The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2015 | Page 12

Hudson River to link up with Burgoyne, General Howe decided to attack and
capture Philadelphia. Once Howe boarded his troops and ships in July of 1777 and
sailed to the Delaware River to attack Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, Washington
was free to deploy the American forces accordingly. 9 This allowed American
militia troops from New England to support Gates and the Northern Command
since Howe’s forces were committed in Pennsylvania. Burgoyne and his invasion
force would be unsupported, although Burgoyne still thought Howe would send a
force to Albany when Burgoyne’s army approached the town.
After Burgoyne reached the Hudson, the real fighting began. Baron
Friedrich von Riedesel led the Hessians, who composed part of the British force.
His wife, Baroness Frederika von Riedesel, accompanied the invasion force as it
made its way south. Her journal gave an excellent account of the day-to-day life in
the British camp as well as an observation of General Burgoyne himself.
According to the Baroness, the general spent a great deal of his time with his
mistress and their champagne. 10 Burgoyne’s delays kept consuming his supplies
and once the fighting started, he ran through them quickly.
Burgoyne’s army fought its first major battle at Bennington. They sent a
foraging party of Hessians to capture much needed horses and a rumored
Continental powder magazine there. Instead, this foraging party ran into General
John Stark and his New Hampshire militia who delivered a crushing defeat to the
Hessians. Another Hessian force they sent in relief met the same fate. Only
darkness enabled some of the Hessian force to escape. That battle cost Burgoyne
over one thousand men dead or captured by the Americans, and gave the American
militia a much needed victory. The Saratoga campaign was one of the few times
when the American militia fought extremely well during the Revolution. In this
instance, they were fighting on their own ground with their own leader; often not
the case.
Following Bennington, Burgoyne’s main body continued onward trying
to close with the American army and force battle. Gates refused to fight until he
could gain an edge over the British. Instead, he sent out the sharpshooting riflemen
of General Daniel Morgan’s Virginia Regiment to harass the British. Daily, the
British continued to lose men to these unorthodox tactics. Finally, they fought
Battle of Freeman’s Farm on September 19. Morgan’s riflemen took a deadly toll
of British officers and artillerymen. The battle seesawed back and forth across the
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