Road to Liberty: Battle of Saratoga |The White House Founders Museum

Two conflicts in 1777 at Saratoga, New York, proved to be turning points in the war. The first, on September 19, 1777 at Freeman’s Farm, saw an exchange between equally matched battalions end in a technical victory for the British but its army suffered heavy losses.

The second, on October 7, 1777 at Bemis Heights, marked a day of victory for Washington’s men, leading to General John Burgoyne’s surrender of 6,000 British troops, ten days after the battle’s conclusion. Benedict Arnold, the man who would eventually go down in American history as a “turn-coat” (a traitor who switched sides to the British), played a decisive role in securing the American victory at Bemis Heights.

The battle was also won, in part, thanks to the colonists’ use of non-traditional guerilla tactics that were influenced by Native American techniques, which confused the British amid already foreign terrain. The success of General Horatio Gates at Saratoga encouraged the French to aid the United States at a critical point in the war, initiating a friendship between the two nations that continues to this day.

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