The tour road is a 9.5-mile, paved, one way road with a 25 mph speed limit and a multi-use lane on the right hand side.
NPS
Now, you can enhance your battlefield tour experience with the convenience of your own device! Prior to your visit, you can download these audio files. Then, when you tour the battlefield, you can listen to the audio file for each tour road stop. Or you can listen to them directly from the website, but service can be poor in the park.
Battlefield Audio Tour Introduction
An introduction to the Battlefield Tour Road Audio Tour.
(Guide) Welcome to the Saratoga National Historical Park. I will be guiding you through the park with one of the Park Rangers.
The Tour Road is a one-way closed loop for 9 miles. Once you get on you must continue to the end. There will be 10 stops of places of interest along the way. Each stop is indicated by a numbered marker. This cell phone audio tour will take you through these 10 stops offering fascinating stories about the Battles of Saratoga. Simply enter the stop number into your dial pad to listen. At the conclusion of each stop, we recommend that you hang up, and call the tour line back when you've reached the next destination and are ready to continue. You may want to leave your car at these locations and walk the paths to the various wayside exhibits. Most of these contain audio with character voices explaining the significance of the area, along with maps and paintings depicting the actions that took place there at the Battles of Saratoga in 1777. Should time, fatigue, or any disability limit you from getting out at any of these stops, this tour should be able to point out important landmarks and describe the actions in each area well enough to make your tour meaningful. The Park encompasses approximately 4 square miles and includes British and American Headquarters, camps, and the scenes of fighting. The National Park Service has been managing the ground cover so that in most areas you will see woods in the forested places of October 1777, and clearings in those areas that were either cultivated fields or cut by the armies. During this tour you can control the audio by pressing 1 to rewind, 2 to pause and play, 3 to fast forward, and the pound sign (#) to skip a recording. You will also have the opportunity comment on your experience here today and we encourage you to do so by pressing star zero (*0) any time during the tour. Thank you and enjoy!
Tour Stop 1: War is Coming
This is the audio for the first stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
Step back in time to the fall of 1777. Two miles in front of you is the Hudson River. To your left, 8 miles up the river, is Saratoga, and the working estate of General Philip Schuyler. It’s Schuylerville today.
From this direction, advancing from the north, is General John Burgoyne, in command of 7000 British, German, Canadian, and Tory soldiers, and their camp followers. The artillery train consisted of 41 guns and mortars of various calibers.
His advance from the north, down the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, to Skenesboro, through Fort Ann and down the Hudson River, was part of Burgoyne’s grand strategy. The plan called for the advance of two armies from Montreal to New York to effect a juncture at Albany. Such a move would establish a chain of strongpoints from the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic, isolating New England, the stronghold of the rebellion, from the rest of the colonies.
As the main army advanced towards Crown Point and Ticonderoga, Colonel Barry St. Leger would lead an additional force of 1000 Loyalists, Regulars, and Indians down the St. Lawrence and through the Great Lakes to provide a diversion on the Mohawk River.
To your right is Bemis Heights, occupied by the Continental Army, 7000 strong under Major General Horatio Gates. General Gates took over command of the Northern Department of the American Army on August 19th. By early September, he had matured a strategy for defeating General Burgoyne.
The army had moved northward to the heights behind Jotham Bemis’s tavern, where a bend in the river forced the road to Albany against the base of the hills. Here, under the direction of the 31 year old Polish engineer, Colonel Taddeusz Kosciuszko, the Americans built entrenchments that blocked the road and fortified the bluffs. The main line of entrenchments stretched from a ravine behind the bluff to the John Neilson farm on the crest of the heights, then southwest for ¾ of a mile.
Twenty two cannon were placed at strategic points. Pickets manned outposts north of the camp. Reinforcements arrived daily. The army would more than double in size over the next few weeks. The Americans were ready. The next step was up to Burgoyne.
As you leave the parking lot, make note of the ground cover and terrain along the sides of the tour road. The park lands today are managed according to a historic base map, and closely resemble their appearance of October 8th, 1777, the day after the Second Battle.
Tour Stop 2: Neilson's Farm
This is the audio for the second stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
You are now at Stop number 2. The white posts with blue tops indicate the outline of the American fortifications erected in the fall of 1777.
