John Burgoyne

John Burgoyne
Commander-in-Chief, Ireland 4th Regiment of Foot Convention Army Anglo-Canadian expeditionary force Governor of Fort William Anglo-Portuguese expeditionary force Burgoyne's Light Horse
Battles/wars	War of the Austrian Succession Seven Years' War Raid on St Malo Raid on Cherbourg Battle of Saint-Cast Battle of Belle Île Spanish invasion of Portugal Battle of Valencia de Alcántara Battle of Vila Velha American War of Independence Siege of Boston Invasion of Quebec British counteroffensive Saratoga campaign Siege of Fort Ticonderoga Battle of Freeman's Farm Battle of Bemis Heights (POW)
Awards	Privy Council of Great Britain
Relations	John Fox Burgoyne Hugh Burgoyne VC Geoffrey Hornby
Other work	Member of the House of Commons for Preston (Whig), Dramatist
Signature

Burgoyne is best known for his role in the American Revolutionary War. He designed an invasion scheme and was appointed to command a force moving south from Canada to split away New England and end the rebellion. Burgoyne advanced from Canada but his slow movement allowed the Americans to concentrate their forces. Instead of coming to his aid according to the overall plan, the British Army in New York City moved south to capture Philadelphia. Burgoyne fought two small battles near Saratoga but was surrounded by American forces and, with no relief in sight, surrendered his entire army of 6,200 men on 17 October 1777. His surrender, according to the historian Edmund Morgan, "was a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory".^[1] France had been supplying the North American colonists since the spring of 1776.^[2] Burgoyne and his officers returned to England; the enlisted men became prisoners of war. He came under sharp criticism when he returned to London.

The rise of the politically friendly

Burgoyne was also an accomplished playwright, known for his works such as The Maid of the Oaks and The Heiress, but his plays never reached the fame of his military career. He served as a member of the House of Commons for many years, sitting for the seats of Midhurst and Preston.

Early life

Family and education

John Burgoyne was born in

Through his friendship with Lord Strange, Burgoyne came to know Strange's sister, Lady Charlotte Stanley, the daughter of

Seven Years War

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Further information:

Great Britain in the Seven Years War

A month after the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, Burgoyne bought a commission in the 11th Dragoons. In 1758, he became captain and lieutenant-colonel in the Coldstream Guards.^[13]

Raids on French coast

In 1758, he participated in several expeditions against the

In 1761, he sat in parliament for

In 1768, he was elected to the House of Commons for Preston as a Whig. For the next few years he occupied himself chiefly with his parliamentary duties, in which he was remarkable for his general outspokenness and, in particular, for his attacks on Lord Clive, who was at the time considered the nation's leading soldier. He achieved prominence in 1772 by demanding an investigation of the East India Company alleging widespread corruption by its officials and much later in life Burgoyne would take an active part in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings.^[15] During the interwar years Burgoyne devoted much attention to art and drama (his first play, The Maid of the Oaks, was produced by David Garrick in 1775).^[18]

American War of Independence

Early campaigns

In the army, he had been promoted to major-general and made

The following year, having convinced King George III and his government of Carleton's faults, Burgoyne was given command of the British forces charged with gaining control of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River valley. The plan, largely of his own creation, was for Burgoyne and his force to cross Lake Champlain from Quebec and capture Ticonderoga before advancing on Albany, New York, where they would rendezvous with another British army under General Howe coming north from New York City, and a smaller force that would come down the Mohawk River valley under Barry St. Leger. This would divide New England from the southern colonies, and, it was believed, make it easier to end the rebellion.^[20]

From the beginning, Burgoyne was vastly overconfident.^{[citation needed]} Leading what he believed was an overwhelming force, he saw the campaign largely as a stroll that would make him a national hero who had saved the rebel colonies for the crown.^{[citation needed]} Before leaving London, he had wagered Charles James Fox 10 pounds that he would return victorious within a year.^{[citation needed]} He refused to heed more cautious voices, both British and American, that suggested a successful campaign using the route he proposed was impossible, as the failed attempt the previous year had shown.

Underlining the plan was the belief that Burgoyne's aggressive thrust from Quebec would be aided by the movements of two other large British forces under Generals Howe and Clinton, who would support the advance. However, Lord Germain's orders dispatched from London were not clear on this point, with the effect that Howe took no action to support Burgoyne, and Clinton moved from New York too late and in too little strength to be any great help to Burgoyne.

