While on the subject of General Schuyler, I may as well say my say about him and have it off my mind. He was a man of property and breeding, an aristocrat by inheritance and training. New Englanders hated him because he was a Dutchman: because he was a patrician: because he fought against the shortsighted New England policy of trusting the national defense to militia who could be depended on for nothing except to eat more than they were worth, to fail their country in every crisis, and to wreck the nation’s currency and credit by the millions of dollars in bounties without which they refused to enlist. But regardless of the back-stairs whisperings of Massachusetts malcontents, the truth about Schuyler is this: he was a tireless, self-sacrificing and uncomplaining patriot whose treatment, at the hands of Congress, was such as to make me ashamed to own the members of that body as my countrymen. What they did to Schuyler was mild by comparison with what they did to Arnold; but nonetheless, it was dreadful. Schuyler devoted his time, his health, his reputation and his private fortune to the American cause: his exertions and firmness, at the hour when we were sinking into confusion and despair, buoyed us up and gave us the strength to fight. And Congress rewarded him by depriving him of his command, elevating a petty plotter above him, and driving him from the army.

… In spite of all we had heard about Schuyler’s aristocratic notions and contempt for simple New Englanders who consider themselves the equals of everybody—even of God and General Washington—we had no difficulty in seeing him. Sick of our inactivity, we had hovered near his tent from the moment we learned whose it was, hoping someone would ask our business. For a time, seemingly, we were taken for farmers or even—which would not have been surprising, considering our peculiar garb—for horse-traders or gipsies. At length, therefore, I spoke to the sentry outside the tent, and spoke softly, so not to disturb anyone. “I’d like to see the general,” I said. “I’ve been a scout under General Arnold, and—–”

The sentry slapped the butt of his musket and bawled, “Scout for General Arnold!”

“Hi!” Doc protested. “What you want to do? Get us throwed out of camp?”

One of the aides thrust his head from the tent entrance, glared at me, and said, “Come in here!”

We went in. General Schuyler was writing a letter. He didn’t even look at us. In a dreamy voice he said to one of the aides, “How can he be a scout for General Arnold when all Arnold’s scouts have been transferred to other commands? Ask him, Varick.”

“That was last year, sir,” I said. “It was before the Indians took us that we were scouts.”