The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

Why did Major General Horatio Gates choose Brigadier General William Whipple as one of his two delegates to negotiate the surrender at Saratoga, and to escort Lieutenant General John Burgoyne to Cambridge? Lieutenant Colonel James Wilkinson, Gates adjutant, claimed credit for the first of these decisions.  Wilkinson wrote in his memoir that on October 15, 1777, when Burgoyne proposed two officers from each side meet: "... General [Gates] was pleased to name me as one of his representatives, and at my request appointed Brigadier-general Whipple of the militia, to accompany me..." [1]  The key to John Trumbull's painting of the surrender, shown here, identifies all three: Gates, figure 14, at its center; Wilkinson, figure 13, to the left of Gates far back in the distance; and Whipple, figure 25, in profile looking left with his left forearm on the far wheel of the cannon. Gates selection of Wilkinson as one of his two negotiators makes sense.  Wilkinson served as a voluntee...

Did Brigadier-General James Brickett of the Massachusetts Militia embarrass himself as an officer and a gentleman during the Revolutionary War?  Several sources would have you believe that he did, but I question the accuracy, motivation or intent of each. Brickett, unlike Brigadier-General John Nixon , has a well documented connection to the 1777 march of the Convention Army following Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga on October 17, 1777.  Brigadier-General John Glover, who was assigned the overall responsibility for getting the prisoners to Boston, confirmed this in a statement he made to Massachusetts officials in 1780, noting:  "That Brigadier General James Brickett, was appointed to the Command of About five Hundred Militia, Detached from General Gates Army, to Guard a Division of the Convention Troops, from Saratoga to Cambridge, in October 1777...." [1] An assessment of Massachusetts officers written before the Saratoga campaign is especiall...