Saratoga (Siege)

On September 19 and again on October 7, 1777, the Continental Army clashed with British forces on the same stretch of ground near Saratoga, New York, in two engagements that would reshape the Revolutionary War. The later of these clashes ended in a clear American triumph, culminating in the British surrender. This result carried enormous weight for the conflict's trajectory, as it convinced France to join the war on the American side. General John Burgoyne directed British troops throughout both encounters, while command of the American side fell to Generals Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold. The historian Edmund Morgan called Saratoga a pivotal moment for the war effort, noting that it secured the French assistance Americans needed to ultimately prevail.

Britain's broader campaign through New York sought to sever New England from the colonies to the south and middle. Burgoyne marched his invasion force south from Quebec, intending to seize Albany. Early momentum favored the British, but supply and logistics problems soon slowed the advance. General William Howe failed to bring his troops northward as planned, and Brigadier General Barry St. Leger's force, which was supposed to approach from the west, reversed course instead. Burgoyne thus found his army encircled by American troops in upstate New York, still fifteen miles short of Albany. He would fight two battles eighteen days apart, both on ground roughly nine miles south of Saratoga.

The initial clash occurred at Freeman's Farm on September 19. Though Burgoyne emerged with a tactical win, it came at a steep cost in casualties. He opened the engagement by sending part of his force to flank the fortified American line at Bemis Heights. Major General Benedict Arnold foresaw this move and stationed substantial troops to counter it. Despite this, Burgoyne managed to hold the field by battle's end. Sporadic fighting persisted over subsequent days as Burgoyne held out, hoping reinforcements would reach him from New York City.

During this pause, militia fighters kept streaming into the American camp, bolstering its numbers considerably. Internal friction over battlefield strategy caused Gates to remove Arnold from his command. When it grew clear that no relief would arrive in time, Burgoyne launched a second assault at Bemis Heights on October 7, only to lose the fight and forfeit the ground he had won earlier. The engagement grew fierce, with Arnold notably inspiring the American soldiers back into the fray. British forces were pushed back to their pre-September 19 lines, and Americans succeeded in seizing part of the entrenched British works.

That defeat forced Burgoyne to withdraw toward Saratoga, now known as Schuylerville. Surrounded by a force far exceeding his own, he ultimately yielded his entire command to Gates on October 17. British General Sir Henry Clinton had advanced from New York City in an attempt to distract American forces, capturing Forts Clinton and Montgomery along the Hudson highlands on October 6 and taking Kingston on October 13, but these actions came too late to rescue Burgoyne's army. Word of the surrender proved decisive in cementing the formal Franco-American Alliance, even though France had already been secretly funneling supplies, ammunition, and weapons, including the Vallière cannon, which proved significant to the American victory at Saratoga.

Background

Nearly two years had passed since fighting began in the American Revolutionary War when British strategists settled on a scheme meant to cut the rebellious colonies in two, separating New England from the middle and southern regions they assumed held greater loyalty to the crown. This 1777 plan called for a three-pronged advance converging near Albany, New York. Barry St. Leger would

First Saratoga: Battle of Freeman's Farm (September 19)

Burgoyne pushed southward with unusual wariness after his army crossed the Hudson, having lost the intelligence advantage his Native American scouts once provided. By September 18 his lead elements had come within roughly 4 miles (6.4 km) of the American lines, halting just north of Saratoga, and minor clashes broke out between his forward troops and American scouts.

Tension had been building within the American camp since Arnold came back from Fort Stanwix. He and Gates had once maintained a workable relationship despite their difficult temperaments, but Arnold's decision to staff his command with officers loyal to Schuyler pulled Gates into the bitter rivalry between the two generals. Matters had not yet exploded by the nineteenth, though that day's happenings pushed things further along. Gates put Arnold in charge of the left side of the American defenses while keeping the right for himself, a position technically belonging to General Lincoln, who had been sent off in August with troops to harass Burgoyne's rear.

