Affairs were at their worst, abroad and at home. General Washington's call
for more troops had fallen on deaf ears, and it seemed impossible that his
poor force could withstand the grand army and fleet mustering at New York.
The news of St. Clair's wretched evacuation of Ticonderoga had come in,
and we scarcely dared look one another in the face when it was told.
Apparently matters were nearing a climax, so far at least as we in New
York State were involved. For Burgoyne was moving down through the
Champlain country upon Albany, with none to stay his progress, and an
auxiliary force was somewhere upon the great northern water frontier of
our State, intending to sweep through the Mohawk Valley to join him. Once
this junction was formed, the Hudson lay open--and after that? We dared
not think!

I cannot hope to make young people realize what all this meant to us. To
comprehend this, one must have had not only a neck menaced by the halter,
but mother, sisters, dear ones, threatened by the tomahawk and knife.
Thinking back upon it now, I marvel that men did not go mad under this
horrible stress of apprehension. Apparently there was no hope. The old New
England spite and prejudice against General Schuyler had stirred up now a
fierce chorus of calumny and attack. He was blamed for St. Clair's
pusillanimous retreat, for Congressional languor, for the failure of the
militia to come forward--for everything, in fact. His hands were tied by
suspicion, by treason, by popular lethargy, by lack of money, men, and
means. Against these odds he strove like a giant, but I think not even he,
with all his great, calm confidence, saw clearly through the black cloud
just then.

I had gone to bed late one hot July night, and had hardly fallen asleep,
for gloomy musing upon these things, when I was awakened by a loud