Please join us for a Chambersburg Civil War Seminars & Tours Lecture Series! Our next lecture will be: The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution by Kevin Weddle. Cost is $6 per person. Zoom Login details will be sent with your email registration confirmation.

Synopsis

In the late summer and fall of 1777, after two years of indecisive fighting on both sides, the outcome of the American War of Independence hung in the balance. Having successfully expelled the Americans from Canada in 1776, the British were determined to end the rebellion and devised what they believed a war-winning strategy: sending General John Burgoyne south to rout the Americans and take Albany.

When British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga on New York’s Lake Champlain with unexpected ease in July of 1777, it looked as if it was a matter of time before they would break the rebellion in the North. Less than three and a half months later, however, a combination of the Continental Army and militia forces commanded by Major General Horatio Gates and inspired by the heroics of Benedict Arnold, forced Burgoyne to surrender his entire army. The American victory at Saratoga—described by one general as "the Compleat Victory"—stunned the world and changed the course of the war. In the end, British plans were undone by a combination of distance, geography, logistics, and an underestimation of American leadership and fighting ability.

Kevin J. Weddle, professor of military theory and strategy at the U.S. Army War College, will present a lecture based on his new book The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution, a volume in the Oxford University Press Pivotal Moments in American History series.

Biography

Kevin Weddle is Professor of Military Theory and Strategy and the Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies at the US Army War College. He is a graduate of West Point and served over 28 years as a combat engineer officer before retiring as a colonel. He served in a variety of command and staff positions in the United States and overseas including command of a combat engineer battalion and is a veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom.

Colonel Weddle holds master’s degrees in history and civil engineering from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University. In 2019, he served as the William L. Garwood Visiting Professor and James Madison Program visiting fellow at Princeton University.