Looking up the ridge in front of you, imagine walls made of horizontal logs with earth packed against the outside, where you see the white stakes. Down the slope, about where we are parked, would have been an abatis of felled trees with their branches sharpened to form a kind of 18th-century barbed wire.
This was the left or western-most flank of the American camp on Bemis Heights. It was this flank, obscured by the heavy forest, that was General Burgoyne’s objective on both September 19th and October 7th, 1777.
Burgoyne hoped that by moving inland from the river road, he could avoid the strong American works that would have made further movement down the river a bloody endeavor. It would be better, he determined, to sweep around the American left and on to Albany with little resistance. The heavy forest you have driven through and effective American patrols prevented any reconnaissance of this area by Burgoyne’s scouts.
On September 19th, 1777, the men who were encamped here advanced to intercept the British and their German allies, in the clearing 1 miles north of these works, at Freeman’s Farm.
From the parking lot, looking up at the ridge, you can see the small red farmhouse of young John and Lydia Neilson, who established this farm in 1777. During the time of the battles, John, a sergeant in the local regiment of militia, was engaged in moving various officers’ baggage with a cart and a team of oxen. He had moved Lydia somewhere south of Stillwater to be out of harm’s way.
The house survived because of its occupation by Generals Benedict Arnold and Enoch Poor. It served as bedroom, dining room, and office for the generals, and that is how it is furnished today, with the personal effects of officers in the field.
The Neilsons returned after the battles and returned the land to farming, successfully raising 8 children here. Some of their descendants still live in the area.
You might enjoy a walk up the path for a look into the house, which is furnished, and opened most days in the summer. Wayside exhibits at the top give an idea of the layout of the American camp. On days the house is open, it is staffed by a park ranger who will be glad to explain, in depth, the people and the events that made this area significant. The rangers here are sometimes outfitted as Army of the United States soldiers and are pleased to explain what they can of the soldiers’ experience.
The furnishings of the Neilson House make an interesting contrast with those of the modern military headquarters. Officers tried to maintain a semblance of the lifestyle to which they were accustomed, and brought with them camp chests filled with the decanters and wine glasses that are seen on the tables. The cumbersome wooden camp cots or rope beds can be seen in place of their more practical counterparts. The crudely drawn map on the table is a replica of one drawn by Colonel Rufus Putnam of the 5th Massachusetts Regiment while here in Saratoga. No elaborate communications devices can be seen. In their place is the duty drummer at the front door who would beat the proper commands when necessary.
This ridge was the scene of hectic activity during September and October 1777. More than 1200 men of General Poor’s brigade, consisting of 3 New Hampshire regiments, and 2 from New York, were encamped just south of the Neilson House, to your right. A few hundred yards further along this ridge to the south stood the headquarters of Major General Horatio Gates, the house belonging to Captain Ephraim Woodworth of the local militia. His barns housed the American field hospital.
Just north of the Neilson House, in the apex of the American lines, was the camp of Colonel Daniel Morgan’s rifle corps, with the light infantry of Major Henry Dearborn. They would be the first to sally forth to meet the approaching enemy.
The granite monument at the head of the parking lot commemorates the services of Colonel Taddeusz Kosciuszko, the young Polish engineer who laid out the American line. The stone obelisk west of the parking lot is a memorial to the American dead, placed here by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Tour Stop 3: Bemus Heights
This is the audio for the third stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
From Stop number 3 one can begin to understand the attraction these heights held for General Gates. These bluffs provide a fairly sheer drop of over 100 feet to the narrow flood plain and the river bed below. Earthworks on the plain below would block any movement south along the river or the road.
These works were manned by the Massachusetts troops of General John Glover’s brigade. Glover’s men were the most recent reinforcements to the American army, and were some of the steadiest veterans.
Fortifications and artillery placed on the heights, where you are now, protected the works below, and were in turn protected by works on another height just to the south. British scouts could see this formidable interlocking system, and persuaded General Burgoyne that testing them would be folly.
