The Battle of Saratoga with Kevin Weddle | Pivotal Battles in American History

0:00 what what saratoga is led directly to is what britain desperately wanted to avoid and that is a war with now one or more of their continental neighbors their their hated enemy france later spain will come into the war as a direct result of saratoga

0:21 hi this is tony williams senior fellow at bri and we’re pleased to bring you a scholar talk series on pivotal battles in american history for this episode we’re very honored to have uh kevin weddle scholar who is going to discuss the battle of saratoga and the guiding question for this series of course is how did this battle shape

0:41 the outcome of the war with which it was associated and why was it pivotal in american history and dr kevin weidel by way of introduction is a professor of military theory and strategy and the lsu root chair of military studies at the u.s army war college at carlisle barracks pennsylvania he’s a graduate of west

1:03 point and served over 28 years as a combat engineer officer throughout his career he worked in a variety of command and staff positions in the united states and abroad and is a veteran of operations desert shield desert storm an operation enduring freedom he’s the author of the excellent buck the complete victory

1:25 saratoga and the american revolution which will inform today’s discussion kevin uh first of all i want to thank you for your service but also thank you for joining me to discuss the battle of saratoga oh thanks tony i’m really uh pleased to be here thank you uh well let’s jump right into the conversation uh maybe lay the scene a little bit

1:46 uh the british plans for major operations in 1777 this is just after trenton and princeton uh focused on a complex three-pronged assault of of upstate new york uh so can you describe the the plan and its objectives as well as how it perhaps quickly became unraveled uh

2:06 because of issues uh in the senior british command sure well uh as you said uh as as the war progressed into late 1776 early 1777 the british pretty much had figured out that they needed to come up with some sort of new strategy to end the war and they wanted to end the war in 1777. so

2:28 uh two plans were offered up the first one by lieutenant general john burgoyne who had been the second in command in canada but now he had returned home to london so he was in london he presented this plan and he presented it to the king and lord george germain george germain was the secretary of the state for the colonies and so his job

2:50 was basically to manage the war in in north america so this plan as you as you already mentioned very complex very ambitious it called for three converging columns uh one column coming down from canada that would be the main army under general burgoyne uh going down lake champlain into lake george and then

3:11 ultimately the hudson river valley uh all the way to albany new york the other uh supporting column would also come from canada this would be a smaller column uh going into lake ontario and then into western new york it would then uh link up with the mohawk river valley and then follow the mohawk river all the way down to albany

3:32 and they’re linked up with general burgoyne and then finally the main british army which was in uh new york uh new york city under the command of uh sir william howe general sir william how the commander in chief in north america his uh burgoyne called for his army to go up the hudson river again all of

3:53 these these three columns converging on albany and then doing some sort of unspecified operations into new england the idea was to split the more rebellious new england colonies away from what they thought were the less rebellious middle colonies and in southern colonies by controlling the

4:13 entire hudson river uh lake champlain corridor uh so that was that was burgoyne’s plan it was um enthusiastically embraced by the king and lord germain they really liked this idea they had sort of tried it in 1776 but it didn’t didn’t work out so that’s that’s one one piece of this

4:34 at the same time general sir william howe was the commander-in-chief in north america presents his own plan uh his plan was quite different and that was what he wanted to do is he wanted to take the main army his main army under his command he wanted to take his army seize philadelphia

4:56 and in the process of seizing philadelphia the sort of nominal uh capital of the rebellion uh the seat of congress of course the continental congress uh that he assumed that washington would have to defend the capital and so uh uh howe would get a decisive battle he’d defeat washington and by that time

5:19 in the war howard pretty much figured out that washington and his main army was the center of gravity for the rebellion and he thought if he could just defeat destroy washington and his his main army the rebellion would would be over well those were two very different plans and so it was up to lord george germain

5:40 uh also with some input from the king uh it was up to lord george germain to to reconcile these two plans either somehow coordinate these two plans or to pick one and go with it um that’s not how it worked out and one of the big problems was you had you know three of the big decision makers are sitting there in london for going

6:01 and germain and the king and sitting in new york city is general sir william howe well they’re 3 000 miles apart today it’s no big deal back then it was a big deal it took it could take up to three months to get a message you know to north america and back again to england so how do you coordinate military

6:24 operations well it’s really hard and so what ends up happening is um germain tries to have it both ways he approves burgoyne’s plan but he also approves houzz plan with the proviso that once house seizes philadelphia he will then go assist for

6:45 going um well as you might imagine with all the orders crossing back and forth across the atlantic there’s going to become some some problems with coordination there’s going to be some miscommunications there are going to be some misunderstandings of what’s required when

7:06 uh and so in fact in my book i’ve got a detailed appendix that sort of follows the breadcrumbs uh of when all these messages get sent and when they get received and you can see how this strategy sort of falls apart um and and so what ends up happening is instead of having a coordinated

