Small Town Life Episode 0028

On this episode of Small Town Life, host Dave Warner interviews author William L. Kidder, who just completed the book 'Defending Fort Stanwix.' It's a story of the New York Frontier during the American Revolution. The book focuses on the successful defense of Fort Stanwix, located in what is today Rome, New York. Fort Stanwix played an important role in the 1777 Saratoga campaign, which resulted in the capture of British forces led by General John Burgoyne. This campaign is widely considered to be a major turning point in the American Revolution. Burgoyne’s surrender raised Patriot morale and contributed to the formation of the alliance with France, which contributed greatly to victory in the War for Independence. In the epilogue, Kidder sketches the postwar lives of some of the fort’s prominent defenders, outlines the fort’s decommissioning and fall into ruin, and describes its late twentieth-century reconstruction and designation as a national monument. As Kidder says in the interview, you can pick up copies of the book at the Fort Plain Free Library, or you can pre-order it on Amazon.