In the summer of 1777, Captain Samuel and his Amherst Rifle Company were detached from the 6th Virginia Regiment to serve in another theater of war, at the direction of the commander in chief. They would join rifles companies detached from other Virginia and Pennsylvania regiments. George Washington determined that a new, elite force was necessary, both to counter a new British grand plan and in response to public outrage across America at a young woman’s murder.
In London in the winter of 1776-77, the British devised a new strategy for the coming year to suppress the American rebellion. King George III reviewed and approved it. The British would tackle the problem by making it smaller. They would cut the colonies in two by taking the vital Hudson River / Lake Champlain corridor spanning from New York to Canada, isolate and then crush New England, the cradle of the rebellion. Howe’s army would drive north from New York City to meet an army coming down from Canada. General John Burgoyne, who originally proposed the strategy, was given command of Britain’s “Canada Army”, comprised of British regulars, German Brunswickers, a relatively small number of Canadian militia and warriors of allied Indian tribes. Burgoyne was an accomplished and sophisticated officer, who liked the finer things in life. A playwright whose works were produced on the London stage, his peers knew him as “Gentleman Johnny.” In spring, he and his army set out southward from Montreal. By July, his Army had progressed over 200 miles and retaken Fort Ticonderoga. The Canada Army then became bogged down, losing at Bennington and slowed by patriots felling trees across mountain roads and removing grain and livestock from their path in scorched earth tactics that prevented the British from living off the land.
Burgoyne’s Canada Army depended on native American allies for scouting, but also encouraged them to launch hit and run raids on rebel settlements, to create fear on the frontier. These tactics, however, soon backfired. On July 27,1777 a young Ottawa warrior allied with the British murdered and scalped several people, including a young woman, Jane McCrea, the wife of a Loyalist officer. Once the news spread, it caused outrage in the America, as well as in Britain. Burgoyne himself said the incident “filled me with horrors” and called it “an unheard of barbarity” (Atkinson p. 52), maybe in part since she was a loyalist, nominally under his protection. He tried to punish the offender, but was told if he did, then all his Native allies would leave him and perhaps even turn against him. The incident incensed militia members in New York and New England, who mobilized, left home and streamed into the Continental camp, swelling the size of General Horatio Gates’ army to 10,000 soldiers.
George Washington had realized two years before that the lethality of American riflemen “caused no small terror to the enemy”. He would now counter terror with terror. In late August, he detached eight companies of Virginia and Pennsylvania riflemen from their regiments to form a new corps, “as a good counterpoise to the Indians.” As Rick Atkinson writes in his book, The Fate of the Day: “Dressed in fringed hunting shorts and leggings with, with tomahawks and sheathed scalping knives tucked under their belts, these “shirtmen” could reputedly shoot a man dead at two hundred yards or more, unnerving some British officers in America sufficiently to prompt them to hide identifying symbols of rank that might draw a sniper’s attention. Although there were fewer than five hundred of them, Washington advised Gates ‘it will answer a good purpose if you give out that they are double that number.’” (p.189)
Meanwhile, as autumn arrived and the early frosts of the Adirondacks settled in, things turned worse for Burgoyne. He received a message via a courier from General Howe that he was not coming to help. Instead, he had left New York to try to take Philadelphia, as approved Lord Germain and George III. British General Clinton later tried with a smaller force to come up the Hudson to Albany, but was turned back by American fortifications and resistance at the Hudson Highlands and West Point. Washington himself was baffled, but not displeased, at what the British were doing. They had left Burgoyne to hang in the wind of the north woods. He must either drive south with the outnumbered army he had to take Albany on his own, or retreat while he could back to Montreal to shelter for the winter. Burgoyne chose to go south, to engage Gate’s army.
Washington chose Colonel Daniel Morgan to lead the new elite regiment, to be called “Morgan’s Rifles”. Raised on the Virginia frontier, Morgan had held many jobs, but his main vocation was being a soldier. He had a prominent scar on his lip from being shot 20 years earlier, losing several teeth before the bullet exited his mouth. He had been part of the arduous and ill-fated 1775 expedition led by Benedict Arnold (then fighting for America) through the Maine wilderness in winter in a failed attempt to capture Quebec City. Morgan was taken captive and spent 8 months in a dungeon before being paroled. Admirers considered no one faster on foot or horseback. One called him “Exactly fitted for the spoils and pomp of war.” Samuel Cabell and the Amherst Rifles now had a proper regimental commander, one who would run to the fight, rather than away from it like Mordecai Buckner.
