on half-pay. Buller never recovered from the scandal,
and he retired to his home in Devon, where he died on
2 June 1908 at the age of 68.
Sir Redvers Buller is the subject of much argument
in the history of the British military. Many historians
consider him a good staff officer who was a poor tacti-
cian; others write glowingly of his overall career. Win-
ston Churchill described him as “a characteristic British
personality. He looked stolid. He said little, and what he
said was obscure. He was not the kind of man who could
explain things, and he never tried to do so. He usually
grunted, or nodded, or shook his head, in serious dis-
cussions; and shop of all kinds was sedulously excluded
from his ordinary conversation.”
References: Buller, Sir Redvers Henry, The Life and Cam-
paigns of Sir Redvers H. Buller, V.C. (London: George
Newnes Limited, 1900); Bruce, George, “Colenso” and
“Tamai,” in Collins Dictionary of Wars (Glasgow, Scotland:
HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 61, 242; Powell, Geof-
frey, Buller—A Scapegoat?: A Life of General Sir Redvers
Buller, 1839–1908 (London: Leo Cooper, 1994); Regan,
Geoffrey, “Sir Reverse Buller,” in Geoffrey Regan’s Book
of Military Blunders (London: André Deutsch, 2001),
26–29.
Burgoyne, John (1722–1792) British general
John Burgoyne was born in London in 1722, the son
of Captain John Burgoyne, a British military officer.
Educated at Westminster School, he was a close friend
of the son of the 11th earl of Derby. In 1740, at age
18, Burgoyne joined the British army by purchasing a
cornet’s commission in the 13th Dragoons. He married
Lord Derby’s daughter in 1743, but was forced to move
to France to avoid paying a number of debts he owed.
In 1756, through his father-in-law’s influence, Bur-
goyne returned to England, where he rejoined the army.
He saw action during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63)
as a member of first the 11th Dragoons and later the
Coldstream Guards, after which he returned to England
and was elected to a seat in Parliament representing first,
Midhurst (1761) and then, seven years later, Preston
(1768). In 1773, he called for an investigation into the
finances of the British East India Company.
Although Burgoyne is best known as a military of-
ficer, it was during this period that he became a writer,
penning a series of plays, including The Maid of the Oaks
(1775), which was produced for the English stage by
famed stage actor and manager David Garrick. He rose
to the rank of major general, and in 1775 he was sent to
North America to aid General Thomas Gage in putting
down the revolt in the English colonies. Landing at Bos-
ton in May 1775, he was informed of the skirmishes at
Lexington and Concord that sparked what became the
American Revolutionary War. Burgoyne slowly became
disgusted with the attitude of the British authorities
in prosecuting the war. He returned home to England
after the Battle of Bunker Hill (17 June 1775), which,
though a British victory, saw 1,054 British soldiers killed
or wounded, with very few American losses.
In 1776, Burgoyne was sent back to North Amer-
ica, this time to fight in Canada under Sir Guy Carleton,
the commander in chief of British forces in Canada. Set-
ting out for Lake Champlain, they seized Crown Point
and laid siege to Fort Ticonderoga. Once again, how-
ever, Burgoyne was irritated by what he felt were several
errors on Carleton’s part, and once again he departed his
command and returned to England. This time, Prime
Minister Frederick North, Lord North, heard his con-
cerns and asked that Burgoyne draw up a battle plan.
The proposed scheme laid out a march of the 12,000
men under Carleton’s command to the south to join Sir
William Howe near New York. Impressed, Lord North
sent Burgoyne back to Canada, this time as commander
in chief.
In June 1777, Burgoyne led some 7,000 men
south, once again taking Crown Point and, on 6 July
1777, retaking Fort Ticonderoga. However, the key to
his plan was the meeting with the forces under Sir Wil-
liam Howe. When Howe did not send reinforcements,
and another army under Colonel Barry St. Leger was
defeated by the colonists, Burgoyne was trapped without
supplies and support. On 24 September, he attempted
to break through the American lines at Bemis Heights
with only 5,000 men to the Americans’ 20,000. The
attack failed, and Burgoyne was forced to retreat and
then, facing reality, to surrender. His capitulation was
accepted by General Horatio gates at Saratoga on 17
October 1777. Historians Martin Windrow and Francis
K. Mason write: “He was by no means the worst of Brit-
ain’s commanders in the War of American Independence
and his famous capitulation at Saratoga was neither pre-
mature nor avoidable.”
Nevertheless, this was the end of Burgoyne’s mili-
tary career. Chastened by his defeat, he returned to En- buRgoyne, John