Saratoga, 1777: The Battles That Turned the Revolution

Saratoga National Historical Park

Picture yourself in an open field, shoulder to shoulder with your regiment, the British line 50 yards away. They raise their muskets and fire: a deafening crash, choking smoke that stinks of sulphur, lead whistling past you and into the ranks. Men fall all around. In the confusion you cannot hear your officers — and the survivors close up to fire back.

Out of chaos like this, soldiers of the Continental Army beat professional British and German troops near Saratoga, New York. The two battles fought there in the autumn of 1777 changed the course of the American Revolution and helped secure the independence of the United States.

The British plan

In 1775, British Gen. John Burgoyne picked out the Lake Champlain–Hudson River corridor, the old gateway between Canada and the northern colonies, as the key target. Control it from Canada to New York City, and Britain could cut New England off from the other colonies, secure supplies and reinforcements from Canada, strengthen alliances with Native nations — and end the rebellion quickly.

The 1777 plan was a pincer aimed at Albany:

Burgoyne was on his own.

He was also slow. Gen. Philip Schuyler, who commanded the American defense of the Hudson Valley until the eve of the first battle, had soldiers and residents carry off or destroy food and livestock, wreck bridges, fell trees across roads and dam creeks to turn paths into swamp. Held up by these obstacles and his own supply train, Burgoyne averaged one mile a day after Ticonderoga.

New York and the surrounding region. National Park Service

The campaign for the Lake Champlain–Hudson Valley. National Park Service

Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates, commanding the Continental Army's Northern Department, led 9,000 Americans to a position 30 miles north of Albany, near Saratoga, and fortified Bemis Heights, where the Albany road squeezes between the hills and the river. Burgoyne would have to fight on ground the Americans had chosen.

The battles

September 19, 1777 — Freeman's Farm. Burgoyne, unsure of the American lines, advanced in three columns — two through the forest on the bluffs, the third, German troops, along the river road. Around midday Col. Daniel Morgan's Virginia riflemen met the center column at Freeman's Farm, and a European-style fight followed. American numbers and marksmanship were wearing the British down when the German column arrived, and the Americans pulled back. The British held the field but lost 600 men; the Americans lost half as many — and still blocked the road to Albany.

Waiting. Both armies dug in. Clinton was supposed to move north from New York City but never came. Burgoyne's supplies dwindled, morale sank, winter approached — and Gates's army grew as militia poured in.

October 6 — the council of war. Burgoyne wanted to throw more than 6,000 men — all but 800 — at the American left. Every one of his senior officers objected: they did not know the American defenses, and a counterattack on the weakly held camp could cost them their supplies and their way home. Some urged falling back toward Lake Champlain, others a reconnaissance. Burgoyne compromised: 1,700 men would probe the American lines, forage, and see whether the hills to the west could take British cannon.

October 7 — Barber's Wheatfield. Gates sent Morgan's corps, Gen. Enoch Poor's brigade and Brig. Gen. Ebenezer Learned's brigade against the British right, left and center. In a little over an hour the Americans inflicted more than 400 casualties and drove the British back to their fortifications. Poor's men failed to take the Balcarres Redoubt — a log-and-earth work about 500 yards long and 12–14 feet high — but fresh troops joined Learned's brigade and, urged on by Gen. Benedict Arnold, took Breymann's Redoubt. At nightfall the British fell back to the Great Redoubt guarding their hospital, artillery and supplies on the river flat.

Surrender. After a day's rest Burgoyne retreated toward Ticonderoga. By now Gates had more than 12,000 men and had suffered only 500 casualties in the three weeks, against Burgoyne's 1,200. New Hampshire and Vermont militia blocked the east bank of the Hudson; newly arrived Massachusetts militia, digging in at Saratoga (now Schuylerville), blocked the north. Only 9 miles into the retreat, the British were surrounded. On October 17, 1777, Burgoyne and nearly 6,000 soldiers laid down their arms.

Under the "Articles of Convention," Burgoyne's army marched out with the honors of war — colors flying, bands playing — stacked their arms, and passed between lines of American soldiers, few of them in uniform. Burgoyne handed his sword to Gates, who gave it straight back. The terms let the troops go home to England if they promised never to fight in America again; they were marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to wait for ships — but the Continental Congress declared them prisoners of war, and most stayed prisoners until the war ended.

