GREATGARAGES

‘I have the Satisfaction to present Your Excellency with the Convention of Saratoga, By which His Excellency Lieutenant General Burgoyne, has Surrendered Himself & his whole Army into my Hands.”

–Maj. General Horatio Gates to the president of Congress, October 18, 1777

A day before, Gates had taken, in fashion, the sword of ‘Gentleman John’ Burgoyne, accepting the surrender of his 5,700 regulars. More than just a morale-builder for the revolutionary Americans, as those at Princeton and Trenton had been within the past year, victory at Saratoga was a turning-point battle in the War of Independence. Before he turned coat, Benedict Arnold helped secure the surrender that helped change the world.

Victory could be had, despite earlier losses to the world’s most potent army. Saratoga meant the British could not split the fiery New England states from their fellow patriots to the south. And, France, fearing British power and sailing its own potent fleet, entered into a military