Special 250th Conference “Continental Conflict: A Critical Appraisal of the 1777 Saratoga Campaign”

Fort Ticonderoga commemorates the 250th anniversary of the 1777 Saratoga Campaign with a weekend conference examining the campaign with a distinguished group of panelists.

Friday, June 18, 2027

• 3:00–4:30pm — Ticonderoga’s Treasures: The 1777 Campaign. Join Dr. Matthew Keagle, Curator, for a behind-the-scenes examination of manuscripts and objects in the Fort Ticonderoga Collection related to the 1777 Campaign. $50 additional fee for this limited-space program.
• 5:30–7:00pm — Cocktail Cruise exploring the Fall of Ticonderoga 1777. Set sail as we explore the July 1777 Fall of Ticonderoga to the British from the vantage point of the water. $60 additional fee for this limited-space program. Cash bar.

Additional special opportunities will be added later this fall.

Saturday, June 19, 2027

• 9:15–10:15am — The 1777 Campaign
• Recruits, Drafts and Veterans: British Soldiers’ Military Experience in Burgoyne’s 1777 Army. The British regiments that marched towards Albany in 1777 included a mixture of long-serving veteran soldiers and recently recruited men, some of whom had career paths that will be surprising. Don N. Hagist is the author of several books on British soldiers in America and their families, drawn from archival sources.
• Sachems, Headmen, Clan Mothers, and Pine Trees: Indigenous Leadership Structures during the American War for Independence. Michael Galban unravels the complicated layers of leadership systems within certain Indigenous nations as encounters in the last quarter of the 18th century. Michael Galban is the Historic Site Manager of Ganondagan State Historic Site and the Director of the Seneca Art & Culture Center.
• British Military Strategy for 1777. This presentation will focus on the development of Britain’s fatally flawed military strategy for 1777. Col. Kevin Weddle (retired) is a distinguished fellow at the United States Army War College and is the author of The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution.
• 10:15–10:30am — Break
• 10:30–11:30am — The 1777 Campaign Panel. Dr. Joseph Stoltz, Senior Director of Education at Fort Ticonderoga, leads a panel discussion with the morning panelists Don Hagist, Michael Galban, and Kevin Weddle.
• 11:30am–1:30pm — Lunch break
• 12:45–1:15pm — Book signing
• 1:30–2:00pm — The Uniforms of the 1777 Campaign. Explore the breadth of uniforms used by the various combatants during the 1777 Saratoga Campaign with Stuart Lilie, Vice President of Public History at Fort Ticonderoga.
• 2:00–3:00pm — Beyond British and Continental Soldiers
• “A completely different way to wage war:” German Soldiers in Burgoyne’s 1777 Campaign. The presentation focuses on the experiences of the thousands of German soldiers and women on Burgoyne’s fateful march to Saratoga. Dr. Friederike Baer, Professor of History at Penn State Abington College, is the author of Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War.
• The Royalist Corps in the Burgoyne Campaign. An examination of the Loyalist military support given to General John Burgoyne’s Army. Todd Braisted is an author and long-time researcher of military Loyalists in the Revolutionary War.
• French Canadian Laborers in the 1777 Northern Campaign. This presentation examines the everyday existence of Canadians performing corvée in 1777, with a focus on the materials they consumed and work they performed on Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne’s expedition to Albany. Dr. Richard Tomczak is the Director of Faculty Engagement and a Research Assistant Professor in the History Department at Stony Brook University, where he received his PhD in History.
• 3:00–3:15pm — Break
• 3:15–4:15pm — Beyond British and Continental Soldiers Panel Discussion. Dr. Matthew Keagle, Curator at Fort Ticonderoga, leads a panel discussion with the afternoon panelists Friederike Baer, Todd Braisted, and Richard Tomczak.
• 5:00pm — Dinner at America’s Fort Café (pre-registration only).

Sunday, June 20, 2027

• 8:00–9:30am — Coffee Cruise and Brown’s Raid. Start the morning with coffee and an early morning cruise as we explore the events of Brown’s Raid in September 1777. Participants will be back in time for the 10:00am start of Sunday’s sessions. $45 additional fee for this limited-space program.
• 10:00–11:00am — The Continental Army and the 1777 Campaign
• Reflections on Horatio Gates, Benedict Arnold, and the Battles of Saratoga. While the dire feud between Generals Gates and Arnold at Saratoga in 1777 was real, its nature has been widely misconstrued and mythologized since the early 19th century. Eric Schnitzer is Park Ranger/Military Historian at Saratoga National Historical Park.
• Red Sox vs Yankees: Tensions in the Officer Corps of the Continental Army During the Saratoga Campaign. The American defense of the Northern Department in 1777 was hampered by regional infighting between New England states and New York that initially threatened the entire campaign, but Philip Schuyler’s dedication to defending New York and Gates’s appeal to New England soldiers overcame this challenge and resulted in one of the most important American victories of the Revolution. COL (ret) Seanegan Sculley is a 32-year veteran of the US Army, a former Associate Professor of History at the United States Military Academy, and the author of Contest for Liberty: Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775–1783 and The Saratoga Campaign, 1777.
• “Well used to rifles and to wood-fights”: Daniel Morgan’s Corps in the Northern Army. In the northern campaign of 1777, George Washington intended the riflemen he detached from his army to be a counter to the Native American allies of the British, but they primarily fought regular troops, revealing both the benefits and the drawbacks of riflemen in the American Revolution. Jack Weaver completed his dissertation, “Rifles and Riflemen: Material Culture, Violence, and Early American Identity, 1720–1820,” and graduated with his PhD in Early American History in Spring 2025; since then he has worked in the Special Collections Department in West Virginia University Libraries, and as Site Manager at Fort Dobbs State Historic Site in North Carolina.
• 11:00–11:15am — Break
• 11:15am–12:15pm — The Continental Army and the 1777 Campaign Panel Discussion. Dr. Joseph Stoltz, Senior Director of Education at Fort Ticonderoga, leads a panel discussion with the morning panelists Eric Schnitzer, Seanegan Sculley, and Jack Weaver.
• 12:30pm — Lunch