- Title: Horatio Gates
- Author: Johnson, Fry & Co.
- Date: c.1861
- Condition: A crisp steel engraving on a very clean sheet. Superb.
- Inches: 8 1/4 x 10 3/4 [Paper]
- Centimeters: 20.95 x 27.30 [Paper]
- Product ID: 308725
Saratoga Hero Turned Controversial Fallen Commander
From the National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Americans, after a painting by Alonzo Chappel. A fine steel engraving printed on wove paper, issued as part of Johnson, Fry & Co.’s ambitious patriotic series celebrating notable figures in the nation’s political and cultural history.
Horatio Gates (c. 1727–1806) was a British‑born professional officer who became one of the Continental Army’s most controversial generals. A former British regular who had served in North America during the French and Indian War, he threw his lot in with the American cause in 1775 and quickly rose to major general. In 1777 he was given command of the Northern Department, where he presided over the American victory at Saratoga—the campaign that brought about General Burgoyne’s surrender and helped secure French recognition of the new United States. That success vaulted Gates into fame as “the hero of Saratoga” and briefly made him a serious rival to George Washington in the eyes of some members of Congress.
Gates’s reputation, however, did not keep pace with his ambitions. He was associated with the so‑called Conway Cabal, an informal movement among certain officers and congressmen who grumbled about Washington’s leadership, a connection that would shadow him even after it collapsed. Later, when he took command in the South in 1780, his army was decisively routed at the Battle of Camden, a disaster that exposed weaknesses in his command style and forced his removal from field leadership. He spent his final years largely out of the spotlight, remembered by many Americans as a paradoxical figure: the general who stood at the center of Saratoga’s triumph, yet whose career also illustrated the dangers of politics and ego inside the Continental officer corps.