- 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
I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living; that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.
This, with its echo of the Declaration (self-evident
) was Jefferson at his most terse. Except for the phrase in usufruct
— a legalism meaning the right to use property for a certain time — Jefferson’s words could be chiseled in stone, or shouted on the hustings.
James Madison (2011)