This letter may be considered as an introduction to the following appendix on the "Tablets."

New York, March 20, 1894.

Wm. L. STONE, Esq.

DEAR SIR:

The very name of your proposed book, "Visits to the Saratoga Battle Grounds," suggests a host of delightful associations to my mind. My first visit to the Saratoga battle ground was, when a very young girl, I accompanied Chancellor Walworth, afterward my father-in-law. Those who knew him and the fulness of knowledge which he held of every subject on which he would dilate, and his extreme accuracy of statement can appreciate the value of such companionship.

Fresh as I then was from the memory of the supreme sacrifice my own father had made for his country on the field of Buena Vista, this visit to the ground where my great-grandfather had fought and received special honors, was a marked event in my young life. The Chancellor took me to every point of known interest; we entered every house and examined the premises and the relics, and talked with the old people.

Twenty years elapsed between that visit and an. other, when with copies of military maps, and notes from books sought out in the State library at Albany I once more wandered over the battle ground with my older children, who helped me to trace the old points of interest. Some of the houses, notably the one in which General Fraser died and the one that had been General Gates' headquarters, were entirely destroyed; and only by turning over the soil were traces found of the old foundations and cellars.

The earth-works were, in many places, quite leveled and other works of the revolutionary struggle were obliterated. We saw, however, what had escaped the knowledge of the Chancellor, remains of the old military road through the woods from the river to Breyman's Hill, and clear evidences of the revolutionary bridge thrown over the ravine near the foot of the hill for the passage of artillery. Now, alas! the least vestige of all this is gone and much more that told its record of the past.

When will our countrymen believe that not in books alone are the records of a nation to be kept? If our "Saratoga Monument Association," or the government owned this great battle field it would tell its own story to the school children and to the indifferent grown people and lead them to value the national life that was at stake on this ground. If Burgoyne and his army had passed over it victoriously, our boasted freedom would probably at his day still be rocked in the cradle of colonial conservatism. It will belong before we pay our full debt of gratitude to Saratoga and to France, so indissolubly linked in the events of 1777.

Another visit among many I have made to the battle ground since that time was memorable when I was accompanied by the late Joseph W. Drexel, Captain A. de R. McNair, U. S. N., and our friend, the late George Ensign, who had lived all of his life on the battle ground. The mutual enthusiasm of this earnest, single-minded farmer, and the accomplished man of the world, J. W. Drexel, was an inspiration to the whole party: my daughter accompanied us.

With light wagons we drove from place to place, over fields and meadows as well as roads, stopping at every point of note, as Mr. Ensign and I led the way, to exclaim on the beauty of the scene, the interest of the locality or to consult about the best point for the proposed tablets. One after another of us standing up in a wagon, pointing and declaiming, a spectator might have supposed we were making stump speeches, so eager and enthusiastic was the interest expressed during this whole day which was spent on the field, with the exception of an hour at noon. At the old historic Bemus Tavern we and our horses found rest and refreshment.

That visit was a prelude to one succeeding it, made with my son and a negro man who belonged to the old set of "colored people" who are descendants of those who were once slaves to the Schuylers and other "county families."

I drove carefully over the ground; and at each point, we had formerly selected, had a heavy stake driven in the ground. This was a mark for the preparation of the soil for tablets that were to be permanent memorials of the heroism and the results of the contest on the field of Saratoga. You know how unceasing the labor has been to complete that work.

ELLEN HARDIN WALWORTH