 Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for coming. Many of you know who I am. I'm John Devin, one of the volunteers here at the homestead, and this is a pleasant surprise, not a surprise, but something that's been building over the past few months is the size of the crowds are getting bigger. And as Dan mentioned, we hope that we can expand on the site, perhaps getting a grant from the state. So if you know somebody in state government, the part district is going to be writing a grant to try to get some work, get more space. We have various ideas in the works and you'll hear more about that. So some of you had, I think Jim Hope back here who's been a speaker said that the travel coming up from Montpelier was a little rough today. Michael came from Binghamton, New York, right? Five. What time did you leave? About seven? About seven this morning. So bless him for coming and do this today. Right. So let me give you a little bio on Michael. Michael is currently a grant writer at Binghamton University division of research. He has an interest in archaeology of conflict and in cultural landscapes. He received his undergraduate degree from Port Lewis College and his master's in doctorate in anthropology from Binghamton University. Until recently he worked as a historic archaeologist, archaeologists for the public archaeology facility at Binghamton University on historic sites ranging from industrial mills to farm stands. So somebody says what do archaeologists do? It looks like they do just about everything. His research in the Revolutionary War battlefields in upstate New York, where he has applied geographic information systems, GIS systems, to better identify the cultural resources related to the Revolutionary War battlefields. Most of us have been through Fort Ann, but New York, but we probably know very little about what happened at that location. We're pleased to have Michael with us today. Hi. Can everybody hear me? Just going to subcheck. Okay. Oh, I thank John for the invitation. And for everybody coming out on this really cool, I guess, regular fall day. And it's nice to be coming from New York, an invitation of Vermont, I guess, getting over the old feeling, hard feelings for a long, long time ago. So we'll get a little bit of history from that time period with the Battle of Fort Ann. I used to work for the public archaeology facility. I'm still connected to them somewhat. But the public archaeology facility is what's called a cultural resource management firm. And we do kind of archaeology on a contract basis or by our grants. And usually like if the Department of Transportation wants to build a new road or build a new bridge, they'll have archaeologists come in ahead of time, make sure there isn't a site that could be destroyed. And if there is, try to mitigate whatever damage could happen. So that's how we get to cover a lot of things. I usually I specialized in what's called the historic period. So basically, that's kind of the time period where there was a written documentary evidence or historical record. Before that, we call that either prehistoric or pre contact kind of before the Europeans came to the North America. But we were called in by the American Legion, Raymond Harvey Post in Fort Ann. They received a grant from the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program to look at the Battle of Fort Ann. Not a lot of people had looked at it. It kind of it's dropped out of the main narrative about the Saratoga campaign and the local community. Some of our came today, recognize that it had a valuable history and it was significant to the nation's history and they wanted some recognition for it. And they that fit right into the National Park Service is American Battlefield Protection Program. It's a program that fits in with the overall National Park Service, but kind of does its own thing. And it's an outgrowth from the 90s. When anybody remembers Disneyland bought property outside of the Bull Run battlefield. And they were going to turn that into a theme park. And so yes, I think people kind of had those fears that like Confederate Donald or Union Goofy. So people the public stepped in and asked Congress to do something about it. Congress went in and bought a big parcel so that Disney couldn't do that. And they preserved Battle Bull Run, released parts of it. But then Congress said we can't do this for every battlefield. We need to figure out how this is going to last. How can we preserve this in the long run? So they set up the American Battlefield Protection Program. And so their goal ultimately is to protect America's battlefields and sites with a kind of the armed conflicts that influenced our nation's history. This can be before that the US started before the Revolutionary Wars. They do stuff with the Pequot War. Even they do stuff with the Indian Wars out West, all the way through kind of the Battle of Midway in World War Two. It's just any place that Americans were in conflict, or even before America that's on American territory. They also realize that the best way for preservation is from the local community up. They realize they're based in Washington, D.C., but if they realize if they come out to a community and say you need to preserve this, it's probably not going to work. They realize they want the local community to come together, see the significance in the history of their community, and actively plan to preserve these battlefields. And part of that is just to raise awareness. So activities like this, public talks, presentations, I don't know if you saw that PBS documentary that was out of Central New York. I don't know. It was kind of based out of the Syracuse PBS, but that was funded by the American Battlefield Protection Program. Just kind of programs to get people to realize these battlefields are still here. They're important. And with people, hopefully when people realize the significance of these battlefields, they'll want to save them. Because we were tied with a National Park Service grant, we follow kind of their setup of how we do preservation, which is pretty much standard for a lot of archaeology. And I think a lot of people here have probably been to a historic lecture. And so this is more of an archaeology one. So it's a little bit different. But a lot of our goals is to kind of not just tell us historical story, but also get to the material aspects of what happened at that battlefield or that landscape. And then also how can we preserve that? I would say the historians always give up right when it's getting interesting and fun. So our first step is we have to locate the battlefield. Some battlefields are famous like Gettysburg. Everyone has a really good idea where Gettysburg is. But some smaller battlefields, some skirmishes, people might have some oral traditions or folklore of where it may have been. But we need to go out and actually pinpoint where it was exactly. We have to once we find kind of the general area of the battlefield, we have to find the landmarks that are tied to that battle. If there was a ridge, was that ridge used in the battle? Or maybe people avoided it? We also landmarks don't have to be natural landscape features. They can be cultural. So if you have a building like down in New York, there's Old Stone Fort, kind of near between Cooperstown and Albany. And it's in the Scoherry Valley that was a church and it still has a cannon ball hole in it still to this day from when one of the Loyalist Johnson's did a raid through that area. So right there, that's a landscape feature, even though it's a structure. And also because these battles, especially the Revolutionary War, Fort Ann is just celebrated as 240th anniversary. So that means there's been 240 years where people have used that land between the battle and today, there's obviously going to be some changes to landscape. So we also have to kind of step in and see what's left and what can be saved. And after we've realized what's still left of the battlefield, what can be saved, help communities kind of decide what plans they can do to help preserve that landscape. So our specific goals for the Fort Ann project, kind of just do an inventory of archives related to the battlefield of Fort Ann. Because the battle of Fort Ann has kind of fell to the wayside on a lot of people's narratives about the Saratoga campaign. Usually in the big books, the secondary histories of Saratoga, it's like just a couple sentences, like, oh, yeah, something