At last, on October 7, 1777, the second battle of Saratoga was fought. Lady Harriet was once again doomed to listen to the sound of cannon and musketry, and to see a sad procession of wounded moving to the rear. As time passed without any news of her husband reaching her, she began to hope that he would pass through the battle uninjured; but this was not to be. Soon the news came that the British, under General Burgoyne, had been defeated, and that Major Acland, seriously wounded, had been taken prisoner. For a time Lady Harriet was overcome with grief, but growing calmer she determined to make an attempt to join her husband in the American camp and nurse him there. 'When the army was upon the point of moving after the halt described,' General Burgoyne wrote in his account of the campaign, 'I received a message from Lady Harriet, submitting to my decision a proposal (and expressing an earnest solicitude to execute it, if not interfering with my designs) of passing to the camp of the enemy, and requesting General Gates's permission to attend her husband. Though I was ready to believe (for I had experienced) that patience and fortitude in a supreme degree were to be found, as well as every other virtue, under the most tender forms, I was astonished at this proposal. After so long an agitation of the spirits, exhausted not only for want of rest, but absolutely want of food, drenched in rains for twelve hours together, that a woman should be capable such an undertaking as delivering herself to the enemy, probably in the night, and uncertain of what hands she might first fall into, appeared an effort above human nature. The assistance I was enabled to give was small indeed; I had not even a cup of wine to offer her; but I was told she had found, from some kind and fortunate hand, a little rum and dirty water. All I could furnish to her was an open boat and a few lines, written upon dirty and wet paper, to General Gates, recommending her to his protection.' Accompanied by an army chaplain and two servants, Lady Harriet proceeded up the Hudson River in an open boat to the enemy's outposts; but the American sentry, fearing treachery, refused to allow her to land, and ignoring the white handkerchief which she held aloft, threatened to shoot anyone in the boat who ventured to move. For eight hours, unprotected from the night air, Lady Harriet sat shivering in the boat, but at daybreak she prevailed upon the sentry to have her letter delivered to General Gates. The American general readily gave permission for her to join her husband, who, she found, had been shot through both legs, in addition to having received several minor wounds. His condition was serious, but Lady Harriet succeeded in nursing him into comparatively good health.