The surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, though not, perhaps, properly classed among battles, is, nevertheless, properly classed among events momentous in their influence upon the destinies of nations. Looking upon the American Revolution as a whole and from a dispassionate distance, Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga is seen to be the fateful turning of the tide which rolled from crest-wave English victory back to slow but sure English discomfiture and ultimate defeat.

As a result of the Colonial victory at Saratoga came recognition of the Independent United States of America, first from France, later from Spain, and still later from Holland. Confidence was established; untried troops had stood breast to breast against veterans of the British army, against skilled Grenadiers, and these untried troops had won; they had caused the proud British general to retreat from place to place, they had surrounded him at last on Saratoga Heights and forced him to capitulate. The independence of the thirteen original states and all evolutionary Republican America lay potential in the victory of Generals Gates and Arnold over Burgoyne and his veterans at Saratoga.
Plan.

“The best laid plans of mice and men

Gang aft agley.”—Burns.

Burgoyne’s plan was good; and had not General St. Leger failed to capture Fort Stanwix and then to proceed along the Mohawk to its confluence with the Hudson and there join his[141] force to that of Burgoyne; and had not General Baum failed to win the battle of Bennington and so secure the magazines of provisions so sorely needed by the British army; and had not Lord Howe considered it more advantageous to cross over to the Delaware and attack Philadelphia, rather than remain at New York ready for emergency; and had not General Clinton been retarded in his victorious advance up from Albany; if all, or perhaps any one of these conditions had been the reverse of what they were, why, history might be the reverse of what it is.

Momentous little things—so seeming trifling, inconsequential, negligible—and yet potential of cataclysmic calamity! An insect bores into the heart of an oak, and the forest monarch falls: a tiny trickling rill freezes in the rock and the mountain is rent asunder; a pine twig breaks under its weight of snow and the awful avalanche comes crashing down. In the moral world, too, the results seem altogether out of proportion to the cause: a glance of suspicion and the bloom of perfect trust is gone from the heart forever; an unkind word and love withers, a deed—it dies; one lie, one little wormy lie, and the fair integrity of character has in it the boring insect with which it may, indeed, flourish full foliage for a season, but by which, in the end, it must, being hollow hearted, succumb to the storm and fall and die.

Perhaps when Burgoyne sent for the Indians and made them part of his fighting force, he then admitted into his moral makeup, as well as his military, the mighty little thing which should silently yet forcefully work disaster. For many men who were irresolute as to which side to join, being indeed loyal at heart to the mother country and hesitating to strike against her, boldly threw in their fortunes with the Colonists when they heard that the Red Man formed part of the force of the advancing army. They knew what savage warfare meant even better than Burgoyne knew. Many are inclined to excuse Burgoyne on the plea[142] that he knew nothing of the horrible atrocities of the Indians when intoxicated with the blood of battle: but fate did not excuse him. His Indians never knew the intoxication of victorious battle—thanks to the stern resolution of men who fought in defence of mothers, sisters, wives, and children shuddering in nearby homes: and as defeat came and ignominious retreat from post to post before the enraged advance of a conquering foe, the Indians deserted the army and slunk away through the western wilds back to their native tribes.
Benedict Arnold.

Strange that history remembers only Arnold the Traitor and not Arnold the hero of Ticonderoga, Quebec, and Saratoga. Too bad he didn’t die in that brilliant charge upon Burgoyne’s intrenchments, where after overcoming all obstacles and apparently just on the point of victory he was wounded in the same leg th............