Editor’s note: This commentary is by Phil Holland, of Shaftsbury, who is the author of “A Guide to the Battle of Bennington and the Bennington Monument.” This piece was first published in the Bennington Banner. Bennington Battle Day, a state holiday, is Aug. 16.
“France is America’s first and oldest ally,” said President Donald Trump during an official visit to Paris last month, brightly adding, “A lot of people don’t know that.” Hold on, don’t we all learn about the Marquis de Lafayette in grade school and study the American Revolution in high school? President Trump is a special case, but he’s got me worried, I mean about how much “a lot of people” might not know about our national past.
What do we citizens of Bennington County know, for that matter, about the Battle of Bennington? Perhaps not as much as we’d like, at least if we believe that history is a guide to our own civic identity. What happened on Aug. 16, 1777, with the fate of the American rebellion in the balance, is part of who we are and why we’re here. Complete this quick refresher course and (for extra credit) you will see that the French connection began in our own backyard.
Background of the battle
Since the end of the French and Indian War (1763), tension had been mounting between the king and his North American colonies. The king wanted his Americans to pay for the British army that was supposedly there for their own defense. The colonies, which had no voice in Parliament, objected to “taxation without representation.” War broke out at Lexington and Concord in 1775, and a year later came the Declaration of Independence.
Britain was a formidable foe, with a powerful army and navy and the money to hire foreign troops. The Continental Congress had to raise an army of its own, fast. George Washington drove the British out of Boston, only to see them seize New York and almost strangle the Revolution in its cradle. But Washington rallied his men, crossed the Delaware, and hit Trenton and Princeton in surprise attacks as 1776 drew to a close, raising American morale.
King George had had enough of his rebellious subjects. He approved an invasion from Canada by an 8,500-man army made up of British and German troops, as well as Indians and French Canadians, under Gen. John Burgoyne. The German contingent, 4,000 strong, known to history as Hessians, came courtesy of various German dukes with family connections to the king (and a need for cash). Burgoyne’s army headed south from Montreal in the summer of 1777, expecting to meet another British force coming up the Hudson and so cut the colonies in two.
The American fort at Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain fell without a fight, and the British pursued the fleeing American forces into Vermont, catching their rear guard at Hubbardton. Burgoyne’s orders were to seize Albany, and he continued to move southward to the Hudson. But his rapid advance and the American policy of denying him provisions began to cause supply problems. He was short on cattle, horses and carriages.
Burgoyne learned of a Continental supply depot at Bennington, on the site of the future Bennington Monument, where supplies for the American army at Stillwater were being gathered. Hearing that the depot was lightly defended, he decided to send a raiding party in hope of easy pickings.
But the fledgling government of Vermont had not been idle during Burgoyne’s advance. It raised the alarm and appealed to New Hampshire and Massachusetts to send militia to defend New England’s western flank. New Hampshire enlisted Gen. John Stark, the tough and proud veteran of Bunker Hill and Trenton who had been passed over for promotion and had resigned his Continental commission in disgust, to lead its men. He mustered 1,500 of them in two weeks’ time, then marched across the Green Mountains to Manchester and Bennington, arriving on Aug. 8. Three days later a British detachment of 600 under Lt. Col. Baum headed toward Bennington, unaware of Stark’s presence.
The result shocked both sides. For the first time in the war, Patriot militiamen had defeated an entrenched force of professional soldiers.
Stark caught wind of the advance and sent out a party of 200 men under Col. Gregg to investigate. Gregg’s men and Baum’s vanguard encountered each other at a mill in what is now North Hoosick. After a brief skirmish the outnumbered Americans retreated until they met up with Stark’s main force coming to their relief, just inside New York territory in the hamlet of Walloomsac (along modern Route 67). Baum’s force, consisting of German dragoons, British sharpshooters, Indians, Canadians, and 200 Loyalists or “Tories” (settlers who supported the King), met Stark’s at a bridge across the Walloomsac. Stark was ready to fight (and soon picked off 30 of Baum’s men, including an Indian chief), but Baum saw that he was outnumbered, halted his advance and assumed a defensive posture. Each side called for reinforcements.
Stark set up camp along what is now Harrington Road in North Bennington as more militiamen arrived from Vermont and Massachusetts. In consultation with Cols. Warner, Herrick and Brush, he devised a bold plan of attack. But heavy rain delayed it for a day, as Baum fortified positions on both sides of the river and at the top of the hill that is now part of the Bennington Battlefield site. Meanwhile, the British relief force of 600 was marching through the mud to join Baum, while a smaller but seasoned party of soldiers – Warner’s Green Mountain Rangers, who had taken losses at Hubbardton – hastened down from Manchester to bolster Stark’s force.
The battle begins
History – or is it legend? – has it that on the steamy morning of the 16th Gen. Stark vowed to his men that if he and they did not win the day, “this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow.” After stealthily enveloping the British positions, the Patriots struck at three o’clock in the afternoon in a coordinated burst of musket fire. Baum’s dragoons and his two three-pound cannons gave it right back. The sound, said Stark, was like “a continual clap of thunder.” The Americans assaulted the German and Tory redoubts and overran them “with irresistible impetuosity,” in the words of the Rev. Thomas Allen, the so-called fighting parson of Pittsfield. The Indians fled, and large numbers of Baum’s other forces were killed or taken prisoner. The Americans, who sustained fewer casualties, savored a victory, some by draining their rations of rum.
At that moment, however, the British reinforcements under Lt. Col. Breymann arrived, led by a military band and two six-pounders firing grapeshot. The scattered Americans had to regroup to resist this new advance and were suddenly at a disadvantage. And at that moment Col. Seth Warner’s Green Mountain regiment arrived from Manchester with a score to settle. The fighting was intense and ended in the rout of the British force as darkness fell.
The result shocked both sides. For the first time in the war, Patriot militiamen had defeated an entrenched force of professional soldiers. Burgoyne had lost more than a thousand men and had been denied critical supplies. He had to delay his advance to Albany, where American strength was building day by day. When the moment of truth arrived at Saratoga, the Americans under Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold prevailed. Burgoyne surrendered on Oct. 17, his invasion a spectacular failure.
When the news reached France, Benjamin Franklin was there to propose an alliance. The French, who had held back from joining a cause that appeared militarily dubious, became believers – and “our first and oldest ally.” Though independence was still some years away, the French navy and French treasury proved critical to American victory. The dominos had started falling at Bennington.
In 1809, when he was 81, John Stark reflected on the meaning of the victory at Bennington in a message to veterans of the battle. “As I was then, I am now – the friend of the equal rights of men, of representative democracy, of republicanism, and the Declaration of Independence, the great charter of our national rights: and of course the friend of our indissoluble Union and Constitution of the states.” He added that he was “the enemy of all foreign influence.”
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? It’s about President Trump, and it’s not about France.
