Benedict Arnold: General in the Battle of Saratoga

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With Arnold apparently out of the picture, Lincoln finally convinced Gates that more men were indeed needed. Poor’s brigade would storm the British left while Morgan flanked Burgoyne. When these two pincers squeezed the trapped enemy, Learned’s brigade would be sent in to overrun the center.

Morgan’s 300 riflemen quickly closed in on Fraser’s position while Poor’s 800 veteran New Hampshire Continentals crept through the woods toward the British left. Just after 3:00 p.m., Acland’s men opened fire from the crest of a hill on Poor’s approaching troops. The British were about to mount a bayonet charge when the Americans raced up the hill in a frenzy, swarming over the stunned grenadiers and wounding Acland in both legs. With exquisite timing, Morgan’s men smashed through the outnumbered infantry of Major Alexander Lindsay, Earl of Balcarres, on Fraser’s far right. Then Dearborn’s light infantry suddenly appeared behind the wavering British, scattering them in all directions.

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.

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Tags: 17th - 18th Century, American History, American Revolutionary War, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures