Plan of the Position which the Army under Lt.Genl. Burgoine took at Saratoga on the 10th of September 1777 and in which it remained till the Convention was signed.
New York: Published by C. Smith, [1797]. 8 ½ x 13 ¾." Issued folding, now flattened and backed with archival tissue, filling in the binding trim and repairing a short binding tear at lower right. Light soiling and foxing. About very good. Item #3787
This very detailed plan of the Battle of Saratoga is closely derived from Faden's 1780 map of the same title; with a shading key, it shows the position of American and "Royal" troops. Smith's rendition omits an inch or two at both the left and right sides of Faden's version.
The map offered here appeared in two devilishly scarce American publications -- Smith's Monthly Military Repository (a monthly magazine, 1796-7) and his The American War (an 183-page book, which essentially collected the Monthly Military Repository in book form in 1797). Wheat & Brun's entry for the map assigns it to both sources without distinction and notes that "PL. IV" appears in the upper right corner. Regardless of the specific source, this is the first Saratoga battle plan printed in the United States. The plan was engraved by D(avid) Martin.
References: Wheat & Brun, Maps and Charts Published in America before 1800: 374. Jolly, Maps of America in Periodicals before 1800: 453. For the Faden map, see Nebenzahl, A Bibliography of Printed Battle Plans of the American Revolution, 1775-1795: 57. See Evans, American Bibliography, for: Monthly Military Repository (30807) and The American War (32842). For Monthly Military Repository, see Lomazow, American Periodicals: 35. [ICN 7773.].
Price: $1,475.00