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The Battles of Saratoga in September and October 1777 were decisive American victories in the American Revolutionary War, resulting in the surrender of an entire British army of over 6,000 men invading New York from Canada. This action, often referred to in the singular as the "Battle of Saratoga", was actually two battles fought eighteen days apart, but on the same ground, nine miles south of Saratoga, New York the Battle of Freeman's Farm on September 19 and the Battle of Bemis Heights on October 7. Forced to retreat after his defeat on October 7, General John Burgoyne and his entire army surrendered ten days later after being surrounded by much larger American militia forces. The capture of an entire British army secured the northern American states from further attack via Canada and prevented New England from being isolated. A major result was that France entered the conflict on behalf of the Americans, thus dramatically improving the Americans' chances in the war. The battles of Saratoga, and the entire Saratoga campaign that concluded with the surrender of Burgoyne, are commonly seen as the turning point of the Revolution. The original conception of the campaign had been for Burgoyne, with some eight thousand men, to advance south via Lake Champlain and Lake George to the Hudson River and then to Albany. There he would meet Colonel Barry St. Leger coming east along the Mohawk River valley with a mixed force of about 600 Tories, Canadians and 1,000 Iroquois Indians. At the same time, William Howe, commanding the main British army in New York City, would march north, taking control of the lower Hudson and joining Burgoyne in Albany. This would cut off the New England states from the rest of America. However, Howe decided instead to make a strategically irrelevant assault on the American capitol of Philadelphia. In addition, Howe chose to approach the city by sailing the army to Chesapeake Bay rather than marching overland across New Jersey, rendering his army totally unable to come to Burgoyne's aid. On July 23, 1777, Howe and his army set sail and did not return to the mainland until August 25. Howe succeeded in taking Philadelphia, winning victories at Brandywine on September 11 and Germantown on October 4, but the Continental Congress simply retreated to York, Pennsylvania, and evaded capture. Because of the slow and difficult communications of the period Burgoyne did not hear of this change in Howe's plans for several weeks; by then it was too late. Burgoyne set out in June with about 10,000 red-coated British regulars, 3,900 blue-coated German soldiers from the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Hesse-Hanau, 650 Canadians, Tories and Indians from Canada. The British advance beyond the southern ends of Lake Champlain and Lake George went without a hitch through July 6, when the British took possession of Fort Ticonderoga, the main American fortress on the chain of lakes. However, the American garrison at Ticonderoga was able to escape and retreat south, remaining as a source of resistance.[6] The next day, Burgoyne's force fought a pitched battle with the retreating Americans, the Battle of Hubbardton, which ended in another British victory and the surviving American force in full flight.[7] After the victory, Burgoyne made a decision which has been greatly criticized ever since instead of taking the water route south via Lake George and then over a short portage to the Hudson River and Albany, he elected to travel overland via Fort Anne and Fort Edward. This allowed the exhausted, fleeing Americans time to rest and recover and slow the pace of Burgoyne's advance to a few miles per day by chopping down trees to block the forest route.[8]
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