The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2015 | Page 14

While he delayed, the American militia continued to pour into the area until the
British were outnumbered three to one.
Following a British council of war, Burgoyne vacillated hoping that some
relief from the south would come, but none materialized. Finally he agreed to
surrender his army to the Americans on October 17, 1777. Even with this victory,
the Continental Army faced major problems. General Gates refused to send
regiments loaned to his command by General Washington back to Pennsylvania
where they were desperately needed. 16 Instead, he did not even bother to notify his
commander, but instead directly reported to Congress on his victory. 17
The Conway Cabal against Washington would later implicate Gates.
Washington and the Continental Army, who Howe’s force had brushed aside as it
took Philadelphia at the Battle of Brandywine, counterattacked and fought a
dynamic battle against the British at Germantown, actually driving the British
from the battlefield before a series of mistakes and communication breakdowns
caused the Americans to retreat. 18 One German officer present at the battle
exclaimed that he had just seen, “something I have never seen before, namely the
English in full flight.” 19
This battle, significant to many European military observers as displaying
great promise for the Continental Army, was coupled with the amazing American
victory at Saratoga by the American ambassador to the French court in Versailles,
Benjamin Franklin. Even before the Declaration of Independence, the Continental
Congress had secretly created a Committee of Correspondence. Its mission was to
seek out foreign aid and support. 20 To that end, they dispatched Silas Deane, the
first American representative to France. Humiliated by the losses of the Seven
Year’s War, France, had a foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, who wanted
to strike back at the British. The French aided the Americans quietly, even
allowing American privateers to use French ports, which stretched the Royal Navy
into an Atlantic wide sea war it was not prepared to fight. 21
Once the news of Saratoga reached Benjamin Franklin, he used it as
evidence, along with the daring attack by Washington at Germantown, that the
United States could win the Revolution. He also dangled the Carlisle Commission,
a British attempt at a negotiated settlement with the Americans, as more proof that
the British could lose the war. 22 The French fears of an Anglo-American
reconciliation led the French into signing a treaty of alliance with the United
States in February, 1778. The American Revolution, which had started out as a
civil war between the Thirteen Colonies in North America versus their overlord,
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