share in the battle. Later still the diary of a chaplain of the army has been published, Chaplain Smith and the Baptists, and this says distinctly (p. 209) that Arnold commanded. Mr. R. A. Guild, the editor of that book, collates the evidence on this point. Washington Irving, Lossing, Sydney H. Gay, William L. Stone,—not to name others,—have contended for Arnold's participancy in the day's doings. Lecky (iv. 67) expresses himself satisfied with the proofs adduced by I. N. Arnold. Cf. Rogers in Hadden's Journal, p. 27.