Hardly had Schuyler taken up this position when news arrived of another disaster and a new danger. While moving up Lake Champlain, Burgoyne had detached Colonel St. Leger, with two hundred regulars, Sir John Johnson’s Royal Greens, some Canadian Rangers, and a body of Indians under Brant, to harass the New York frontier from the west. On August 3d St. Leger laid siege to Fort Schuyler, late Fort Stanwix, near the head of the Mohawk, then the extreme western post of the State of New York. General Herkimer raised the militia of Tryon County, and advanced to the relief of this important post, which was held by Gansevoort and Willett, with two New York regiments. About six miles from the fort, owing to want of proper precaution, Herkimer, on August 6th, fell into an ambush. Mortally wounded, he supported himself against a stump and encouraged his men to the fight. By the aid of a successful sally by Willett, they succeeded at last in repulsing the assailants, but not without a loss of four hundred, including many of the leading patriots of that region, who met with no mercy at the hands of the Indians and refugees. Tryon County, which included the whole district west of Albany, abounded with Tories. It was absolutely necessary to relieve Fort Schuyler, lest its surrender should be the signal for a general insurrection. Arnold volunteered for that service, and was despatched by Schuyler with three regiments; with the rest of his army he withdrew into the islands at the confluence of the Mohawk and the Hudson, a more defensible station than the camp at Stillwater. The command of Lake George, as well as of Lake Champlain, had passed into the hands of the British. That lake furnished a convenient means of transportation; a large quantity of provisions and stores for the British army had arrived at Fort George, and Burgoyne was exerting every effort for their transportation to his camp on the Hudson. The land carriage was only eighteen miles, but the roads were so bad and the supply of draught cattle so small that, after a fortnight’s hard labor, the British army had only four days’ provisions in advance. “To try the affections of the country, to mount Riedesel’s Dragoons, to complete Peter’s Corps of Loyalists, and to obtain a large supply of cattle, horses, and carriages,” so Burgoyne expressed himself in his instructions, it was resolved to send a strong detachment into the settlements on the left. Colonel Baum was sent on this errand, with two pieces of artillery and eight hundred men, dismounted German dragoons and British marksmen, with a body of Canadians and Indians, and Skene and a party of Loyalists for guides.