The Saratoga Battles marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign and gave the Americans a decisive victory over the UK in the American Revolutionary War. British General John Burgoyne marched the Champlain Valley with a massive attacking army to the south, expecting to battle the same British invasion marching from New York City to the north, however with the lake Ontario marching east, the North and the West never came and the Burgoyne Upper New York and U.S. troops surrounded. He fought two minor fights that took place on the same ground, 18 days apart, 9 miles south of Saratoga , New York. The two were ineffective.