Gates, Horatio
Gates, Horatio (1727/8–1806), Revolutionary War general.Born in Old Malden, Surrey, to an unlettered English customs official and the housekeeper of the duke of Bolton's mistress, Gates was commissioned a British army lieutenant in 1745, through Bolton's influence. In the French and Indian War, after being wounded at Monongahela in 1755, he rose to the rank of major, but eventually barred from further advancement, he retired in 1769. Living in Virginia at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Gates was appointed adjutant general by the Continental Congress, and he helped George Washington organize the Continental army. Popular with New Englanders, he replaced Philip Schuyler as commander of the northern army after the loss of Fort Ticonderoga. At the two battles of Saratoga, he employed his numerical...
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