Barry St Leger

Barry St Leger commanded the western prong of the 1777 British campaign that ended at Saratoga, and his failure at Fort Stanwix is a large part of why Burgoyne's army was surrounded. The plan was for three forces to converge on Albany: Burgoyne south from Canada, Howe north from New York, and St Leger east down the Mohawk valley with regulars, loyalists and a large Iroquois contingent under Joseph Brant. He besieged Fort Stanwix in August with about 1,500 men. A relief column of Tryon County militia was ambushed at Oriskany in one of the bloodiest actions of the war, fought largely between neighbours and between Iroquois on both sides, which broke the Six Nations' long neutrality and their confederacy with it. While that was happening the fort's garrison raided the besiegers' camp. The siege then collapsed on a rumour: Benedict Arnold sent a released prisoner ahead to report an enormous relieving force, the Native contingent left, and St Leger withdrew to Oswego, abandoning his tents and guns. Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga two months later, France entered the war, and St Leger served on quietly in Canada. He is not the officer the horse race is named after, who was his brother. The Six Nations had held together as a confederacy for perhaps three centuries and did not survive Oriskany, where Mohawk and Seneca fought Oneida and Tuscarora; the council fire at Onondaga was covered in 1777 and the confederacy split permanently between Canada and New York. That is the largest consequence of a campaign usually described as a sideshow. He was promoted brigadier and died in Quebec.

• Lived: 1733 CE – 1789 CE
• Nationality: British
• Roles: military_leader