happened at Fort Ann. So we had to go through and find out what were records out there were that people write in their journals or diaries about the battle and where were these located? What archives? And then from that, kind of associate from the documents to the real what's left of the world right now. What were the landscape features that people use during the battle that we can pinpoint today? And from that information, identify the boundaries of Fort Ann because one of the goals was or one of the Fort Ann was under threat, because there was the landowner wanted to mine it for top topsoil and for granite. And so we had to pinpoint where the boundaries of the battlefield were to see if it was really on his property, and also show that the battle was significant. If it was kind of an unimportant battle, and it wasn't really on his property, then it probably would have been more open to be developed. So basically our ultimate goals were to show the significance of Fort Ann, and also define the boundaries of the battlefield. And us and the current condition, what was there anything left of the battlefield to save? So there's a sign for Fort Ann, if you go in through Fort Ann right now. So yeah, kind of our big project was to, because it was under threat, with the landowner to see if it was a battlefield, was it there, or was it not? And also if there was anything left to preserve. So kind of more the history of Fort Ann. Fort Ann is in a place that historically is in kind of a crossroads of trade, but also conflict. It's right at the boundary between the Champlain Valley and the Hudson Valley. So there's kind of two ways, main ways you could go you could go down Lake George, which is a nice watery pathway to go. Or you could do more of a land route that also has some streams like Wood Creek, that goes from South Bay of Lake Champlain, and crosses over there. Because it was at a crossroads, the British like to always keep some sort of fortification there to see who was crossing between the Champlain Valley, and the Hudson Valley. Because up north, where there enduring enemies the French, and down in Albany where the British. So the first fortification at Fort Ann was in 1692 by Connecticut's colonial governor, Fitz John Winthrop. He built it during his invasion or attempted invasion of Montreal. He set up a fortification there. Fortifications were both mainly two purposes. One for observation, kind of seeing who's going in areas. And with that you could help defend an area. You could know where to send people. So if the French were coming down this way, you could send troops up there to stop them. You're also set up to supply. So if you're sending troops or people up through this area, the fortification system is basically designed so there's a fort about a day's journey from each other. So it would only take you about a day to get from one fort to the other. That way too, if you get, if you're low on supplies and you had to stop here, you could be easily ambushed. But if it's a day away, you could usually make that and you'd be safe. So that's why there's a lot of series of forts in this area. Then 1709, the British built the second fort a little off to the side of the original fort. That gets quickly abandoned after an epidemic. But then there was a Queen Anne where it gets this name because it was funded by Queen Anne of England. In 1711 they build a new fort to replace the diseased fort. And then it goes into disuse. It's kind of a hiatus in the conflict between the French and the British up until the Seven Years' War, the French and Indian War. And then 1757, the British reoccupy Fort Ann. They also built Fort George. But Fort George, if you go there, it's on the south base of Lake George there. There's only one bastion built because the British, they were going to attack Fort Carrion, which now is later on Fort Ticonderoga. And they thought it was going to be kind of a long campaign to take down the French. But the French actually kind of fell pretty easily. So they didn't have time to finish building Fort George. So that's why there's only one bastion constructed there. And then after the British win the Seven Years' War, they don't need this because they also own Canada. They don't really need these forts right here. So they abandoned them. They're not used and they fall apart to Kay. But then, with the start of the American Revolution, the Americans and the Continental start occupying these old forts. So they set up a small fortification of Fort George. 1775, they capture with Ethidale's help, Fort Ticonderoga. They set up something at Crown Point, or they at least take it over with Colonel Seth Warder at the same time as they capture Fort Ticonderoga. And they also set up the fort at Fort Ann. Fort Ann was kind of a more of an outpost that housed about 30 troops. But it was more just used to help supply troops as they went up through this area. And also as a way point as they either went from New England and up to Fort Ticonderoga or down to Fort Edward. But also just to keep watch of who's coming down between the Champlain Valley and the Hudson Valley. So I'll kind of go back. So it also, because it was a way station, it helped on the Continental's attack when they went up to Canada and took captured Montreal. And they tried to capture Quebec City. Didn't work out so well for them. And then in 1776, they get pushed back by the British. And that culminates in the battle of Valcor Island, which they lose Benedict Arnold, which kind of has, they say, is the start of the US Navy out of white, what is now Whitehall, but at Skeensboro at the time. And that could have been a time where it was the British troops that that campaign were led by Sir Guy Carlton out of Canada. And right after Valcor Island, he figures, well, it's getting really late in the season. We don't have enough time to push against further against the Continental's. So he stops his advance and goes back to Canada. One of his lower officers, Lieutenant General John Burgoyne was on that campaign. And he gets really upset that Carlton abandons the campaign. So he goes back to England that winter of 76 to 77, because his wife had died. And so he has to manage his estate. While he's back in England, he comes up with an idea kind of to usurp against Guy Carlton's authority in Canada. And also to just kind of promote himself as a leader. But his plan was basically to he would lead a main army from Montreal down the Champlain Valley to the Hudson Valley down to Albany. At the same time, a force under Barry St. Ledger or Salinger, I would go down the St. Lord's River, Lake Ontario, and through the Mohawk Valley down to Albany. Now kind of some people say that he wanted General Howe out of New York City to meet him up in Albany, but he doesn't really detail how he wants to use Howe in that campaign. Nobody's talking to Howe at this time. So Howe already has his plans to go. He's so outside of this plan. He's not even on this map. But his plan is to go around New Jersey up the Delaware River and capture Philadelphia. But he's in New York City with these plans and nobody's talking to him. We're going to England talking to George Germain and the King. And they all are really excited about his plan because you see, if you capture Albany, you can kind of isolate New England from the rest of the colonies. And how England at this time sees that New England are the troublemakers causing all the other colonies to get upset. So if you isolate New England, the rest of the colonies will fall in line and hopefully it will end the war. So and even if Howe doesn't come up, they were hoping that General Clinton, Howe's second officer, would come up through the Hudson Highland and help Brighorn if needed. And he has a really detailed plan about how he wants us to work. And one of the things that he notes is that it is natural likewise to expect that he kind of Major General Philip Schuyler, who's head of the Continental Army's Northern Department, basically the head of the Continental Army for this region. So it's like it's natural likewise to expect that he, Schuyler, will take measures to block up the road for Ticonderoga to Albany by the way of Schienesboro by fortifying the strong ground at different places and then more obliged the King's Army to carry the weight of artillery with it and by falling trees, breaking bridges, and other impediments. Basically he's saying in his strategy for all this he's like if I