Horatio Gates

Horatio Gates (1782)

Horatio Gates (born July 26, 1727 in Maldon , England , United Kingdom , † April 10, 1806 in New York City , USA ) was an American general in the American Revolutionary War . He commanded American troops at the Battle of Saratoga and the Battle of Camden .

Example

Horatio Gates' parents served Peregrine Osborne, 2nd Duke of Leeds . In 1745 he was given a lieutenant in the British Army and served in Germany during the War of the Austrian Succession . In 1753 he was promoted to captain in Nova Scotia .

During the French and Indian Wars , Gates served under General Edward Braddock . In 1755 he accompanied the badly starred Braddock Expedition that was to gain control of the Ohio Valley. This force also included other later leaders in the American Revolutionary War, such as Thomas Gage , Charles Lee , Daniel Morgan and George Washington . Gates later served in the West Indies and took part in the capture of Martinique .

In October 1754 Horatio Gates married Elizabeth Phillips. The couple had a son, Robert Gates, in 1758. Because advancement in the British Army during this period required more money and influence, Gates' career stagnated. Because of this, he quit his service with the rank of major in 1769 and emigrated to America. His family settled on a modest farm in Virginia .

American War of Independence

Horatio Gates as Major General in the American Forces (1780)

When the call of the independence movement reached Gates in late May 1775, he immediately went to Mount Vernon to offer his services to George Washington. In June the Continental Congress began to set up the Continental Army . Upon accepting high command, Washington urged Gates to serve as an aide in the Army. On June 17, 1775, the Continental Congress appointed Horatio Gates Brigadier General and General Adjutant of the Army.

His service as adjutant was invaluable to the infantry army. Gates and Charles Lee were the only available men with significant experience in the British regular army. As an adjutant he created a military command / control system from files and orders and helped to standardize the different regimental structures of the various colonies.

Although his administrative knowledge was far more valuable, Gates longed for a front line command. In June 1776 he was promoted to major general and his commander longings met with the supreme command of the Canadian Department of the Continental Army as a replacement for John Sullivan . Gates' work as a front-line commander produced significantly worse results than the previous ones as an adjutant. He could not take command of the Canadian department because the American invasion of Canada had to be abandoned before he arrived. He then served as assistant to General Philip Schuyler in the Northern Department.

In December he asked Congress for another post while his troops were with George Washington at the Battle of Trenton . He was sent north again with orders to assist Schuyler in New York . In 1777, however, Congress charged Schuyler and Arthur St. Clair with the loss of Fort Ticonderoga . On August 4, he made Gates commander of the Northern Department.

On August 19, he took over the new command, just in time to repel General John Burgoyne's invasion at the Battle of Saratoga . Although Gates' reputation rose significantly with this victory and Burgoyne's surrender on behalf of the British Army, most of the action was directly commanded by frontline commanders such as Benedict Arnold , Enoch Poor and Daniel Morgan. Actions like that of John Stark in the Battle of Bennington also contributed to the victory .

Gates tried to get the maximum political benefit from this victory, while Washington had little success with the main army. Congress appointed Gates chairman of the War Committee - he took on this role, but kept his front line command. There were even considerations of replacing Washington as Commander-in-Chief with him. Political maneuvering ended in failure of the Conway Cabal . Gates resigned from his position on the War Committee and was appointed commander of the Eastern Department in November 1778.

In May 1780, news of the fall of Charleston and the capture of General Benjamin Lincoln's Southern Army reached Congress. On May 7th, he decided to hand over command of the Southern Department to Gates. Gates learned of the home near the present Shepherdstown ( West Virginia ). He made his way south and took command of the remaining forces on July 25, 1780 near the Deep River. He led the troops and militia south in a surprise battle with British General Charles Cornwallis on August 16 at the Battle of Camden . The result was a terrible defeat. Gates' only accomplishment worth mentioning was 274 kilometers on horseback in three days on the flight north. His bitter disappointment was made worse by the news that his son Robert had died in combat in October. After Nathanael Greene replaced him as commander on December 3, he returned home.

Although he never received a command post again, Gates later returned to service with the Continental Army. When the Continental Congress overturned a resolution in 1782 that a commission of inquiry should consider the defeat of Camden, he rejoined Washington's staff in Newburgh . Rumors link some of his staff to the Newburgh Conspiracy of 1783; Gates himself had no obvious connection with the conspirators.

Later events

Horatio Gates, portrait by Gilbert Stuart (1793–1794)

Gates' wife Elizabeth died in the summer of 1783. In 1784 he resigned and returned to Virginia . He served as president of the Society of the Cincinnati in Virginia and worked to reorganize his life. At first he sought to marry General Richard Montgomery's widow Janet, but was refused. In 1786 he married Mary Vallance, a wealthy widow. Gates sold his Virginia estate and released his slaves at the request of his friend John Adams . The aging couple settled in a country estate in the north of Manhattan Island . His later support for Thomas Jefferson's presidential nomination ended his friendship with Adams. He and his wife remained active in New York City society for a long time, so that in 1800 he was elected to the New York State Parliament for one term .

Gates was in New York City in the cemetery of Trinity Church in the Wall Street buried. The Gates County in the state of North Carolina was named after him.

literature

• Gates, Horatio . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 11 : Franciscans - Gibson . London 1910, p. 529 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

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