Gates decided that the accurate, but slow-loading rifles needed protection. Instead of George Washington’s earlier idea to outfit the shirtmen with spears, he decided in September to create an amalgamated unit, to mix Morgan’s Rifles with light infantry from New England under the command of Major Henry Dearborn. The infantry musketeers had bayonets and could fire more frequently, if not as accurately. Their unit would be under the command of someone who at the time was arguably America’s bravest fighting general. Major General Benedict Arnold would later become a pariah, a synonym for a traitor, but before that, he was widely regarded as highly skilled and loyal, if thin-skinned. He had been wounded in the leg at Quebec, survived, and now served under General Horatio Gates at Saratoga. Gates chose Arnold to anchor the Northern Army’s left wing. As Atkinson writes of the rifle companies, “Among the sharpshooter duties once the battle was joined, the shirtmen were expected to dispatch as many enemy officers as possible into the next world.” No doubt Samuel Cabell and the Amherst Rifles received directions on targeting priorities.
On September 12, 1777, the Northern Army soon “entrenched to their eyes” fortify the heights against an expected British attack. The next day, Burgoyne’s army crossed to the same west side of the Hudson River as the American main force, and paused seven miles to the north. Gates wrote “Without a moment’s delay, the militia from every part should be ordered here.”
Saratoga was actually two battles. The first, on September 19, 1777 would be called the Battle of Freeman’s Farm. It started when the British advanced around noon, after thick morning fog burned off. Their army was in three columns, with the western most one led by Brigadier General Simon Frasier. As Atkinson writes, “Goaded by the aggressive Arnold, Gates had ordered Morgan’s corps to venture north in search of Burgoyne’s vanguard, “to observe their direction and harass their advance.” “Peering across the field, the redcoats spotted men approaching in hunting shirts and wide-brimmed hats.” The British fired a volley at them from long range just after noon. “A stupendous roar from several hundred long rifles answered. Gunsmoke rolled over the field as whooping rebels charged through the grain. The fusillade wounded Major Forbes and killed or injured all but one of his officers.” (p.193)
The riflemen were perhaps too zealous. They made the mistake of outrunning their infantry cover, and were soon pushed back by a British infantry counter charge. Before long, the larger battle was joined. American infantry units engaged along the front. Closer to the river on the opposing side, Brunswickers pushed north under German Major General Frederick Riedesel . Atkinson writes, “As Morgan’s men moved against the British right, Burgoyne noted ‘a great number of marksmen armed with rifle-barrel pieces.’ The toll among the king’s officers was frightful – more than a third of those leading the 62nd were killed or wounded. Losses in the 20th Foot were nearly as severe. Thirty six of forty eight gunners in an artillery unit fell to the riflemen. One British corporal, Roger Lamb of the 9th Foot, wrote ‘Several of the Americans placed themselves in high trees, and as often as they could distinguish a British officer’s uniform, took him off by deliberately aiming at his person.”
Arnold rode to headquarters and demanded permission to engage more forces, to push the fight, by reinforcing Morgan’s Rifles on the left flank. Gates rebuffed him, and Arnold rode off in a huff. The 70-acre battlefield would change hands perhaps six times before the fighting ebbed around sundown. The British controlled the field, but had sustained serious losses. Historian Eric Schnitzer later observed “the Canada Army was weaker strategically that it had been at dawn.” 566 British and Germans were killed or wounded compared to 325 Americans.
Both sides fell back and took care of their wounded. For days, a standoff ensued. The Native American scouts of the British largely deserted, discouraged by the failure of the first battle and disillusioned with the campaign. Their experience fighting the “shirtmen” may have played a part in their departure as well. Without scouts, Burgoyne was effectively blind.