take a waterly route I'll be okay. If I take more of a land-based route the Continentals are going to wreck the roads, they're going to block my way for whatever creeks I can take. So it's better if I take a waterly route. So we'll see what happens. So at first he starts off and he has lots of momentum for going. He takes Crown Point fairly easily on Lake Champlain because the Continentals didn't really have anybody at Crown Point. He gets Fort Ticonderoga and he captures that fairly easily as well. July 6th he takes over Schienesboro with minimal resistance if any. July 7th as many you probably hear know the Battle of Hubbardton and that is really successful at and then here we have July 7th and 8th at Fort Ann and that's kind of what Hubbardton there's resistance but Fort Ann too he faces a lot of resistance as well. You can see the red is the path the British took and the blue is the path the Continentals take and so it doesn't look good for the Continentals they're always going falling back and it's kind of off this map is we'll talk about it later. The main Continental Army after they abandon Fort Ticonderoga goes out this way into present day Vermont and comes back this way and then there was a second route group out of Fort Ticonderoga Colonel Pierce Long of the 2nd New Hampshire plus kind of a mixture of everybody else at Fort Ticonderoga that doesn't go with the main Continental Army that goes south to Schienesboro and ultimately Fort Ann. So a lot of this hinges on Fort Ticonderoga here and this is taken from Mount Defiance and what happens is that Fort Ticonderoga is kind of a forgotten outpost by the Continental Congress they don't really send up troops a lot of troops at the time of early summer 1777 there's about 2,000 Continental troops here a lot of them are sick because of a measles epidemic it's not a great fortification for what the Continental's wanted to use it for because it was originally built by the French it's set up to defend against invasions from the south and the Continental's are using it to defend against invasions from the north so it's kind of the opposite direction of what it should be it also because it had been abandoned after seven years war it's basically falling apart decay Continental Congress isn't giving them enough resources or the army enough resources to build it up so they really have to pick and choose what they want to use to defend the fort and at this time too General Major General Arthur Sinclair or Sinclair shows up just a couple weeks before Burgoy's army shows up so he's just new to his outpost as well and he really has to prioritize what he wants to defend so he defends Mount Independence which is off the photo that way they build some of the earthworks up out here they put a giant boom to block any boats but they leave Mount Defiance empty and kind of the thought was well it's a really steep hill nobody's going to put any artillery up there but the British when they first come down here there's some resistance but it falls back fairly easily and they were able to put artillery on Mount Defiance as you could see you have a pretty clean shot for Mount Defiance from where this picture was taken right into Fort Ticonderoga Sinclair realizes what's happening on the evening of July 5th 1777 and he just orders the fort abandoned and that's where he splits up his true groups the main Continental Army goes off over Mount Independence into Vermont then Hubbardton the other one Pierce Long they out sneak out in the middle of the night on small bateau south on Lake Champlain towards Skeensboro and here's Skeensboro today that's kind of in South Bay Lake or Lake Champlain before this this is the area too where Benedict Arnold built the U.S. Navy and set it aloft on Lake Champlain and then scuttled most of it at the battle of Valkor Island but this battle Skeensboro the Continentals kind of rush through in the middle of the night from July 5th to July 6th and they arrive in Skeensboro and they're loading offloading the boats getting people to safety and two hours after they land Burgoyne's Army's right behind them and arrives so it was kind of a mad dash trying to escape the British and they just couldn't do it Burgoyne's Navy basically bombards the Continentals boats the Continentals are also in such a panic they scuttle a lot of their own ships Burgoyne was also able to offload some of his troops and they were out flanking the Continentals so at that point the Continentals think everything's lost they've lost their material there were so many supplies from the Continentals ships floating in the bay that the British troops say they basically could just throw hooks out and drag in the supplies so they had barrels of pork and stuff that were the Continentals that are now Burgoyne's Arby's so they meet the Continentals also meet up with a company of the Third New Hampshire under Captain James Gray who was positioned at Skeensboro but they quickly realize because they're going to be surrounded that they need to move on so they move on Wood Creek on their little bateau half the troops like Captain John or James Gray's soldiers kind of follow a beat up road along Wood Creek and the women and children that were from and the six soldiers that were from Fort Ticonderoga fall fall behind on the boats on their way to Fort Ann and because it's this audience there's Hubbardton which is also kind of where Simon Frazier with the British Army and Razordale or I'm really the Hessians follow the main line of the Continentals catch up with the rear guard at Hubbardton that are under the command of Colonel South Warner the Continentals were able to kind of counterattack the British at some point but ultimately have to fall back and that's on July 7th at the same time basically after so at this point the Continentals leaving for Fort Ticonderoga to Skeensboro they leave in the middle of the night July 5th they arrive the early morning of July 6th at Skeensboro they immediately have to retreat from there too and they make the trek down to Fort Ann they haven't had time to really stop at rest at all so they arrive at Fort Ann the early evening out early morning hours of July 7th so Captain James Gray of the 3rd New Hampshire where they picked up at Skeensboro Hila arrives at Fort Ann just right there at basically 6 in the morning quickly behind them along Wood Creek are the Burgoyne set order the 9th Regiment of Foot to kind of pursue and track down the retreating Continentals they were able to capture some of the Bateaux that had some of the women and six soldiers and take them prisoners but we so these troops really in the early hours from the Continentals arrive at Fort Ann and they notice that the British the 9th Regiment of Foot are arrived shortly right after them but they decide at Fort Ann that they're not going to retreat anymore they're going to take a stand and push back against the British so Captain James Gray arrives at the fort after marching all night at 6 a.m. July 7th and he immediately pushes back at leaves Fort Ann to attack at 11 a.m. so basically five hours of rest so they march up the Continentals with about 150 troops there's about 190 to 200 troops with the 9th Regiment of Foot the British and the Continentals were able to quickly surround and push the British up on top of what's called Battle Hill today and most of the fighting of Fort Ann is on Battle Hill there's very little activity around Fort Ann the fort itself so some of the but it's a quick day that they spend the entire day fighting each other over this hill about six hours and then finally the Continentals say okay it's getting dark we've had enough let's go back to Fort Ann and rest so the casualties for the first day the Continentals had about one killed and three wounded and there were three British killed during the first day of Fort Ann the second day it gets more complicated at this point Phillips-Guyler note has got received word that Fort Ticonderogo has fell Skeensboro has fallen his army is about ready to collapse so he sends the sixth Albany militia up to reinforce the troops at Fort Ann and they're under the command of Colonel van Rensler and they come up and helps and they're about 400 troops with the militia and that morning at the British camp probably around here and some camps probably too on top of the ridge still a deserter suppose a deserter comes up to the British camp from the Continentals and says oh I'm deserting and he asks how strong the