Saratoga Monument

A 155-foot stone obelisk on the hill where Burgoyne's defeated army camped before the surrender of October 17, 1777 — "1777 · Saratoga · 1877" carved in gold over the door, begun a full century after the fact. On clear days visitors can climb its 188 steps for views said to stretch thirty miles.

Its most famous detail is an absence: niches on its sides hold statues of the American commanders of the campaign, but the fourth niche stands deliberately empty — Benedict Arnold, whose bravery at Saratoga was real, forfeited his statue by treason.

I reached it in the last golden hour of a June evening, doors long closed, sharing the hilltop with a cemetery where a Revolutionary War major's headstone still gets a fresh flag. Part of the Northern Sites of Saratoga National Historical Park, eight miles north of the battlefield.