Van Schaick Mansion

In the summer of 1777, the American Army headquartered at the Van Schaick Mansion, where plans for the Battle of Saratoga were drawn up. That April, General Philip Schuyler and 5,000 troops had retreated from Fort Edward before Burgoyne’s superior forces and camped in the surrounding fields, with additional encampments on Peebles Island to the north. From August 22-25, the house served as the New York State Capitol while Governor George Clinton and American generals planned their next actions and, in a controversial decision, replaced Schuyler, a friend of the Van Schaicks, with General Gates as commander of the Northern Department of the Continental Army. In mid-August, Benedict Arnold led 800 volunteers to relieve besieged troops at Fort Stanwix on the western frontier, then returned in time to advance to Saratoga, where the Americans forced the British to surrender. Afterward, British General Burgoyne stopped here as a prisoner of war.

Cohoes, New York · United States