Saratoga National Historical Park | |
---|---|
Location | Stillwater, Saratoga County, New York, United States |
Nearest city | Saratoga Springs, New York |
Coordinates | 42°59′56″N73°38′15″W / 42.99889°N 73.63750°W |
Area | 3,392 acres (13.73 km2) |
Established | June 1, 1938 |
Visitors | 65,043(in 2011) [1] |
Governing body | National Park Service |
Website | Saratoga National Historical Park |
Saratoga National Historical Park | |
NRHP reference No. | 66000569 [2] |
Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
Saratoga National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park located in the Town of Stillwater in eastern New York, 30 miles north of Albany. The park preserves the site of the Battles of Saratoga.
The park preserves the site of the Battles of Saratoga, the first significant American military victory of the American Revolutionary War. Here in 1777, American forces met, defeated, and forced a major British army to surrender, an event which led France to recognize the independence of the United States, and enter the war as a decisive military ally of the struggling Americans. [3]
First authorized as a New York state historic preserve in 1927 on the sesquicentennial of the Battles, the Battlefield was made part of the National Park System in 1938 when Saratoga National Historical Park was authorized by the United States Congress.
The Visitors Center offers a 20-minute orientation film, fiber-optic light map, timeline and artifact displays. A brochure is available for a self-guided tour of sites in the four-square-mile (10 km2) battlefield in Stillwater. General Philip Schuyler's Schuyler House is located eight miles (13 km) north in Schuylerville. It is a restored house museum open by tour. The Saratoga Battle Monument is in the nearby village of Victory.
The park is located on the upper Hudson River southeast of Saratoga Springs. It contains the famous Boot Monument to Benedict Arnold, the only war memorial in the United States that does not bear the name of its honoree. The memorial was donated by John Watts de Peyster, a former major general for the New York State Militia during the American Civil War who wrote several military histories about the Battle of Saratoga.
In 2021, management of the site where the British Army surrendered was transferred to the National Park Service. [4] [5] The Saratoga Surrender Site Memorial Park marks the precise location where British General John Burgoyne surrendered his army to General Horatio Gates on October 17, 1777. [4] The 19-acre park is located nine miles north of the Saratoga Battlefield Park, and a half mile south of Schuylerville on U.S. Route 4. [4] The park includes explanatory plaques and signage, and two cannon.
The land is owned by the Open Space Institute and managed by the National Park Service, and is open to visitors from dawn to dusk year-round. [4]
The Marshall House, on the National Register of Historic Places, lies eight miles (13 km) north of the main entrance to the park on US 4 and NY 32 north of the village of Schuylerville. It was made famous by Baroness Frederika Riedesel in her Letters and Journals relating to the War of the American Revolution, and the Capture of the German Troops at Saratoga. This house was built in 1770–1773.
During the closing days of the Battles of Saratoga, Baroness Riedesel sheltered there together with the wives of officers of the British army and wounded personnel. Her account of the travails of those around her, her keen insight into the personalities of the principal officers of both the British and American armies and her devotion to her husband in peril have led some commentators to name her as the first woman war correspondent. The Marshall House was bombarded by the Americans who supposed it an enemy headquarters.
Within are conserved cannonballs and other reminders of the ordeal suffered by those who took refuge there. The Marshall House is the sole surviving structure in the battles' area. The property is privately owned.
As of mid-2023, the American Battlefield Trust and its partners have acquired and preserved 26 acres of the battlefield outside of the national park. [6]
The Battle of Bennington was a battle of the American Revolutionary War, part of the Saratoga campaign, that took place on August 16, 1777, on a farm in Walloomsac, New York, about 10 miles (16 km) from its namesake, Bennington, Vermont. An American force of 2,000 men, primarily New Hampshire and Massachusetts militiamen, led by General John Stark, and reinforced by Vermont militiamen led by Colonel Seth Warner and members of the Green Mountain Boys, decisively defeated a detachment of General John Burgoyne's army led by Lieutenant-Colonel Friedrich Baum, and supported by additional troops under Lieutenant-Colonel Heinrich von Breymann.
The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. British General John Burgoyne led an invasion army of 7,200–8,000 men southward from Canada in the Champlain Valley, hoping to meet a similar British force marching northward from New York City and another British force marching eastward from Lake Ontario; the goal was to take Albany, New York. The southern and western forces never arrived, and Burgoyne was surrounded by American forces in upstate New York 15 miles (24 km) short of his goal. He fought two battles which took place 18 days apart on the same ground 9 miles (14 km) south of Saratoga, New York. He gained a victory in the first battle despite being outnumbered, but lost the second battle after the Americans returned with an even larger force.
Saratoga is a town in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 5,808 at the 2020 census. It is also the commonly used, but not official, name for the neighboring and much more populous city, Saratoga Springs. The major village in the town of Saratoga is Schuylerville, which is often, but not officially, called Old Saratoga. Saratoga contains a second village, named Victory.
Schuylerville is a village in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The village is located in the northeastern part of the Town of Saratoga, east of Saratoga Springs. The Village of Victory is adjacent to Schuylerville to the southwest and the Hudson River forms the village's eastern border. The population was 1,370 at the 2020 census. The village was incorporated in 1831 and is named after the Schuyler family, a prominent family of Dutch descent in colonial America.