British army is right there he they tell them it's like oh we have about 190 troops he tells the British that there are about a thousand American troops there and so now the the British are panicking they they definitely can't take on a thousand troops and right after they send up a request a scout to go back to Burgoyne's main army to ask for reinforcements the deserter disappeared so he's probably more of a spy than a deserter Burgoyne he's still up at Skeensboro because he has his big flotilla of all his supplies and he's trying to offload all his artillery and supplies from his boats onto land so he can make this trek down to Fort Ann and so he's really held up there's also a rainstorm holding his troops up so he's unable to send reinforcements down to Fort Ann so the Continentals Captain James Gray again comes out leads the troops up here after the British camp and the kind of the militia takes this circular way to kind of outflank the British too and so the British are woken up in their camp with an early morning surprise attack and the woods on Battle Hill are really thick the British have accounts that basically they can hear the Continentals around them they know they're surrounded but they can't see them so they have no choice but basically to retreat up back to Battle Hill and try to make a stand there so that the British are up on top of the ridge and they're kind of unable to really make a strong attack against the Continentals the Continentals again are not really able to overcome the British position so they're kind of in a stalemate they go for six hours and they spend those six hours fighting at shooting at each other constantly one British officer Captain Money who shows up later said it was the heaviest firefighting he saw during the entire Saratoga Campaign about the afternoon the Continentals are running out of ammo the British are running out of ammo and that Captain Money although Burgoyne wasn't able to send really supplies down or reinforcements he was able to send Captain Money which is kind of weird because Captain Money was his quarter master I'm not sure why you're trying to offload all your supplies you send your quarter master down to the front lines but that's what Burgoyne did and he had with him a large component of Native American allies and so Captain Money shows up with his Native American warriors outside they hear the battle going on because it's a really ferocious firefight the Native Americans do not want to be a part of this fight so they leave and Captain Money is just there by himself he doesn't know what to do but he had apparently been trying to his impersonation of an Indian war whoop and so he called he tries out his Indian war whoop and the Continental Army running low on ammo think that it kind of an invading force of Native American warriors are about to attack them or ambush them they figure it's not worth it so they leave the hill and come down back to Fort Ann they have a council of war realize well it's not really worth it let's we've done what we need to do because the militia when they were sent up by Skyler Skyler said I don't care if you keep Fort Ann it was more he wanted this to be a holding action to hold the British in place while he's taking supplies from all the other forts like Fort George and kind of the other forts in the area consolidating all his resources at Fort Edward because he knew the British were on their way he couldn't stop them but he needed to consolidate his resources in his troops in one spot so he just wanted the militia with the Continental's at Fort Ann to hold them for 24 hours they did that and so the Continental said well that's fine we'll move on and abandon Fort Ann and make our way to Fort Edward part of that there's Fort Ann here kind of up around here there's kind of a Fort whoops ugly oh well the firefight because it was so crazy there's kind of a noted a captain was shot a Captain Montgomery of the British Army he gets shot kind of on his way trying to go up the hill but he's mortally wounded he's captured by the Continental's but at this time they don't really have POWs they basically get furloughed and he gets furloughed in New York City because it's occupied by the British and that's his grave site he's buried in Trinity Church the same location where Alexander Hamilton's buried and Horatio Gates a lot of Continental's heroes are and I guess they gave him a nice American flag and he was mortally wounded but he died about a year it took a year for his wounds to kill him also the Continental's were pushing the British back they come across the women and the six soldiers that were taken prisoner on Wood Creek and so they freed them that's one of the few cases in the Continental or the Revolutionary War where prisoners were rescued in the middle of a battle but also this is kind of a lithograph of kind of a sawmill that's Fort Ann it's kind of they put a lot of things together that were spatially separated but Skeensboro is named after Philip Skeen who was a big loyalist and he had a sawmill here and he lost it when he left to lead kind of a loyalist regiment for the British and the Continental's came in took over his sawmill took over Fort Ann when they abandoned Fort Ann they ordered the burning of all these fortifications when they left I think they were successful burning down the sawmill but Fort Ann didn't catch on fire something happened so it wasn't actually burned down so the British were able to come in but Skeen that's why it's called Whitehall today because after the war you couldn't they didn't want to keep the towns named after a loyalist who actually fought against the Continental Army so they changed it to Whitehall that's why he's been forgotten in space so kind of what's the outcome of the battle for Dan let's see there were the British suffered about 13 killed 22 wounded they had two other people captured one was that Captain Montgomery they also had one of their surgeons were captured the Continental suffered about 15 casualties and the second New Hampshire lost their colors which I think ultimately after the war we'll return back to New Hampshire and I think they're housed at the New Hampshire Historical Society but so I mean it looks like it's a small skirmish but it really changes the trajectory of Burgoyne's campaign if because it took this land route go back he did send some of his troops over to Lake George which is more of the waterly route that he said he wanted to do but Fort Ann draws him along this land route which if he recall in his plans he said well if I do that I'm going to be my strategy is going to fail so he didn't take his own advice and so what happens is after Fort or Skyler comes he consolidates all his troops and forces at Fort Edward and he calls up the militia and what do they do they do what Burgoyne said he would do they tear up the roads in this whole area they cut down trees and logs and fill up the creeks to obstruct them and so that just immediately slows down Burgoyne so here he goes from late June then July 5th and 6th and he's like boom boom boom going real fast he gets to Fort Ann and he just stops for a while he also gets he sets up his headquarters at Fort Ann around July 22nd he ultimately leaves Fort Ann as a headquarters around July 28th and makes his way down to Fort Edward and slowly down towards Saratoga he does leave a small kind of core of troops at Fort Ann but in September the Continentals are able to take it back kind of another key point his time at Fort Ann is the Jane McCrae massacre happens and Jane McCrae was from Fort Edward and she was going up to meet her loyalist fiance who was stationed at Fort Ann when she was killed that kind of gets the loyalist to not want to side with Burgoyne's army and Burgoyne was really reliant on loyalist support he was told that he was going to be welcomed with open arms by the loyalists that weren't hiding in the Hudson Valley that they would come out to support him a lot of this was told by the Johnson family out of the Mohawk Valley who took a same ship over to England to meet with Burgoyne that winter where he came up with a strategy I think it's the same ship that Ethan Allen sailed over on his prisoner when he was taken prisoner to England so it's a small world but the loyalists especially because of the Jane McCrae the loyalists thought well if they'll kill her they'll kill any of us there's no support or loyalty to there so they didn't come out to support Burgoyne