The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

This week's celebration of the anniversary of the United States declaring it's independence seems as good a time as any to share a story about the writing of the song "Yankee Doodle", and its connections to the  surrender at Saratoga  on October 17, 1777, and the 1777 march of the Convention Army.   There are a number of claims that the song was played by victorious American musicians when the army of Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga.  One comes from a footnote in a collection of accounts of visits to the battlefield by William L. Stone which reads: "The piling of the arms was, it is true, done amid profound silence and without any attempt to humiliate the British.  The instant, however that the march southward began, the American bands struck up "Yankee Doodle".  ... This song had been set to music by a facetious English surgeon at Lake George during the French war..." [1]  Stone’s earlier work,  Ballads and Poems Re...

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...