This is where Kosciuszko’s skill as a military engineer was first appreciated. This part of the American lines on top of the bluff was occupied by the Massachusetts men of General John Nixon’s brigade, and detachments of Major Ebenezer Stevens’ artillery. Stevens’ men manned a hodgepodge of 22 artillery pieces of varying sizes, both iron and bronze, and spread out all along the American works.
You may wish to leave your car and walk up to the gun platforms, in order to see the grounds below from the point of view of the American gunners. The wayside exhibits will explain the layout of the American river fortifications in greater detail, with some artists’ concepts of what they may have looked like. The path leading to the south redan is about 200 yards long, with further wayside exhibits about the fortifications.
Tour Stop 4: Path to War
This is the audio for the fourth stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
Between the two Battles of Saratoga on September 19th and October 7th, advanced pickets from both armies faced each other across the middle ravine. The farmhouse that stood here served as an American observation post.
As General Gates’ army received reinforcements and continued to fortify its position, General Burgoyne anxiously waited for help that would not come. General Howe, who was expected to come north from New York to join Burgoyne, would direct his attention toward Philadelphia. Colonel Barry St. Leger, who was to have come from the west through the Mohawk Valley, was turned back at Fort Stanwix by the combined efforts of Colonel Peter Gansevoort, General Nicholas Herkimer, and the one the Indians called “heap fighting chief,” Benedict Arnold.
Gates’ army continued to grow. Burgoyne was on his own. Then, on the afternoon of October 7th, excited American pickets reported large formations of Crown forces advancing southward.
Tour Stop 5: The Tide Turns
This is the audio for the fifth stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
The monument at the head of the parking lot is dedicated to Brigadier General Abraham Ten Broeck, and the nearly 1200 militiamen of Albany County who composed this brigade. They played a supportive role in the action that occurred here. The monument was placed here by the Sons of the American Revolution. A short walk up the path to the wayside exhibit provides an excellent view of this farm field where critical fighting occurred. The exhibits have paintings which depict the fighting here.
In front of this small rise is a small field bisected by a road running east and west. The northern half of the field was ringed with a worm fence, and contained a small farmhouse, which the Germans referred to as the Weiser House. The southern part of the field was planted with corn, referred to by some Europeans as “Turkish wheat.” Further west was a small strip of brushy woods; then, another field can be seen. On October 7th, General Burgoyne ordered a reconnaissance in force to probe the American position from the high ground west of the Neilson Farm. If conditions proved favorable, he would launch an all-out attack on the 8th. If not, he would retreat, and try to save his army. It was a gamble, but Burgoyne was proud, brave, and an old gamester.
The probing force was carefully chosen for mobility and shock power. From General Simon Fraser’s advanced corps came the British grenadiers and Light Infantry, Burgoyne’s elite units, and the 24th Regiment. Also, from the advanced corps came the German jaegers, chausseurs and grenadiers, men who would have been the pride of any European army. Men from the Hannau, Rhetz, von Riedesel, and Specht regiments were drafted from the German General Baron Frederick Adolph von Riedesel’s division. Brigadier General Hamilton’s division contributed men from the 9th, 20th, 21st, and 62nd British Regiments. Ten cannons served by 107 artillerymen accompanied the column.
Over 1700 officers and men, including General Burgoyne himself, marched out of the camp, leaving the remaining forces to man the fortifications and await the outcome of the probing action. When the advanced guard reached a point west of the Barber Farm, the column halted. While officers tried to scan the American works through the telescopes from the cabin’s roof and soldiers foraged for grain in the abandoned fields, the British forces dressed into lines behind the worm fence.
The British front, which extended from the woods west of the Barber Farm to the southern fringe of the Freeman Farm was mostly open, but the flanks rested in the woods. James Wilkinson, the American Deputy Adjutant General, reported the British position to General Gates saying, “They are foraging and endeavoring to reconnoiter your left, and I think, sir, they offer you battle.”
Gates asked, “What is the nature of the ground, and what’s your opinion?” Wilkinson replied, “Their front is open and their flanks rest on woods under cover of which they might be attacked. Their right is skirted by a lofty height. I would indulge them.” “Well then, order on Morgan to begin the game,” Gates answered. The American attack opened between 2:30 and 3:30 PM. Colonel Morgan’s corps of riflemen and light infantry under Major Henry Dearborn struck the British right, composed of General Fraser’s light infantry and the 24th Regiment.
