The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

On November 16, 1775, General George Washington instructed twenty-five year old Henry Knox, a bookseller from Boston, to travel to New York. [1]  He was tasked to bring back artillery, ammunition and gun flints for the Continental Army, which surrounded British occupied Boston.  Knox's mission took him to Fort Ticonderoga.  There he obtained the guns he needed and started his journey back by way of Lake George. On December 17, 1775, Knox wrote to Washington from Fort George, at the south end of the lake:  "... the rout will be from here to  Kinderhook , from thence into  Great Barrington , Massachusetts Bay & down to  Springfield ..." . [2]  In late December Knox traveled from Saratoga to Albany , and then on across Massachusetts in January of 1776.  He and his men followed much of the same route British Lieutenant General John Burgoyne would take after his surrender at Saratoga in 1777, and the  German column  of the Conv...

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, most 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 occ...