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Saratoga
A Military History of the Decisive Campaign of the American Revolution
John Luzader
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Saratoga
A Military History of the Decisive Campaign of the American Revolution
John Luzader
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An in-depth account of the 1777 campaign that would determine the fate of the British invasion from Canada and America's quest for independence. The crushing British defeat at Saratoga prompted France to recognize the American colonies as an independent nation, declare war on England, and commit money, ships, arms, and men to the rebellion. John Luzader's impressive Saratoga is the first all-encompassing objective account of these pivotal months in American history. The British offensiveâunder General John Burgoyneâkicked off with a stunning victory at Fort Ticonderoga in July 1777, followed by a sharp successful engagement at Hubbardton. Other actions erupted at Fort Stanwix, Oriskany, and Bennington. However, serious supply problems dogged Burgoyne's column and, assistance from General William Howe failed to materialize. Faced with hungry troops and a powerful gathering of American troops, Burgoyne decided to take the offensive by crossing the Hudson River and moving against General Horatio Gates. The complicated maneuvers and command frictions that followed sparked two major battles, one at Freeman's Farm (September 19) and the second at Bemis Heights (October 7). Seared into the public consciousness as "the battle of Saratoga, " the engagements resulted in the humiliating defeat and ultimately the surrender of Burgoyne's entire army. Decades in the making, former National Park Service staff historian John Luzader's Saratoga combines strategic, political, and tactical history into a compelling portrait of this decisive campaign. His sweeping prose relies heavily upon original archival research and the author's personal expertise with the challenging terrain. Complete with stunning original maps and photos, Saratoga will take its place as one of the important and illuminating campaign studies ever written.
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1
British Plans for 1777: Fight the War âFrom the Side of Canadaâ
Proposals Galore
On November 30, 1776, while General George Washingtonâs demoralized men retreated across New Jersey, General William Howe, recently knighted for his Long Island victory, wrote two letters to Lord George Germain, the Secretary of State for America. The first reported on the recent Westchester campaign and Fort Leeâs capture. The second advised Germain that he intended to quarter a large body of troops in âEast Jersey,â and that he expected the Americans to try to cover their capital city, Philadelphia, by establishing a line on either the Raritan or Delaware River.
More important for future events, Howe also proposed a plan for the next yearâs campaign. Sir William noted that he had received word that Sir Guy Carleton had abandoned his southward drive down the Champlain-Hudson line. Howe fully expected, however, that Carleton would renew his campaign in the spring, but that he would not reach his objective of Albany until September 1777. Sir Guyâs 1776 performance made that a reasonable assumption.
âIn that persuasion,â Howe proposed a plan that he believed might âfinish the War in one year by an extensive and vigorous Exertion of His Majestyâs arms.â He intended to continue the current strategy against New England, âthe cradle of rebellion.â Howe proposed two simultaneous offensives: one from Rhode Island to take Boston, and a second from New York City up the Hudson to rendezvous with the renewed advance from Canada. That was not, however, the sum of Howeâs strategy for 1777. Howe wanted a third force to operate in New Jersey to check Washington by exploiting American concern for Philadelphiaâs security, which he âproposed to attack in the Autumn, as well as Virginia, provided the Success of the other operations will admit of an adequate force to be sent against that province.â Subduing South Carolina and Georgia could wait for the winter of 1777-78.
Howeâs plan to end the war in one campaign lasting a little more than one year was an ambitious one. But he was not the only British general proposing plans designed to bring the expensive American war to an end. The various plans of different generals made different assumptions, aimed at different strategic goals, required different resourcesâand even envisioned different commanders. Howe himself would supplant his own plan at least twice, as successive British and American successes altered the equation.1 Out of these various in tentions and realities would come the campaign of 1777, one that would result in, and then be so affected by, the battle of Saratoga.
