Thread by @pptsapper

Well that's just unfuckingceptable

We should probably do something to change that, huh

So the year was 1777. Envision it in your minds eye. Yeah. You see it now. I can feel that you do. Its super 18th century. So here's the sitch

Ya got Gentleman "goddam do I love my champagne" Jonny Burgoyne up Lake Champlain with some good ideas. The best ideas. He has them

Now Jonny, he loves his champers. But even more, he loves his idea of heading down Lake Champlain and seizing Albany while a force under general Clinton - chill out, GOPers, there was a general Clinton for each side - cruises on up the Hudson from NYC to split shit in TWAIN

yes

Jonny sends his idea off to London

They're like "cool, Lord Howe can coordinate this from NYC" but as it happens, Lord Howe is OBSIZZLED with catching GWarshington who is playing hide and go seek with him in NJ and then running off into PA, unsporting like and all that, eh

All that Johnny Burgoyne knows is that London said "yes" to a plan he had so he's all Leeeeeroyyyyy Jeeeenkins down Lake Champlain into New York and Vermont

Now. We gots the Patriots sitting pretty in Fort Ticonderoga

But they is a problem

And his name is Arthur St claire

Arty St Claire, he's a cautious duder. Super cautious, and he doesn't super duper listen TO HIS ENGINEER who is the Polish fuckin genius Tadeusz Kosciusko (sic) who is like "yo, brah, why no cannons on that hill over Fort TI" & St Clair is like "bitch please I'm smort"

Wellllllll not reallt all that smort because "where a goat goes a man can go and where a man can fo he can haul a gun" look gintleman Jonny had a nice turn of phrase, not my fault. So, yup, Brits put artillery on Mount Defiance overlooking Fort Ti and St Clair is like "aw shittt"

He holds a council of war and the general agreement is that St Clair got skunked and so erryone runs across the bridge to Mount Independence and then runs further from there

basicallt erryone pulls a Sir Robin and runs and runs and runs away

Well. Not quite

Burgoyne sends off his German mercs in pursuit. These are some cool dudes. German af. Super Hessian. Really, they just wanna fight and drink and when they can't do that, they get cranky

this is called foreshadowing

anyways.

The Brits and Germans get all mixed up with some Vermont militia at Hubbardton which is basically just a hill where there's a rear guard action and sure, it looks like an Imperial victory, except the patriot forces get away and ohhhh boy that isn't gonna play out well

The northern army - which is waht that the patriot army is called or something - toddles off across the Hudson, with gintleman Jonny in pursuit. Ok, so. Key points. You paying attention? You'd better be. There's a test later.

There is a cat on my lap and I need more gin

Welp

Ok, we will PUSH THRU this time of crisis. Key. Points.
1. Burgoyne didn't travel light. Oh no. Not at all. He brought enough champers to sustain himself from July to November, 1777. THAT IS A LOTTA BUBBLY

2. Johnny also liked boom boom. Yes, that's a goddam double entendre

He liked artillery. He brought a lot. Including honkin great 24 pounders which belonged in forts or on big ol first rate ships, but nooooo Johny has poor animals hauling these things down NY roads*

Also, Jonny liked to boom boom, himself, with whoever he could

*lol "roads"

3. Tadeusz Kościuszko don't give two fucks if he's in a demoralized retreating army of about 3000 men, pursued by a British army of 5,000. He gonna countermobility all the damn day long. He's felling trees, burning bridges, creating abatis, engineering his beautiful heart out

Ok, those are the salient points. ALSO there's a shakeup in leadership in the Continental Northern Army. Phil Schuyler, local boy, welll, he's sorta pushed aside, as well as being wicked sick. Enter Horatio "look at me" Gates. Ex-Brit Army, he looooves himself. Reallyt does

Horatio, he's kinda freaking out and asking literally anyone and everyone for help. Some of the who's who of the War of Indy show up. Ya got Dan Morgan and his riflemen, the SF of the RevWar. Benny Arnold, the charismatic combat leader. He's there too. Dramatic af.

In August, Burgoyne sends off some of his Germans to Bennington to get some horses for his horseless dragoons but they run into John "Fuck yo couch" Stark who does what he did at Bunker Hill and stacks bodies, so now Burgoyne has less troops and no horses & is like "hrm"

By September, Burgoyne is going through the NY woods and, like anyone who's been down I-90, bein like "when the fuck does this fucking state ever fuckin end"

He gets wind that the American's are ahead, dug in around this sweet sweet high ground on Bemis heights & is like 'cool'

Jonny gets all excited but then stays up drinking & playin cards with his chief of artillery, like he does EVERY NIGHT and then is cranky and hungover and orders the light infantry off to scout shit out

I'm not even kidding, archaeological digs have found his empties

On Sep 19, hungover Burgoyne orders his army to advance but they keep getting hung up on downed trees and burnt bridges because Tadeusz Kościuszko, who is MY BOY. CMOB for dayyyyyssss. Anyways. The light columns push through and reach this nice spot on Freeman's Farm

REFILL TYME

ok, so. something ya gotta understand. Benny arnold and Horatio Gates are not totes friendly right now. Arnold has a massssssssive ego and Gates has failed to stroke it. So the two are kinda...pissy. PLUS Arnold wants to attack everying n Gates wants to defend everything

Arnie convinces Hory to let him send out Morgan's riflemen and Dearborn's light infantry to see wtf is going DOWN out there

pardon moi, I got the munchies. Snacks r vital to campaigning, as we'll see later on

