SCHUYLERVILLE, N.Y. - New York Army National Guard Soldiers memorialized a Revolutionary War Soldier killed 245 years ago during the Battle of Saratoga and buried on the battlefield.
A nine-Soldier detail provided military honors, including a firing party, at a Veterans Administration cemetery near the battlefield. The Oct. 19 ceremony marked the placement of a memorial marker commemorating Continental Army Private Oliver Barrett.
Barrett, a member of the 10th Massachusetts Regiment, was 51 when he died Oct. 7, 1777, during one of two major clashes during the Battle of Saratoga.
“It is historic,” said Command Sgt. Maj. David Piwowarski, the New York Army National Guard state senior enlisted advisor. “It really made me think about our American history at the time of the Revolution and what Soldiers like Oliver Barrett had to endure and sacrifice for their country and their cause.”
Although Barrett’s remains are lost, the Veterans Administration allows markers honoring those whose remains are lost to be placed at national cemeteries.
Barrett’s fifth time over great-granddaughter Ann Lord, and her husband, Steve, who live in Peterborough, New Hampshire, arranged to have a marker honoring Barrett placed at Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery, about three miles from the battlefield site at Saratoga National Historical Park.
“It doesn’t matter if somebody gave up their life 245 years ago or yesterday. That’s a valuable thing to remember,” Ann said.
Nine other Revolutionary War Soldiers are memorialized at the cemetery, but Barrett is the first there to fight and die at the historic battle site nearby.
“This is a very significant event,” said W. Scott Lamb, cemetery director. “It’s a very notable service with connection to the turning point of the Revolutionary War.”
Barrett, a resident of Westford, Massachusetts, served as a Minuteman early in the Revolutionary War. He turned out as part of the militia call-up to the British march on Concord and Lexington and then enlisted in the Continental Army in January 1777.
He was killed during the battle at the Breymann Redoubt when American forces overran a key British defensive position.
“This is also close to home for me, too, as the Battle of Saratoga was fought a few miles from my home,” Piwowarski said. “I’ve walked the ground at Breymann Redoubt many times. I will think of Private Barrett’s sacrifice again the next time I am there.”
The Lords learned about Barrett while researching their families. They visited Saratoga National Historical Park to see where he died and visited the national cemetery, where they learned from Lamb that they could place a memorial marker there.
“Being interested in history for much of our lives, we feel that it is important that future generations know where we, as a country, have come from so that they, thoughtfully, can decide where it is best for us to go,” Steve said.
Lamb suggested they ask the New York National Guard to provide an honor guard.
“Private Oliver Barrett was a volunteer, a Minuteman, essentially today’s National Guardsmen and women. He is one of us,” Piwowarski said.
The memorial service included descendants of Oliver Barrett; representatives of the 10th Massachusetts Regiment and Westford Colonial Minutemen reenactors; Eric Schnitzer, the Saratoga National Battlefield historian; and the Sons of the American Revolution.
“In today’s ceremony, as we grasp hands, we reach back 245 years and grasp hands with Oliver Barrett and the soldiers at Saratoga, remembering and honoring them,” said the Rev. Jamie Hamilton, the rector at All Saints Episcopal Church in the Lords’ hometown.
After a solemn firing party salute and folding of the flag, Capt. Eric Sampson, leader of the honor guard detachment, presented the flag to Ann Lord.
Taps were not played as a final tribute since the bugle call, used at military funerals, was not written until the Civil War. Instead, reenactors from the Sons of the American Revolution fired a cannon salute to Barrett’s service.
“This event is significant to me,” said Sgt. Ryan Gosse, a member of the honor guard. “This is the first veteran I’ve honored who died during the birth of the nation.”
Oliver Barrett was born Jan. 9, 1726, in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. He made casks and barrels from timber. In 1754, he married Anna Fiske of Lexington, Massachusetts, and they had seven children.
By 1770, Barrett lived in Westford and joined his fellow townspeople as a Minuteman. He mustered for the Lexington Alarm April 19, 1775, as a member of Col. William Prescott’s regiment.
The capture of the Breymann Redoubt at Saratoga marked the final defeat of the British effort to capture Albany, secure the Hudson River valley to New York City and choke off the rebellion in New England.
Schnitzer said the action was the first surrender of British forces in history at that time.
The success at Saratoga is widely considered the turning point of the American Revolutionary War.