The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

On December 31, 1777, British forces controlled Canada, continued to occupy New York City, and Newport, Rhode Island, and had recently taken the capitol of the new United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  They had not brought the rebellion in the thirteen colonies to an end, or taken Albany, New York.  Instead, Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne and over 4,000 of his British and German troops who had set out from Canada that summer were now prisoners in Massachusetts - the "Convention Army", following their surrender at Saratoga on October 17, 1777.   News of what one American officer would refer to as  " the greatest conquest ever known ",  spread quickly in Patriot circles (though not directly from  General Horatio Gates to General George Washington  - seen together on the cover of a 1778 Boston almanac as "The Glorious WASHINGTON and GATES" ).  News of what Burgoyne would come to call " the disaster at Saratoga "  appears to have tra...

Was Christmas celebrated in Revolutionary War era North America?  The Convention Army spent December 25, 1777, as prisoners  in Cambridge and Charlestown , Massachusetts.  Life in the barracks on Winter Hill and Prospect Hill was challenging for those who had surrendered at Saratoga, and any of their family members living with them.  British Sergeant Roger Lamb, of the 9th Regiment of Foot ,  recalled of their time there:  "It was not infrequent for thirty, or forty persons, men, women and children, to be indiscriminately crowded together in on small, miserable, open hut, their provisions and fire-wood on short allowance, and a scanty portion of straw their bed, their own blankets their only covering..." [1]   If the Convention Army celebrated Christmas of 1777 in any way, I haven't found it in what I've read to date.   Christmas Day 1777 fell on a Thursday.  Reverend Ezra Stiles, who left Newport, Rhode Island, after it was o...

The German column of the Convention Army marched seventeen miles on October 24, 1777, then stopped for the night near  "... a miserable village."   It would be their last night in New York (in 1777 at least), or perhaps their first night in Massachusetts.  Their march  "on hilly and stony roads"  had taken them well into the Taconic Mountains, and to  "... Nobletown, a village undeserving of its beautiful name."  [1]  Their stay was not pleasant, as:  "... we had to sleep in the open air for want of houses; we got so covered with frost during the night that we looked like great sugar dolls."  [2]   The Germans were not the first or the last Revolutionary War travelers to stop in the village.  Impressions were mixed.   Several months earlier Lieutenant Samuel Armstrong of the 8th Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Line had passed through.  On July 21st he noted that he: "... march'd 8 miles to Kenyon's...

This year will be the 250th Anniversary of an incident in Boston that has become known as the " Boston Tea Party ".  There, on the night of December 16, 1773, a band of protestors boarded three ships carrying tea, unloaded and smashed the chests it was packed in, and threw 92,000 pounds of it into the harbor to protest the tax imposed to raise money for Britain and support the British East India Company.  In response, the British government shut down the port of Boston and passed other measures that would lead to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War on April 19, 1775. Three months later, on March 28, 1774, a lesser known incident referred to by some as the  "Weston Tea Party"  occurred at the inn of Isaac Jones in Weston, Massachusetts.  Jones was considered a Tory by many of his neighbors, as he remained loyal to Britain.  In addition, he allegedly had continued to sell tea despite the strong opposition to doing so across Massachusetts and being warn...

After leaving Kinderhook  and passing through Claverack  on October 24th, one  German account of the march noted:  "We continued the march through Spencertown, a village not very much built up, whose houses are widely separated from each other. It is inhabited by Northern Germans but is the last place having all German inhabitants.  We went on hilly and stony roads today and after 17 Engl. miles we reached Nobletown..."   [1]  A second account likewise notes a seventeen mile march from Kinderhook through Claverack to Nobletown, but is silent as to how they got there. [2]   Massachusetts militiaman Joshua Pillsbury, a guard with the column, recorded that he marched of twenty-two miles on the 24th, and stopped in "Egremont N.E. [New England?] Massac[husetts]" , just west of Great Barrington. [3]  Brunswicker Grenadier Johann Bense, marching and stopping where he was told no doubt, simply noted that on the night of the 24th he stayed "...