- During the Battles of Saratoga (1777) the Continental Army had no cannon, while the British Regulars, led by General John Burgoyne, had 18. After the American victory the cannons were seized and used by Washington’s Army for the remainder of the War. Today there are only three of these
six-pounders
remaining. Read how one of them (The New York Times, 10-Nov-2013) has been on a strange odyssey since 1961, but now is back at the Saratoga National Historical Park where it belongs.
Missing Cannon from Battle of Saratoga Returns
By 1789 many of the Federalists, particularly Hamilton, had no confidence whatsoever left in the virtue or the natural sociability of the American people as adhesive forces: to rely on such wild schemes and visionary principles, as radicals like Jefferson and Paine did, to tie the United States together, the Federalists said, was to rely on nothing. Hence Hamilton and the other Federalist leaders had to find things other than republican virtue and natural sociability to make the American people a single nation.
Tying people together, creating social cohesiveness, making a single nation out of disparate sections and communities without relying on idealistic republican adhesives — this was the preoccupation of the Federalists, and it explains much of what they did — from Washington’s proposals for building canals to Hamilton’s financial program.
The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (2011)