Prelude to the Battle of Saratoga – Part I
It’s the summer of 1777, and the American Revolution was over two years old. By now, Britain’s leaders realized that suppressing the rebellion was not the pushover that Lord North and his Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Germain, believed.
The British leadership believed the strength of the Patriot cause was in New England. Their divide-and-conquer strategy was based on the theory that by cutting the northern states – CT, MA, NH, NY, and RI – off from the rest, the revolution would collapse.
General Howe would advance up the Hudson and defeat Washington’s army north of New York City. Burgoyne would come from the north, and Colonel Barry St. Leger would come from Lake Ontario. All three pincers were supposed to meet in Albany.
The plan began to unravel almost immediately when General William Howe decided that by capturing Philadelphia, the capital of the rebellion, the rebels would sue for peace. Thus, the northward movement toward Albany never happened,and the Continental Congress moved west out of reach of the British.
In the north, after some delay, General John Burgoyne and his army began moving south from Quebec. Just as any invasion force would, his army traveled down (and upstream) the Richelieu River to Lake Champlain and then down to the southern end near Whitehall, NY.
St. Leger moved west, and on August 2, his force of 700 British Army and Loyalists plus about 800 native Americans began the siege of Fort Stanwix. Located near the city of Rome, NY. The fort was astride a portage route between the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers which made control of it vital to trade and control of this area of New York.
Fort Stanwix was, in many ways, a smaller version of Fort Ticonderoga and was originally built by the British during the French and Indian Wars. Later, it was renamed Fort Schuyler after the American general sent to keep the British from capturing the facility.
Major General Philip Schuyler assigned the mission of defending Fort Stanwix to Colonel Peter Gansevoort and the 3rdNY Regiment. Short of supplies, mostly ammunition, Schuyler dispatched 150 men from the 9th Massachusetts with much of what Gansevoort needed.
By the time Colonel St. Leger’s force arrived on August 2nd, 1777, the Americans had improved the fort’s defense and had placed abatis along the portage. Abatis are raised mounds of earth with sharpened tree trunks facing anyone approaching the obstacle.
Hearing that another column of supplies was being sent to the fort, St. Leger sent out a force to attack the Americans. In the Battle of Oriskany, St. Leger’s troops, who were mostly native Americans, defeated the Continentals. In this fight, casualties on both sides were heavy, and St. Leger’s troops retreated to their encampment near Fort Stanwix.
However, while St. Leger’s force was gone, Gansevoort sent out a column to attack the British encampment. The Americans routed the remaining British troops and native Americans, captured most of their supplies, and retreated back into Fort Stanwix.
St. Leger tried to convince the Americans to surrender, and Ganesevoort refused. He then bombarded Fort Stanwix with artillery to get the Americans to change their minds. That also failed. When he learned that the Americans were sending another relief column with supplies, St. Leger ended the siege and retreated back to his base on Lake Ontario.
Thus, on August 22nd, 1777, the second British pincer movement to threaten Albany ended, leaving Burgoyne on his own.
National Park Service photo of the reconstructed Fort Stanwix