Both commanders recognized that the high ground on the American left would prove decisive. Once the morning haze cleared near ten o'clock, Burgoyne set his army moving in three separate columns. Baron Riedesel took the German units and the 47th Foot along the riverside road, escorting the heavy guns and protecting the supply boats and stores. General James Inglis Hamilton led the middle column made up of the 9th, 20th, 21st, and 62nd regiments, tasked with assaulting the heights directly, while General Simon Fraser commanded the right side, consisting of the 24th Regiment plus light infantry and grenadier units, aiming to work through the thickly forested terrain north and west of Bemis Heights to outflank the Americans.

Arnold anticipated this very maneuver and asked Gates for authorization to shift his troops off the heights to intercept it, believing American familiarity with forest fighting gave them an edge there. Gates, who favored waiting for a direct assault, reluctantly agreed to send out a reconnaissance force built around Daniel Morgan's riflemen and Henry Dearborn's light infantry. Upon reaching an open field owned by Loyalist John Freeman northwest of Bemis Heights, Morgan's men spotted British soldiers advancing across it. Fraser's column had fallen slightly behind schedule and had not yet arrived, while Hamilton's men were still crossing a ravine, making their way through thick woods and rough ground toward the field from the east. Riedesel's column, though on the road, found its progress slowed by obstructions the Americans had placed there. Hearing gunfire from the west, he dispatched part of his artillery down a nearby trail toward the noise. What Morgan's men had actually observed was an advance company belonging to Hamilton's column.

Morgan positioned his sharpshooters carefully, and they proceeded to eliminate nearly every officer in that leading company. His men then charged forward, not realizing they were running straight into the heart of Burgoyne's main force. Though they pushed back the advance company successfully, Fraser's forward troops arrived in time to strike Morgan's left side, driving his men back into the trees in disarray. James Wilkinson, who had ridden up to observe the exchange, rushed back to camp seeking reinforcements. As the retreating British company fell back on their main body, that column's front ranks opened fire without realizing their mistake, killing several of their own soldiers.

Around one o'clock the fighting paused as Hamilton's troops formed lines on the field's northern edge and American support began arriving from the south. Once Gates learned Morgan needed help, he sent the 1st and 3rd New Hampshire regiments to assist, with the 2nd New York, 4th New York, the 1st Canadian, and Connecticut militia from Enoch Poor's brigade following behind. Burgoyne positioned Hamilton's forces with the 21st on the right flank, the 20th on the left, the 62nd holding the center, and the 9th kept in reserve.

What followed was a battle marked by cycles of ferocious combat and brief quiet. Having regrouped among the trees, Morgan's men resumed targeting officers and gun crews. Their marksmanship against the artillery teams proved so devastating that American forces repeatedly seized British cannon, only to see them retaken during the next British push. At one point word spread that a sharpshooter had struck down Burgoyne himself, though the victim was actually an aide riding an elaborately outfitted horse. The British center near

Interlude

When Burgoyne's officers gathered in council, they weighed the merits of renewing the assault immediately, ultimately choosing to hold off any further action until September 21 at the earliest. In the meantime, troops shifted forward to tighten their hold on ground nearer the American position, and details were sent out to gather the fallen. Plans for the 21st fell apart once Burgoyne read a dispatch, dated September 12, from Henry Clinton, who held command of the garrison in New York City. Clinton's letter raised the possibility of striking at Fort Montgomery "in about ten days" (that post sat along the Hudson River within the New York Highlands, south of West Point). Even supposing Clinton departed New York on September 22, roughly ten days after penning those words, there was no realistic chance he could reach the Saratoga area before October began. Burgoyne's supplies and manpower were dwindling, leaving him in a precarious spot, yet he chose to hold his position on the chance that Clinton's arrival might rescue his forces. On September 23 he wrote back to Clinton, asking for whatever help or distraction might pull Gates' troops away from him. Clinton finally set sail on October 3, seized Forts Montgomery and Clinton three days later on the 6th, and pushed his troops no farther north than Clermont, where on October 16 they plundered the estate belonging to the well known Livingston family.

