USS Philadelphia

Gray skies and rain clouds saturated Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery's grounds Tuesday.

Dozens gathered in the dampness to hold a military funeral 250 years after the fact for soldiers who died as the gunboat Philadelphia sunk to the bottom of Lake Champlain.

Led by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, the hundreds of officers and soldiers under his command crewed 15 vessels for the purpose of defending Lake Champlain as best they could against inevitable British attack from Canada.

That attack would come in October 1776.

And the resultant battle of Valcour Island was a long, hard, fought attempt by our forces to defend the northern region of our new sovereign country.

Despite the bravery, heroism, and sacrifice, we were outmatched, and the battle was a loss for the American cause.

Jennifer Jones is one of the minds behind the Gunboat Philadelphia Preservation Project at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Hopefully people recognize this boat was built in 1776, in about three weeks' time in July of 1776, weeks after the ink on the Declaration of Independence was drying, really very early in our independence reign.