The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

Major General Horatio Gates victory at the Battle of Bemis Heights, and the British surrender at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777, together resulted in the capture and surrender of thirty-five pieces of artillery .  These guns, cannons and howitzers, were likely sent south to Albany initially, to be used in the fight to secure American independence.  [1 ]    It wasn't the first time captured British artillery moved south through Saratoga, and on to Albany.  In late December of 1775, newly commissioned artillery officer Colonel Henry Knox had passed through, on his way to Cambridge, Massachusetts, followed soon after by teamsters hauling thirty-nine cannon, fourteen mortars, and two howitzers.  These artillery pieces, along with a barrel of gun flints and over a ton of lead, all taken at Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point in the first few weeks of the war, were bound for the Continental Army under General George Washington, which surrounded British occu...