Battle of Saratoga – 1777

“…one of the Greatest battles that Ever was fought in America…”
Major Henry Dearborn

Historians consider the Battle of Saratoga to be the major turning point of the American Revolution. This battle proved to the world that the fledgling American army was an effective fighting force capable of defeating the highly trained British forces in a major confrontation. As a result of this successful battle, the European powers, particularly the French, took interest in the cause of the Americans and began to support them.

In the British Campaign of 1777, Major General Burgoyne planned a concentric advance of three columns to meet in Albany, New York. He led the main column, which moved southward along the Hudson River. A second column under General Barry St. Leger served as a diversionary attack, moving eastward from Canada along the Mohawk River. General Howe was expected to direct the third element of the attack. According to the plan, General Henry Clinton, under the direction of Howe, would move northward along the Hudson River and link up with Burgoyne in Albany. Through this campaign, the British hoped to isolate and destroy the Continental forces of New England.

Initially, the British plan appeared to be working, with British victories at Ticonderoga and Hubbardton. Burgoyne’s army continually pushed back the Americans southward along the Hudson River with only minor casualties. The Battle of Bennington marked the first significant American victory, when General John Stark led the American militia to victory against a British resupply expedition.

In an attempt to slow the British advance, the American General Philip Schuyler detached 1000 men under the command of Major General Benedict Arnold. This force moved west to thwart St. Leger’s eastward advance along the Mohawk River. Arnold returned with his detachment after repelling St. Leger in time serve in the Battle of Saratoga.

At the Battle of Freeman’s Farm, the new commander of the Northern Department of the American army, General Horatio Gates, lost an indecisive battle. During this First Battle of Saratoga, fought 19 September 1777, the American forces lost ground to the British forces under General Burgoyne. Disagreements in tactics and personalities led to a heated argument between Generals Gates and Arnold. General Gates relieved Arnold of command as a result. The Battle of Bemis Heights was the second battle of Saratoga, taking place October 7th when Burgoyne desperately attacked rebel defenses with his tired, demoralized army. At Bemis Heights, Gate’s defensive tactics insured a tactical victory for the Patriots. However, Arnold saw an opportunity to seize the offensive while Burgoyne was vulnerable and led a counterattack. This bold move so badly wounded the British forces that Burgoyne surrendered days later at Saratoga.

On September 19, 1777 the Royal army advanced upon the American camp in three separate columns within the present day towns of Stillwater and Saratoga. Two of them headed through the heavy forests covering the region; the third, composed of German troops, marched down the river road.

American scouts detected Burgoyne’s army in motion and notified Gates, who ordered Col. Daniel Morgan’s corps of Virginia riflemen to track the British march. About 12:30 p.m., some of Morgan’s men brushed with the advance guard of Burgoyne’s center column in a clearing known as the Freeman Farm, about a mile north of the American camp. The general battle that followed swayed back and forth over the farm for more than three hours. Then, as the British lines began to waver in the face of the deadly fire of the numerically superior Americans, German reinforcements arrived from the river road. Hurling them against the American right, Burgoyne steadied the wavering British line and gradually forced the Americans to withdraw. Except for this timely arrival and the near exhaustion of the Americans’ ammunition, Burgoyne might have been defeated that day. Though he held the immediate field of battle, Burgoyne had been stopped about a mile north of the American line and his army roughly treated.

Shaken by his “victory,” the British commander ordered his troops to entrench in the vicinity of the Freeman Farm and await support from Clinton, who was supposedly preparing to move north toward Albany from New York City. For nearly three weeks he waited but Clinton did not come. By now Burgoyne’s situation was critical. Faced by a growing American army without hope of help from the south, and with supplies rapidly diminishing, the British army became weaker with each passing day. Burgoyne had to choose between advancing or retreating. He decided to risk a second engagement, and on October 7 ordered a reconnaissance-in-force to test the American left flank. Ably led and supported by eight cannon, a force of 1,500 men moved out of the British camp. After marching southwesterly about three-quarters of a mile, the troops deployed in a clearing on the Barber Farm. Most of the British front faced an open field, but both flanks rested in woods, thus exposing them to surprise attack.

By now the Americans knew that Burgoyne’s army was again on the move and at about 3 p.m. attacked In three columns under Colonel Morgan, Gen. Ebenezer Learned, and Gen. Enoch Poor. Repeatedly the British line was broken, then rallied, and both flanks were severely punished and driven back. Gen. Simon Fraser, who commanded the British right, was mortally wounded as he rode among his men to encourage them to make a stand and cover the developing withdrawal. Before the enemy’s flanks could be rallied, Gen. Benedict Arnold -who had been relieved of command after a quarrel with Gates- rode onto the field and led Learned’s brigade against the German troops holding the British center.