Daniel Morgan was an American pioneer, soldier, and politician from Virginia. One of the most respected battlefield tacticians of the American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783, he later commanded troops during the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791–1794.
The Saratoga campaign in 1777 was an attempt by the British high command for North America to gain military control of the strategically important Hudson River valley during the American Revolutionary War. It ended in the surrender of the British army, which historian Edmund Morgan argues, "was a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory."
The Baron Friedrich Adolf Riedesel zu Eisenbach was a senior officer of Brunswick–Luneburg troops who commanded jägers in the Northern theater of the American War of Independence.
Philip John Schuyler was an American general in the Revolutionary War and a United States Senator from New York. He is usually known as Philip Schuyler, while his son is usually known as Philip J. Schuyler.
The siege of Fort Ticonderoga occurred between 2 July and 6 July 1777 at Fort Ticonderoga, near the southern end of Lake Champlain in the state of New York. Lieutenant General John Burgoyne's 8,000-man army occupied high ground above the fort, and nearly surrounded the defenses. These movements precipitated the occupying Continental Army, an under-strength force of 3,000 under the command of General Arthur St. Clair, to withdraw from Ticonderoga and the surrounding defenses. Some gunfire was exchanged, and there were some casualties, but there was no formal siege and no pitched battle. Burgoyne's army occupied Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, the extensive fortifications on the Vermont side of the lake, without opposition on 6 July. Advance units pursued the retreating Americans.
Fort Stanwix was a colonial fort whose construction commenced on August 26, 1758, under the direction of British General John Stanwix, at the location of present-day Rome, New York, but was not completed until about 1762. The bastion fort was built to guard a portage known as the Oneida Carry during the French and Indian War. Fort Stanwix National Monument, a reconstructed structure built by the National Park Service, now occupies the site.
The Appomattox Court House National Historical Park is the preserved 19th-century village named Appomattox Court House in Appomattox County, Virginia. The village was named for the presence nearby of what is now preserved as the Old Appomattox Court House. The village is the site of the Battle of Appomattox Court House, and contains the McLean House, where the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee to Union commander Ulysses S. Grant took place on April 9, 1865, an event widely symbolic of the end of the American Civil War. The village itself began as the community of Clover Hill, which was made the county seat of Appomattox County in the 1840s. The village of Appomattox Court House entered a stage of decline after it was bypassed by a railroad in 1854. In 1930, the United States War Department was authorized to erect a monument at the site, and in 1933 the War Department's holdings there was transferred to the National Park Service. The site was greatly enlarged in 1935, and a restoration of the McLean House was planned but was delayed by World War II. In 1949, the restored McLean House was reopened to the public. Several restored buildings, as well as a number of original 19th-century structures are situated at the site.
The Convention Army (1777–1783) was an army of British and allied troops captured after the Battles of Saratoga in the American Revolutionary War.
The Battle of Hubbardton was an engagement in the Saratoga campaign of the American Revolutionary War fought in the village of Hubbardton, Vermont. Vermont was then a disputed territory sometimes called the New Hampshire Grants, claimed by New York, New Hampshire, and the newly organized, not yet recognized, but de facto independent government of Vermont. On the morning of July 7, 1777, British forces, under General Simon Fraser, caught up with the American rear guard of the forces retreating after the withdrawal from Fort Ticonderoga. It was the only battle in Vermont during the revolution.
National Military Park, National Battlefield, National Battlefield Park, and National Battlefield Site are four designations for 25 battle sites preserved by the United States federal government because of their national importance. The designation applies to "sites where historic battles were fought on American soil during the armed conflicts that shaped the growth and development of the United States...."
Pennsylvania was the site of many key events associated with the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War. The city of Philadelphia, then capital of the Thirteen Colonies and the largest city in the colonies, was a gathering place for the Founding Fathers who discussed, debated, developed, and ultimately implemented many of the acts, including signing the Declaration of Independence, that inspired and launched the revolution and the quest for independence from the British Empire.
The Bennington Battlefield is the Rensselaer County, New York, location where the Battle of Bennington occurred on the 16th of August 1777. It is located on New York State Route 67 in Walloomsac, New York, a historic route between Bennington, Vermont and the Hudson River. Here, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts militia under General John Stark rebuffed a British attempt led by Colonel Friedrich Baum to capture American stores. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961. A portion of the battlefield is preserved in the Bennington Battlefield State Historic Site. The American Battlefield Trust and its partners have acquired and preserved more than 23 acres of the battlefield not already part of the state historic site.
The Baroness Friederike Charlotte Louise Riedesel zu Eisenbach was a German writer and the wife of Brunswick–Luneburg general Friedrich Adolf Riedesel, she kept a journal of her experiences as a spouse attached to the so-called Hessian forces during the American War of Independence.
The Marshall House is a house in Schuylerville, New York listed on the National Register of Historic Places for both its place in American history and its architectural significance.
The Schuyler House or General Schuyler House was built in November 1777 over 29 days for General Philip Schuyler. It is now part of Saratoga National Historical Park. The British Army occupied the house during the American Revolution and burned it down upon their retreat under the command of General John Burgoyne.
The Saratoga Battle Monument is a 155-foot (47 m) granite obelisk located in the village of Victory, Saratoga County, New York. The monument commemorates what is called the "Turning Point" of the American Revolution—the surrender of British forces led by General John Burgoyne to the Americans under General Horatio Gates during the Battles of Saratoga.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)