Bribes, threats,
and promises were all alike useless. At last he offered them "fire
water." For if only he could make them drunk, he thought, they
might forget their fear. But even the much coveted "fire water" had
no power to still their terrors. They refused to drink, and with
clamour and noise they fled.
The panic spread to the rest of the army. Two battalions of white men
followed in the wake of their redskin brothers, and the commander,
deserted by the bulk of his army, was forced to join in the general
retreat.
It was a humiliating and disorderly flight. The Indians, when they
recovered from their terror, had lost every vestige of respect
for their white brothers. Soon they became insolent, and amused
themselves by playing on their fears. "They are coming! They are
coming!" they would cry whenever the weary fugitives lay down to
rest. Then they would laugh to see the white men leap up again,
fling away their knapsacks and their rifles, so as to make the
greater haste, and stumble onward.
At length the shameful retreat came to an end, and, hungry and
ragged, a feeble remnant of the expedition reached the shores of
Lake Ontario, and passed over into Canada.
Such was the news brought to Burgoyne soon after the defeat at
Bennington. It make his dark outlook darker still. No help could
ever come to him now from the north, and all his hopes were fixed
on Howe's advancing host from the south.
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