Battles of Saratoga

Background

By 1777 the British government hoped to end the American rebellion by cutting off New England, which it saw as its heart. The plan was for John Burgoyne to come south from Canada by way of Lake Champlain and the upper Hudson to Albany, with a smaller column under Barry St Leger coming in from the west along the Mohawk Valley. A force from New York City was also expected to move up the Hudson. In the event, Sir William Howe took his main army by sea to Philadelphia, and nothing came north from New York until it was too late.

Burgoyne set out in June with about 7,000–8,000 regulars, German auxiliaries, Loyalists, Canadians and Native warriors. He took Fort Ticonderoga in early July, but the advance through the forest south of Lake George was slowed by felled trees, destroyed bridges and a long supply line. Then the campaign started to go wrong. On 16 August a German detachment sent to forage near Bennington was destroyed, with nearly 1,000 killed or captured, and on 28 August Burgoyne learned that St Leger had given up the siege of Fort Stanwix and turned back. The killing of Jane McCrea by Burgoyne's Native allies in July helped bring out militia across New England and New York.

In August Horatio Gates replaced Philip Schuyler in command of the American Northern Department. He dug in on Bemis Heights, bluffs above the Hudson some 10 miles south of Saratoga, where the Polish engineer Tadeusz Kościuszko laid out works that commanded the river road to Albany. Burgoyne crossed to the west bank of the Hudson at Saratoga on 13–15 September, cutting himself off from Canada, and marched south to attack.

The armies

Burgoyne's army was a well-trained regular force. Its British core was the 9th, 20th, 21st, 24th, 47th and 62nd Foot and the converged grenadier and light companies, with Fraser's Advanced Corps as its spearhead. Major-General Riedesel led the Brunswick and Hesse-Hanau contingent, and the army had a substantial artillery train. By September most of its Native allies had gone home, leaving Burgoyne short of scouts in thickly wooded country, and every man lost to Bennington, detachments and desertion was hard to replace.

Gates's army was a mix of Continental brigades, chiefly Enoch Poor's New Hampshire and New York regiments and Ebenezer Learned's Massachusetts men, and a growing number of militia. Its elite was Daniel Morgan's corps of riflemen, joined by Henry Dearborn's light infantry, about 700 men in all, skilled in skirmishing and aimed fire at officers and gunners. Rifles were slow to load and carried no bayonet, so Morgan needed musket-armed troops beside him in close fighting.

The command relationship mattered as much as the troops. Gates, cautious, preferred to wait behind his works for a frontal attack. Benedict Arnold, commanding the left wing, wanted to fight forward in the woods. The two fell out badly after the first battle, and Arnold had no formal command on 7 October. The American advantage in numbers grew all the time, from roughly 7,000–9,000 in September to more than 12,000 by October.

The battle

First Saratoga: Freeman's Farm, 19 September (CDB90 engagement 87, FREEMAN'S FARM). After the morning fog lifted around 10:00, Burgoyne advanced in three columns. Riedesel's Germans and the 47th Foot took the river road with the main artillery and the boats; Hamilton's brigade, with Burgoyne himself, made for the centre; and Fraser's column swung west through the wooded high ground to turn the American left. At Arnold's urging, Gates sent Morgan's riflemen and Dearborn's light infantry forward to reconnoitre.

Shortly after noon (CDB90 gives 12:45) Morgan's men reached the clearing of the Loyalist John Freeman's farm, about a mile north of Bemis Heights, and found Hamilton's advance guard. Their marksmen shot down almost every officer in the leading company, but when Morgan charged after them, Fraser's leading troops struck his left and scattered his men into the woods. There was a lull around 13:00 while Hamilton formed on the north side of the field and American reinforcements came up from the south: the 1st and 3rd New Hampshire, then more of Poor's regiments.

From about 15:00 the fighting became general and lasted some four hours. Brigade after brigade from Arnold's wing was fed into the woods on the south edge of the clearing, and the British regiments advanced and fell back across the open field. Morgan's riflemen picked off officers and gunners so effectively that the Americans briefly took British guns several times, only to lose them to the next bayonet charge. The 62nd Foot in Hamilton's centre was reduced to about the size of a single company. Arnold's own place is disputed: his biographer James Kirby Martin argues he directed troops into position and perhaps led charges, while John Luzader, a former Saratoga park historian, finds no contemporary evidence that he left headquarters. The NPS has him directing the fight 'from a distance'.

