Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site, Oriskany, NY (+43.1765, -75.3700)
Oriskany is a village in upstate New York, between Rome and Utica. On August 6, 1777, two armies battled near the village. This was one of the few battles in the war where there were very few Europeans involved in the fighting. I was surprised by this, since I grew up thinking that the patriots fought against the British oppressors. After doing more research, I found that there were many areas in the colonies where the rebels were not in the majority; and there were units of settlers that fought with the British, especially in the early parts of the revolution. For example, the younger brother of Brigadier-General Nicholas Herkimer fought as a Loyalist.
This battle also marked the beginning of a civil war within the Iroquois nation, as different tribes allied with the Loyalist and Rebel settlers. In 1763, after the French and Indian War, the British had agreed that they would reserve the lands west of the Appalachians for the indigenous peoples. When the colonists ignored this and began clearing the forests, the natives retaliated and joined the British.
The battle was one of the bloodiest in the revolution, based on percentage of the participants. 385 rebels were killed, including Brigadier-General Herkimer. An obelisk was erected in 1884 to commemorate the battle. We visited in September 2024, taking some photos.
After the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, which ended the war and created the United States of America, between 80 and 100,000 Loyalists left the newly created country to settle elsewhere. They ended up losing most of what they had invested in their adopted homeland. One prominent example of the rifts within families was between Benjamin Franklin and his son William.
1884 obelisk, as seen on September 16, 2024 
New York state marker 
Closeup of the east side of the monument 
Some helpful information at the site
For more information, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriskany_Battlefield_State_Historic_Site
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127909236-a-few-bloody-noses
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57049135-our-first-civil-war
Fascinating! I feel like the Native American involvement in the war gets massively underplayed in history classes. It’s really easy to see a clear through-line of progress just following Washington, but the real story is far more interesting.