High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Saratoga Campaign was an attempt by Great Britain to gain military control of the strategically important Hudson River valley in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War. The primary thrust of the campaign was made by an army of 8,000 men under the command of John Burgoyne from Quebec that moved up Lake Champlain and down the Hudson to Saratoga, New York, where the bulk of the army was forced to surrender after the climactic Battles of Saratoga in September and October.