Battles of Saratoga

The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. British General John Burgoyne led a large invasion army southward from Canada in the Champlain Valley, hoping to meet a similar British force marching northward from New York City and another British force marching eastward from Lake Ontario; the southern and western forces never arrived, and Burgoyne was surrounded by American forces in upstate New York. He fought two small battles to break out which took place 18 days apart on the same ground, 9 miles south of Saratoga, New York. They both failed.

Burgoyne found himself trapped by superior American forces with no relief, so he retreated to Saratoga and surrendered his entire army there on October 17. His surrender, says historian Edmund Morgan, "was a great turning point of the war because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory."

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