Morgan runs right into the Brit light infantry & shoots them to shit

The Brits fall back and then get reinforced as Morgan is attacking, and Dan suddenly realizes he's attacking the whole slamdamn British Army & everyone scatters

Then the New Hampshire 1st & 3rd arrive and it turns into something worse than the NH primaries: full on line battle

The NH regts push across the field only to be checked by the Brits and pushed back themselves. Then they rally and charge on out and give the doggone bayonet to the elite of the British army who RUN THE HELL AWAYYYYY

Meanwhile Morgan's men are picking off every ossifer they see

Burgoyne is all "why is there so much noise, my head. Also, someone go kill them all" while Gates is worried that Burgoyne is in everrydam tree, and is about to encircle him. Arnold is sorta pulling his hair out and pushing troops into action like a cray person

Freeman's Farm lasts all day with both sides volleying it out in good ol European fashion while Morgan's rifles kill a crazy percentage of British officers

Nightfall leaves the field in Brit hands and Burgoyne claims a victory -- while losing twice the number of the Continentals

Like, here's the shit about Freeman's Farm. Two NH regiments fought it out toe to toe with some of the ebst regulars of the British Army and fuckin knocked them alllllll up

Both sides fed in reinforcements but the Mericans kept fighting in line of battle

like professionals

Like, that;s a major problem for Gentleman Jonny and he writes back to London that he had a nice day, drank plenty of champers, beat the Americans, and can Genl Clinton please hurry the fuck up because the NY woods are large and lonely & most of his native allies have bounced

From here, Burgoyne digs the fuck in. He ain't an idiot. He's losing troops as the Americans keep gaining more and more reinforcements. So that's a big ol shitty problem that he can't just drink away, altho he tries.

Meanwhile, Gates keeps getting more and more troops and doubles the rum ration, which causes LOTS OF DRUNK PATROLS some of which are actually pretty successful in getting Brit prisoners but stil VERY DRUNK so Gates curtails the rum which is just

Now, the Aemricans are patrolling like a mothafucka, gathering intel, prisoners, doing all that stuff that will get those post-war bookdeals: "my lyfe in the warre: a Patriot's Storie of that time my foot fell offe because of Frostbyte, And the Bloody Flux Plaugued My Behind"

What this does, tho, is keeps Johnny in his fortified camp. He has no idea how many rip-roaring continentals are out there so he drinks enough champagne to believe that ATTACKING a force of 12,000 Americans is a good idea

Hey, we all have bad days, right?

Oh, and in this time, Gates and Arnold have gone knives out for each other. Arnold has litterally had a hissy fit in Gates' tent, which the WHOLE ARMY heard, and Gates gave him leave to leave camp but Arnold is sticking around in his tent because pettiness, thy name is Benedict

So on October 7, Burgoyne attacks, all cheerful and shit, and then gets his advance force plowed under by just masses of crazy-ass attacking Americans who basically decomate the grenadiers and take most of his artillery

right bout now is when Burgoyne is like

General Fraser, a well respected Brit officer in charge of the advance guard, gets shot off his horse and that's around the time that the British begin running

Burgoyne hisself is nearly shot off his horse and is all

The American attack is far from pretty

It's actually pretty ugly

lots of swarms of unorganized dudes running into things

but it does the trick, and forces the British wayyyy back into their defenses

the attack stalls

Enter: Benedict Arnold

But wait, you say, wasn;t that mofo moping in his tent?

He was. Then he grabbed his horse, drank a ladle of rum - YES, A FORM OF RUM MEASUREMENT - and charged to the front lines, in command of zero troops, with no authority

and ran right into the gorram German lines

So everyone was like "uh, guess we follow that crazy fucker?" and the CT militia was like "HEY, THAT'S OUR CRAZY FUCKER" and erryone shrugged and charged into Breyman's Redoubt and seized it and were like "holy shit, we just did that" and then it got dark and everyone stopped

In all this, Arnie gets shot in the leg which is a wicked bummer because if he dies here, ain't no hero greater than he is

but he doesn't and we all know how THAT goes

So that night it starts raining and Jonny decides to beat feet back to Saratoga & warm buildings

Buuuuut there's literally Americans swarming in from errywhere and Gentleman Jonny runs out of champagne, loses his artillery, is deserted by the women he likes, aaaaaand suddenly realizes he just got his ass handed to him

And surrenders his whole damn army

this is a BIG FUCKIN DEAL. Like, a whole Brit army surrendering? But it totally happened. And France was looking & went 'oh shit, son, these kids can FIGHT' & gave us the assistance we needed to win the damn war

Gates of course takes credit & gets promoted & fucks it all up

Burgoyne is gonna go on to have a nice cush life in British bureacuracy and if it weren't for Saratoga, would probs be best known for his plays

yeh

dude were a playwright

natch

Lord Howe went running off after GW into Philadelphia, realized it was inhabited by Philadelphians, and realized that

So, uh, yeh. That's how it went down. Absolutely. The birth of independence. Thanks, France. For the champagne that kept Burgoyne hungover and then for the loans and the arms and the troops and the ships...sorry about that quasi war n stuff. Y'all cool

Saratoga. #drunjhistory

oh. also . This is brought to you by @AviationGin, unbeknownst to them, which @VancityReynolds should totalyl get on board with because...of some reason. Probably having to do with gin. And George Washingtron. And AMERICA dammit.

@AviationGin @VancityReynolds uhhhh oh crap I've gotta be up in the morning for a tux fitting for a wedding

why did i do this to myself

Did I just channel John Burgoyne?

TOO MUCH HISTORY