7:27 comprehensive military strategy for 1777 you have a very disjointed really two separate strategies that in some ways are actually almost working across purposes so so basically both generals are going to try to execute their own individual strategies with very little coordination

7:48 between the two and what ends up happening really you can almost trace everything that happens in 1777 to this this this misfire faulty british strategy right and and you know on the other hand uh you know the relationships uh among the major commanders were

8:10 well really little better on the in the northern department on the american side right they they have their own problems and so how does that impact american preparations going into right right there there are some problems in the in the american northern army there’s there’s two major american armies there’s the big one under uh george washington and then there’s a

8:31 smaller army up in what was called the northern department it was basically uh fort ticonderoga some other fortifications uh in new york but basically upstate new york and that was commanded by general phillip schuyler now skyler after the 1776 campaign he

8:53 had gotten some criticism for his performance during that campaign and he decides in april of 1777 to travel down to philadelphia and sort of present his case sort of defend himself against this criticism um in the meantime congress had sent major general horatio gates up to the

9:14 northern department not to command the department but to command at fort ticonderoga which he had done earlier in 1776 so he had a lot of experience with that so when gates arrives in the northern department gates is a really ambitious guy he thinks he should have his own independent command he basically fills the vacuum that skyler has left by going

9:36 down to uh philadelphia and he basically takes over the northern army the northern department and he never travels to fort ticonderoga and so consequently the defense of fort ticonderoga the the defenses the preparations for any any british

9:56 offensive coming down from canada really isn’t well supervised or well um well prepared and so what happens is in the northern department in the spring and early summer of 1777 you have this really controversy about who’s really commanding up there is it gates or is it schuyler sitting down there in philadelphia and it really um

10:20 it really isn’t until later in the campaigning season that congress finally says no it’s phillip schuyler who is commanding up there and and gates leaves in a huff he’s all upset that he’s been sort of his rightful command of the northern department has been has been taken away from him and he he leaves in a huff and

10:40 skylar returns and he takes over but but really only a few weeks before before burgoyne actually shows up outside ticonderoga but consequently that and the general who’s in charge of ticonderoga major general arthur sinclair uh who does does not fare well in my book i

11:02 think his leadership is really lacking um he’s given a tough mission but he he still doesn’t do a very good job but at any rate um when bregoin does show up at ticonderoga which bergoin assumes is going to be the toughest part of his campaign turns out to be very easy he outmaneuvers sinclair

11:23 and forces sinclair to evacuate the fort with with without expending almost any casualties at all i mean uh uh sinclair does a horrible job defending the fort um and and burgoyne is able to capture it with just a cup within a couple days

11:43 right right my next question you know what one of the reasons why i love the complete victory your new book is that you know it takes a what’s really a campaign more than just a battle and it’s a complex campaign and and it makes it very easy to follow uh and and and so so that’s one of the remarkable achievements i

12:03 think of the book and so can you help our our viewers um as you do with your readers understand the course of this campaign from what you just mentioned the the fall of ticonderoga to burgoyne’s very slow march across new york uh battle of bennington of course he’s penultimate battle or

12:24 battles really of saratoga right tony i’m glad you mentioned that i think um one of the things i tried to do is is is try to make sense of the campaign as you said it’s a very complex campaign there’s a lot going on there’s like something like 10 battles and engagements there’s all sorts of very complex maneuvers and you know there’s

12:45 river crossings there’s all sorts of things happening and at the same time washington is fighting a philadelphia campaign which of course impacts on what’s going on up in the north as well so trying to make sense of that is is uh is a challenge but but the the the first major event that happens in the campaign is is

13:06 burgoyne seizing for ticonderoga and he does that as a as we already mentioned with with ease uh in early july uh 1777. it’s a huge shock uh to the american system i mean no one expected this to happen uh if if ticonderoga were to fall americans would assume that it would take weeks

13:27 and weeks for that to happen but it happens in just a couple days so it’s a huge shock it’s just stunning and on the british side it feeds burgoyne’s confidence over confidence hubris maybe uh after he seizes uh fort ticonderoga so uh after he sees his fourth

13:49 ticonderoga burgoyne um consolidates his army and gets ready to continue to move on the americans fall back uh skyler um who’s who’s again now back in command of the northern department uh he he pulls his army back together he does a pretty

14:09 decent job of of of kind of restoring the shattered army after the retreat out of ticonderoga although you wouldn’t know that from his panicky messages that he’s sending back to congress and george washington which is will ultimately be his downfall the other thing he does is when we’re going does start to move again and and

