On the 20th, Burgoyne issued, with seeming royal prerogative, a bombastic proclamation, commending the justice and clemency of the king, who had directed "that Indians be employed;" denouncing the obstinacy of Americans as "wilful outcasts;" threatening the terrors of savage warfare of the "thousands of Indians" under his command, "to overtake the hardened enemies of Great Britain;" and, "in consciousness of Christianity and the honor of soldiership", warned all of his opposers that "the messengers of justice and wrath await them on the field, and devastation, famine, and every concomitant horror that a reluctant but indispensable prosecution of military duty must occasion."[726]
Burgoyne, after delivering himself of this pronunciamiento of loving-kindness towards his American erring brothers, and setting forth the sweet humanity of his dusky allies, who "had sharpened their affections upon their hatchets", proceeded up Lake Champlain, pioneered by these children of the forest in their birch canoes, the fleet and army following, with music and banners, as if engaged in a splendid regatta.
While Burgoyne with the main army was moving south, Lieutenant-Colonel St. Leger, in conformity with instructions from the British cabinet, with a detachment of about 1,000 men (English regulars, provincials, and Indians), was rapidly advancing west to Fort Stanwix, by the St. Lawrence and Lakes Ontario and Oneida. After reducing this post and subjugating the patriots of the Mohawk valley, he was ordered to join his chief at or near Albany.
Burgoyne's formidable invading force of 7,863 men, with 42 pieces of artillery, which reached Crown Point June 27th, advanced thence, July 1st, in battle array: the right wing of British troops under General Phillips, upon Fort Ticonderoga on the west bank of the lake; the left wing of Germans under General Riedesel, upon Fort Independence on the east bank; and the floating batteries in line across the lake. Burgoyne had announced in orders: "This army must not retreat."
General Schuyler had recently visited Forts Ticonderoga and Independence, where, instead of a garrison of 5,000 men, he found only 2,546 half-armed and poorly provided Continental troops and 900 raw militia, "many of them mere boys, and one third of the whole force unfit for duty." He noted, with serious forebodings, the unfitness of the works to resist attack, a state to which lack of workmen and the neglect of Gates had brought them. The reduction of this stronghold was indispensable to Burgoyne's progress, not only as insuring his communications with Canada, but because of the danger of leaving such a force in his rear.