The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

People across Massachusetts were well aware of the 1777 march of the Convention Army from Saratoga to Cambridge.  Brunswick dragoon company surgeon Julius Friedrich Wasmus, who had been captured at the the Battle of Bennington in August, and was being held in Brimfield, Massachusetts, was among those who heard they were coming.  Two days after the surrender at Saratoga he wrote in his journal:  “[October] 19th  Tonight, we received the sad news that our army has been captured at Saratoga.  Therefore, they made a feu de joie with cannon in Springfield.”   Ten days later he would note:  “[October] 29th  News comes from everywhere that our army is expected in Springfield” [1]  Springfield, Massachusetts, was one of the oldest and largest towns that the Convention Army would pass through.  Europeans first settled in Springfield in 1636, when it was still part of Connecticut.  A plaque to the right of the door of the  Student Pri...

There was no bridge across the Connecticut River at  West Springfield, Massachusetts , in 1777.  This meant that the men, women, children, horses and baggage wagons which made up the German element of the Convention Army, and their guards, would all cross by ferry, as  the   British column was doing at Northampton .  Such a crossing required organization as well as resources.   German accounts provide us some insight on how they accomplished the task, starting on October 29, 1777.      The Germans began the process by issuing orders prior to crossing directing all unit commanders to ensure that  "Necessary watch for each regiment, and necessary helmsmen were [assigned] so that in the morning nothing will interfere with the crossing." [1]   Some of the guards escorting the Germans were the first to cross, as was the case with the British column.  Private Joshua Pillsbury of the Massachusetts militia wou...

The prisoners of the Convention Army traveled through a region most had likely heard about, but never seen.  Their march from the Saratoga battlefield in the fall of 1777 took them through Hudson Valley villages settled by Dutch and German farmers, isolated hamlets in the Berkshires which had sprung up beyond prosperous English settlements along the Connecticut River, and the towns of Worcester and Middlesex Counties which marked a century and a half of expansion from the settlement of Boston in 1630; all land occupied by a Native population for countless generations before the arrival of Europeans.   What did they see?  Most obvious was the terrain: two major rivers and two mountain ranges before reaching the hills of central Massachusetts, and then their barracks overlooking Boston Harbor.   A painting in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum, " Looking East From Denny Hill"  seen in an image © Worcester Art Museum , offers a glim...

Last week I shared that tracking the 1777 journey of Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne from Saratoga to Cambridge was a challenge.  Several primary sources document he stayed in Albany at Major-General Philip Schuyler's home until October 27th, and arrived in Cambridge on November 7th.  Less clear was where he stopped in between, though multiple locations lay claim to the statement "Burgoyne slept here" - some relatively easy to challenge, others not so much so. Travelers during the Revolutionary War going from Albany to Boston (or Boston to Albany) generally followed one of two major routes that correspond to the routes taken by the British and German columns.  A traveler leaving Albany could head south towards Kinderhook, then east through Great Barrington to Springfield, and on to Boston (or Cambridge for our purposes) along the Western Post Road.  Alternatively, a traveler could head east from Albany to Pittsfield or Williamstown, then through the Berkshires to c...