BENNINGTON

We are but warriors for the working-day;
Our gayness and our guilt are all besmirch'd
With rainy marching in the painful field;
There's not a piece of feather in our host
(Good argument, I hope, we shall not fly),
And time hath worn us into slovenry.
But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim,
And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night
They'll be in fresher robes.
--Henry V.


BENNINGTON

The battle of Saratoga is included by Sir Edward Creasy among his
fifteen decisive battles which have, by their result, affected
the history of the world. It is true that the American Revolution
was saved by Washington in the remarkable Princeton and Trenton
campaign, but it is equally true that the surrender of Burgoyne
at Saratoga, in the following autumn, turned the scale decisively
in favor of the colonists by the impression which it made in
Europe. It was the destruction of Burgoyne's army which
determined France to aid the Americans against England. Hence
came the French alliance, the French troops, and, what was of far
more importance, a French fleet by which Washington was finally
able to get control of the sea, and in this way cut off
Cornwallis at Yorktown and bring the Revolution to a successful
close. That which led, however, more directly than anything else
to the final surrender at Saratoga was the fight at Bennington,
by which Burgoyne's army was severely crippled and weakened, and
by which also, the hardy militia of the North eastern States were
led to turn out in large numbers and join the army of Gates.

The English ministry had built great hopes upon Burgoyne's
expedition, and neither expense nor effort had been spared to
make it successful. He was amply furnished with money and
supplies as well as with English and German troops, the latter of
whom were bought from their wretched little princes by the
payment of generous subsidies. With an admirably equipped army of
over seven thousand men, and accompanied by a large force of
Indian allies, Burgoyne had started in May, 1777, from Canada.
His plan was to make his way by the lakes to the head waters of
the Hudson, and thence southward along the river to New York,
where he was to unite with Sir William Howe and the main army; in
this way cutting the colonies in two, and separating New England
from the rest of the country.

At first all went well. The Americans were pushed back from their
posts on the lakes, and by the end of July Burgoyne was at the
head waters of the Hudson. He had. already sent out a force,
under St. Leger, to take possession of the valley of the
Mohawk--an expedition which finally resulted in the defeat of the
British by Herkimer, and the capture of Fort Stanwix. To aid St.
Leger by a diversion, and also to capture certain magazines which
were reported to be at Bennington, Burgoyne sent another
expedition to the eastward. This force consisted of about five
hundred and fifty white troops, chiefly Hessians, and one hundred
and fifty Indians, all under the command of Colonel Baum. They
were within four miles of Bennington on August 13, 1777, and
encamped on a hill just within the boundaries of the State of New
York. The news of the advance of Burgoyne had already roused the
people of New York and New Hampshire, and the legislature of the
latter State had ordered General Stark with a brigade of militia
to stop the progress of the enemy on the western frontier. Stark
raised his standard at Charlestown on the Connecticut River, and
the militia poured into his camp. Disregarding Schuyler's orders
to join the main American army, which was falling back before
Burgoyne, Stark, as soon as he heard of the expedition against
Bennington, marched at once to meet Baum. He was within a mile of
the British camp on August 14, and vainly endeavored to draw Baum
into action. On the 15th it rained heavily, and the British
forces occupied the time in intrenching themselves strongly upon
the hill which they held. Baum meantime had already sent to
Burgoyne for reinforcements, and Burgoyne had detached Colonel
Breymann with over six hundred regular troops to go to Baum's
assistance. On the 16th the weather cleared, and Stark, who had
been reinforced by militia from western Massachusetts, determined
to attack.

Early in the day he sent men, under Nichols and Herrick, to get
into the rear of Baum's position. The German officer, ignorant of
the country and of the nature of the warfare in which he was
engaged, noticed small bodies of men in their shirtsleeves, and
carrying guns without bayonets, making their way to the rear of
his intrenchments. With singular stupidity he concluded that they
were Tory inhabitants of the country who were coming to his
assistance, and made no attempt to stop them. In this way Stark
was enabled to mass about five hundred men in the rear of the
enemy's position. Distracting the attention of the British by a
feint, Stark also moved about two hundred men to the right, and
having thus brought his forces into position he ordered a general
assault, and the Americans proceeded to storm the British
intrenchments on every side. The fight was a very hot one, and
lasted some two hours. The Indians, at the beginning of the
action, slipped away between the American detachments, but the
British and German regulars stubbornly stood their ground. It is
difficult to get at the exact numbers of the American troops, but
Stark seems to have had between fifteen hundred and two thousand
militia. He thus outnumbered his enemy nearly three to one, but
his men were merely country militia, farmers of the New England
States, very imperfectly disciplined, and armed only with muskets
and fowling-pieces, without bayonets or side-arms. On the other
side Baum had the most highly disciplined troops of England and
Germany under his command, well armed and equipped, and he was
moreover strongly intrenched with artillery well placed behind
the breastworks. The advantage in the fight should have been
clearly with Baum and his regulars, who merely had to hold an
intrenched hill.

It was not a battle in which either military strategy or a
scientific management of troops was displayed. All that Stark did
was to place his men so that they could attack the enemy's
position on every side, and then the Americans went at it, firing
as they pressed on. The British and Germans stood their ground
stubbornly, while the New England farmers rushed up to within
eight yards of the cannon, and picked off the men who manned the
guns. Stark himself was in the midst of the fray, fighting with
his soldiers, and came out of the conflict so blackened with
powder and smoke that he could hardly be recognized. One
desperate assault succeeded another, while the firing on both
sides was so incessant as to make, in Stark's own words, a
"continuous roar." At the end of two hours the Americans finally
swarmed over the intrenchments, beating down the soldiers with
their clubbed muskets. Baum ordered his infantry with the bayonet
and the dragoons with their sabers to force their way through,
but the Americans repulsed this final charge, and Baum himself
fell mortally wounded. All was then over, and the British forces
surrendered.

It was only just in time, for Breymann, who had taken thirty
hours to march some twenty-four miles, came up just after Baum's
men had laid down their arms. It seemed for a moment as if all
that had been gained might be lost. The Americans, attacked by
this fresh foe, wavered; but Stark rallied his line, and putting
in Warner, with one hundred and fifty Vermont men who had just
come on the field, stopped Breymann's advance, and finally forced
him to retreat with a loss of nearly one half his men. The
Americans lost in killed and wounded some seventy men, and the
Germans and British about twice as many, but the Americans took
about seven hundred prisoners, and completely wrecked the forces
of Baum and Breymann.

The blow was a severe one, and Burgoyne's army never recovered
from it. Not only had he lost nearly a thousand of his best
troops, besides cannon, arms, and munitions of war, but the
defeat affected the spirits of his army and destroyed his hold
over his Indian allies, who began to desert in large numbers.
Bennington, in fact, was one of the most important fights of the
Revolution, contributing as it did so largely to the final
surrender of Burgoyne's whole army at Saratoga, and the utter
ruin of the British invasion from the North. It is also
interesting as an extremely gallant bit of fighting. As has been
said, there was no strategy displayed, and there were no military
operations of the higher kind. There stood the enemy strongly
intrenched on a hill, and Stark, calling his undisciplined levies
about him, went at them. He himself was a man of the highest
courage and a reckless fighter. It was Stark who held the
railfence at Bunker Hill, and who led the van when Sullivan's
division poured into Trenton from the river road. He was
admirably adapted for the precise work which was necessary at
Bennington, and he and his men fought well their hand-to-hand
fight on that hot August day, and carried the intrenchments
filled with regular troops and defended by artillery. It was a
daring feat of arms, as well as a battle which had an important
effect upon the course of history and upon the fate of the
British empire in America.

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