Born: 3 January 1750, United Kingdom
Died: 21 July 1815
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Christian Henrietta Caroline Fox, Fox-Strangways
The following is excerpted from the Dictionary of National Biography, originally published between 1885 and 1900, by Smith, Elder & Co. It was written by William Prideaux Courtney.
ACLAND, Lady CHRISTIAN HENRIETTA CAROLINE, generally called Lady Harriet (1750–1815), was the third surviving daughter of Stephen, first earl of Ilchester, and was born on 3 Jan. 1749-50. In Nov. 1770 she was married, at Redlynch Park, Somersetshire, to John Dyke Acland [see Acland, John Dyke]. When her husband was ordered to attend his regiment to Canada in 1776, he was accompanied by Lady Harriet Acland, and the narrative of her sufferings during the campaign, which has been often printed in both England and America, forms one of the brightest episodes in the war with the American people. He was taken ill in Canada, and she nursed him. On his partial recovery his services were required at the attack of Ticonderoga; but at the express injunction of her husband she remained behind. During the conflict he received a dangerous wound, and his heroic wife hastened to join him, and to bestow upon the sufferer the most devoted care and attention. Her husband commanded the British grenadiers, and his corps was often at the most advanced post of the army. On one of these occasions the tent in which they were sleeping caught fire, and both of them had a narrow escape of their lives. A few weeks afterwards the troops under the command of General Burgoyne were defeated in the second battle of Saratoga (7 Oct. 1777), when Major Acland was badly wounded in both legs and taken prisoner. With the protection of a letter from Burgoyne to General Gates, and in the company of an artillery chaplain and two servants, she proceeded in an open boat up the Hudson River to the enemy. When she arrived at the outposts of the American army, the sentinel threatened to fire into the boat if its occupants stirred, and for eight ‘dark and cold hours,’ according to one account, though this is denied in the American papers, she remained waiting for the break of daylight, and for permission to join her husband. On her return to England, says the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ her portrait, as she stood in the boat with a white handkerchief in her hand as a flag of truce, was exhibited at the Royal Academy and engraved. Some copies of the print are still in the possession of the Acland family. The story that her husband died in a duel, that she became temporarily insane, and afterwards remarried, has no foundation in fact. She was left a widow in 1778 with two surviving children, her son, John, succeeding to the baronetcy, and her daughter, Elizabeth Kitty, marrying Lord Porchester, afterwards second earl of Carnarvon. By this marriage the Acland property near Dulverton and Taunton ultimately passed to the Earl of Carnarvon family. Lady Harriet Acland died at Tetton, near Taunton, on 21 July 1815. Her remains were interred at Broad Clyst on 28 July. Her portrait, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1771–72, and the property of the present head of the Acland family, was engraved by S. W. Reynolds. The painting was exhibited at Burlington House, at the Winter Exhibition, 1882, and the face was that of a woman of great determination of character. Several years before, whilst a little girl, aged seven, she had been painted by the same artist standing at her mother’s knee.
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
Wife of Major Acland, an officer in that portion of the British army in America under the command of General Burgoyne, accompanied her husband to America in 1776, and was with him during the disastrous campaign of 1777, which terminated in Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga. Accustomed as she was to every luxury, she shrank from no hardship or danger, while allowed to remain with her husband; and her gentleness and conciliatory manners often softened the bitterness of political animosity.
Major Acland being taken prisoner at the battle of Saratoga, Lady Harriet determined to join him; and obtaining from Burgoyne a note, commending her to the protection of General Gates, she set out in an open boat, during a violent storm, accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Brudenell, a chaplain in the British army, her own maid and her husband’s valet, to the American camp. Here she was kindly received, and allowed to join her husband. After Major Acland’s return to England, he was killed in a duel, caused by his resenting some aspersions cast on the bravery of the British soldiers in America; and the shock of his death deprived Lady Harriet of her reason for two years. She afterwards married the same Mr. Brudenell who had accompanied her to the camp of General Gates. Lady Harriet outlived her second husband many years, and died at a very advanced age in 1815.
Shortly before her death, it was discovered that for sixteen years she had suffered from a cancer, which she had concealed from her nearest relatives in order to spare their anxiety.
In a work by Madame de Riedesel, who was also at the battle of Saratoga, (her husband. Major de Biedesel, was one of the German officers employed by the English government in the war against the American colonies,) she makes this mention of the subject of our memoir:—
“Lady Acland’s tent was near ours. She slept there, and spent the day in the camp. On a sudden, she received the news that her husband was mortally wounded, and taken prisoner. She was greatly distressed} for she was much attached to him, though he was rude and intemperate; yet a good officer. She was a very lovely woman. And lovely in mind, as in person.”