Two years into the Revolutionary War, the struggle between the American colonies and Britain reached a critical moment, with General John Burgoyne’s Red Coats seemingly on the verge of turning around the rebellion’s early successes. So what led to Britain losing an entire army, while suffering one of its greatest defeats?
In late August 1777, Britain’s King George III received momentous news. The great tidings so thrilled the monarch that he burst into his wife’s chambers waiving the message in the air exclaiming: “I have beat them! I have beat the Americans!” He had just learned that British Lieutenant General John Burgoyne and his army had captured the vital American for tress of Fort Ticonderoga, which sat astride the great Lake Champlain-Hudson River invasion route from Canada. This victory, achieved with almost no casualties, convinced the king and his ministers that the military strategy they had put in place the preceding spring to end the American Revolution was going according to plan. But less than two months after the king’s impromptu celebration, Burgoyne and his army met with an unprecedented disaster and the British were subsequently faced with a very different war.
The campaign’s basic outlines are well known and straightforward. In June 1777, two British armies invaded New York from Canada – a large army under the command of Burgoyne was to move south on Lake Champlain, capture Fort Ticonderoga and continue to Albany, where it would meet another smaller British force, which was to come down the Mohawk River.
The largest British army in North America, under British commander-in- chief General Sir William Howe, was originally supposed to come up the Hudson River to meet the other two forces at Albany; but instead, Howe took this army to capture Philadelphia. After initial success with the surprisingly easy and rapid capture of Fort Ticonderoga in early July, Burgoyne began to encounter logistical issues, and a large detachment from the army was destroyed at the Battle of Bennington in mid-August.
At the same time, the other army from Canada was stopped by a determined American garrison at Fort Stanwix (present-day Rome, New York). Instead of withdrawing after these setbacks, Burgoyne continued to advance towards Albany. As he continued his march south, a reconstituted American Northern Army blocked his path and after the depleted British army fought two costly battles - Freeman's Farm on 19 September and Bemis Heights on 7 October - Burgoyne ordered a retreat in the face of overwhelming odds. The Americans quickly surrounded Burgoyne and his men near a tiny settlement called Saratoga, where he was forced to surrender to Major General Horatio Gates on 17 October 1777. The campaign was one of the most consequential in history and led directly to French inter vention on the American side, which transformed