Under tremendous pressure from all sides, the Germans joined a general withdrawal into the fortifications on the Freeman Farm. Within an hour after the opening clash, Burgoyne lost eight cannon and more than 400 officers and men. Flushed with success, the Americans believed that victory was near. Arnold led one column in a series of savage attacks on the Balcarres Redoubt, a powerful British fieldwork on the Freeman Farm. After failing repeatedly to carry this position, Arnold wheeled his horse and, dashing through the crossfire of both armies, spurred northwest to the Breymann Redoubt. Arriving just as American troops began to assault the fortification, he joined in the final surge that overwhelmed the German soldiers defending the work. Upon entering the redoubt, he was wounded in the leg. Had he died there, posterity would have known few names brighter than that of Benedict Arnold.

Darkness ended the day’s fighting and saved Burgoyne’s army from immediate disaster. That night the British commander left his campfires burning and withdrew his troops behind the Great Redoubt, which protected the high ground and river flats at the northeast corner of the battlefield. The next night, October 8, after burying General Fraser in the redoubt, the British began their retreat northward. They had suffered 1,000 casualties in the fighting of the past three weeks; American losses numbered less than 500.

After a miserable march in mud and rain, Burgoyne’s troops took refuge in a fortified camp on the heights of Saratoga. There an American force that had grown to nearly 20,000 men surrounded the exhausted British army. Following his retreat on October 8, Maj. General John Burgoyne spent a week negotiating terms of surrender with Maj. General Horatio Gates. Finally on October 17, 1777, Burgoyne formally surrendered. Under the generous terms of the Convention of Saratoga, Burgoyne was allowed to march out of camp “with the Honors of War”, which included retaining his colors and the return of his men to England. His 6,000 men marched out of their camp, surrendered their weapons and began their march west. However, when they reached New England, Gates’ terms were not honored and the British soldiers spent months in sparse guarded camps.

The effect of the victory was enormous. General Gates became known as the ‘Hero of Saratoga’. The victory also gave the fledgling country much needed momentum. Not long after France learned of the victory, they declared war on Britain, finally officially joining the war. Spain soon did the same. The loss also further weakened the current British government under Lord North. It was the beginning of the end of the war for the British.

The importance of the battles of Saratoga and the surrender of Burgoyne’s army cannot be overstated. The French, who had been providing covert aid to the American rebels for some time, now decided that the Americans were a good bet to win. France and the United States signed a treaty of mutual alliance in February 1778 and France entered the war against Britain soon after. The presence of France in the war as a belligerent not only threatened the British Isles directly but also menaced Britain’s colonies all over the world–Canada, the West Indies, Gibraltar, India. Thus the British, faced with much more territory at risk, ended all offensive operations in the northern American colonies. Less than a year after William Howe went to such trouble to take Philadelphia while Burgoyne marched to disaster, the British evacuated that city and retired to New York. The new British offensives would be in the southern colonies, Georgia and the Carolinas, where Loyalists were believed to be more numerous.

Horatio Gates in fact had done little to bring about the victory at Saratoga. The overall campaign strategy of drawing the British into the wilderness while scorching the earth to deny them supplies was Philip Schuyler’s. Also, Gates had done almost nothing to influence the battles of Sept. 19 and Oct. 7 other than send off reinforcements from time to time. It was the valor of the American soldiers and the leadership of officers actually in the fighting, such as Arnold, that won the day. However that did not stop Gates, as commanding general of the army that had won by far the biggest victory of the war, from getting most of the credit. There was even a movement to replace Washington with Gates. Instead, Gates got command of the principal American army in the South as the focus of the war shifted to the southern colonies. He led that army to a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Camden in 1780.

Benedict Arnold’s brave charge on the Breymann Redoubt on Oct. 7 was the climax of over two years of brilliant service for the American cause all over the northern theater. His leg wound would leave him bedridden for the better part of a year. After that, when he was walking with a cane but still not fit for field service, Washington made him military governor of Philadelphia. It was there that Arnold, resentful over Congress’ failure to promote him, angry at (true) charges that he was using his office for war profiteering, and influenced by his new Loyalist wife, entered into treasonous correspondence with the British. By 1780, when he was ready to take the field again, Washington offered Arnold command of half of the Continental Army. Instead Arnold asked for the fort at West Point, which he was plotting to hand over to the enemy. Later that year his treason was exposed and Arnold fled to the British to avoid arrest.

Multimedia Battle Presentation cntrl + point

References
Creasy, Sir Edward; The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World 1908 online
Ketchum, Richard M.; Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War; 1997, Henry Holt & Company
Luzader, John; Saratoga: A Military History of the Decisive Campaign of the American Revolution; Savas Beatie LLC
Mintz, Max M.; The Generals of Saratoga: John Burgoyne and Horatio Gates; 1990, Yale University Press
Nickerson, Hoffman; The Turning Point of the Revolution: Or, Burgoyne in America (1928)
Patterson, Samuel White; Horatio Gates: Defender of American Liberties Columbia University Press, 1941
Savas, Theodore P., and Dameron, J. David; A Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution; Savas Beatie LLC
http://www.saratoga.org/battle1777/
http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/MilSci/Resources/saratoga.html
http://www.britishbattles.com/battle-saratoga.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saratoga
http://www.historycentral.com/Revolt/Saratoga.html
http://media.historycentral.com/saratoga.html

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment