Saratoga

The Battles of Saratoga: The Turning Point That Changed the World

On the morning of October 17, 1777, British General John Burgoyne surrendered 5,895 soldiers, along with muskets, cannons, and the tattered remnants of a grand imperial strategy, to American General Horatio Gates on the fields outside Saratoga, New York. It was a moment that no European court had anticipated and one that many American Patriots had scarcely dared to imagine. It was, in fact, the first time in history that a British Army had been forced to surrender on the field of battle. The capitulation at Saratoga did not end the Revolutionary War — nearly six years of brutal fighting still lay ahead — but it fundamentally altered the conflict's trajectory. What happened in and around this small community along the Hudson River in the autumn of 1777 persuaded France to enter the war as an American ally, shattered the British strategy to sever New England from the rest of the colonies, and demonstrated to the world that the Continental Army could defeat a professional European fighting force in a sustained campaign. No single engagement in the American Revolution carries more strategic weight, and no place on the American landscape better illustrates the moment when a colonial rebellion became an international war for independence.

To understand Saratoga, one must first understand the British plan it destroyed. In early 1777, General Burgoyne proposed to the Colonial Secretary, Lord George Germain, an ambitious campaign to seize control of the Hudson River corridor and thereby isolate the rebellious New England colonies from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the South. Burgoyne would march south from Canada with a force of approximately 8,000 regulars, German auxiliaries (commonly called Hessians), Loyalist militia, and Indigenous allies. He expected to link up with forces moving north from New York City under General William Howe and east from Lake Ontario under Colonel Barry St. Leger. If the plan succeeded, the rebellion's backbone — New England, the cradle of resistance since Lexington and Concord — would be cut off, surrounded, and presumably starved into submission. The plan looked elegant on the maps Lord Germain examined in London. On the densely forested, poorly roaded terrain of upstate New York, it would prove catastrophic.

Burgoyne's campaign began promisingly enough. His army recaptured Fort Ticonderoga on July 6, 1777, sending shock waves through the Continental Congress and prompting John Adams to lament the loss. But the march south from Ticonderoga consumed weeks as American forces, under the resourceful command of General Philip Schuyler, felled trees across roads, destroyed bridges, diverted creeks into marshy lowlands, and stripped the countryside of provisions. Burgoyne's supply line stretched perilously thin. A foraging expedition to Bennington, Vermont, in mid-August ended in disaster when a mixed force of New Hampshire militia under General John Stark and Continental troops destroyed nearly a thousand of Burgoyne's German auxiliaries and Loyalist volunteers. Furthermore, news reached Burgoyne on August 28 that St. Leger's expedition down the Mohawk River valley had turned back after the failed Siege of Fort Stanwix.

General William Howe had taken his army from New York City by sea on a campaign to capture Philadelphia instead of moving north to meet Burgoyne.

Most of Burgoyne's Indian support had fled following the loss at Bennington, and his situation was becoming difficult. The grand three-pronged convergence on Albany had collapsed; Burgoyne would fight alone.

Meanwhile, the American command underwent its own upheaval. Despite his shrewd tactics to impede the British advance, Congress replaced Schuyler with General Horatio Gates on August 19, 1777, one month before the Battles of Saratoga.

Notwithstanding this personal setback, Schuyler helped the army from his mansion in Albany by forwarding supplies and encouraging reinforcements northward. Among those reinforcements were some of the war's most formidable fighters. In August, Washington sent Colonel Daniel Morgan and his rifle corps to northern New York under the authority of General Gates.

Morgan's riflemen, recruited from the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontier, had gained a reputation for their hard fighting ways and the incredible accuracy of their rifles. Their arrival, alongside a swelling tide of New England and New York militia, would prove decisive.

Gates chose to make his stand at a position of formidable natural strength. In September 1777, under the advice of Colonel Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a brilliant Polish engineer serving with the Americans, they chose a raised area known as Bemis Heights to build their fortifications and stop the British advance to Albany.

The terrain that Kosciuszko selected for fortification proved to be ideal for defense. Cannon placed on top of Bemis Heights dominated both the Hudson River and the main road running alongside it.

Fortifications and artillery placed on the heights protected the works below, and were in turn protected by works on another height just to the south. British scouts could see this formidable interlocking system, and persuaded General Burgoyne that testing them would be folly. This is where Kosciuszko's skill as a military engineer was first appreciated. Burgoyne's heavily burdened army could either risk destruction by pressing down the narrow corridor between the bluffs and the river, or attempt to sweep around the American left through the dense, unfamiliar forest.

He chose the latter. On the morning of September 19, 1777, Burgoyne sent out three columns of troops heading south towards Bemis Heights.

Baron Riedesel led the left column on the river road, bringing the main artillery and guarding supplies; General James Inglis Hamilton commanded the center column; and General Simon Fraser led the right wing, tasked with turning the American left flank. Inside the American camp, Arnold begged to move his troops forward to engage the British. Gates relented and sent forward Arnold and Daniel Morgan's troops north.

When Morgan's men reached an open field northwest of Bemis Heights belonging to Loyalist John Freeman, they spotted British advance troops in the field. The collision at Freeman's Farm produced hours of savage fighting. It was a hotly contested fight, with the field changing hands several times.

By evening, the British, reinforced by 500 German Hessians, held the field, but the action had blunted their forward motion. Having lost almost 600 troops and expecting to be reinforced by General Henry Clinton coming from New York City, Burgoyne chose to dig in. The First Battle of Saratoga was a tactical British victory but a strategic stalemate — and the price in blood had been ruinous.

What followed was a three-week standoff that slowly strangled Burgoyne's army. Until Clinton relieved them, British forces were literally trapped in the New York wilderness with scant supplies.

Meanwhile, patriot militia forces continued to arrive, swelling the American ranks. Within the American camp, disputes led Gates to strip Arnold of his command. By early October, Burgoyne's army had dwindled to perhaps 5,000 combat-ready troops, and he estimated that he had two weeks of supplies left. Clinton, moving up from New York City, captured Forts Clinton and Montgomery in the Hudson River highlands on October 6 , but these efforts came too late to save Burgoyne.

On October 7, Burgoyne gambled everything on one last stroke. On the morning of October 7, 1777, 1,500 men under the command of General Simon Fraser moved out from the British fortifications towards the American left flank. This foray included nearly a third of Burgoyne's army.