This is a compressed version of a much longer ballad with at least some claim to being contemporary with the events it describes.It lays out the entire "North Campaign" of 1777. Only one of the Saratoga songs that does that in full.

If I recall(and I'm not going back to notes of thirty years ago at 3 a.m.),the earliest known source is ca. 1836. But this is Mudcat, and someone may know of an earlier one.

Our old singing partner, Tim Kavanaugh, sings this to a much more somber tune, Sara Cleveland's tune to "The Paisley Officer". So we did it for fifteen years, when Tim, Vaughn and I did the historical music program at the Saratoga national Historic Park (the Saratoga battlefield).And so we recorded it (on quaint old vinyl).

Short or long, slow or fast, it has conceivably survived for 226 years. Well worth posting, Guest (says this obviously biased Yorker).

In the original, BTW, the last stanza begins, "Now here's a health to Arnold and our commander Gates". Benedict Arnold was a hero at Saratoga, although later a traitor (one hint the song my be contemporaneous with the events). Nicholas Herkimer (and Col. Barry St. Leger in confrontation with whose forces he died in the Mohawk Valley - not in southern NY) get themselves a whole stanza earlier in the ballad.

Can't post the whole text anytime soon. Someone else perhaps?