Convention Army Passes Through Albany

After Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga, the nearly 6,000 prisoners of the Convention Army were marched through Albany on their way to Boston. The spectacle of a defeated British army passing through the streets of the town they had been trying to capture underscored the magnitude of the American victory.

Albany residents witnessed the column of prisoners with a mixture of triumph and anxiety. The logistical burden of feeding and managing thousands of prisoners strained the town's resources. Some of the German soldiers later returned to the Albany area after the war, settling among the Dutch and English communities of the Hudson Valley.