2-329-793 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Horatio Gates, American Revolutionary War general, (c1880). Previously a Major in the British Army, Gates was a plantation owner in Virginia when the American Revolutionary War broke out. He offered his services to George Washington and was appointed Adjutant General of the Continental Army. Granted his wish for a field command, he fought at Saratoga, claiming credit for the victory after Benedict Arnold was wounded, although Arnold was the real architect of the victory. Gates persistently lobbied Congress to give him command of the army in place of Washington, without success, and any hope vanished after his army was heavily defeated by the British under Cornwallis at the Battle of Camden in 1780. A print from Cassell's History of the United States, by Edmund Ollier, Volume II, Cassell Petter and Galpin, London, c1880.