(Drum beats and battlefield noises in the background)
General Enoch Poor’s brigade of New Hampshire men and New Yorkers moved up through the brushy woods behind him and attacked the British grenadiers and the units of General Hamilton’s division. General Ebenezer Learned’s target was the Germans in the center of the column. Learned’s brigade was soon supported by Brigadier General Ten Broeck’s brigade of Albany militia and a regiment from Jonathan Warner’s brigade of Massachusetts militia.
General Poor’s men soon overwhelmed the greatly outnumbered British grenadiers whose commander, Major John Dyke Acland, fell badly wounded. Burgoyne’s aide, Lieutenant Sir Francis Clerke, was mortally wounded while trying to pass his general’s orders to retreat.
Captain George Pausch of the German artillery, while directing the service of his two 6-pound cannons in a desperate attempt to hold back the American onslaught with canister shot, as if they were two large shotguns, suddenly noticed that his supporting infantry had been driven off. After a gallant scuffle to save his guns, he and his artillerymen were forced to abandon them.
General Fraser’s veterans began to fall before the deadly accuracy of Morgan’s Pennsylvania and Virginia riflemen, who fired from the woods west of the Barber Farm. As the British right was rolled back, General Fraser rode among his men, encouraging and rallying them to maintain their ranks, keep up their fire and make the Americans pay dearly for every foot of ground.
But the Scotsman’s efforts were in vain. He could not stop the turning movement. The gallant General Fraser came under the heavy fire of the American riflemen and fell mortally wounded.While Colonel Morgan and General Poor drove back the enemy’s flanks, General Learned’s brigade struck the Germans who, with both flanks exposed, stubbornly fought them off. In the midst of the attack, Benedict Arnold rode onto the field, and though he had no command, and was confined to camp due to an altercation with his commander, General Gates, led a second assault that caused the Germans to join the general retreat to the Balcarres Redoubt.
(Gunfire in the background)
By 5 PM the British probing column had lost 8 cannon and had suffered more than 400 casualties. Burgoyne’s advance was thwarted, but behind the strong walls of the Balcarres Redoubt, his soldiers could put up a stiff fight, as Poor’s men would discover.
Tour Stop 6: Freeman's Farm
This is the audio for the sixth stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
From Stop number 6, you will be looking east at the area that was the farm of John Freeman. A black-topped, looped trail leads south from the parking lot, past “Bloody Knoll,” the cannon platforms on the southern end of Balcarres Redoubt, the Freeman Farmhouse site, which is near the cannons in front of you, and back to the parking lot.
The wayside exhibits and audio units depict the area as it was during the battles, and the entire loop is wheelchair accessible. It totals 500 yards. As this is one of the most significant areas in the battlefield story, you may choose to take this trail. If so, you may want to hang up, and call back with the code 66 when you’ve reached a point at which you would like to stop. The narrator will pick up the story where we’ve left off. Or, you can continue to listen from your current location.
(Stop 66) John Freeman and his family established this small farm about 11 years before the battle. Of loyalist sympathies, Freeman had to abandon the farm and move his family to Canada. He returned with Burgoyne as a member of a Loyalist regiment, known as Jessup’s Corps. His small cabin stood just beyond the two artillery pieces you see on the left.
We are a little more than a mile north of the American lines, and about the same distance from the Hudson, to the east.
On September 19th General Burgoyne advanced, deploying a 3-column movement toward the American position, whose extent and strength were unknown to him.
General Fraser commanded the right column, composed of the German and British light infantry, grenadiers, loyalists, Canadians, and 12 guns.
The center column, led by General Hamilton, consisted of 1600 men with 4 cannon, including the battalion companies of the 9th, 20th, 21st, and 62nd Regiments of the British line. Burgoyne accompanied this element.
The left column was commanded by General von Riedesel, and included the German regiments of von Riedesel, Specht, von Rhetz, Hesse-Hanau, dragoons, light infantrymen known as chasseurs and jaegers, 6 battalion companies of the British 47th Regiment, and 8 cannon. The Germans had been sent to American by contracts between their duke and King George III of England, who was also the Elector of Hanover, one of many German city-states.