During that time General Gates received a message from George Washington. He was having his own challenges outside Philadelphia, where the 6th Virginia (without their detached Amherst Rifle Company) had been engaged with the main army in the losing battles of Brandywine and Germantown. Washington wrote Gates suggesting the return of Morgan and his rifle corps to Pennsylvania “if his services can be dispensed with…I do not mention this by way of a command, but leave you to determine upon it.” Gates must have been relieved it was not a command. He replied on October 5, “Your Excellency would not wish me to part with the corps the army of General Burgoyne are most afraid of.” (p.212)
By October 7, Burgoyne realized he must make move with winter coming. He decided to launch a reconnaissance in force to probe the rebel west flank and see if he could take the high ground or get around the Continentals. Morgan’s Rifle Corps would be right in their path.
The 700 men in Morgan’s unit had not had much sleep. As Atkinson writes, On October 7 they had “returned to Bemis Heights a few hours earlier, following a stealthy, fraught patrol around the British encampment on Monday night. After tramping seven miles north to the outskirts of Saratoga and seizing several prisoners, “we got bewildered in the woods and stayed all night long, huddled against the cold rain” Major Dearborn admitted. (p. 215) They were now responsible for making sure the British Army did not roll up the American left flank.
Gates had stripped Arnold of command following what he felt was insubordinate behavior at the Battle of Freeman’s Farm. When Arnold heard the first shots October 7 in response to the British advance, he went to Gates and asked “Shall I go out and see what is the matter?”. Gates said nothing and then replied “I am afraid to trust you, Arnold”. After more sounds of battle and more of Arnold’s requests, Gates relented, telling him, “Well, then. Order on Morgan to begin the game.” (p. 215)
By 4:00 PM, the firing became incessant. A British captain, John Money, later wrote, that a British soldier “becomes, in a scarlet coat, a complete target to a rifleman.” Atkinson writes of Samuel Cabell’s corps, “Those red coats now fell in alarming numbers. Morgan and Dearborn, this time working hand in glove had climbed onto a wooded rise several hundred yards behind the British right flank. Riflemen braced against tree trunks to squeeze off rounds aimed at officers, gunners, and rank and file. Then with a great shout – no voice louder than Morgan’s howl – they ‘poured like a torrent down a hill’. The overwhelmed grenadiers on the British left near the Hudson also crumpled. With rebels enveloping both flanks, Burgoyne realized his peril. After ordering a retreat – “draw as soon as possible back to camp”- he rode back to meet with his generals. Brigadier General Simon Frasier remained on the west flank to organize a rear guard. Morgan later asserted that he ordered a sharpshooter up a tree to take aim at a mounted British officer, and “pooh, he was gone.” (p. 217) Legend has it, the sharpshooter was a Pennsylvania rifleman, though the truth will never be known. Frasier, a brave and well-liked officer, suddenly doubled over in the saddle with a bullet in his left side. He was carried from the field, taken to a farmhouse, and laid on a table where doctors tried unsuccessfully to save his life.
By 5:00 PM, the Continentals were rolling up the British west flank. One of the defenses was the Balcarres Redoubt, named after Major Alexander Lindsay, the Earl of Balcarres, who himself later reported that the pursuing Americans “attacked with as much fury as the fire of small arms can admit.” The redoubt fell to American infantry.
Other Continentals, likely including Samuel Cabell, attacked a second redoubt deeper in enemy territory, named after German Lieutenant-Colonel Bryemann. Morgan’s Rifles with two Massachusetts regiments, led the charge along with Major General Benedict Arnold, who rode his horse through a gap to the left into the fort, followed by riflemen. A Massachusetts solder later said of Arnold, “He didn’t care for nothin. He’d ride right in.” Arnold demanded surrender from the remaining Brunswickers who had not fled, but was shot in the leg wounded in Quebec, which was then crushed when his horse fell on him. The Breymann Redoubt fell to the Americans, in large part from the bravery of Arnold and Morgan’s Rifles.
Major Dearborn later asked Arnold about the severity of his wound. Arnold replied “in the same leg”, and said he “wished the ball had gone through his heart.” He would have a painful convalescence in coming months. The pain may have contributed to his growing sense of resentment and inadequate recognition, even though this time Horatio Gates gave full credit in his official dispatch to “the gallant Major General Arnold”.
One person who did not make it at Breymann’s Redoubt was its namesake. Lt. Colonel Breymann was shot by one of his own men “after the fiend had sabered four of his command” to stop them from trying to retreat, one of his soldiers later recounted. (p. 218) Samuel Cabell and the Amherst Rifles may very well have ended their fighting for the day in or near the Breymann Redoubt, savoring the defeat of the enemy, but sobered by the carnage.