The last move was Riedesel's. Told around 17:00 to send what he could spare, he left 500 men with the baggage and marched west. His Germans struck the American right while Fraser threatened the left, and Gates released only Learned's brigade. Darkness ended the fighting. The Americans fell back to their lines, leaving Burgoyne on the field at the cost of about 600 men.

The interlude. Burgoyne put off a second attack on news that Sir Henry Clinton would push up the Hudson. For almost three weeks pickets clashed daily, militia streamed into Gates's camp and British rations ran down.

Second Saratoga: Bemis Heights, 7 October (CDB90 engagement 89, BEMIS HEIGHTS). About 1,500 men with ten guns left the British lines between 10:00 and 11:00 and took up position in Barber's wheatfield, about three-quarters of a mile to the south-west, with woods close on both flanks. Gates sent out Morgan on the American left, Poor's brigade against the British left and Learned in the centre. The firing began between 14:00 and 14:30. Poor's men held their fire, then shot down Acland's grenadiers at close range as they charged with the bayonet and took their guns. On the other flank Morgan drove off the Canadians and Native warriors and engaged Fraser's light infantry, and Fraser was mortally wounded trying to cover the withdrawal. Within about an hour the British had lost nearly 400 men and six guns, and fell back to their camp.

Arnold now rode onto the field. Wikipedia's sources have him going without orders; the NPS says Gates had let him lead reinforcements. He led Poor's men against the Balcarres redoubt, which held, then rode across to Learned's brigade and led it through the gap between that redoubt and the Breymann redoubt on the British right. Morgan's men came in from the far side, the redoubt fell and Breymann was killed. Arnold, at the head of the attack, had his left leg broken by a musket ball and his falling horse. Darkness fell with the Americans holding a breach in Burgoyne's defences.

Aftermath

Burgoyne had lost over 1,000 men in the two battles, among them Fraser, Breymann and Acland, and his line was broken. On the night of 7–8 October he pulled back to his camp by the river, and then north to Saratoga (now Schuylerville), where Gates's growing army surrounded him. Clinton took the Hudson Highland forts on 6 October and his raiders reached Kingston, but they came too late. On 13 October Burgoyne's council of war agreed to negotiate, and on 17 October he surrendered about 6,300 British and German soldiers, along with some 600 women and children, under a 'convention' that promised them passage home. Congress later suspended the terms, and the Convention Army stayed in captivity until 1783.

The surrender persuaded Louis XVI that the Americans could win, and on 6 February 1778 France signed treaties of alliance and commerce with the United States, turning a colonial revolt into a world war. Saratoga is often called the turning point of the Revolution.

It is also remembered for its quarrels. Gates took the credit, but his reputation was ruined at Camden in 1780. Arnold's courage on 7 October made him the hero of many accounts, but three years later he committed treason at West Point, and how much he did on 19 September is still argued over. At Saratoga National Historical Park the Boot Monument, which does not name him, marks where he was wounded, and the niche meant for his statue on the Saratoga Monument stands empty.

Wargaming it

Saratoga gives two very different games on the same few square miles. Both suit regimental level, one unit per regiment, with turns of 15–30 minutes, on a table of thick woods broken by a few clearings.

Freeman's Farm is a confused encounter battle in the woods. Its key terrain is the open field in the middle, with the British forming in the open and the Americans firing from the treeline. Rules need to capture riflemen picking off officers and gunners, the British need for bayonet charges, and how hard it is to command in thick woodland. The scenario designer must decide when each American brigade arrives, and whether Riedesel's flank march is fixed or variable. The best 'what if' is a bolder Gates: had he sent the reserves Arnold wanted, could the Americans have destroyed Hamilton's column in the clearing?

Bemis Heights is a two-part game. First comes a stand-up fight around Barber's wheatfield, with a small British force facing much larger numbers coming out of the woods on both flanks. Then comes an assault on the Balcarres and Breymann redoubts in failing light. The British player must judge when to pull back before the force is caught in the open; the American player must exploit the breakthrough before dark. Arnold suits a special 'inspiring leader' rule that is also a liability. Other what-ifs are Burgoyne attacking on 20 or 21 September as first planned, retreating north after Freeman's Farm as Riedesel urged, or Clinton coming north a fortnight sooner.

Maps and pictures