Saratoga 1777: New Ways to Tell the Story of a Turning Point

Saratoga County lies just north of Albany, New York. Its name is a distortion of a Haudenosaunee name that may mean "the hillside country of the quiet river." Between Lake George and the Hudson River, its fairly open country linked two of the most important transport routes of the 1700s — waterways that let troops and supplies move quickly by boat — and during the Revolutionary War it became a vital crossroads.

The campaign

That advantage was a main reason the British planned, in 1777, for three armies to converge on Albany and Saratoga from different directions. On paper, the plan would cut New England off from the other rebellious colonies and let British forces move quickly between Montreal and New York City. It was never carried out.

For more than a month in the fall of 1777, the northern British army under John Burgoyne met stiff American resistance across Saratoga County, fighting major battles at Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights that left it dangerously short of men and supplies. Instead of retreating, Burgoyne dug in, expecting help from Generals Howe and St. Leger. It never came: Howe advanced on the American capital at Philadelphia rather than coming up the Hudson, and St. Leger was turned back at the Battle of Oriskany. Outnumbered and almost out of supplies, Burgoyne surrendered to the Americans on October 17. The surrender led France to recognise the United States formally as an independent nation and to enter the war on its side.

The project

With a Battlefield Interpretation Grant, Saratoga County will put in place a new plan to engage visitors at sites connected with the 1777 campaign: new interpretive signs, interactive map tables and augmented reality experiences. The aim is to bring out lesser-known events and points of view from the battles of Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights, including those of American Patriots, Loyalists, German soldiers hired by the British, and the Native nations involved.

The grant program

Battlefield Interpretation Grants, from the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program, help preservation partners modernise and improve how battlefields are interpreted, creating places that inspire a wide range of visitors to come, understand and empathise with the soldiers and civilians who lived through some of the nation's hardest times. The program also offers Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants, Battlefield Restoration Grants and Preservation Planning Grants, encouraging community-led care of historic places at the state, tribal and local levels.

Sources

Based on the American Battlefield Protection Program's grant profile "A Turning Point of the American Revolution: Revisiting the Legacy of the Saratoga Campaign," published by the National Park Service; rewritten in hubnx's own words.

• The profile's design drawing of a visitor centre, credited to the Historic Hudson Hoosic Rivers Partnership, is not reproduced.