While the American victory at Battle of Bemis Heights was nearly total, Burgoyne did not surrender right away. He retreated north to the village of Saratoga and waited to consider his next move. Perhaps out of spite, he burned the house of American General Phillip Schyler, the fatherin-law of Alexander Hamilton. The British buried General Frazier in a ceremony on a defended hill that became the focus of American interest and then artillery fire, with incoming cannon balls throwing dirt on the mourners. Major General Riedesel wryly remarked at the time it was a true military funeral. Burgoyne later gathered his generals and discussed the possibility of escape across the Hudson, past the Americans, and back to Canada. The noose had tightened, however. They realized they were encircled. Morgan’s Rifle Corps firmly blocked escape to the west, as illustrated on a map made later by the British. Other Continental forces blocked them going north.
The negotiations started and went on for days. Gates was generous in the end. Among other terms, they agreed it would not be called a “surrender”, but rather a “convention”. Gates allowed Burgoyne to keep his sword, as was customary. The Americans would get 40 field pieces and thousands of muskets stacked in pyramids by the redcoats and Germans in the “Field of Grounded Arms” in what is now Schuylerville. Lieutenant William Digby of the British 53rd Regiment of Foot wrote of the event,
“about 10 o’clock, we marched out, according to treaty, with drums beating and honours of war, but the drums seemed to have lost their former inspiriting sounds…I shall never forget the appearance of their troops on our marching past them; a dead silence universally reigned through their numerous columns, and even then, they seemed struck with our situation and dare scarce lift up their eyes to view British troops in such a situation.”
Gates’ terms allowed the roughly 6,000 captured soldiers to be paroled and go back to England. They started the march to Boston. The Continental Congress, however, would subsequently revoke their parole, given British mistreatment of American prisoners and parole violations. Many of the Germans mercenaries captured at Saratoga eventually made their way to a prisoner of war camp in Charlottesville, hundreds of miles away.
News of the victory at Saratoga lifted American spirits and shocked Britain, once the news crossed the Atlantic. They had lost an entire army. It took until the end of January for a courier with the Saratoga news to reach Benjamin Franklin in Passy, France. After celebrating, he and his two American diplomat colleagues lost no time leveraging the American success. Within seven days, on February 6, 1778, they had secured a formal miliary alliance between the United States of America and the Court of Louis XVI of France.
In his 1851 book, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of theWorld: from Marathon to Waterloo, the British military historian Sir Edward Creasy included Saratoga as one of them. The historian Edmund Morgan described Saratoga as “a great turning point of the war”, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance from France, which was the last element needed for victory. In the rotunda of the US Capitol, the Surrender of Burgoyne is one of four large scale paintings by John Trumbull. In the center is victorious General Horatio Gates, on his right is the surrendering Burgoyne in scarlet, and on his left is Samuel Cabell’s corps commander, Colonel Daniel Morgan in the white uniform of a rifleman.
One of Captain Cabell’s former soldiers later told N. F. Cabell about Samuel that “he was an impetuous man; that almost the only time he was really cool and collected was when in battle; and that his command was not ‘Go on, boys!’, but “Come on, boys! (Brown, page 200). In late autumn 1777, Samuel and the Amherst rifles would start the 270-mile march south to rejoin Washington’s main army. Their rifle company would be reassigned to the 14th Virginia Regiment. Their orders were to report to a place called Valley Forge in Pennsylvania for winter encampment.
Three months after Saratoga and his service with Morgan’s Rifles, on January 8, 1778, Samuel Cabell was promoted to major in the Continental Army. In the record of promotion, Brigadier General George Weedon notes “I certify that Major Slaughter’s resignation on the 23rd Dec promoted Capt. Cabell to the rank of major.” No doubt, his conduct under fire at Saratoga was a factor as well.
References:
- Atkinson, Rick, “The Fate of the Day, The War for America: Fort Ticonderoga to Charlestown, 1777-1780”
- Brown, Alexander, “The Cabells and Their Kin”
- Koke, Richard, “The Field of Grounded Arms, Schuylerville, NY”, 1947, National Park Service publication
- Fold3 by Ancestry. “Cabell, Samuel Jordan.” In Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, compiled 1894–ca. 1912 (documenting 1775–1784). Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.fold3.com/file/22393487