Howe Initiates the Debate
Howeâs initial proposal of November 30 required 35,000 men and ten additional ships of the line to assure success against the 50,000 men the Continental Congress had resolved to raise.2 To provide Howe with 35,000 men would require a reinforcement of 15,000 rank and file, which he hoped might be âhad from Russia, or from Hanover, and other German states, particularly some Hanoverian Chasseurs, who I am well in formed are exceedingly good troops.â
Sir Williamâs second letter, especially its latter part, reflected an important strategic assumption. He believed that only the hope of French aid kept the rebellion alive, and that if the threat of foreign support were neutralized and the force he proposed was âsent out, it would strike such Terror through the Country, that no Resistance would be made to the Progress of His Majestys Arms in the Provinces of New England, New York, the Jerseys & Pennsylvania, after the junction of the Northern and Southern Armies.â Howeâs objective continued to be recovery of territory rather than the destruction of the rebel army. Like Henry Clinton and unlike Germain and Lord Cornwallis, Howe believed that victory required expansion of the area of effective imperial control. He thus aspired to take only so much territory as he expected to be able to occupy. The royal armyâs continued presence in that territory would enable the loyal majority to declare itself, enroll in provincial corps, and assume an expanding role in restoring imperial authority.3 Sir William in tended to achieve victory by moving with impressive strength through centers of rebellion, relying upon overawing the disaffected, animating the loyal, and demonstrating to the wavering the futility of resistance, rather than upon hard and costly fighting against an elusive and resilient adversary.
The Cabinet Begins its Considerations
Sir Williamâs letters reached Germainâs office on December 30,1776, and the Cabinet began discussing them on January 10,1777. Like most Britons, the ministers anticipated an early victory in America. Many civilian observers were less sanguine than were army and naval officers. The generalâs first letter, by reporting the autumnâs successes, confirmed the official optimism and so set the tone for responding to the second letter. Because Howeâs strategy for 1777 did not dispel the prevailing euphoria and conformed to the objectives of the 1776 campaign, it was acceptable.
But Howeâs projection of manpower requirements made the colonial secretary and his colleagues uneasy. Germain did not trust his fellow countrymenâs determination to continue to support the war if it became too costly in men and money. In fact, he had been resisting committing more troops to North America since mid-autumn, when he told Prime Minister Lord North that he would not want more men, and that it was âsufficiently difficult to keep up and recruit what we had, that he hopâd Expences would rather diminish.â4
Ministerial unease found faithful reflection in Lord Germainâs January 14 letter to the general. âWhen I first read your Requisition of a Reinforcement of 15,000 Rank & File,â began Germain,
I must own to you that I was really alarmed, because I could not see the least chance of being able to supply you with the Hanoverians, or even with Russians in time. As soon, however, as I found from your Returns that your Army is reinforced with 4,000 more Germans (which I trust will be procured for you) 800 additional Hessian Chasseurs, & about 1,800 Recruits from the British, & about 1,200 for the Hessian troops under your Command, will consist of very near 35,000 Rank & File. I was satisfied that you would have an Army equal to your Wishes, especially when I considered that the Enemy must be greatly weakened and depressed by late Successes, and that there was room to hope that you would not find it difficult to embody what number of Provincials you might think proper for Particular Parts of the Service.5
But since the ministry in its unease most wanted to be reassured, the correspondence was marked by wishful thinking, ambiguity, and flawed interpretation. Because the most recent returns reported that Howe had some 27,000 âeffective men,â Germain and his colleagues persuaded themselves that a 15,000-man reinforcement would raise Sir Williamâs strength to some 42,000, substantially more than the 35,000 figure the general said he needed. Interpreting the returns uncritically and accepting the 35,000 figure as representing Howeâs assessment of his immediate requirements led the ministers into successive misapprehensions. Failing to analyze the returns provided them with what seemed to be a good prima facie basis for claiming that 7,000 men would bring Howeâs force to âvery nearly 37,000 Rank & File.â But while Howeâs return used the term âeffective men,â it was not a realistic representation of his strength because it included men who were on detached service, sick, and prisoners of war. Howe really reckoned from an estimated 20,000 men present and fit for duty, not 27,000.6
Timely assembly and then transport of the reinforcements as well as their numbers were also critical. Sir Williamâs goal of taking only as much territory as he could effectively occupy presupposed manning garrisons, so the need for a 15,000-man reinforcement was a long-term one that included provisions for occupation troops. In brief, Howeâs strategy for defeating the revolutionaries required a continuing expansion of military re-conquest until it encompassed all of the colonies. That meant that the closer the British came to success, the more men would be required to both occupy areas already won and simultaneously carry on the campaign against those remaining in rebellion.7 Thus, his proposal that Russian or additional German soldiers be engaged made sense: if the reinforcements were to support long-term as well as immediate operations, there was sufficient time to complete the necessary negotiations and transport the auxiliaries to North America.