14:32 continues to move south toward albany he’s traveling on one very poor road he has to move his entire army on one one bad road and skyler does a good job of obstructing that road slowing burgoyne down which is going to to cause uh burgoyne some problems as he continues to to move south

14:53 so we’re going to move south uh one of the things one of the problems with burgoyne burgoyne’s entire operation is when he leaves canada he leaves without enough logistics support and he leaves knowingly i mean he understands that he doesn’t have enough when he leaves but he thinks he can make up for that with

15:14 loyalist support in new york well the loyalists don’t come out though uh in droves like he thinks they will so that’s that becomes a problem as he continues to penetrate further and further uh into uh new york heading toward albany he runs into more and more logistical problems

15:35 uh and that that will really end up being being a real issue for him now while all this is going on while we’re going is slowly moving south toward fort edward and then ultimately toward fort miller uh very very slowly uh as he’s moving south uh the supporting attack

15:55 into lake ontario and then to the mohawk river is also being conducted at the same time they run into also a fort that’s guarding the entrance to the mohawk river valley and that’s fort stanwix unlike for ticonderoga fort stanwix is manned by a plucky bunch of americans

16:18 under uh colonel peter gansevoort and colonel gansboard is made of much sterner stuff than major general arthur sinclair and uh ganza board even though he’s outnumbered three to one at fort stanwix he holds on to that fort after even throughout a 22-day siege

16:40 uh and and really uh one of my personal favorite parts of the entire campaign is is the siege of fort stanwix and the american performance there at port stanwix of colonel gansbort and his his his garrison so that takes place there ultimately that that column will be forced to fall back

17:01 to canada because they can’t get to the mohawk river unless they seize fort stanwix and ganza board is not going to allow that to happen so ultimately they will fall back to canada so burgoyne is kind of on his own now because howe has moved to philadelphia by sea it’s going to take him a while to get there because of contrary winds uh it is

17:22 the age of sale after all uh and burgoyne will continue marching south when he gets to fort miller his logistical situation is is now dire now he has heard through intelligence uh his his indians and also some loyalist support that there’s there’s a lot of cattle and also um um carts and wagons which he is very

17:46 short of those those transportation assets so that there’s food and transportation assets at a place called bennington vermont so he decides to send a large foraging party for one of a better term foraging expedition of a thousand men mostly german soldiers because he’s got

18:07 german mercenaries along with his his british regulars he’s gonna send this thousand-man detachment to go to bennington seize those supplies and that that will give him the logistics support that allow him to continue on to albany they’re intercepted outside of bennington while they’re actually still in new york

18:27 they’re uh intercepted outside bennington by a primarily militia american militia force under uh general stark uh john stark who coined the famous phrase live free or die for the new hampshire motto uh and um they basically destroyed that german um foraging expedition

18:48 so now burgoyne’s in big trouble he’s just lost a thousand men um he’s got big time logistical problems and instead of falling back to fort ticonderoga and maybe regrouping um he decides to press on now you know as a historian you you know it’s very

19:09 easy to to to use hindsight to look at decisions and say wow what a dumb decision uh but instead you’ve got to try at least to at least look at you know what sort of information did burgoyne have at the time that that he used to base his decision on and you know i tried to to to be as fair as i possibly could to

19:31 to all these senior leaders and and looking at how they made these decisions and so when i look at burgoyne making this decision which i think is one of the most faithful decisions in the entire campaign to push on after bennington um you know i i just he’s got all the information he needs at that point he knows how is going to

19:53 philadelphia and he’s not coming up the hudson river he knows the americans have obviously regrouped after the disaster of ticonderoga otherwise he wouldn’t have lost those you know 1 000 regular you know trained european soldiers to a bunch of militia which he’s just done uh and you know he still has a long way

20:15 to go to albany so do you press on or do you do you fall back and he would argue later that um my orders gave me no latitude i had to press on well that’s nonsense of course to be shackled to a plan that was written five months before 3 000 miles away and now you’re in the midst of the american wilderness and and things are

20:35 not turning out the way you assumed it would at any rate he does press on so he continues on he crosses over to the west bank of the hudson river in the meantime skyler because of his panicky messages back to washington and congress has been relieved of his command he’s been replaced now by uh horatio gates

20:57 gates will move the army slowly up from albany uh where where skyler has has retreated he’ll move it up to albany he’ll find a defensive position a wonderful defensive position called bemus heights that dominates the hudson river at that point and also the road to albany the single road to albany and he sets up

21:18 defensive positions there and ultimately uh they’ll fight the two big battles of saratoga that we we of course remember when we think of saratoga in the saratoga campaign they’ll fight the two big battles uh just just north of bemis heights right great uh yeah just a just a great story um so

21:40 and and you credit that ultimate american victory of saratoga to some excellent uh particularly excellent uh american field commanders including perhaps most surprisingly to our viewers uh the bold and valiant benedict arnold right and the national trader uh and and to american generals who use this term i love it

