General Horatio Gates: A Biography

The career of Horatio Gates presents a paradox in American history. Although he led the patriot army that forced the surrender of British troops under General John Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, Gates has been remembered primarily as a schemer against George Washington and a man of little military talent. Gates's frequent clashes with his colleagues-especially Washington-and his intense personal ambition are the reasons most often given for this negative assessment of his career. But, says historian Paul David Nelson, there is little evidence that Gates was involved in an attempt to supplant Washington, and much evidence to suggest that he deserves a better place in American history. Gates was, says the author, a competent and trustworthy military commander but showed greater talent as an organizer and administrator. In the first two years of American strife with England, he helped create one patriot army and almost single-handedly reorganized two others. Although his success in compelling the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga catapulted him to fame, his decline was just as precipitous after his defeat by Cornwallis in the battle at Camden, South Carolina. As Allan Nevins has pointed out, Gates became the "whipping boy for the generals and statesmen of the Revolution, his triumphs forgotten, only his mistakes recalled, the verdict of history rendered only on ex parte evidence." In politics, Gates was one of the earliest and move avid proponents of armed resistance to British "tyranny," and he was at the forefront of those who sought American independence. And he never wavered in his support of the Revolution, even when Britain held out alluring blandishments that caused a few patriots to yield. Based on extensive archival research, General Horatio Gates presents the life of a sometimes paradoxical man, a leader in the struggle for American independence whose life produced a record of contradictions and whose death was marked by obscurity.