Saratoga: The Surrender That Brought France Into the War

British General John Burgoyne's plan for 1777 called for an army to march south from Canada, link with British forces from New York, and cut the rebellious colonies in two along the Hudson River. The plan failed completely. After two battles at Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights, Burgoyne's army was surrounded and forced to surrender on October 17, 1777, the first time an entire British army had surrendered in the field. Word reached Benjamin Franklin in Paris within weeks. France entered the war within months. Burgoyne's own letter explaining the disaster to his superiors, an American general's letter from the battlefield, and the National Park Service's institutional account of the campaign survive.

Burgoyne's army captured Fort Ticonderoga in early July 1777 with a speed that shocked American commanders and briefly threatened to collapse colonial morale. He continued south, but his advance slowed as American forces felled trees and destroyed bridges to block his path. In August, a detachment of German auxiliaries Burgoyne sent to raid Bennington for supplies was destroyed by American militia under John Stark, a defeat that cost Burgoyne men he could not replace and supplies he badly needed.

By September, Burgoyne's army, reduced to roughly 7,200 men, faced an American force under General Horatio Gates that had grown to over 9,000 and continued to swell as militia arrived, drawn by news of the victory at Bennington and a related American success at Fort Stanwix.

Burgoyne attacked the entrenched American position at Freeman's Farm on September 19. Benedict Arnold, anticipating the British movement, had already positioned a significant portion of the American force to meet it. The British technically held the field at the end of the day, but their casualties were nearly double the American losses, a cost Burgoyne's smaller army could not sustain.

Burgoyne waited nearly three weeks for reinforcements that never arrived. On October 7, with his situation worsening, he launched a second attack. This time the American lines held and counterattacked, driving the British back. Gates reported the engagement to Congress five days later in a letter from the field.

Major General Benedict Arnold, who had been relieved of field command by Gates after a dispute between the two men, rode onto the battlefield without orders and led the assault that broke the British line. He was shot in the same leg that had been wounded at Quebec in 1775, and the wound left him partially disabled for the rest of his life. Three and a half years later, Arnold would commit treason and attempt to surrender West Point to the British, a story documented elsewhere in this archive.

With his army surrounded and his position hopeless, Burgoyne opened negotiations with Gates and surrendered his entire army on October 17, 1777, the first time a complete British field army had surrendered during the war. Burgoyne wrote to Lord George Germain, the Secretary of State for the colonies, explaining the defeat three days later.

News of Burgoyne's surrender reached Benjamin Franklin in Paris on December 4, 1777. Within two days, King Louis XVI had assented to negotiations for a formal alliance with the United States. The Treaty of Alliance was signed February 6, 1778, and France declared war on Britain the following month. The victory that historians describe as the turning point of the war did not happen on a battlefield in France or at sea. It happened because an army surrendered in upstate New York, and the news crossed the Atlantic in time to matter.