Neither army at Saratoga knew that, separately, General Lincoln and Colonel John Brown had launched their own strike against the British post at Fort Ticonderoga. By early September, Lincoln had gathered some 2,000 men at Bennington. Brown, leading a force of 500, seized lightly held positions situated between Ticonderoga and Lake George, then spent days lobbing largely futile bombardments at the fort itself. By September 29, this contingent, along with prisoners liberated during the raid, had rejoined the main American camp.

Within that camp, long simmering ill will between Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold finally boiled over into outright conflict. Gates lost no time informing Congress and New York's Governor George Clinton about the fighting on September 19, yet his account left Arnold's name out entirely. Officers in the field and the soldiers themselves were nearly unanimous in crediting Arnold with the victory: most of the men who fought that day belonged to his command, and it was Arnold who directed the action while Gates remained inside his tent. When Arnold objected, the argument grew into a heated shouting match, ending with Gates stripping him of command and handing it instead to Benjamin Lincoln. Arnold then requested reassignment to Washington's command, a request Gates approved, though Arnold never actually departed and stayed behind in his tent. No documents survive to confirm the frequently told story that a petition signed by line officers persuaded him to remain in camp.

Throughout this stretch, pickets and patrols from both sides clashed nearly every day. Morgan's riflemen, well versed in the tactics of forest combat, kept up steady pressure against British patrols along the western edge of the lines.

By the time September gave way to October, it was obvious that no relief from Clinton was forthcoming, and on October 3 Burgoyne cut his army down to short rations. A war council convened the following day produced discussion of several courses of action but settled nothing. When the officers reconvened on the next day, Riedesel urged retreat, a position Fraser backed as well, but Burgoyne would not entertain the idea, calling withdrawal a dishonor. In the end they settled on committing two thousand men, over a third of the entire force, to an assault against the American left flank set for October 7. Yet the army awaiting them had swollen considerably in the meantime. Beyond the return of Lincoln's men, militia and fresh supplies kept flowing into the American position, bringing badly needed ammunition after stocks had been nearly exhausted in the earlier engagement. By October 7, the force confronting Burgoyne numbered more than 12,000, commanded by a general fully aware of just how dire Burgoyne's circumstances had become. Gates had been receiving a steady flow of intelligence from British deserters crossing over, and he had also managed to intercept Clinton's reply to Burgoyne's earlier app

Second Saratoga: Battle of Bemis Heights (October 7)

On October 7, Burgoyne's ranks looked stronger on paper than they truly were. Casualties from earlier fighting and desertions after the September 19 clash had whittled his fighting force down to roughly 5,000 effective men. Riedesel urged withdrawal, but Burgoyne instead chose to probe the American left to test whether an assault might succeed.

For this reconnaissance, Burgoyne relied on Fraser's Advanced Corps as escort, positioning light infantry and the 24th Foot on the right, massed British grenadiers on the left, and a mixed detachment drawn from every German regiment in the army at the center. Artillery support came from eight British guns under Major Williams alongside two Hesse-Hanau pieces commanded by Captain Pausch. Departing camp sometime between 10 and 11 in the morning, the column pushed roughly three-quarters of a mile to Barber's wheat field, a rise overlooking Mill Brook, where they paused to survey the American lines. Though the open ground gave artillery some room to maneuver, both flanks sat uncomfortably close to the tree line.

On the American side, command had shifted: Gates took charge of the left after Arnold's removal from field command, while Lincoln oversaw the right. Once scouts alerted Gates to Burgoyne's advance, he dispatched Morgan's riflemen to the far left flank, backed by Poor's brigade, comprising the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd New Hampshire regiments. The 2nd and 4th New York held the right, while the center consisted of Learned's 1st New York, 1st Canadian, and the 2nd, 8th, and 9th Massachusetts regiments, reinforced by militia companies. Behind Learned's line, Brigadier General Abraham Ten Broeck kept 1,200 New York militiamen in reserve. Altogether, over 8,000 American troops entered the field that day, a figure that included around 1,400 soldiers from Lincoln's command who joined once fighting intensified.

