The Saratoga Compaign is pivotal in American history because the American victory persuaded the French to join our side. And without the French navy pinning in Corwallis at Yorktown, that final victory would not have happened.
The Saratoga battlefield is a park in which it is very easy to follow the trace of the battle over relatively unchanged terrain.
For those nor familiar with the story, McCrae was a young woman originally from New Jersey. She was traveling north to met her finace who was a soldier with the British army of "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne.
She and her party were intercepted by Indian scouts in the pay of the British. Allegedly she was seized by two warriors who fought over the right to capture and return her to Burgoyne. One of them, the infamous Wyandotte Panther, killed her with his tomahawk and scalped her to settle the dispute. When he returned with the scalp for a reward at the British camp, the horrified fiancee recognised it. Burgoyne, equally horrified, was reluctant to retaliate aginst Panther as it might have discouraged the other much needed indian scouts under his command. The event provided an impetus for recruiting among the American colonists who wanted to prevent any further outrages by the British and their indian allies.
There is some dispute as to the details of the event, and she may, indeed, have been accidentally shot instead and then scalped in an attempt to recover some payment from the British.
I have been to this park and it is a wonderfully preserved, beautiful place.