also Burgoyne had a lot of Native Americans warriors allies to support him but because of Jane McCrae he kind of lectures the Native Americans and tells them they can't fight the way they're doing their traditional fighting so they get really upset with that they also get really upset with this slow progress and the Native Americans during the war they did a lot like siege tactics they liked more just action ambush fighting and then his low getting lectured by Burgoyne and the British officers and also taking a long time to get to where they were going a lot of his Native American troops abandoned him during his campaign and so by the time he gets down to Saratoga he's taken so long he's out of troops he's not getting local support he's run out of a lot of resources he has a really long supply chain reaching from these lower forts all the way up through the Hudson Valley Lake Champlain up to Canada and then the Continentals are rating his supply lines behind him and so that's why he goes to Bennington to try to get more supplies that fails and ultimately in September, October at Saratoga he ultimately has to surrender so a lot of that kind of could all be traced back to what happens at Fort Ann by pushing him on a route that he even admitted in his plan would be a failed route so it showed the significance of Fort Ann so we need to show kind of what's left of the the landscape at Fort Ann so we went through historic documents we looked through journals letters historic maps such as this one this one you can see their Skeensboro and Fort Ann down there and this is just more of a property parcel map um we also did a walk over and an archaeological excavation we also did a lot of spatial analysis so geographic information system or GIS where we did view sheds and slope analysis and then range of fire which we'll get into but this all feeds into what we call form of military terrain analysis so we call it Kakoa does anybody here been in the military it's based off of what they've they train it's it from the army manual for military terrain analysis they use a different order for the word so it's a different acronym I think it's Akoa something like that but it's basically so we go through the historic records either historic documents like maps journals diaries letters to see how people are describing landscape features and then we categorize it into either key terrain those parts of landscape that were either a strategic or tactical objective so battle hill at Fort Ann that's key terrain the cut nails were trying to take it and the British were trying to defend it and then we have O for observation or field of fire and those are areas that are open to observation from a point or areas that are under fire so if you're within an area that could be reached by a musket or a rifle that's within the field of fire we also do cover concealment so landscape features that hide troops from observation or fire so the woods and the trees that were on battle hill and so the British couldn't see the continental that's considered cover concealment obstacles landscape features that limit movement so parts of battle hill because of the terrain is so steep that could be considered an obstacle would create the difficulty of crossing the creek that could be an obstacle and then we also look at avenues of approach and retreat what were the paths and trails that the Continentals or the British used to get to the battlefield and what did they use to get away so a lot of traditionally people looked at mostly these upper ones for battlefields where people shooting at each other where this approach kind of expands that to kind of secondary landscape features like avenues of approach and retreat what areas maybe not have had direct fighting but were actually pivotal or influential for the battle so how do we do that just a quick example this is a text from Colonel Van Rensler's widow she her husband was injured during Fort Ann he was shot in the gut and he actually commanded his troops from behind the log while he was after he was shot but he had died and she was applying for a pension and so as part of a pension you had to show explain where you were your relative fought in the war at least what campaigns or battles they were in and sometimes these pensions are very detailed as this one has it so what we're looking for is in the red so like at the file or past past Fort Ann formed by a ledge of rocks on his left so that gives us direction and then Wood Creek with a thick swamp on his right and then a distance upward of 20 miles so right there we have distance of how long you took to get some place the descriptions of the terrain of like rocks and Wood Creek and swamps so this gives us a really good description of what the landscape and terrain was like during the battle and kind of his movements during the battle through this landscape here's from a British officer Major Gordon Forbes of the 9th Regiment and again so kind of direction so front while everybody passed the creek on the left and we have to do some kind of tweaking because not everybody's saying going to say like Wood Creek some might just say Creek some might say Wood Creek so you kind of have to standardize the descriptions and then a thick wood across the creek on the left flank of the regiments again it gives you direction from where he's standing to where the attack or movement's happening and then where where they retreated to so we took a post on top of the high hill to our right so that kind of gives you a direction of where they retreated up to on battle hill so we take that information put it in a database sign into a geographic information system but four day in was difficult because we also want to find out who is actually at four day in because that can tell us where to look for if there was an officer or a soldier to see if they wrote a diary or a letter or journal Captain James Gray wrote a lot he wrote letters he also did a day by day synopsis of what happened every day on the back of his muster roll for his company that's the front of it and so we could also use the muster roll to figure out counts of who was there because for Dan was such a chaotic retreat you have a mixed group of troops of Fort Ticonderoga to get merged with the troops from Skeensboro who also get merged with the 15th Massachusetts who are stationed at Fort Dan so it's really difficult to figure out who was there so we have to go this is what we put together the British are pretty easy they're all the ninth regiment of foot under Colonel Hill about 190 soldiers the first day we have the second New Hampshire with about 600 troops and then 150 soldiers that are injured from Fort Ticonderoga and also other mixed regiments we have James Gray's third regiment from New Hampshire with about 50 the 15th Massachusetts with about 44 troops and then the sixth doesn't really show up till the eighth but they bring up another 400 soldiers so from there we can gotta get a total number of troops for each side and you can see with the continental side it's very mixed there's not kind of one central military unit there we also used historic maps which were very useful so we have the 1777 campaign map it shows generally what like the larger topographic features are where generally where the forts were and the rivers we can match that up so this one's like from the mid 1800s and you can see already they've called that Battle Hill what we do with we can input these maps and GIS we actually can tie them into modern day maps and stretch and shrink the these historic maps to fit and overlay the current maps that can help us find where things actually align from the historic maps to today and then we have topographic maps from the USGS and 1904 for some reason they moved Battle Hill from which is there down to there that confuses a lot of people but then in 46 Battle Hill moves back up to the other side of the creek and so you can also see use these maps to see what because we're also looking for what changes that happened after the battle and so you can see the Champlain Canal kind of cuts into Wood Creek there there's a railroad that goes there that cuts into things we get in the 40s Fort Ann's built up a lot there's a new road that goes there too along with the railroad so there's a lot of transportation routes because just as in the 1700s it was a good transportation crossing even today it's a good transportation crossing so we did a walk over so kind of just get an idea of