19 September 1777, morning
Saratoga: three columns
Burgoyne crosses to the west bank of the Hudson and on 18 September his vanguard is about four miles from the American lines on Bemis Heights. Gates commands the right wing of the American defences himself and has given the left to Benedict Arnold.
When the morning fog lifts at about 10 am, Burgoyne advances in three columns. Baron Riedesel leads the left along the river road with the German troops and the 47th Foot, the main artillery and the boats. James Inglis Hamilton leads the centre, the 9th, 20th, 21st and 62nd Foot, towards the heights, and Simon Fraser the right, with the light infantry, the grenadiers and the 24th Foot, to turn the American left.
The battlefield in Saratoga National Historical Park, Stillwater, New YorkWikimedia Commons, UpstateNYer, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Saratoga Battlefied.jpg)
Arnold persuades Gates to send out Daniel Morgan’s riflemen and Henry Dearborn’s light infantry. In the clearing of a Loyalist farmer, John Freeman, they find the British advance company. Morgan’s marksmen pick off nearly every officer, but when his men charge they run into the head of Fraser’s column and are scattered into the woods.
Sources
- Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga (1997).
- Rupert Furneaux, The Battle of Saratoga (1971).
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