“Claimed to be Burgoyne in order to get better quarters”?

Sherman Lohnes left a helpful comment on these lines in yesterday’s posting about Elisha Porter:

He later served in the Saratoga campaign as a militia colonel and escorted Gen. John Burgoyne east. According to the Porter family, Burgoyne left his host a dress sword.

Since December 2022 Lohnes has shared a blog on The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army, the prisoners of war in Continental custody after the Saratoga battles.

Using sources and reminiscences of that journey, the blog reexamines a lot of the lore and local traditions about it.

Lohnes commented:

It's highly unlikely that General Burgoyne gave Elisha Porter his sword - or even that Porter accompanied Burgoyne from Saratoga to Cambridge.

Burgoyne offered his sword in surrender to General Horatio Gates on October 17th at Saratoga, who graciously allowed him to keep it. Prior to the surrender, Burgoyne took pains to negotiate terms with Gates that allowed all of his officers to not only keep their swords, but wear them while they were being held in Massachusetts.

Finally, Burgoyne didn't stay with Porter in Hadley. New Hampshire Militia Brigadier-General William Whipple, who did travel with Burgoyne and kept a journal of their trip, indicates that they crossed the Connecticut River south of Hadley, from West Springfield into Springfield, before continuing on through Palmer to Brookfield, and eventually Cambridge…

In this blog post, Lohnes wrote:

Though Porter was a colonel, and commanded the 4th Hampshire County Regiment of the Massachusetts Militia, which marched on September 24, 1777, to reinforce the Northern Army and served until October 17, 1777, Brigadier-General William Whipple’s Journal indicates Burgoyne did not pass through Hadley.

If Burgoyne didn't stop in Hadley (or Northampton), what may have led its residents think that he did? Perhaps the source of these tales is explained by British Ensign (and author) Thomas Anburey. According to Anburey, at some point along the march one of the officers with the British column went on ahead, and claimed to be Burgoyne in order to get better quarters. Being the first to reach "a small village, he personated General Burgoyne, and with such an air of confidence..." that his hosts being "compleatly outwitted, they assigned him the best quarters."

Another possibility is simply that the Porter family’s understanding of what happened grew in the telling from one generation of children to another. Marching out to Saratoga and back again in parallel with some prisoners from Burgoyne’s army could have become escorting the British general himself. A British officer’s dress sword acquired in any sort of way could have become connected to the most famous officer in that army.

Family and local historians writing in the 1890s and 1900s described seeing that sword, and they didn’t use the same language, indicating they observed independently. That strongly suggests the Porter family did own such an artifact. But evidently not an accurate knowledge of where it came from.