General Fraser’s column marched along the road running westward from the river road to a point 3 miles from the river, and then turned southward. Hamilton’s column followed Fraser’s a short distance, turned south at the first road, and marched to the Great Ravine, crossed it, and moved west to a point north of the Freeman Farm. General von Riedesel’s column marched out along the river road. When the columns reached their assigned positions, a signal gun would coordinate a simultaneous movement against the Americans.
Learning of the enemy’s movements, General Gates ordered Colonel Daniel Morgan’s rifle corps and Major Henry Dearborn’s light infantry battalion to reconnoiter the woods and fields of the American lines. They were followed by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd New Hampshire Regiments from General Enoch Poor’s brigade.
At about noon, part of Morgan’s corps fired upon and killed or wounded most of the advanced guard of General Hamilton’s column in the Freeman Farm clearing. The riflemen rushed forward to pursue the survivors, and ran head-on into the main body of Hamilton’s division. The British drove Colonel Morgan’s men south of the farm, where they scattered.
Morgan was chagrinned by the sudden disorganization of his command, but with the persistent use of his turkey call he rallied the men and deployed on the fringe of the farm clearing. After a brief lull, during which the New Hampshire regiments joined the riflemen, the fight resumed.
As it intensified, other regiments of General Poor’s brigade, followed by Brigadier General Ebenezer Learned’s brigade and the 10th Massachusetts Regiment, from Brigadier General John Patterson’s brigade, were committed. Morgan’s riflemen and General Poor’s troops bore the brunt of the fight, while the other troops faced General Fraser, preventing him from going to General Hamilton’s support.
For more than 3 hours, the battle rolled back and forth across the weed-grown, stump-studded farm. The American troops, most of whom were veterans regulars, deployed, attacked, retreated, and rallied in a disciplined and soldierly manner. The British regiments upheld the great traditions of their service, counterattacking again and again with the bayonet, against increasingly heavy odds. But all their gallantry and skill were inadequate to counter the Americans’ numerical advantage and superior firepower.
At around 6 PM, in response to an urgent order from General Burgoyne, General von Riedesel’s Germans appeared from the east, colors flying, singing hymns. Fresh troops from the Regiments von Riedesel, von Rhetz, and Pausch’s Hesse-Hanau artillery engaged the American right in support of the slowly retreating British. The newly reinforced ground force rallied, delivering yet another bayonet charge, and at dusk, the Americans withdrew to their fortification on Bemis Heights.
Both sides claimed victory. Burgoyne remained on the field of battle. Gates still blocked the road to Albany.
The British would spend the next 17 days erecting fortifications facing those of the Americans. Their western flank would be protected by two redoubts. One would be a very formidable work, its outline appearing as white posts with red tops. It would become known as the Balcarres’ Redoubt, after Major Alexander Lindsay, the Earl of Balcarres, who commanded the light infantry defending this work. Built of horizontal logs, it was nearly 500 yards long, and mounted 8 cannon. It was to this position that most of the survivors of the fighting in the Wheatfield on October 7th fled.
Tour Stop 7: The Decisive Moment
This is the audio for the seventh stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
You are now at Stop Number 7 and facing north. The structure to your right is a restroom. The path to your left leads to the Breymann Redoubt site and the famous Benedict Arnold “Boot” Monument.
As at our other tour stops, there are wayside exhibits and audio units depicting the assault on the Breymann Redoubt. The path is paved but fairly steep: visitors with heart or respiratory problems may find it difficult. Those with wheelchairs might need assistance.
As before, you may wish to take the path and listen to the narrative when you reach a point you’d like to stop. Otherwise, allow the recording to continue.
The British army dug in after the fighting of the first battle on September 19th. Their western flank would be protected by two outworks known as “redoubts.” The larger of the two, the Balcarres Redoubt, was erected on the Freeman Farm, a little more than 500 yards south of here at Stop 6. That strong work was described earlier.
The second, known as the Breymann Redoubt, after Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich C. Breymann, commander of the Brunswick grenadiers, ran roughly north and south along the crest of the rise to your left. It was of lighter construction, apparently rail-like logs piled between uprights, with no earth packed against the outside. Mounting two 6-pounder cannon, it was about 300 yards long.
