Yesterday, after leaving Fairfax, VT, it was time for the final stop on the trip: Saratoga.
Saratoga was the turning point in the war; a time when the Americans showed they had the mustard to defeat the British, and it ended up convincing the French we were worthy of help.
The battlefield rests along the Hudson River, just south of Lake Champlain, in a beautiful part of New York. It’s kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but I was getting used to that. So many of these random Revolution sites were in out-of-the-way places. That suits me just fine.
I pulled into Saratoga National Historic Park and talked with a couple of the rangers there, who gave me an overview of the battle and the layout of the park. It was a few mile drive around the park, with stops along the route, but before I headed out I caught the quick movie playing in the visitor center’s theater, and watched a fiber optic recreation (blue lights us, red lights them) of the battle that really helped cement it in my head.
The gist of the whole thing goes like this: British General Burgoyne lead a group of about 8,000 south from Montreal into the Hudson River Valley with hopes of taking all the forts along the way. Albany was the ultimate goal, by which the British felt they could end the war with control of almost all of New York.
But in Saratoga, General Gates and Benedict Arnold developed a defensive camp along the river. When the British came, the continentals met them head-on, and with bluffs and woods and a narrow stretch of land to maneuver (think Thermopylae), the Americans beat the British and earned their first full surrender. Pretty cool.
When word broke about Burgoyne’s defeat, the French decided to help the Americans, and the whole thing helped us win the war. I got excited just thinking about it.
And the amazing thing is it all happened on these modest wheat fields and among farms, then abandoned, that today looks exactly like it did back then. The only thing that changed was the addition of a road to travel around the park.
It was interesting to learn that Benedict Arnold was a hero of the battle, rallying American troops and even getting shot in the process. He later turned out to be our most famous example of a turncoat, but for Saratoga, he was a helluva guy.
Saratoga marked a fine final point on the trip. For one, I hadn’t visited a Revolutionary War site since Massachusetts, and two, philosophically it ends things on a high note.
From there, I made my way across upstate New York, bypassing the Adirondacks and hitting I-90 for a jet-fuel-paced race toward Michigan.
Tags: benedict arnold, burgoyne, new york, saratoga
