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Unread 08-30-2006, 06:31 PM
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In less than an hour Burgoyne's ambitious foray had devolved into a desperate fight for survival. Most of his shocked troops were retreating. Only the center, composed mainly of Germans under Colonel Johann Friedrich Specht, refused to budge.

About this time the fate of Burgoyne's army was sealed. Two miles away at the American headquarters, Arnold had been fuming impatiently while the battle raged. Gates had humiliated him. But Arnold had seen his superior squander a clear-cut victory three weeks earlier and--command or no command--he was not going to let that happen again. He mounted a horse and headed for the front. Gates sent Major John Armstrong galloping after him, but Arnold outran him.

A few minutes later Arnold caught up with some of Learned's Connecticut militia. "My old Norwich and New London friends," he shouted as he rode by, and the cheers of the men rang in his ears. Within moments Arnold was at the head of Learned's brigade, exhorting the troops to follow him, "Come on brave boys, come on!" Three of Learned's regiments charged uphill into withering fire from Specht's men. American and German cannon exchanged canister fire. Finally, as Balcarres' British troops fled past their position, the Germans broke.

Fraser was still trying to form a new line on the right, but one of Morgan's sharpshooters put an end to that. Conspicuous in his scarlet and white uniform and mounted on a large gray horse, Fraser suddenly crumpled backward with a bullet in his abdomen. He would die the next morning.

By this time most of Burgoyne's men had fallen back to the protection of the two massive redoubts the British had built at Freeman's Farm during the weeks after the first battle. Arnold wasted no time leading a charge against the nearest to him, the Balcarres Redoubt. He waved his sword and dashed among the troops as musket balls and grapeshot whizzed around them. But the huge log walls--bristling with abatis and defended by desperate infantry--kept the Americans out.

Looking north toward the less-heavily defended Breymann Redoubt, Arnold spied an opening, and in a heartbeat he raced for it through a hail of lead. As Morgan and Dearborn attacked it head-on, Arnold led a furious charge toward a pair of cabins that separated the fortifications, then turned his force headlong into the Breymann Redoubt's unprotected left flank. Dozens of shocked Germans dropped in the rush; countless others ran for their lives.

Arnold had just entered the works when a German soldier fired at him, striking him in the same leg he had nearly lost in the Quebec Expedition. Another bullet killed his horse, which fell and crushed Arnold's leg beneath it. As Massachusetts soldiers chased off enemy soldiers and burned British tents, Connecticut militiamen carried Arnold off the field. His left leg was ruined, but Arnold would not allow it to be amputated. Several agonizing months of recovery would leave it two inches shorter than the right.

By now darkness had fallen and the Second Battle of Saratoga had ended. At 1:00 a.m., with his army shattered, Burgoyne issued an order for the troops still on the field to withdraw. British and German losses for the day totaled 278 killed, 331 wounded, and 285 captured--roughly half the force that had ventured forth that morning. American casualties were 130 killed and wounded.

Burgoyne's army began a quiet retreat north late the next night. Hampered by heavy rain and harassed by American militia, the infantry, artillery, and the bateaux floating up the Hudson River made slow progress. By the evening of October 9 the army had reached Saratoga, only eight miles from the battlefield, with American forces completely surrounding it. Burgoyne opened negotiations on October 14, and after some haggling over terms, Gentleman Johnny surrendered his army three days later.

The most significant result of the American victory was that it convinced Louis XVI of France to support the American cause. On February 6, 1778, American commissioners and the French government signed the Franco-American Alliance. By the middle of March, France and Great Britain were in a state of war. American fortunes would ebb and flow for some time, but French cash, soldiers, and naval support would permanently buttress their efforts.

Gates, whom Arnold called "the greatest poltroon in the world and many other genteel qualifications," had contributed little to either battle. His plan to hold his position and fight from behind breastworks made tactical sense. But it smacked of extreme caution at a time when his army had a decisive edge in manpower and when aggression was the order of the day. "This gentleman [Gates] is a mere child of fortune," Major General Nathanael Greene wrote to Brigadier General Alexander McDougall the following January; "the foundation of all the Northern successes was laid long before his arrival there; and Arnold and Lincoln were the principal instruments in compleating the work." Washington agreed and presented both men with elaborate sets of French epaulets as symbols of his thanks.

Nevertheless, Gates made his name with the victory. Congress authorized the minting of a gold medal in his honor. New Jersey governor William Livingston declared that Gates's "glory is as yet unrivalled in the annals of America." In 1780 a crushing defeat in the Battle of Camden, South Carolina, would take much of the luster off Gates's reputation. The capable Greene would replace him.
Arnold was conspicuously absent from the formal British surrender ceremony at Saratoga. By mid-October he lay convalescing in an Albany hospital. (Lincoln, wounded on October 8, also missed the ceremony.) Gates downplayed Arnold's role in the battles, but Arnold had essentially directed the first battle and clinched victory in the second. Burgoyne later told Parliament that he had expected, with good reason, that Gates would keep his men within their fixed lines. But when "Arnold chose to give rather than receive the attack," Burgoyne lost the chance to follow up with a move on Gates's right (particularly during the second battle). The aggressive tactics convinced British Lieutenant Thomas Anburey, for one, that the Americans were "not that contemptible enemy we had hitherto imagined them, incapable of standing a regular engagement, and that they would only fight behind strong earthworks."

Arnold never again led American troops in battle. His wound kept him on inactive duty until the summer of 1780. On September 25 Arnold fled to the enemy. Papers captured from British officer and spy Major John André revealed that Arnold had plotted to turn West Point over to the British.

Arnold ultimately defected due to perceived grievances he had suffered at the hands of Congress and the military, his mounting debts, corruption charges filed against him by Pennsylvania civil authorities that resulted in Arnold demanding an investigation to clear his name, and his indignation at the French alliance.

Only in recent years have historians fully acknowledged Arnold's contributions to the American cause. The virtual burial of his outstanding military reputation began as soon as news of his treason came to light. Brigadier General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, for one, suddenly attributed Arnold's bravery to heavy drinking, "even to intoxication." In the years since, the name Benedict Arnold has become virtually synonymous with "traitor."

Ironically, it was Arnold--the American general and the hero of Saratoga--who sealed the French alliance that helped guarantee independence for the country he had betrayed.
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