22:02 they had more grip of the battlefields uh so can you explain the importance of these factors to that american victory sure yeah i mean i would say that you know when you look at both sides the americans and the british and the german soldiers as well uh from the colonel level on down regimental commander on down i mean

22:23 both sides had really excellent commanders i mean they led from the front they were you know personally you know brave and courageous they took care of their soldiers i mean leadership is really good i think on on both sides uh i never found an instance of a you know a key officer shirking or doing anything like that

22:43 uh it was at the at the higher levels i think that the americans um the americans excelled uh and and at both battles of saratoga you see that um uh the general officers and the senior colonels really really did well and and and of course benedict arnold is is is

23:05 um of course foremost in that and especially in the second battle of saratoga uh the battle of bemas heights uh arnold uh i mean he’s been everywhere in the american revolution in the northern department up to this point he’s aggressive he’s dynamic he’s personally brave he’s always in the at the front uh i mean this guy is is exactly the

23:27 kind of combat commander you know you want and one of the reasons why washington will send arnold up to join skyler after ticonderoga’s he wanted to put some backbone into the northern army and that’s of course what arnold does arnold injects energy into the into the army

23:47 and so gates and arnold turn out to be a pretty decent team now they have a bit of falling out we’ll we probably wouldn’t be able to be able to get to any of that but they have a falling out between the two battles but but they they actually work fairly well together they had worked together before in 1776 and had worked very well together so

24:08 they work well here and and arnold ends up leading the sort of the final assault that that unhinges uh burgoyne’s line uh in the second battle of saratoga which will really give give bergoin no choice other than to fall back and retreat and ultimately of course the americans will surround him uh at a place called

24:30 saratoga about eight miles north of where they fight these final two battles arnold is just brilliant uh during this campaign uh and during these uh during the final uh final pieces of this campaign of course he’s seriously wounded at the second battle of saratoga um and and in part that wound and his

24:51 convalescence and his later assignment to west point will end up you know leading to his treason uh later on in the war but up to this point i mean if you you know uh probably would have been better had he been killed at the second battle of saratoga because he would be you know in the pantheon of great american heroes um uh because of his performance in those

25:12 first couple years of the war and specifically at saratoga very very interesting okay so my final question uh relates to our our general question for the series uh and so how did the battle of saratoga shape the outcome of the revolutionary war briefly and and and of american history sure um i you know i i kind of look at it as

25:34 sort of the short term implications of the of the campaign in the long term so short term you know there’s only two major british field armies in north america they’ve just lost one now you know so that’s a huge deal they’ve got to replace those troops and that’s kind of hard to do uh the brits uh there is opposition in parliament to the

25:54 war that opposition is going to increase it’s going to be emboldened it’s going to be more vocal after saratoga um so you have all those issues you have issues in the american side too because a lot of people are starting to think you know george washington hasn’t really produced a whole lot of victories but gates has just won this you know the

26:16 greatest victory we could possibly imagine so big deal long term though what what it what the the american victory at saratoga does long term is it it jump starts the american diplomatic mission in paris led by um benjamin franklin on the 4th of december uh 1777 they get word of

26:38 saratoga just a couple days later the the king of france uh authorizes a restart of the negotiations that will lead to the formal uh alliance with uh with france the united states and france which will take place uh early in february of 1778.

26:59 right after that britain will declare war against france and now what what saratoga has led directly to is what britain desperately wanted to avoid and that is a war with now one or more of their continental neighbors their their hated enemy france later spain will come into the war as a

27:19 direct result of saratoga so i would argue that you know saratoga isn’t sufficient for american victory but it is necessary there had to be a saratoga it didn’t have to be saratoga itself but it had to be something like saratoga that would would really uh um prove to the french that we were in it for the long haul we

27:40 could win we could win a big victory uh france comes in and of course as you know winston churchill famously said um uh there’s only thing one thing worse than fighting with allies it’s it’s not having an ally or worse that effect and and you know the friend france turns out to be a difficult ally but you know

28:01 ultimately of course they they initially give us some naval support um they will ultimately land a major army in north america it will ultimately as we know link up with george washington uh which will end up in the final decisive victory at yorktown but you couldn’t have had a yorktown without a saratoga that’s right

28:21 kevin weil i want to thank you very much for joining us uh that was thanks very good congratulations on your new book the complete victory the saratoga and the american revolution oh i really appreciate it really enjoyed it thank you great and thank you all for joining us for this episode of scholar talks please check out our other installments of pivotal battles in american history on the battle of

28:42 gettysburg with alan gelzo and the battle of midway with craig simons and our previous series on the cold war and the presidency and also black intellectuals and the african-american experience thank you for joining us you