Fort Stanwix National Monument, Rome New York

The first year of the war went well for the patriots. They had chased the British out of Boston and almost captured Canada. King George responded by sending more troops who landed in the New York area in 1776. British General Howe led his 32,000 army against Washington’s assorted militia units and beat them in August 1776 in the Battle of Long Island. Fortunately for the revolution, Howe failed to pursue his advantage and allowed the American army to slip away. On Christmas Day 1776, Washington struck a counterblow by leading his troops across the ice-choked Delaware River to attack and capture 1,400 German soldiers at Trenton and the next day, secured another victory in Princeton. This provided a welcome lift to the rebellion through that winter.

Place where Washington and his soldiers crossed the Delaware River on Christmas 1776 (Photo by Hunner)

The next summer, the British launched an ambitious campaign to split off New England from the rest of the colonies by capturing the Hudson River Valley. They planned a three pronged invasion with two armies moving south from Canada and another one coming north from New York City. General Howe was to invade from New York City, but decided instead to try to capture Philadelphia. General Burgoyne at first succeeded in advancing down from Canada through Lake Champlain and captured Fort Ticonderoga. General St. Leger came into New York from the west to join Burgoyne near Albany. The British had to pass by Fort Stanwix first.

Originally built during the French and Indian War to protect this key portage, Fort Stanwix protected the “Oneida Carrying Place,” a six-mile stretch between the Mohawk River which goes east into the Hudson River and Wood Creek which drains west into Oneida Lake. Ranger David at Fort Stanwix said that this was the center of the world for this region. During this period, all roads went through the Oneida Carrying Place and so converged at Fort Stanwix. However, after the French and Indian War, the British had no further use for it and so abandoned the fort.

In the 1770s, the British declared a boundary through central New York that prohibited settlers moving west into land that belonged to the Iroquois Confederacy. George Washington had bought the Great Meadow around Fort Necessity and men like Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, and others had also invested in land west of the boundary. They were unhappy that the King had set aside this region. So this boundary fueled the growing anger about a distant government meddling in America affairs.

Supporting the British plan to invade New York in 1777 from the north, west, and south, General St. Leger sailed by way of Lake Ontario to Oswego, New York with 800-900 British soldiers and Loyalist Tories and 1,000 Iroquois allies. According to Ranger David, the British promised the Iroquois that there would be no sieges, no battles, and that their warriors would enjoy many gifts. Hearing that the British were coming, the patriots secretly started rebuilding Fort Stanwix. They succeeded in rehabilitating the fortification so that when the British force arrived, they had to set up a siege.

On August 6, 1777, an American militia relief force led by General Nicolas Herkimer approached from the east but ran into an ambush of Tories, Mohawks, and Seneca Indians at Oriskany, about fifteen miles from Stanwix. Around half of Herkimer’s soldiers were killed or wounded in this vicious fighting. Ironically, Oriskany was the first in a series of events that led to the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Here’s why.

As the Iroquois were fighting at Oriskany, their camps near Fort Stanwix were looted by soldiers coming out from the fort. When the Iroquois heard of this, they broke off fighting at Oriskany and rushed back to find their possessions gone. All of the promises made to them, no siege, no battles, lots of gifts were broken. So they left the campaign. The British and the Loyalists continued the siege for another two weeks until they heard that Benedict Arnold approached with 3,000 troops. In truth, Arnold had only 800 soldiers but had sent a Loyalist into St. Leger’s camp sounding the alarm about the bigger force. St. Leger abandoned his invasion, returned to Canada, and left Burgoyne without essential reinforcements. Arnold turned around and raced with his troops back to support the upcoming battle with Burgoyne.

As I wandered the grounds, I recalled Joan Zenzen’s book, Fort Stanwix National Monument, about the creation of the fort. After the reconstruction of Fort Stanwix, for the first twenty years, interpreters at Fort Stanwix played first person – that is they pretended to not know anything after 1777. I talked with many volunteers who were at the fort that Saturday. Volunteer Charles, who portrayed a Captain, switched from a Civil War reenactor to the American Revolution. When I asked Charles about first person interpretation at Fort Stanwix, he said that they don’t do that anymore. He explained that first person interpretation is hard on the audience and hard on the interpreters. The opinion of the interpreters at the fort is that it is difficult to engage with an audience when you pretend to know nothing about today.

I also had an interesting conversation about the interpretation done at the fort with volunteers  Frank, William, and Mike in a barrack as they shared bread and passed around some salami for lunch. Since the goal of volunteers and staff is to engage visitors, they considered that the best way to accomplish this was by talking with them from today. So they were in costumes from 1777, but are squarely in 2016. I blogged about this from my time at Conner Prairie Interactive Park, and I must admit, my thoughts are changing on this. More about this when we get to Plimouth Planation in Massachusetts.

Another interesting volunteer I met was Renee. She played a British Grenadier and explained that she has been fascinated by history since the 4^th grade and wanted to be a Redcoat since then. She found a friendly group with the volunteer group at Fort Stanwix and while I visited with her in a barrack, a mother with two children came in. Renee showed how muskets worked and even let them cock and pull the trigger on the gun.

To get back to the campaign of 1777, Britain’s attempt to split the colonies failed, but Howe did manage to capture Philadelphia, the nascent country’s capital. In European wars, capturing the capital often meant a war was won. Not here. The British occupied the City of Brotherly Love that winter of 1777-78 while Washington and his army hunkered down thirty miles away at Valley Forge. Up north, at Saratoga that fall of 1777, Benedict Arnold distinguished himself again and saved the rebellion. We will fully explore this in the future.

Fort Stanwix became a National Monument on August 21, 1935. The NPS acquired the property in 1973 in anticipation of the U.S. Bicentennial. A group of politicians and local boosters received urban renewal funding to revitalize the downtown area by rebuilding the fort with promises of hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The more recent buildings on top of the site were razed, archeological excavations conducted, and the blueprint for the original fort was discovered in a British archive which helped recreate the fort. Today, the promise of tourist hordes has failed to materialize, but it is a lively site with costumed interpreters firing off cannons, demonstrating martial life of the time, and engaging visitors with their knowledge and love of the place that prevented the British forces from uniting in 1777 and dividing the colonies along the Hudson River.