News

New battlefield documentary premieres on WCNY-TV

by Rouhollah Goudarzi

June 2, 2017

WCNY, Central New York’s community-owned media company presents “Hallowed Ground: New York’s Forgotten Revolutionary War Battlefields” at 8 p.m. June 26 on WCNY-TV. The new, one-hour documentary was produced by WCNY.

For viewing information, visit wcny.org/wheretowatch.

Viewers will travel to northern and southwestern New York communities to explore four Revolutionary War battlefields, all sites of pivotal battles and all on the list of the National Park Service’s endangered battlefields. The film also includes interviews with historians and tribal leaders, archaeologists and preservationists, battlefield friends, and interested citizens, to uncover each battlefield’s past and present story.

Featured experts include Dr. Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Vice President of Monticello and author of The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire and military history Glenn Williams, author of the award-winning Year of the Hangman: George Washington’s Campaign against the Iroquois, who helped broaden knowledge of each battlefield’s significance. Lindsey Morrison of the Civil War Trust speaks about how The Civil War Trust, in 2014, expanded its mission to foster the preservation and interpretation of Civil War battlefields to include battlefields from the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 via its Campaign 1776.

The documentary was made possible, in part, by a grant from the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program. Two battlefields near Elmira, NY – Chemung and Newtown – were part of the Sullivan-Clinton campaign’s goal to eliminate the threat of Iroquois warriors fighting alongside the British while the battles in northern New York, at Fort Ann and Walloomsac (the battlefield is actually named for Bennington, VT about 7 miles away) were essential to delaying British troops from a timely arrival at Saratoga, which loomed large in that American victory, which became the turning point for the war.

To learn more, visit wcny.org/hallowedground.