Horatio Gates was an English-born Continental army general during the Revolutionary War (1775-83). Born to a lower-class family at Maldon in Essex, England, Gates entered the British army at an early age with a lieutenant's commission and served his first tour of duty in Nova Scotia from 1749 to 1750. After receiving a captaincy, he was seriously wounded in July 1755 when he was a member of General Edward Braddock's unsuccessful advance on the French at Fort Duquesne (later Fort Pitt) during the French and Indian War (1754-63). He later served in several posts in New York before obtaining a position under General Robert Monckton. After participating with Monckton in the expedition that captured Martinique from the French in 1761, Gates was granted a major's commission in 1762. His promotion turned out to be a disappointment, however, and he subsequently returned to England. There, as a major on half pay in Great Britain, a lack of further military advancement coupled with social prejudice led Gates to retire from the army and move to Virginia with his family, where he established himself as a planter and lived a life of substantial middle-class comfort.

Although Gates did not initially become involved in Virginia's political affairs, he did accept a position as lieutenant colonel in the local militia. Sympathetic to colonial complaints against the British, he joined the revolutionary cause, was commissioned a brigadier general, and was given the position of adjutant general in the Continental army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 17, 1775.

In May 1776 the Second Continental Congress promoted Gates to major general and appointed him to command the northern army in Canada. When he arrived in Albany to assume the new post, however, he learned that the army had retreated out of Canada to Crown Point, which was under the jurisdiction of General Philip John Schuyler, commander of the Northern Department. As his superior, Schuyler appointed Gates to command Fort Ticonderoga. In summer 1777 General John Burgoyne invaded New York State from Canada. Gates, once again commander of the northern revolutionary army, gained credit for the victory at Saratoga on October 17, 1777.

After Saratoga, Gates rivaled George Washington as the military hero of the revolutionary cause. During the fall and winter of 1777-78, he became involved in the controversy over replacing Washington called the Conway Cabal. Although Gates had not been solely responsible for the success of the Saratoga campaign, the victory marked a turning point in the war for which he reaped the glory, and he was named president of the Board of War--a post independent of Washington. Several officers, led by General Thomas Conway, along with some members of the Continental Congress including John Adams and Samuel Adams, feared Washington's popularity and believed his campaign of 1777--in which he lost several battles and was driven out of Philadelphia--paled in comparison to Gates's achievement at Saratoga. But the plot to replace Washington with Gates fell apart as word began to spread that the victory at Saratoga had more to do with the battlefield heroics of Benedict Arnold than anything Gates had done, and Washington retained the confidence of most of the army and many members of Congress.

In June 1780 Congress appointed Gates as commander of the southern army in the Carolinas without consulting Washington, who had wanted Nathanael Greene to take the post. The Carolina campaign was poorly organized, and a lack of supplies coupled with untrained troops led to a terrible defeat at the Battle of Camden (August 16, 1780) in South Carolina. After this battle, Gates relinquished his command to Greene, and Congress ordered an official investigation of his conduct in the affair, but it was never completed. Gates returned to active service in August 1782, but he never fully recovered his reputation, and he retired to Virginia the following year.

In September 1790 Gates sold his plantation and slaves in Virginia and moved to Rose Hill Farm, an estate in Manhattan, New York. There he renewed an interest in politics, even serving one term in the New York legislature as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party in 1800. He died in New York on April 10, 1806.

Bibliography:

1) Max M. Mintz, The Generals of Saratoga: John Burgoyne and Horatio Gates (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990);

2) Paul David Nelson, General Horatio Gates, A Biography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1976).

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