Why Saratoga turned the war

France was already sending the Continental Army weapons, and had been impressed by Washington's resourcefulness and by favorable reports from Johann de Kalb. But the fall of Philadelphia worried the French. Saratoga showed that Americans could beat disciplined troops. On February 6, 1778, France signed agreements with Benjamin Franklin and the other American envoys in Paris, recognizing American independence and pledging full military and financial support. Its allies Spain and Holland were drawn in too, and the Revolution became a global war Britain could not win. Without Saratoga, the lesson argues, there would have been no French troops or French navy to make the victory at Yorktown possible.

How they fought

A soldier's musket, if not exceedingly ill bored, will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards; it may even at 100; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded...at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him; I do maintain...no man was ever killed at 200 yards, by a common soldier's musket by the person who aimed at him.
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— British Col. George Hanger, 1814

How bad was a musket? When Burgoyne approached Fort Ticonderoga, 3,000 Americans in the outworks fired at a British detachment 100 yards away. When the smoke cleared, two British soldiers had been wounded.

So armies made up for it with mass and speed. Lines formed on open ground, halting within 100 yards of each other, men shoulder to shoulder firing together in volleys; the faster a line fired, the better the chance the enemy would break before shooting back. Volleys went on until one side ran or a bayonet charge settled it hand to hand. At Saratoga the Continental regulars fought exactly this kind of battle. The British may have broken with tradition and advanced in open order, an arm's length apart — easier in the woods and covering more ground, but spreading their fire thin.

Both armies also used light troops — skirmishers with muskets or rifles. At Saratoga the Americans used their riflemen to great effect, picking off artillery crews to silence British cannon and infantry officers to break up command on the British lines.

Saratoga National Historical Park: Bemis Heights, Freeman's Farm, Barber's Wheatfield, the Great Redoubt. National Park Service

The legend of Catherine Schuyler setting fire to her own wheatfields to deny them to the British. She never did — but her husband, General Schuyler, did slow Burgoyne in many other ways. Saratoga National Historical Park

For teachers

This page comes from a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places lesson for units on the American Revolution or New York State history, linked to National Standards for History Era 3 (Standard 1C, what shaped the course of the war and the American victory). Questions to use with it:

• The maps: Why did the British think the Lake Champlain–Hudson corridor so important? The rivers could carry only small supply boats, so troops walked the rough roads beside them — how far did Burgoyne's men march, and how would an army feed itself and its animals in thinly settled country?
• The battles: How many battles were there, and how far apart? What was Burgoyne waiting for, and how did time work against him? Why is Saratoga called the turning point?
• Weapons: Frontier or European style — which did the Americans use here? Why drill for hours on loading and firing? Why might the British have tried open order?
• The park map: Which was the better place to block the road to Albany — Bemis Heights or Freeman's Farm? Why did Burgoyne put his Great Redoubt where he did?
• The Schuyler drawing: It is entirely imagined — what looks out of place? How would destroying food help the Americans?
• The surrender: A French engraving of the day, Capitulation de Burgoyne à Saratoga, shows the ceremony — what looks accurate, and what does not?

Activities:

1. Council of war — in groups, a "commander" and "staff" study Burgoyne's position separately, weigh attacking, waiting for Clinton or retreating, then hold the October 6 council; compare their decisions with Burgoyne's, and ask whether councils of war still make sense.
2. The war goes on — Saratoga was 1777, but peace came only in 1783. The French alliance ruled out a separate peace, so after Yorktown (1781) the United States fought on two more years. Research where French armies fought in 1781–83, what British forces remained in America, what France gained, and the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1783).
3. Soldiers and settlement — find descendants of Revolutionary War participants in your community, through local chapters of the Daughters or Sons of the American Revolution, cemetery and church records, town records or archives, and map their ancestors' hometowns.

Saratoga National Historical Park is part of the National Park System; see the park's website.

Sources

Based on "Saratoga: The Tide Turns on the Frontier," a Teaching with Historic Places lesson by James Parillo, former park ranger at Saratoga National Historical Park, edited by Jean West, Joe Craig and the Teaching with Historic Places staff, National Park Service, drawing on the park's archives; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Its battle account draws on the park's visitor guide and on John Elting (1977), Rupert Furneaux (1971) and Don Higginbotham (1983); the Ticonderoga musket story is from John Luzader, Decision on the Hudson (Government Printing Office, 1975). The lesson dates that story to June 2, 1777, but has Burgoyne leave Canada on June 17, so the date is left out here.