The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

There is no question that the British element of the Convention Army stopped in Northampton, Massachusetts, in October of 1777.  Lieutenant Israel Bartlett , one of their assigned guards from the Massachusetts Militia, recorded in his diary: "[October] 27 Monday.  We marched to Northampton today, 18 miles, through the rain & mud, very fatiguing.  Arrived at 2 O'Clock..." [1]  Militia Private David How noted the same: "This Day Its ben Very wet and rainy And we march'd to North Hampton And Staid at Night thare."  [2]   The column rested a day in Northampton before crossing the Connecticut River.  Bartlett and How writing respectively:  "[October] 28 Tuesday.  We rested at Hampton [Northampton] all day on account of a very severe storm of rain and snow." and "[October] 28 This Day It has Ben Very Stormy both Hail & Snow and we Staid Hear all Day and Night." [3] British prisoners noted likewise.  Lieutenant (Lord) Francis Nap...

News of British Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne's surrender to Major-General Horatio Gates at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777,  spread quickly .  Patriotic citizens of the young United States of America were jubilant, and celebrated in a number of ways.   Those present at the surrender noted their feelings in their journals and diaries, and the letters they sent home.  For Doctor Samuel Merrick of Massachusetts, who had seen firsthand the suffering of the troops who retreated south from Canada in 1776, it was "A day never to be forgotten by the American States. ... The Lord be praised for this wonderful token of divine favor for which we cannot be sufficiently thankfull." [1]  Colonel Ralph Cross of the Massachusetts Militia described what he saw as "... a Grand Sight as ever was Beheld by Eye of man in America."  [2]  In the habit of the times, men gathered in local taverns to toast the victory, and local newspapers reported those...

Tuesday, October 17th, is the 246th anniversary of the British surrender at Saratoga.  On that day in 1777, Major-General Horatio Gates, commander of the Northern Army of the United States, ordered his soldiers to be prepared.   “The regiment of riflemen under the command of Colonel Morgan and the company of Light Infantry under the command of Major Dearborn to be ready when ordered to take possession of the enemy’s lines, posts, and redoubts. The commanding officers of those troops are to be particularly attentive to the soldierlike and good behavior of their men. The enemies of the United States have propagated an opinion among the British and German troops that the Americans are barbarians who pay no regard to the faith of treaties, and whose sole view is rapine and plunder. From the preceding glorious behavior of the army, the General is convinced that not an officer or soldier under his command will suffer the smallest infringement of the convention. Their general ha...

On October 22, 1777,  "... after plodding fifteen miles..." from Greenbush , the German column of the Convention Army reached the town of Kinderhook, New York. [ 1]  The name, meaning "children's corner" in Dutch, may have been given to the area in the early 1600's by Dutch explorers who saw Native children on a river bluff watch them sail past - or maybe by Dutch traders, as a Swedish settler with numerous children lived there.  What makes up the town today is set on the Kinderhook Creek, seven miles northwest of the Hudson River, and twenty miles southeast of Albany, though the town's boundaries initially extended all the way to the river.   Kinderhook's first European residents were Dutch and Swedish settlers who arrived around 1650. [2]  The Dutch exploration and settlement of the Hudson River valley was more apparent to the Convention Army, in towns as far north as Stillwater, New York , and as east as Pownal, Vermont , than it is to many of us ...

October 21, 1777, was the second full day of marching for the German column of the Convention Army.  Once again, Massachusetts Militiaman Joshua Pillsbury noted just the basics in his account:  "Tusday Greenbush 15 [miles]" .  Brunswicker Grenadier Johann Bense noted a bit, but not much more:  "14 Miles out of New City in the woods" . [1]  Greenbush, New York, just across the Hudson River from Albany, was first occupied by Europeans 150 years earlier.  Dutch settlers began farming in the area in 1628 according to  Greenbush Historical Society .  The Greenbush of 1777 covered a large area, which was broken up in 1855 into North Greenbush, East Greenbush and the City of Rensselaer.  Today, the state of New York operates the  Crailo State Historic Site  to tell the story the occupation of the region by Dutch farmers.    Crailo  is named after the Van Rensselaer estate in the Netherlands, variously spelled Crayloo or Cral...