Lady Harriet Ackland with the other women, was obliged to take refuge among the dead and dying, for the tents were all struck, and hardly a shed was left standing. Her husband was wounded, and a prisoner in the American camp. That gallant officer was shot through both legs when Poor and Learned's troops assaulted the grenadiers and artillery on the British left, on the afternoon of the 7th. Wilkinson, Gates's adjutant general, while pursuing the flying enemy when they abandoned their battery, heard a feeble voice exclaim, "Protect me, sir, against that boy." He turned and saw a lad with a musket, taking deliberate aim at a wounded British officer, lying in a corner of a worm fence. Wilkinson ordered the boy to desist, and discovered the wounded man to be Major Ackland. He had him conveyed to the quarters of General Poor (now the residence of Mr. Neilson), on the heights, where every attention was paid to his wants. When the intelligence that he was wounded and a prisoner reached his wife, she was greatly distressed, and, by the advice of her friend, the Baroness Riedesel, resolved to visit the American camp, and implore the favor of a personal attendance upon her husband. On the 9th she sent a message to Burgoyne by Lord Petersham, his aid, asking October, 1777 permission to depart. "Though I was ready to believe," says Burgoyne, "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 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 of such an undertaking as delivering herself to an enemy, probably in the night, and uncertain of what hands she might 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 wet paper, to General Gates, recommending her to his protection." *