The sun., 1909-06-30

the relief that never came. The trav-
eller must do this for himself not single
mark, not wooden signboard will lead
him to these vanishing traces.
Nor il it different beyond Wilbur's
Basin, on the strange round hill, or
series Of hills, below which BURdoYNEs s
army crowded and huddled when the
second battle was over and the British
works were turned. Not in all mill
tary history are there many more stir
ring descriptions than that OF BUR-
GoYNE Of the burial of General FRASER
on this very hill, while the American
cannon spattered mud upon the clergy
man, and the sorrows incident to per-
sonal affliotion mingled with the agonies
of a routed and defeated army. Yet
only by BURGoYNE's map again will the
stranger identify this hill, and only
by attentive observation detect the
slightly followed summit of the hill,
the last evidence of the great re-
doubt which for brief day held back
the onset of victorious army.
To the most famous spots on the bat
tlefield, the Notifications about Free
mans farm, where ARNOLD ragged in
the second battle, the little brook flow
ing from tiny spring about which the
dying clustered and over which the two
lines charged and recharged in the first
battle, the visitor must go armed with
complete information, for the stray
stones here will tell him nothing. But
again BURGoYNE's map is invaluable;
by that he may discover the little ledge
on which the outwork rested and the
whole line of BALCARRAs' s redoubt along
which ARNOLD swept with successive
charges until, beyond the winding
country road, he broke through and
swept by the flank up the slopes of an
oak crested ridge to fall victorious and
wounded within the sallyport. 1t is
through ploughed fields, now gone to
grain, the traveller must march to find
this ridge and the inadequate stone
which tells SO little OF the story.
OF all this field, where English and
French and German and Canadian and
Continentals aided by Indian allies
fought not a single foot belongs to
State or nation. The passion for
patriotic parks which has spent itself
with such fury over the wide area of
civil war has never penetrated here.
The field on which MoRGAN's Virginia
sharpshooters and STARK's New Hamp-
shire farmers fought together-found-
ing a national solidarity preceding and
now happily succeeding a temporary
disunion-remains remote, neglected, it's
few stone monuments located by chance
and in defiance OF recorded fact.
OF all the famous fields Of the northern
gateway, the Hudson-Champlain route,
that Of Saratoga must remain the first,
having already earned inclusion among
the few decisive battles OF the world.
1t would be far from unfortunate il a
fraction of the temporary enthusiasm
and transient interest now turning
toward this celebration might find per-
manent expression in proper preserva-
ton. either as a State or national park,
OF this battlefield where the first great
victory Of the Revolution was won, and
where the American born. the Cont
nentals, unaided by the French, cap
tured for the first and last time British
army; for though the surrender took
place a few miles beyond and to the
northward, it was at Saratoga, on the
field above Saltwater and before Bemis
Heights, that the fate OF BUBGoYHE's
army was sealed.