The entire British strategy in North America was like a Slobbovian daycare center. First, they appointed the brave-but-incompetent General Thomas Gage as CoC, North America. They replaced him with the highly-competent Gen. Wm. Howe, but never gave him sufficient forces to win complete victory. It must be noted that Howe won every battle he fought against the Americans; he just couldn't apply the knockout.
British Gen Burgoyne cooked up a fine plan to surround and crush the Continental Army, but Gen. Horatio Gates didn't follow script. His forces hammered at Burgoyne's men as they advanced southward along the Hudson River. Now, the British plan involved a column under Howe coming from the South toward Albany, NY, and a third column coming west to east under Gen. Barry St.Leger A thousand men under Benedict Arnold smashed & repelled St. Leger, removing his force from Burgoyne's plan. Howe became distracted, choosing to conquer and occupy Philadelphia, thus leaving the Americans free maneuvering space.
Burgoyne was unaware Howe wasn't coming, and thus he marched boldly South, into the teeth of Gates' army. At Bennington, Gates crushed a Hessian force seeking supplies for Burgoyne.
At the first battle of Saratoga, 9/19/1777,Burgoyne held the field ONLY because the Americans' ammo supply was low & they withdrew. But the British had been badly mauled, and their own supplies were low. They took refuge in a fortified camp on Saratoga heights, while more and more soldiers were arriving to reinforce Gates. As Gates prepared to storm the British position, Burgoyne was informed he had only 6K men against the Americans' fully-supplied 20 K. Therefore Burgoyne wisely surrendered. This was a HUGE fillip to the downtrodden Patriots, brought about by the incompetence of St.Leger & the "independence" of Howe who wanted another feather in his cap while letting Burgoyne fend for himself. Howe knew nothing of Burgoyne's troubles till several days after Burgoyne's surrender.
BTW, Burgoyne had had a lustrous military record in Europe, and he laid the blame for his defeat on Howe, who decided to sail for England to save his reputation. This left the incompetent General Clinton in charge.
It was Clinton's lethargy, incompetence, and dislike of Cornwallis that led to Yorktown. Corny had perforemed well until he tried to subdue the South with an inadequate force. Clinton ordered him to select and occupy a coastal town to serve as a resupply base, promising to not only resupply him but reinforce him from New York. Corny selected Yorktown, and when Washington found out, he conceived a plan to trap the British, with the help of Lafayette and the French navy. You know what happened!
What became of the British generals involved? The best of the lot, Howe, returned to England to resume his seat in Parliament. He had always been an advocate of dealing with the colonists, and now his views had a much-larger audience. He continued to garner honors until his death in 1814. Clinton sailed home in disgrace, but finally cleared his name enough to be appointed Governor of Gibraltar in 1794. He died late in 1795. Cornwallis managed to clear his name, placing much of the blame for his having to surrender on Clinton; he was appointed Governor-general of India in 1786, serving with great distinction. After serving a brief stint in Ireland to quell rebel forces, he returned to India in 1805, but died soon after he arrived. He was so highly-respected by the Indians that its govt. maintains his grave to this day. Burgoyne worked to clear his name from his surrender at Saratoga. He fought this fight for 12 years, finally partially succeeding, then retiring from public life. Many of his descendants have served England with distinction as soldiers, poets, and authors.
One other British soldier deserves mention...BANASTRE TARLETON. He was called "The Butcher" for his alleged killing of men trying to surrender at Waxhaws. The TRUTH is that SOME men appeared to surrender; the British bypassed them & continued to attack those still fighting, and soon after, most of those who'd surrendered began to fight again & Tarleton ordered his troops to quickly kill all of them. However, the "butcher" rep came back to haunt tarleton at Cowpens. Here, he was out-commanded by the fearsome Daniel Morgan, whose men kept on killing the beaten British, yelling "Tarleton's Quarter!" tarleton was put in command of another forse, but fought in no more major battles. He surrendered when Cornwallis did. Upon return to England, he was acclaimed as a hero, serving several terms in parliament, dying in 1833. Truth is, he was no more a "butcher" than several other British-and American-commanders.
The American revolt against England was roughly equivalent to having Hawaii revolt against the other 49 states. But GOD WAS ON THE PATRIOTS' SIDE, and we'd better not forget it, as God could have Monaco or Andorra defeat us if He so chose!
Didn't say it was factual.....This is hollywood we are dealing with.