Combat erupted between 2 and 2:30 in the afternoon, initiated by volleys from the British grenadiers. Poor's soldiers withheld their fire, and the uneven terrain rendered the British shooting largely harmless. When Major Acland pressed a bayonet charge with the grenadiers, the Americans finally unleashed close-range fire. Acland went down with wounds to both legs, and numerous grenadiers fell alongside him. Their formation collapsed entirely, allowing Poor's men to push forward, seize Acland and Williams as prisoners, and capture their cannon.

Matters fared no better for the British on the opposite flank. Morgan's riflemen brushed aside Canadian and Native American fighters to close with Fraser's regular troops. Despite being somewhat outnumbered, Morgan's men repeatedly foiled British efforts to shift westward. General Fraser suffered a mortal wound during this stage of fighting, though Luzader notes that the popular tale crediting Morgan's rifleman Timothy Murphy with the shot may be a fabrication dating from the nineteenth century. Fraser's death, combined with the arrival of Ten Broeck's sizeable militia brigade, nearly matching the entire British scouting force in numbers, shattered British resolve and triggered a chaotic withdrawal toward their fortified lines. Burgoyne himself narrowly escaped death when one of Morgan's sharpshooters put three shots into his horse, hat, and waistcoat.

This initial stage of combat lasted roughly an hour and cost Burgoyne close to 400 casualties, along with the capture of most grenadier officers and six of the ten artillery pieces deployed that day.

It was at this juncture that an unlooked-for figure entered the fray. Arnold, described as showing "great agitation and wrath" within the American camp and possibly under the influence of drink, galloped out to join the fighting. Gates promptly sent Major Armstrong to recall him, but Armstrong could not reach Arnold until the fighting had essentially concluded. A witness's letter describing camp events hints that Arnold may actually have had Gates's blessing to take part.

Two redoubts anchored the British camp's right side. The Hessian officer Heinrich von Breymann held the outer one with roughly 300 troops, while Lord Balcarres commanded the other. Between these strongpoints, a small Canadian detachment held the intervening ground. As British forces fled the earlier fighting, most streamed toward Balcarres

Aftermath

The defeat at Saratoga proved to be a hinge point in the conflict. Burgoyne himself sailed home to England and never again held a field command in the British Army. From this campaign, British forces drew a hard lesson about the fighting spirit of their opponents. As one officer put it, the bravery and stubbornness the Americans displayed astonished everyone present, and it became clear they were no longer the weak, unworthy foe once imagined, incapable of a standing fight except from behind fortified positions.

Arnold's role in the fighting earned him restored seniority, a rank he had lost earlier that year after being denied promotion. His shattered leg, though, confined him to bed for five months afterward. Still unable to serve in the field, he took a post as military governor of Philadelphia, where he began secret dealings with the British that amounted to treason. Placed in command of the fort at West Point, he schemed to surrender it to enemy forces, but when his contact John André was captured, the plan unraveled and Arnold fled to British lines. From there he later joined William Phillips, who had commanded Burgoyne's right wing, on a campaign into Virginia in 1781.

Gates, despite leaving the actual conduct of the battle to his subordinates, reaped much of the glory as the general behind America's largest triumph of the war so far. Rumors suggest he may have plotted to replace Washington as commander-in-chief. Instead of that promotion, he was handed leadership of the American army in the South, a command that ended in catastrophe at Camden in 1780, where he himself led a chaotic retreat from the field. He never again commanded troops in combat.

Congress marked the surrender by proclaiming December 18, 1777, a day of national "solemn Thanksgiving and praise," the first time such a holiday was formally observed in the young nation.

When word of the surrender reached France, Louis XVI moved to open talks with the Americans, culminating in a formal alliance that brought French power directly into the war. The struggle now widened into a global one. Britain found itself stretched thin, forced to pull resources away from North America toward battles in the West Indies and Europe, while leaning on Loyalist support that would prove largely illusory. France, still smarting from its loss to Britain in the French and Indian War more than ten years before, saw in the American cause a chance to weaken its old rival and settle old scores. Before Saratoga, French assistance to the colonists had been limited. Once the victory at Saratoga made clear that American independence was within reach, France committed fully, providing troops, money, loans, weapons, and supplies to sustain the war effort.