the visually what's there that's Battle Hill from the base of it this is all wetlands and swamp down here so this is kind of on top it's very wooded even today it's all secondary tertiary forests because it was after the battle Battle Hill wasn't really used it's so steep it's not very good for farming but it was used for logging this is on top of the ridge it's kind of an area where the British troops probably position themselves after they retreated from the base up to the top to get away from the continental this is kind of shows the steepness of parts of Battle Hill so this is up around there would be where the British were retreated to and this is basically kind of generally where the Contnells were standing this again another piece example of the steepness it's a very steep hill this is taken from on top of it looking out towards the village of Fort Ann and again you can see just how rocky and steep that hill is and again there's wood creek right there like now the Champlain Canal village of Fort Ann is about there so you can see from the village of Fort Ann you can see Battle Hill and this is again kind of a from a continental position looking at where the British were up there and just again how much this was in the early spring where there wasn't a lot of undergrowth it's a lot thicker with the undergrowth and trees during the summer months and again kind of an overall view just how rocky and steep again so some of the artifacts we found we found quite a few musket balls one thing that was interesting we've the British troops based on an account from one of the privates the British troops apparently were getting lazy they didn't want to use their ramrods to load the muskets so instead they would just bash the butts of their muskets on the ground instead of using a ramrod and the officers really did not like that because basically it doesn't do a really good load and it can lead to a lot of misfires and if you're in the heat of battle it's hard to hear if your gun's actually misfiring so what you get a lot of times is soldiers just keep reloading and reloading even though their gun hasn't actually gone off so this is a fired musket ball musket balls are larger than rifle balls they're about kind of like six tenths of an or about 70 tenths of an inch to about 0.75 inches in size for a musket rifle is more like 0.3 to 0.6 so rifle balls are quite a bit smaller I can see there's another one here you can kind of see an indentation for when someone was using a ramrod to load the musket and that kind of hit it down into the gun we didn't we found some buckshot which General Washington preferred that the continental troops use buckshot with their musket balls so they would have how they would load it is one musket ball with like three to four buckshot like a little tiny BB and that basically turns your musket into a shotgun and and here's another oh that's the same one we also found one of these which somewhat is kind of a unique type of bullet where they found similar to these at Monmouth battlefield and that they say that basically the troops are hammering or flattening out the musket ball and it turns it into like a dumb dumb bullet and it's their interpretation at Monmouth which could be the case here is that snipers were using it to really inflict a lot of damage on whoever they were firing at we also found some purse lives of buckles buttons this is a button from a ninth regiment of foot uniform so know the ninth regiment was there we also found this this is a gun flint and gun flints are pretty fragile because they're just stone like lithics so they can easily fracture so what they would do to protect it and it's hard to see in this one but this is a this outer thing is a piece of lead and let's pretty soft that's why with the musket balls when they fire they get all mushed up and that's how I can tell if a musket ball is fired or not fired so if it sometimes soldiers would just drop musket balls and we can find those and they you could tell they still have the seams from the molds and they're really but let's pretty soft and in this one too between the lead and the gun flint is a small piece of leather with it was still intact and that they put that in because it was soft that's what's in the hammer of the musket when it fires down it doesn't break your gun flint so that way you don't have to replace it and this one we found it's pretty exciting is a rifle ball from that's embedded in a log during the battle so this log was kind of it's rotting now but that has been in that tree for the past 240 years and you can see kind of the path that took to get into that log there's kind of what it looks like that would take it off now we could tell to us so besides we know pretty close exactly what day it would enter that tree probably July 8th it's also because we could probably determine that it was a militia that used it because British didn't really use rifles during the the Revolutionary War there were some like Ferguson's rifles that used rifles but mostly they relied on muskets Continentals sometimes have some rifle companies but most of the ones from Fort Ticonderoga were using muskets or either brown bass style or French muskets so we could kind of make a safe assumption that if we find a rifle ball that was probably fired by militia because militia people had to supply their own weapons and so they would usually just bring the rifles that they had at home anyway so kind of getting into some GIS spatial analysis stuff this is a viewshed analysis so it's hard to see but there's four in there so this kind of does an analysis based on digital elevation model so if you're standing at Fort Ann everything in this green you could see all the stuff in pink you can't see so kind of the computer goes through so if there's like a hill in your way it realizes you can't see through hills so it'll turn that into the pink so showing that you can't see it so Fort Ann they had a pretty good view of kind of at least the south side of Battle Hill and so again you could the fort was to see who could was coming in through this pass along Wood Creek and so they get a good idea of who's coming in and out there if you're in the British position after they retreated up top of Fort Battle Hill that's what the little red dots are hypothetical British positions that's what they could see they could see way out in the valley but not down in here where the Continentals were standing so these red dots are kind of hypothetical continental positions so from these red dots they could see pretty much the base or the sides of Battle Hill but they couldn't see really the top where the British were so you can see why there was such a standoff or a stalemate and either side could really hit each other or see each other which feeds into kind of we did a range of fire analysis which basically like the view shed but it kind of does it with different arm types so this is based on muskets and muskets were very inaccurate they could only reach basically 50 yards for accuracy so again for hypothetical British positions along the top what could they reach just in the pink they couldn't really reach much downslope below them and this from the continental positions what they could hit with a musket and again they could hit the sides but not the tops where the British were so yeah there's kind of that's why these battle battle took so long without a lot of casualties even though they were firing a lot they just couldn't reach each other either side now because the militia had rifles we did rifle the rifles could get up accuracy up to like 300 yards they're a lot more accurate over a longer distances again and it could get further distance but still not on top of the range where the British were so we also go and look after we have a good idea of where people were did some archaeology to figure out find evidence of where people were firing from or were firing to we got to just do see what happened to the landscape between the Revolutionary War and today here's a drawing or a lithograph of the village of Fort Ann kind of early 1800s already it's kind of some farms are developing and evidence of the forts disappearing here's like an aerial photo from the 30s shows kind of there's that canal that went and straightened out Wood Creek so that did a lot of damage just along the path of the creek there's a railroad and road that goes that way and if we do an aerial of today most of the landscape hasn't really changed