The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

"July 14 [1776] set out from Crown Point..." Continental Army Lieutenant Benjamin Whitcomb wrote in his after-action report three weeks later, "... went seven miles that night."  After describing the challenges he faced traveling one hundred miles north from the Northern Army's position in New York into British controlled Canada, on July 20 he continued: "In the evening we came within about five miles of St. John's, heard the drum beat, etc.".  There, on the east bank of the Richelieu River, as two of the others traveling with him were "uneasy and not willing to go near St. John's, I told them to take a Frenchman and examine him and return home". [1.  Whitcomb's full report is in the footnotes, below.] The next day he and his remaining companion "...lay there all day in hopes of taking a prisoner, but none appeared."  On July 22, "... at day-break, we went down to the river side, staid there till the sun was half an...