General Gates, also, besides Schuyler, had scouts on whom he relied to furnish intelligence of Burgoyne's movements, chief of whom was Alexander Bryan, who succeeded Harris in his delicate duties to Gen. Schuyler. Bryan, during the American Revolution, kept an inn two miles north of Waterford, on what was then the great road between the northern and southern frontiers. His house, naturally, was frequented by the partisans of each side, toward whom he behaved so discreetly that he was molested by neither, but was confided in by both.

His patriotism, however, was well known to the Committee of Safety of Stillwater, by whom he was recommended to Gates as a suitable person to report the intended movements of the enemy. Bryan tarried in the neighborhood of Burgoyne's armyat that time lying between Fort Miller and the Battenkill -- until he was convinced that preparations were making for an immediate advance. Then on the 15th of September, in the early gray of the morning, he started with the tidings; and though pursued by troopers, he managed to escape, and arrived safely at the headquarters of Gates late the following night. Bryan afterward removed to Saratoga Springs, in the cemetery of which village there is a monument erected to his memory bearing the following inscription: "In memory of Alexander Bryan, Died April 9th, 1825, aged 92 years. The first permanent settler, and the first to keep a public house here for visitors. An unpaid patriot, who alone and at great peril, gave the first and only information of Burgoyne's intended advance on Stillwater, which led to timely preparations for the battle of Sept. 19th, followed by the memorable victory of October 7th, 1777."

Another scout was Jacob Van Alstyne -- a sketch of whom is given by Jeptha R. Simms. John Strover (the father of the late John Strover of Schuylerville, N.Y.) had also the command of a party of scouts well acquainted with the country. "He was present," says General Bullard, "at the execution of Thomas Lovelace, a malignant Tory, who was hung upon an oak tree, about thirty rods South of where George Strover now resides.

At that date the gravel ridge extended east as far as where the canal now is, and the oak tree stood upon the east point of the gravel ridge near where the 'Store house of the Victory company now stands. When the Waterford and Whitehall turnpike was constructed through there, about 1813, the stump of the old oak was removed by the excavation. John Strover had frequently informed his son George that Lovelace was buried in a standing posture, near the tree. When the excavation took place, George stood by and saw the bones, yet in a standing posture, removed from the very spot which had been pointed out by his father. The skull of Lovelace is now (1895) in the possession of the daughter of the late George Strover, who lives in the "Schuyler Mansion" at Schuylerville, N.Y.

During the campaign Burgoyne employed Lovelace and other tories as spies, and they were generally secreted in the woods between old Saratoga and Saratoga Lake. One day Capt. Dunham, then residing near the lake, in company with Daniel Spike and a colored man, was scouring the woods, and while crossing upon a tree which had fallen over the brook east of the Wagman farm, discovered five guns stacked in the hiding place of the spies. With a sudden rush, Dunham and his associates seized the guns and captured all five of the spies, bound and brought them into the American camp."

This adventure of Dunham brings to mind an equally daring exploit (performed during the time that Burgoyne and Gates lay opposite each other) by Lieut. John Hardin -- the great-grandfather of Mrs. Ellen H. Walworth of Saratoga Springs, N, Y., -- who was attached to Morgan's Rifle Corps. Hardin was often selected by Morgan for enterprises of peril which required discretion and intrepidity to ensure success.

While with the army of Gen. Gates, he was sent on a reconnoitering expedition with orders to capture a prisoner for the purpose of obtaining information. Marching silently in advance of his party, he found himself, on reaching the abrupt summit of a hill, in the presence of three British soldiers and a Mohawk Indian. The moment was critical, but without the slightest hesitation he presented his rifle and ordered them to surrender. The British immediately threw down their arms; the Indian clubbed his gun. Hardin continued to advance on them, but none of his men having come up to his assistance he turned his head a little to one side and called them.

The Indian warrior observing Hardin's eye withdrawn from him, reversed his gun with a rapid motion for the purpose of firing. Hardin caught the gleam of light that was reflected from the polished barrel of the gun, and readily divining its meaning, brought his own rifle to a level, and without raising his gun to his face gained the first fire and gave the Indian a mortal wound. The ball from the warrior's rifle passed through Hardin's hair. The British prisoners were marched into camp, and Hardin received the thanks of General Gates.

"Great and crushing as was the defeat at Saratoga," continues Gen. Bullard, " the war was not yet ended, and the struggle continued for five years longer. Nor did this locality escape the trials and hardships of those times which tried men's souls.

"For instance, the farm of James Brisbin had sufficient wheat and cattle to have paid the purchase price, but it was all taken and consumed by Burgoyne's army without compensation, notwithstanding the fair promises made in the proclamation of that General of July 10th. We should except, however, a single cow, which escaped from her captors, returned home and was secreted and saved." *

(* This is an appropriate place in which to correct the statements of some writers, even those on the American side, to the effect that the Americans were seemingly the only ones who committed acts of plunder. So patriotic and able a writer as Gen. J. Watts de Peyster, for example, has given countenance to this view, by citing the well-known advice of Col. Skeene to Breyman, "to scatter things on the March, as the Rebels would stop to pick them up," thus allowing time for that officer to make good his retreat. Still, this sort of thing was by no means confined to the so called "Rebels, as might be inferred from the remark of Col. Skeene.

In a "Forgotten diary of a Red-coat officer" detailing his experience in the retreat from Concord, published for the first time in full in the Boston Evening Transcript, Apr. 18, 1894, the "Diary" closes as follows: "Our soldiers, the others say [i.e., on the Retreat from Concord] tho' they shew'd no want of courage, yet were so wild and irregular that there was no keeping 'em in any order; by their eagerness and inattention they kill'd many of our own People; and the plundering was shameful; many hardly thought of anything else; what was worse they were encouraged by some Officers.")