from the 30s to today the biggest change is kind of an updating of the road that New York or US-4 that goes through Fort Ann right now is they kind of chop the path for that that's the biggest change where is that sharp right turn I think that's that's down here that's the village of Fort Ann and that's it has to sort of go straight instead of turning right to some battle hill front yeah so if you're on US-4 going out of Fort Ann it's right in front of you that's battle hill right there it actually on the side of I wouldn't recommend getting out because it's very dangerous there's a plaque the road they carved right into battle hill and so there's a steep kind of rock wall right on the side of US-4 and there's a plaque commemorating battle hill and I think some of your volunteers bravely put flags to mark it but yeah it's if you stand there you're probably going to get hit by a car or truck or something so I wouldn't do it there's a map of the canal the construction map showing how they straighten Wood Creek for the canal so you can see Wood Creek is generally a meandering creek but canals don't do well with meriander so they straighten out like here or just make a more straighter path kind of just chopping out those oxbows and again and it reaches all the way down to Fort Villager Fort Ann and this is what it looks like after they cut to straighten it out like a big cut rock face there's also other interesting things of revolutionary war veteran who I don't think he fought at Fort Ann but he fought at other battles he kind of after the war lived in Fort Ann and then when he died he had himself buried within the boundaries of the battlefield so it is part of the battlefield now kind of a post battle feature there's also some like this rock wall is it actually marks a property line for on the hill on battle hill but besides that there's not a lot of historic evidence of use over the battle there's there's the railroad that cuts into along wood creek in the canal so you can see railroads do a lot of impact that's what Fort Ann looks like today and it's accurate even with the ATM machine so yeah that's a total reconstruction um probably not really reflective of the original one is it on the same side pretty close yeah I mean I think the Fort's probably been pretty impact a lot so it'd be hard to find evidence of the actual Fort pretty close yeah I mean it wasn't large yet it was probably meant to house about 30 troops when it was in regular use during the battle because you had all those people from Fort Taekwondo and stuff you had close to a thousand troops probably camping outside of it more than in the Fort and then this is kind of a early mid 20th century landfill which is common with a lot of rural areas where people there weren't it's kind of centralized dumps so people made their own so there's like bed springs here and old enamel wear and tin cans scattered throughout so there could still be battlefield stuff below that but we use a lot of metal detecting for battlefield research and this metal kind of masks any battlefield remains kind of what impact there was on Fort Ann was kind of logging roads so you could see this kind of it cut in logging road because it was possibly going to be used as a granite mine there's a kind of a test hole or kind of cut in every once in a while but we used this information of what's left where we found the archaeology so we can kind of update the boundaries and so that's kind of generally what they have it's a long battle starting from Skeensboro so that's the avenue of retreat approach as they go from Skeensboro Downwood Creek to Fort Ann battle and Battle Hill and then there's the subsequent retreat down to Fort Edward so realize you probably can't preserve all of it a lot of this stuff is already impacted because it's either like US fours a lot of that and there's another road down there so that's already kind of taken out but there's still local stuff you can keep preserved and actually the landowner after discussions of seeing the significance of Battle Hill of Fort Ann and he actually sold this property and donated a lot of it to the Civil War Trust and the town of Fort Ann and I think the long-term plans is to turn it into a park so that's a kind of a happy ending as far as preservation and there's a closer boundary of like Battle Hill and kind of a more what's called potential a partner area but basically what could be put on the National Register of Historic Places there's kind of more of an updated map and tipped at 3D so again here's from Fort Ann crossing over these flats of wetlands that growing up the hill again showing just how stupid and just another view so this took a lot of effort not just with PAF we just more did a service part of it the the local preservation community of Fort Ann historic society there the local American Legion posts they've been dedicated for lots long years trying to get this site preserved also the National Park Service the American Battlefield program for providing funding for the project this Saratoga New York State Archives and Public Library and Master's just Historical Society where all great sources for archival materials so I just want to thank them as well and thank you for braving the cold today when did they reconstruct it the way we see it today I think the 70s maybe you guys might have a better idea I think it's pretty recent would you repeat the question oh yes when was the reconstruction for Fort Ann built which it's just a bank so it's not kind of a it's a privately warden you think of this like it's a yeah 1975 right outside the town headed toward Lake George there's a little ordnance house to pass by that's got a plaque on it it's a revolution what's the significance of that there's like like an ordnance building outside of Fort Ann on the way I'm not too specific there's kind of a lot of different outhouses that's a bad word but outbuildings related to Fort Ann so like there's the sawmill and different aspects that were kind of tied to the general landscape of the battle but weren't actually directly impacted by the battle so I think it's just one of those outbuildings to those who traveled to the New York state for like 30 years I was looking at this thing and wondering if it would work yeah it's like schemes like schemes falls is kind of off to the side but that we didn't find any evidence of the troops currently crossing in during that battle they tried they burned it after they the cut nails burned it after they left the battlefield in Fort Ann but they're kind of no direct fighting at that site I'm interested in those those musket balls that you showed slides of did you have to dig down deep to find those or were they just laying on the surface not too deep just because it's not a lot of not a lot of soil development because it's more like uplands and hills so yeah pretty not too deep and and that was it like a rifle bullet that you found in that piece of wood are you sure that that's from the battle is there any chance it could have been from like a hunter from you know after it you know I mean they're they're different you can usually like especially if it's more modern you can usually tell the difference just because they change but not I think we're fairly confident that it's for the battle what was the area of the battlefield mostly I think it's close to 50 acres yeah and what is the civil workshop why are you doing that well well they started they're tied with they're kind of a private foundation that's works hand in hand with the American battlefield protection program to preserve battlefields and when they first started their funding for grants because the battlefield protection program they do like archaeological and historic research grants but they also do like real estate grants for either land acquisition or easements but up until recently they only could do that they only had the authority to do that for civil war battlefields a couple years ago they changed they updated the law to also apply it to rev war and war of AT-12 battlefields so when they first start the civil war trust first started since they could only preserve civil war battlefields that's where they get their name and I think I think they've been talking about maybe updating the name they do have a sub-program within the civil war trust called campaign 1776 and that still specifically with campaign 1776 yeah and they that campaign in 1776 deals with preserving Revolutionary War and War of