On the morning of October 7th, many of the Loyalists and Brunswickers manning this redoubt accompanied General Fraser’s corps, which was to again probe the American left. This would leave a mixed group of only 200 Brunswick grenadiers, jaegers, and Loyalists to defend it.
After General Fraser’s corps was stopped that afternoon in the wheatfield, most of the survivors retreated to the stronger Balcarres Redoubt, which was closer. The Breymann was then seriously undermanned. While the British and Germans retreated into their works, fresh American troops arrived from the American camp at Bemis Heights.
Brigadier General John Patterson’s brigade, one of John Glover’s regiments, and the 5th and 6th Massachusetts from John Nixon’s brigade brought the number of Americans on the battlefield to more than 8,000. While General Poor’s men fought and died in front of the stronger Balcarres Redoubt, General Learned’s and Colonel Morgan’s men, reinforced by the fresh Massachusetts regiments, deployed to attack Burgoyne’s right flank, consisting of the Germans in the Breymann Redoubt and two companies of Canadian militia in the log cabins between the redoubt and the Freeman Farm.
The Canadians were soon driven from their posts, exposing the left and rear of Colonel Breymann’s position. The Americans then mounted a massive attack on the Germans. While most of the men stormed the front of the redoubt, a part of General Learned’s command and some riflemen swept through the gap left by the Canadians and into the Germans’ rear.
During the final minutes of the attack, as remnants of Colonel Breymann’s corps made their last, desperate stand, General Arnold, who had been leading Poor’s troops in a series of futile and costly attempts to carry the Balcarres Redoubt, heard the firing on his left and joined a party of riflemen firing into the Germans from the rear. Just as the defense collapsed, he suffered a leg wound, now memorialized by the famous Boot Monument on the battlefield.
Colonel Breymann, desperately trying to prevent his men from fleeing at sword-point, was shot, many believe by his own men. Darkness ended the day’s fighting.
Possession of the Breymann Redoubt opened the right and rear of Burgoyne’s camp to the Americans. That night, leaving their campfires burning, the Royal Army withdrew under cover of darkness to the Great Redoubt overlooking the river road, where lay their hospital, artillery park, and supply depot.
Along the path, on the southern end of the redoubt, is the granite Boot Monument. The inscription on one side details the actions of General Benedict Arnold at the Breymann Redoubt. The other side is a relief carving of a left boot draped over a cannon barrel, muzzle down, a sign of defeat or disgrace. The boot is topped with a Major General’s two-star epaulette and a crown with laurel wreath. General Arnold’s name does not appear on the monument.
Tour Stop 8: Behind British Lines
This is the audio for the eighth stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
The wayside exhibit marked by the large flags in the field indicates the approximate location of General Burgoyne’s headquarters. It was located near a spring, no longer visible from the surface, but from which water for today’s Visitor Center is drawn.
Between September 19th and October 7th, 1777, General Burgoyne occupied several large tents, known as “marquees,” using them as his office and headquarters, as well as his bedroom and dining room. Such an assemblage was common for general officers’ field headquarters in the 18th century.
Tour Stop 9: Loss and Victory
This is the audio for the ninth stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
The redoubts occupying this hill top, and the two to your left, were known collectively as the Great Redoubt. They protected the British hospital, artillery park, and baggage train along the narrow flood plain below. A bridge of boats temporarily spanned the Hudson, just below this hill.
Looking left, to the north, is one of the most dramatic vistas in the park. Across the Hudson, clearly visible, are Willard Mountain in Washington County, with the Green Mountains of Vermont beyond.
As you look north along the Hudson, and between the mountains, imagine yourself a cold, wet, and discouraged British soldier on reduced rations. After the two hard-fought Battles of Saratoga, safety and Ticonderoga are some 60 miles ahead of you, by foot.
Many visitors pause here to enjoy the view, take photographs, or visit wayside exhibits. Please feel free to do so.
Tour Stop 10: Return to Saratoga
This is the audio for the tenth stop on the Battlefield Tour Road.