Whitehall deferred comment on Howeâs operational plans until after the Cabinet learned more about the existing situation in the war theater at the end of 1776. Germain advised the general that judgment was suspended until âHis MajestyâŚshall have an Opportunity of taking into consultation the whole State of this Momentous Affair.â8
Howeâs Second Thoughts
As events tend to do in time of war, the situation changed. On December 20, ten days before his November 30 correspondence reached London, Sir William sent Lord Germain a radically new plan for the 1777 campaign â one that reflected a dramatically different situation in the Middle States. Events in New Jersey had moved with stunning speed. Instead of being on the Raritan as the end of the year neared, his army had chased Washington across the state to the Delaware-Pennsylvania line. The American seat of government in Philadelphia was temptingly vulnerable, and the rebellion seemed to be tottering toward dissolution. Jerseymen and Pennsylvanians were daily foreswearing their disloyal ways and seeking pardons to restore them to their former allegiance. Those who persisted in the perverse course of resistance were rapidly losing the capacity to give force to their seditious designs.
While British opinion was unanimous in viewing New England as the seed bed of rebellion, informed men on both sides of the Atlantic knew that Pennsylvania was critically important to Americaâs future. It was politically mature, with a diverse, comparatively well-informed, prosperous citizenry that included a larger proportion of men of liberal sentiments than any other region. Its capital, Philadelphia, was the major American port, a lively cultural and economic center, the third largest city in the empire, and â since the First Continental Congressâ convening there during the autumn of 1774 â the Revolutionâs political seat.
But Pennsylvaniaâs people, like their fellows in the other Middle Colonies, were less militantly hostile to imperial policies than New Englanders and Virginians. Not only was their more diversified economy less vulnerable to Parliamentâs measures, many Pennsylvanians sensed that they profited from the imperial connection. Half a century later, William Livingston recalled what a wrenching experience it was for the people of the Middle Colonies to break their ties with Britain. âThey had themselves suffered little, if at all, under imperial rule,â he wrote. âUnder it they had prospered and multiplied.â9 These colonists living in the very middle of the pluralistic middle of British North America al ready enjoyed to an important degree the kind of society that other Americans aspired to, and it had be come a reality with out needing a revolution. An effective majority for resistance to parliamentary âIn tolerable Actsâ developed only with difficulty and over articulate and reasoned opposition.10
Because Sir William believed that Washingtonâs reverses in the other middle states of New York and New Jersey strengthened opposition to rebellion, it was logical to conclude that threatening Philadelphia would force Washington to stand and fight. Victory, therefore, was within his grasp. â[T]he opinions of the people being much changed in Pennsylvania,â Howe summarized, âand their minds in general, from the progress of the army, disposed to peace, in which Sentiment they would be confirmed by our getting possession of Philadelphia, I am from this consideration fully persuaded the Principal Army should act offensively on that side where the enemyâs strength will certainly be collected.â11
Changing the order of priorities required postponing the New England offensive until after reinforcements arrived from Europe, so âthat there might be a Corps to act defensively on the lower part of Hudsonâs River to cover Jersey and facilitate in some degree the approach of the Canada Army.â12 In this proposal Sir William lowered his man power requirements from 35,000 to 19,000 men. Of these, 2,000 would remain in Rhode Island, while 4,000 would defend Manhattan. He would employ 10,000 against Philadelphia, and 3,000 to defend New Jersey and operate on the lower Hudson to âfacilitate the northern armyâs advance.â13 Three thou sand men could really do little to support action on the northern frontier, but Howe did not expect that such support would be needed be fore September, by which time the flow of events and the arrival of requested reinforcements would enhance British capabilities.
Howeâs December 20 letter departed from the assumptions that had informed British strategy since 1775. Instead of concentrating the combined power of the Canadian and âPrincipalâ armies against New England, he proposed to leave the former force to make its way southward largely alone toward an ill-defined objective, while he overran the Middle States, captured the rebel capital, and ended organized resistance to imperial authority.14
Washington Provokes Howeâs Third Plan
Before Lord Germain and his colleagues had received either of Howeâs proposed plans, the military situation in New Jersey took yet another dramaticturn that blasted the generalâs fragile optimism and reordered his strategic priorities. With au...