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advancing to its aid, had been killed, and his troops dispersed.
At a council of officers, it was objected to weaken the main army at Saratoga by sending away any of the regular troops.
Gen. Schuyler, much depressed and excited, said he would “beat up for volunteers the next day, if he could get men by no other means,” and asked for a brigadier to command them.
The next day the drum beat for volunteers, and Lieut. Col. Brooks volunteered with his regiment.
How noble to see a man thus putting his shoulder under a forsaken cause!
He considered his efforts at
Saratoga as the most effective in his military career.
No skill or bravery during the war exceeded his on that occasion.
The historian says:--
On the left of Arnold's detachment, Jackson's regiment of Massachusetts, then led by Lieut. Col. Brooks, was still more successful.
It turned the right of the encampment, and carried by storm the works occupied by the German reserve.
Lieut. Brayman was killed; and Brooks maintained the ground he had gained.
This advantage of the Americans was decisive.
Another historian, member of the army, says:--
The capture of Gen. Burgoyne and his army may be attributed in no small degree to the gallant conduct of Col. Brooks and his regiment, on the 7th of October, in the battle at Saratoga.
The same author, an eye-witness, further says:--
The confidence which Washington reposed in him was shown on many occasions, and particularly in calling him to his councils in that terrible moment when, at Newburg, in March, 1783, a conspiracy of some of the officers, excited by the publication of inflammatory anonymous letters, had well nigh disgraced the army, and ruined the country.
On this occasion, the Commander-in-Chief, to whom this day was the most anxious moment of his life, rode up to Col. Brooks with intent to ascertain how the officers stood affected.
Finding him, as he expected, to be sound, he requested him to keep his officers within quarter to prevent them from attending the insurgent meeting.
Brooks replied: “Sir, I have anticipated your wishes, and my orders are given.”
Washington, with tears in his eyes, took him by the hand, and said: “Col. Brooks, this is just what I expected from you.”
At the end of the war, he retired, a laurelled hero of the revolution, to private life, and found himself so poor that he opened a small shop in a building next the bridge, on the