As a result of this miscommunication, Burgoyne ended up conducting the campaign single-handedly. He was not yet aware that he would not be gaining additional support, and was still reasonably confident of success. Having amassed an army of over 7,000 troops in Quebec, Burgoyne was also led to believe by reports that he could rely on the support of large numbers of Native Americans and American Loyalists who would rally to the flag once the British came south. Even if the countryside was not as pro-British as expected, much of the area between Lake Champlain and Albany was underpopulated anyway, and Burgoyne was skeptical any major enemy force could gather there.^[13]

The campaign was initially successful. Burgoyne

Rather than an outright unconditional surrender, Burgoyne had agreed to a convention that involved his men surrendering their weapons, and returning to Europe with a pledge not to return to North America. Burgoyne had been most insistent on this point, even suggesting he would try to fight his way back to Quebec if it was not agreed. Soon afterwards the Continental Congress repudiated the treaty and imprisoned the remnants of the army in Massachusetts and Virginia, where they were sometimes maltreated. This was widely seen as revenge for the poor treatment that prisoners-of-war of the Continental Army had received while imprisoned.

Following Saratoga, the indignation in Britain against Burgoyne was great. He returned at once, with the leave of the American general, to defend his conduct and demanded but never obtained a inquiry. He was deprived of his regiment and the governorship of Fort William in Scotland, which he had held since 1769. The government demanded that Burgoyne at once return to America to re-join the Convention Army and continue negotiations for its return. When Burgoyne refused he was gazetted out of the army with loss of rank;^[23] a rare public rebuke of a high ranking officer for which Burgoyne received widespread ridicule in Britain. He was not formally re-instated to the army until 1782 when the Whigs returned to power. Following the defeat, France recognised the United States and formally entered the war on 6 February 1778, transforming it into a global conflict.

Although Burgoyne at the time was widely held to blame for the defeat, historians have over the years shifted responsibility for the disaster at Saratoga to Lord Germain, the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Germain had overseen the overall strategy for the campaign and had significantly neglected to order General Howe to support Burgoyne's invasion, instead leaving him to believe that he was free to launch his own attack on Philadelphia.

Later life

Although elected as a

Sources

• Bicheno, Hugh (2003). Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War. HarperCollins.
  ISBN 978-0-00-715625-2
  .
• Billias, George Athan (1969). George Washington's Opponents. New York: William Morrow.
  OCLC 11709
  .
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Burgoyne, John" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 819–820.
• Doderer-Winkler, Melanie (2013). Magnificent Entertainments: Temporary Architecture for Georgian Festivals. Yale University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-300-18642-0
  .
• Harvey, Robert (2001). A Few Bloody Noses. Little, Brown Book Group.
  ISBN 978-1-4721-0796-1
  .
• Mintz, Max M. (1990). The Generals of Saratoga: John Burgoyne and Horatio Gates. Yale University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-300-05261-9
  .
• Morgan, Edmund S. (1956). The Birth of the Republic 1763–1789.
• Nickerson, Hoffman (1967) [1928]. The Turning Point of the Revolution. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat.
  OCLC 549809
  .
• O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson (2013). The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. Yale University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-300-19107-3
  . pp 123–164.
• Stephens, Henry Morse (1886). "Burgoyne, John (1722–1792)" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 7. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 340–342.
• Stokesbury, James (1979). "Burgoyne, John". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. IV (1771–1800) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
• Thomson, Peter (2006). The Cambridge Introduction to English Theatre, 1660–1900. Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-521-83925-9
  .

Further reading

• Bahshian, Aram Jr. "General John Burgoyne" History Today (July 1972), Vol. 22 Issue 7, p. 470–480, online.
• Glover, Michael. General Burgoyne in Canada and America, Gordon & Cremonesi, 1976
• Huddleston, F.J. Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne, Misadventures of an English General in the Revolution, Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1927; Garden City Publishers
• Watt, Gavin K. The British Campaign of 1777, Volume Two – The Burgoyne Expedition: Burgoyne's Native and Loyalist Auxiliaries, Global Heritage Press, Milton, 2013

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Burgoyne.

• Burgoyne burial site at Westminster Abbey Archived 14 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
• Map from a London Newspaper 1778
• Works by John Burgoyne at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Burgoyne at Internet Archive
• Works by or about Gentleman Johnny at Internet Archive
• "The Best of Burgoyne", excerpts from Gen. Sir John Burgoyne's stage-plays

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by Sir John Peachey, Bt John Sargent	Member of Parliament for Midhurst 1761–1768 With: William Hamilton 1761–1765 Bamber Gascoyne 1765–1768	Succeeded by Lord Stavordale Hon. Charles James Fox
Preceded by Sir Peter Leicester, Bt Sir Frank Standish, Bt	Member of Parliament for Preston 1768–1792 With: Sir Henry Hoghton, Bt	Succeeded by Sir Henry Hoghton, Bt William Cunliffe Shawe
Military offices
Preceded by William Kingsley	Governor of Fort William 1769–1779	Succeeded by Hon. John Vaughan
Preceded by Sir John Irwin	Commander-in-Chief , Ireland 1782–1784	Succeeded by Sir William Augustus Pitt
Preceded by Studholme Hodgson	Colonel of the 4th (The King's Own) Regiment of Foot 1782–1792	Succeeded by George Morrison