Cannon From 1777 Battle Back ‘Home’ in Upstate NY

One of John Burgoyne’s cannons is finally back where the British general and his redcoats lost it more than 230 years ago — on the Saratoga Battlefield, scene of one of American history’s most important battles.

After spending the past 40 years at a museum in Alabama, the cannon has been returned to the upstate New York landmark, thanks to a chance remark made four years ago — and some dogged investigative work on the part of U.S. Army and National Park Service employees.

The rare 555-pound artillery piece, known as a six-pounder for the weight of the ball it fired, disappeared in the early 1960s from a barn near the battlefield, officially known as the Saratoga National Historical Park.

“The long-timers here at the park had always heard about this cannon that was legendary among park staff,” said Christine Valosin, the Saratoga park’s curator.

Known in Department of the Army records as “Saratoga Trophy Cannon, Six-Pounder No. 102,” the wayward relic from the Revolutionary War’s Battles of Saratoga was traced to the Tuscaloosa Museum of Art, where it was on display for years.

In 2009, an Alabama man visiting Saratoga Battlefield remarked in the visitors’ center that the cannon on display there resembled one in a museum back in his home state. The Saratoga cannon he was talking about actually was another British six-pounder captured here in 1777 and loaned to the battlefield by a museum in Ohio. Longtime park ranger Joseph Craig overheard the man’s remark and passed the information along.

That set off an investigation involving historians, law enforcement and the park service. Valosin began compiling information that traced the cannon’s history from its creation in 1756 at a foundry outside London to its surrender by the British when they laid down their arms on Oct. 17, 1777, 10 days after their defeat in the second Saratoga battle.

Many historians consider Saratoga the turning point of the war because the American victory convinced the French to join the fight against England, an alliance that eventually led to the British defeat at Yorktown in 1781.

As a trophy of war captured by the Continental Army, the U.S. Army still considered the cannon its property. After learning in 2009 where it was, Valosin sought the help of park service investigators and the Army’s history experts to get the cannon back. A park service investigator based in Atlanta was sent to Tuscaloosa to verify that the cannon on display was actually one of the three remaining cannons Burgoyne took to Saratoga.

The cannon bore the No. 102 engraved by its British maker, along with the maker’s name and a later inscription stating the gun had been surrendered at Saratoga on Oct. 17, 1777. When informed that they had a Saratoga cannon rightfully belonging to the Army, officials at the Alabama museum readily cooperated, she said.

“They were really interested in doing the right thing,” Valosin said.

This article appeared in print on page 5 of the November 18th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.