Saratoga National Historical Park
October 7: Burgoyne Tries One More Time
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Transcript
By October seventh, Burgoyne's position was deteriorating.
Food was running short. Desertion and casualties had reduced his strength. The American army was growing.
Still, Burgoyne sent more than fifteen hundred troops forward in what NPS describes as a reconnaissance in force.
The movement became the Second Battle of Saratoga, commonly called Bemis Heights.
American attacks hit the British and German positions hard.
Morgan's riflemen and other formations pressured the flanks. General Simon Fraser was mortally wounded. British and German troops fell back toward their redoubts.
The critical moment came at Breymann's Redoubt.
American forces overran the position late in the day.
That exposed the rear of Burgoyne's defensive system.
Darkness prevented an even larger immediate collapse.
NPS estimates roughly six hundred British casualties against around one hundred fifty American casualties.
More important than the numbers was the disappearance of options.
Burgoyne could no longer plausibly turn the campaign back into an advance on Albany.
The problem was now retreat.
Within days, it would be survival.
Then surrender.
The October seventh battle also demonstrates the difference between command on paper and momentum on the field.
Orders travel slowly in smoke, woods and confusion.
Units react to what they can see.
Opportunities open for minutes and then close.
Arnold's aggressive presence became important precisely in that unstable environment.
The decisive breakthrough was not the execution of one perfect master plan.
It was a series of American attacks that pushed an already strained British system beyond recovery.