On This Day: Elihu Ely at Saratoga

I wrote this one early on, back when this Substack was just finding its footing. It didn't reach many people the first time around, but I've always thought it was worth telling. So here it is again — hopefully this time it finds the audience it deserves.

On this day in 1777, Elihu Ely of Colchester, Connecticut, was drafted as a lieutenant in Colonel Jonathan Latimer’s Regiment of Connecticut Militia. He served for just over two months—enough time to fight at the Battle of Bemis Heights, endure the Siege of Saratoga, and witness the unprecedented surrender of a full British army.

Nearly two centuries later, in 1967, Ely’s words resurfaced. A letter he wrote to his brother and sister on October 16, 1777—the day before Burgoyne’s surrender—was donated to Saratoga National Historical Park by descendants of the Pratt family, who had preserved it for generations.

The Saratogian reported its donation at the time. Ely wrote in steady, faithful prose:

“These with my Love to you and ye Children may inform that through Divine goodness, I enjoy a Comfortable State of Health… There has been a sessation of arms here… I understand that this Day Mr. Burgoyne and his army are to resign themselves prisoners of war.”

What strikes me most is Ely’s matter-of-fact tone. He recounts “a smart Engagement” at Bemis Heights, Burgoyne retreating “about 8 miles,” and the British being “obliged to comply.” Beneath the plain language rests the weight of history: he was recording, almost casually, the turning point of the American Revolution.

Thanks to the National Park Service, Ely’s letter is now digitized and available online here. It endures as both a personal note of reassurance to his family and a firsthand witness to the moment when rebellion became victory.

Standing on the fields of Saratoga today, one can almost imagine Ely’s “comfortable State of Health” interrupted by musket fire, his quick lines written between exhaustion and duty. His words bridge centuries, a reminder that history often survives not in grand proclamations, but in the quiet letters of ordinary men who saw extraordinary things.

#saratoga250 #AmericasTurningPoint #america250