AT-12 battlefields yes I've wondered I come up to Vermont I'm a Burlingtonian but I'm not living here now so I come up a couple of times a year to and go through Fort Ann and I'm always mystified even in your discussion here you'll use two spellings of Ann AN&E and AN&N can you explain that to me yeah it's even during the Revolutionary War they would do the spelling I mean because spelling during the Revolutionary War is there was no real standard spelling so some people spell things one thing's one way but that kind of for the Revolutionary or up until the end of the Revolution Fort Ann with an E is considered the official spelling and then I think 1807 the village and the towns dropped the E and so that so that's kind of it kind of becomes a time marker as well although if you read like accounts during the battle people are including the E or not including the E and that was named after the Queen of England or does yeah the Queen of England yeah Queen Queen Ann mm-hmm just quickly when the when that woman was killed that was fiancee of the the Tory mm-hmm I didn't understand where's it the did the was it the British the killer or do they feel that the Indians that are alive with them killer she was her fiancee was a loyalist and she was going up to meet him and while she and a kind of acquaintance were making a trek up there they get captured by two British ally Native Americans who I guess all right it's the story now has become more myth that it's hard to get the truth but there's like a fight between the two of them who's going to get credit for capturing them so they end up killing both Jane McCray and her friend it becomes a big the the Continentals use it to rally against Burgoyne's invasion as if he killed her yeah so it's basically more like the British look what the British are doing they're bringing these Native Americans to kill us we need to stop them all the way up to on the Mohawk Valley where General Herkimer of the Trion County militia is using it to rally the militia troops it's like hey they killed this woman we need to protect our people and that's why we need to stand and fight and it's a it becomes kind of a propaganda thing too amongst the Continentals and then the Loyalists are like well she was tied to a Loyalist and they killed her they could kill us too so they keep hidden instead of coming out to support Burgoyne I'm going to take one more question from the floor and then those of you who have other questions can stay and talk to the speaker afterwards and then they kill us as a couple of announcements or a little something and I have two hands so one more question from the floor I got it um and hello to my to the Ethan Allen people who saw me when I was here I have a few questions but I'll try to make it really tight could you explain a little bit more the connection between the Fort Ann battle and then the Hubbardton battle which led to the Battle of Bennington and if it's true from my research it's true that they had to disobey Skylet who said forget about it and they said I don't think so because all stores are in Bennington and we're going once of them so we're going to defend Bennington and they're not only defended it but they really you know slaughtered them so that's one number two when you say Native Americans could you tell tell us what tribes because they're that's pretty important I think because the Stockbridge Indians fought with it with the Green Mountain Boys in Bennington and so anyway thank you thank you yeah Native Americans it's it was hard to identify which tribes were allied with them we also do a lot of work with more specific battles out in Western New York where it is we could where the Mohawk and Iroquois are allied with the British and the Oneida or with the Continentals but that's a little bit later and what kind of it starts about this time but it's out in the Mohawk Valley more than here where that to kind of starts up for Burgoyne he gets kind of a lot of the Canadian tribes like the Huron maybe and stuff but it's they didn't really yeah so they didn't have a really good listing of who's allied with them and a lot of that too it's it gets really confused because some people within a tribe would ally with one versus the other so like the Delaware if you look out West New York you had some that were fighting with the British but they also have some that are fighting with the Continentals and serving as scouts so it's and there's even cases of like Oneida killing Oneida because it just become a real civil war and almost it's hard to there were some tribes that identified kind of with generally with the British or with the Continentals but it gets really fuzzy on who's who the Bennington stuff I I don't look too closely at Bennington so you probably about not more of that but but as far as Kyler too he gets kind of roped in that kind of politics with Continental Congress so he gets removed from his leadership role the northern partner replaced by ratio gates a lot of that's kind of tied into politics between New England and New York and they also see of his kind of his Dutch background they don't like that though the New England Continental Congress don't like that they use that as an excuse there's even some accusation that he's a Tory but I don't think those are grounded at all so I think that was just the excuse to get rid of them so he's kind that's also kind of a transition period of when he was it true that he said don't defend Bennington you know he might have been out or leaving by that time okay it's just one of the stories I've heard so I want to sort it out if you hold your seats we have a couple of comments and I think fellas want to make a little presentation very fascinating things I know everyone has a lot of information that they would like to glee from life here today and we do thank you so much for coming and hope that you will enjoy thank you thanks the book about Ethan Allen and well it was on our board until recently when he's off doing other things being a very busy person and they all so again I want to welcome everybody here thank you so much for coming and supporting our lecture series and if you have any ideas about anyone you would like to see like I don't know where John gets all his wonderful people that he brings in but he finds them and so lots of times it's someone who has been somewhere and hears somebody or hears about something that would be a interest to us in this area just let John Devon know from the question there's some people probably right in this room who could also give a good talk and we have had some of them here yes so thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you we don't do a talk in December until our next talk will be the third Sunday in January I think it's maybe the 21st and the speaker is Robert the champ who I believe I believe he's standing to my left when we only met maybe a few minutes before the talk but Robert is that you over here no you're not Robert Robert and then Dan O'Neill said Robert was here okay so Robert if you wanted without giving your whole steal you want to just tell us what your topic might be I think that for our next talk good afternoon I'm going to be speaking about the role of my sixth great grandfather Lieutenant Colonel just tonight of the Red Island militia and his role in the American Revolution although the talk will feature the revolution in the southern New England theater of operations really it's going focused overall on the role that the New England militia played overall so looking forward to seeing most of you there thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you and lastly Friday is Black Friday right so many of you are going to be out at Walmart at 4 a.m. so many of you are going to be out at Walmart at 4 a.m. so many of you are going to be out at Walmart I like this I like to think of today as red, white, and blue Sunday you might consider stopping by our table and checking out our books our mugs and maybe picking up a Christmas present an early present for someone in your family looking around the room unfortunately our speaker is probably the youngest person in the room along with our camera operator and we do have some young children's books out there there are about four or five titles of those that you might want to take a look at we have Will Randall's biography of Ethan and also the new book Untrackling America is also out there so again thank you for coming enjoy your Thanksgiving everybody