As you look at the picnic area in front of you, you will be facing east. You are welcome to use the picnic tables for cold meals or snacks, and caution you that no fires are permitted in this area. Barbecue grills are provided in the picnic area near the Visitor Center parking lot. The trail, which begins to the right of this parking lot, is a one-mile loop leading down below these heights.
A very picturesque section of the 1820s Champlain Canal is at the bottom, and wayside exhibits mark the British general hospital, artillery park, and the house where General Fraser died.
Though it is a pleasant and informative walk, the return will be steep enough to cause some visitors difficulty. Benches are provided for resting, but no drinking water is available on the trail. There are wayside exhibits just down the path to the southeast that indicate the second of three fortifications that made up what was known as the Great Redoubt.
After the battle of October 7th, Burgoyne’s army drew itself up into these works and the area immediately below, preparing to retreat northward. It was to a small house below, occupied by Madame von Riedesel, wife of the General, that Brigadier General Simon Fraser was taken after being mortally wounded in the Barber Wheatfield that afternoon.
Realizing death was near, he requested to be buried in the Great Redoubt the next day. Burgoyne complied with his trusted subordinate’s wishes, and in the company of his senior officers, attended the burial ceremony at sunset on October 8th, amidst a cannonading by the American guns.
The British army would begin its retreat to Saratoga, today’s Schuylerville, 8 miles to the north, that night, under the cover of a rainstorm. The rainstorm continued through the 9th of October.
As Burgoyne’s badly mauled army continued their retreat north through a sea of mud, General Gates’ soldiers drew and cooked rations and replenished their ammunition. On the 10th, the rain abated, and General Gates issued orders to start after the enemy. By 4 PM, they had arrived at Saratoga to find the British encamped on the heights beyond Fish Creek, entrenched and ready to defend themselves.
The American army then deployed to surround the British. A ring of 5 brigades under Generals Poor, Patterson, Learned, Nixon, and Glover pinned Burgoyne’s army against the Hudson from the west. Colonel Morgan’s riflemen blocked the way north. General John Fellows’ 3,000 militia occupied the east side of the river, preventing escape to that side. The remnants of the British army were under constant cannon and musket fire for the next 3 days.
On October 13th, General Burgoyne, on the advice of his subordinates, sent a message to General Gates proposing a “cessation of arms during the time necessary to communicate the preliminary terms by which, in any extremity, he and the army mean to abide.” The terms were agreed upon, and at 10:00 on October 17th, the British army marched out of its camp, carrying their arms in strict formation, as the musicians played the “Grenadiers’ March.”
On the parade, near the ruins of old Fort Hardy, the gallant soldiers of the Crown parked their cannon, deposited their muskets, and emptied their cartridge boxes in the presence of only two American officers. The “Convention Army” then crossed Fish Creek and marched between the lines of the victorious Americans, who showed not the slightest sign of disrespect.
At noon, General Burgoyne and his officers were escorted to General Gates’ marquee. Burgoyne removed his hat, bowed, and pronounced “General, the fortune of war has made me your prisoner.” Gates replied “You will always find me ready to testify that it was not brought about by any fault of your Excellency.” Then, in view of both armies, General Burgoyne stepped back, drew his sword, and presented it to General Gates, who received and returned it.
As the British army marched away into captivity, the principal officers of both armies retired to the marquee to dine. Thus would end one of the most dramatic episodes of the American Revolution. With the surrender of Burgoyne’s army at Saratoga, now Schuylerville, on October 17th, 1777, the first British to ever surrender in the field, the world would sit up and take notice.
Early the following year, the French court, convinced of the sincerity of the American quest for independence, and encouraged at their prospects of achieving it, would openly declare war on Great Britain. The subsequent flow of French arms, equipage, an army, and a navy would make possible the ultimate American victory almost 4 years later at Yorktown on October 19th, 1781. Saratoga would take its place in history as the “Turning Point of the American Revolution.”
Last updated: June 22, 2023
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Contact Info
Mailing Address:
648 Route 32
Stillwater,
NY
12170
Phone:
(518) 670-2985
Saratoga National Historical Park information desk available daily from 9am - 5pm. If no one is available to take your call, please leave a message, and someone will return your call as soon as possible.
