"We are now become so habituated to fire, that the soldiers seem to be indifferent to it, and eat and sleep when it is very near them."

-Thomas Anburey

Marching south from your winter encampments in Quebec, your regiment, part of a force of nearly 7,200 men (although half of them are German mercenaries,) under General Burgoyne on June 3, 1777 moves down to meet General Howe's Army (moving North from New York) in Albany. (Barnett, 217)

Just as at home, the day begins early: marches begin at dawn, and keeping in tight ranks, you advance at a steady clip of seventeen to twenty miles a day. However, the farther south you move, the less hospitable the landscape becomes-the New England woods are old and dense, creeks and marshes cut through the terrain, and the sweltering summer heat invites clouds of flies and mosquitoes that seem to hover over your lines. As much time is devoted to felling trees, clearing roads and building bridges (at least forty by your count), as is spent advancing, and everyone in the company retires to their canvas tents exhausted from the day's labors. (Frey, 103)

The halting pace has also made you easy targets for American guerillas (the best marksmen in the world,) who wait with their hunting rifles under cover of trees or fences to shoot honorable British soldiers in the back. It is a testament to British training methods that you are able to keep in line, even with American bullets whizzing towards your mounted officers. Usually, these ambushes last only a few minutes, when the colonists are spotted and killed, or more often, the rebel slips away into the shadowy landscape. (Barnes, 60)