Saratoga: The Turning Point of the Revolution | 5-Minute Videos | PragerU

In 1777, in a shocking turn of events, a professional British army surrendered to an American force at Saratoga, New York. The surrender dramatically changed the course of America’s war for independence. Phillip Greenwalt, author of The Winter that Won the War, explains how and why it happened.

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Transcript:

Saratoga: The Turning Point of the Revolution

Presented by Phillip Greenwalt

It’s unlikely the Americans could have won the Revolution on their own. They needed a powerful ally.

This is why they sent their greatest diplomatic asset, Benjamin Franklin, to Paris soon after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But Franklin made little progress with the French. Nobody wants to back a loser.

And that’s what America looked like…until the Battle of Saratoga.

At the start of 1777, the British were eager to end the war.

This is how they would do it: General John Burgoyne would move down from Canada into the Hudson River Valley of New York, isolating New England from the rest of the country. General William Howe would move up from New York City to support Burgoyne.

That was Burgoyne’s plan, anyway. But Howe had his own plan: capture the American capital, Philadelphia, and destroy Washington’s army in the process.

In other words, there were two plans, which is tantamount to saying, there was no plan.

Not a good way to run a war.

In June 1777, Burgoyne ordered Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger, to seize Fort Stanwix near present-day Rome, New York. This would secure Burgoyne’s supply lines from Canada, a crucial linchpin to his overall strategy.

When St. Leger arrived outside the fort, he presented its twenty-eight-year-old commander, Colonel Peter Gansevoort, with a choice: surrender or face annihilation. But the cool-headed colonel wasn’t intimidated: “It is my determined resolution...to defend this…garrison to the last extremity...”

Gansevoort was true to his word. After a three-week siege, the English colonel was no closer to achieving his objective. It was a harbinger of what was to come: nothing would go the way it was supposed to for the British.

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