Pvt. DeArmond’s Journey to Ft. Freeland

This is the third and final post in a series about Pvt. Thomas DeArmond’s service as a rifleman in America’s Revolutionary War.

After participating in the British defeat at Saratoga and the famous winter at Valley Forge, Pvt. DeArmond may have fought under Col. Morgan in June 1778 as one of the riflemen who helped harass British troops during their withdrawal from Philadelphia to New York. During that Spring and early summer, however, Morgan dispatched some of his riflemen north to aid in the continuing battle of American settlers and militia against British troops and their Iroquois allies. The American victory at Saratoga put an end to large-scale, European-style warfare in upper New York, but many Iroquois remained determined to continue the war, and the British were anxious to assist.