The March Begins: "We Had To Bivouac In Meadows Assigned To Us"
The area east of the Hudson River, across from Stillwater, New York, bustled with activity on October 19, 1777. Over 4,000 British and German soldiers, some with their wives and children, had crossed the river starting the day before. Their campaign to end the rebellion of Great Britain's American colonies was over. What would be years in captivity for most had just begun. Major-General Horatio Gates summarized the situation, writing: "... they are now upon their march towards Boston; General Glover, and General Whipple, with a proper Guard of Militia, escort them; and are to provide all such necessary Articles, as may be wanted upon the march….” [1]
Private David How was one of those militia guards. His diary shows little progress for the first few days of the march. The British having crossed on the 18th, he wrote, "This Day [the 19th] we have been fixing For a march and at noon we Set out with the prisoners for to Guard them to Boston and at Night we all Stopt And Encamped Tulls Mills." [2] Lieutenant (Lord) Francis Napier with the British 31st Regiment of Foot noted in the same in his journal: "18th. Crossed Hudsons River at Stillwater. 19th. Marched to [blank] Mills." Though neither notes how far they traveled, it's likely Napier too was at Tulls Mills, a place that many others passed through during the Revolution, only a few miles from Stillwater on the banks of the Hoosic River. [3]
Joshua Pillsbury (or Pilsbury), a clerk with Colonel Jonathan Reed's 6th Middlesex Regiment of the Massachusetts Militia, guarded German troops. "Lordsday", Sunday, October 19, 1777, he wrote, "... our Rigement being ordered as a Guard to the Hushens [Hessians - most Brunswickers actually] from thence to Winterhill accordingly we took charge of them marched to Scaticook 2 [miles]." Those he guarded noted a short march as well. "Across the Hudson and made a path halfway." wrote German Grenadier Johann Bense in his diary for October 19th, though not halfway to where. A German officer recalled "The 19th we crossed the Hudson in a few boats, and as evening was approaching could not get further than Shetekok... We had to bivouac in meadows assigned to us." [4]
It was not "Scaticook" or "Shetekok", but rather the village of Schaghticoke, New York, where they stopped. "This place is a community with quite an attractive church and some well built houses..." noted a German officer. "It got its name from a little river which the [Native People] had named Schaghticoke." [5] Schaghticoke, pronounced "sha-tuh-kuk", at least according to Google, is located on the banks of the Hoosic River, a few miles upstream from where it joins the Hudson River at Stillwater. In 1777 it appears the meeting house and most of the homes were located south of the Hoosic according to a map in the Library of Congress published in 1777 pictured above.
A German officer noted that most all of the inhabitants were Dutch, who he described as "... rich but also highly interested in their own profit. It was here that they started stealing our horses under the pretext that these had previously been stolen from their rightful owners and then sold to our army." [7]
Separate from all this, the Continental regiments of the Northern Army had moved south immediately after the surrender. Sergeant Ebenezer Wild of the First Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Line noted "We marched the biggest part of the night [of October 18th], in order to prevent the enemys coming up to Albany. It has been very warm all day..." [8] Warm weather was a blessing for captured troops camping in meadows without tents, as for the Germans at least, when they left Saratoga, “... the tents of the musketeers remained standing and lying in place...". Unfortunately, the mild weather and short marches would not last. [9]
One source presents a challenge in terms of the crossing. The journal of an officer of the British 47th Regiment of Foot lists overnight stops at Freeman's Farm on October 17th, Stillwater on the 18th, and Saint Croix (present-day North Hoosick) on the 20th. The entry for October 19th is difficult to read, for me at least. Could it be another phonetic spelling of Schaghticoke? Wherever it was, the distance traveled on October 19th is listed as seventeen miles, versus Pillsbury's two miles from Stillwater to Schaghticoke with the German column. The following day it was six miles to reach Saint Croix. [10] If this group did travel seventeen miles to its stopping point on the 19th, some of Burgoyne's army may have crossed the Hudson elsewhere than Stillwater, or perhaps the anonymous author simply had the distance wrong.
The Knickerbocker Mansion, in Schaghticoke, built around 1780 and restored by the Knickerbocker Historical Society, is perhaps an example of a "well built" house of a prosperous Dutch farmer noted by the Germans. Located south of the Hoosic River, a couple of miles west of the town, at present-day 132 Knickerbocker Road, it was closed on my most recent trip, but looks like an interesting place to visit.
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