The Battle of Bennington, 1777: The Militia Victory That Set Up Saratoga

In the summer of 1777, the British launched an ambitious campaign to cut New England off from the other colonies and crush the rebellion. For two months General John Burgoyne's army moved down the Lake Champlain–Hudson River corridor toward Albany with apparent ease, taking American forts along the way. By August, though, he badly needed provisions, wagons, cattle and horses — and made the fateful decision to send a force to seize the supplies stored at Bennington, Vermont.

The battle that followed, fought August 14–16 just over the line in New York, pitted British, German, Canadian, Loyalist and American Indian troops against Patriot militia. It looked like a minor victory. It helped decide the war.

A divided people, an uncertain war

After July 4, 1776, colonists had to choose. Those who stayed loyal to Britain were Loyalists to their friends and Tories to their enemies; those who sought independence called themselves Patriots, and their enemies called them Rebels. The choice split colonies, towns and families. Of roughly 2.5 million people in the colonies, most sources suggest 20 to 30 percent were Loyalists; another 20 percent were enslaved Africans, few of whom were allowed to take part; and 300,000 to 400,000 tried to stay neutral. Supporters of independence were probably fewer than half.

At the end of 1776, success looked far from certain. The British had left Boston in March, but Washington's new Continental Army lost New York in the fall and barely escaped total defeat, before victories at Trenton in December and Princeton in January stopped the slide.

The Northeast, with Bennington and the Bennington Battlefield. Credit: National Park Service.

Vermont had its own fight. Both New York, a Tory stronghold, and New Hampshire had granted land there in the mid-1700s. In the 1760s, Ethan Allen and his "Green Mountain Boys" defended the New Hampshire titles — the "Hampshire Grants" — against New York claimants. During the Revolution the Grants became the independent Republic of Vermont, which joined the United States in 1791 as its fourteenth state. For many men of the Grants, independence from New York mattered at least as much as independence from Britain.

Burgoyne's plan

In 1775 Burgoyne had named the Lake Champlain–Hudson corridor — the old gateway between Canada and the northern colonies — as the key to the war. Control it from Canada to New York City, and the British could isolate New England, secure supply lines from Canada and strengthen their Indian alliances. Three forces were to meet at Albany:

The two sides at Bennington

The British side. Local Loyalist landowner Philip Skene, Baum's interpreter, assured Burgoyne that residents of New York and Vermont would support him — and many did. That mattered, because the army hauled most of its needs from distant Quebec and hoped locals would supply fresh food and animals. Many of the Germans, from Hesse and Brunswick, whose rulers rented out their armies, were dragoons — heavy cavalry, at that point without horses. British eyewitness Thomas Anburey described the burden: a soldier's pack, provisions, arms and "sixty rounds of ammunition, make an enormous bulk, weighing about sixty pounds," and the dragoons added "a cap with a very heavy brass front, a sword of an enormous size, a canteen that cannot hold less than a gallon." Burgoyne told Baum to take prisoner anyone acting for Congress, but warned that his corps was "too valuable to let any considerable loss be hazarded."

The American side. When Burgoyne took Fort Ticonderoga in July 1777, Vermont appealed to New Hampshire. John Langdon, presiding officer of its legislature, offered his fortune: "I have $3000 in hard money; my plate I will pledge for as much more. I have seventy hogsheads of Tobago rum… We can raise a brigade; and our friend Stark… may safely be entrusted with the command, and we will check Burgoyne." Stark had resigned from the Continental Army after being passed over for promotion; he agreed to lead the militia only if he could act independently of Congress. Within six days, almost 1,500 men signed up — farmers and townspeople, untrained, in their everyday clothes and often with their own guns.

The battle

August 11–14. Baum's heavily loaded troops plodded toward Bennington. On August 14 they met an American scouting party at the Sancoick Mill, about eight miles west of the town. Baum reported confidently to Burgoyne that the Americans had fled, leaving flour, wheat and salt, that prisoners put the Americans at Bennington at fifteen to eighteen hundred men — and that he had written the letter on the head of a barrel. Stark, far from retreating, advanced. Realizing he was outnumbered, Baum sent for reinforcements and dug in on high ground, with cannon and earthworks. By nightfall the armies faced each other about four miles east of Sancoick.

The next day. Heavy rain. Baum strengthened his position on "Hessian Hill" and posted Loyalists on a lower hill across the river, later called the "Tory Fort." Breymann's reinforcements struggled over sodden roads.

"Position of the Detachment under Lieut. Col. Baum," drawn in 1777 by the British engineer Lt. Desmaretz Durnford and engraved for Burgoyne's defense of his campaign before Parliament in 1780. North is to the right.

The battlefield: arrows show Stark's troop movements, and "v" marks show Baum's positions. Image from the National Park Service's Teaching with Historic Places lesson on the battle.

August 16. The weather cleared, and Stark surrounded the British. "I divided my army into three Divisions," he wrote, sending detachments of 250 and 300 men around the rear of each wing, 300 to hold the enemy's attention in front, and 200 more against the right wing. At three in the afternoon, the militia attacked from all sides. By five, the British were routed. The dragoons fought with courage, a German observer recorded, but were shot as soon as they rose to aim. Out of ammunition, the survivors were overrun; Baum was mortally wounded, and the Indian allies slipped away west to rejoin Burgoyne.

On the Tory Fort, Col. Peters met a Patriot captain who charged him crying "Peters you Damned Tory I have at you" — and whose bayonet "entered just below my left Breast, but was turned by the Bone." The man was "an Old School fellow & Playmate, and a Couzin of my wife's," Peters wrote. "Tho his Bayonet was in my Body, I felt regret at being obliged to destroy him."

Then Breymann's reinforcements arrived, unaware of Baum's defeat, and found the militia scattered — looting, guarding prisoners and chasing survivors. "Luckily for us Col. Warner's Regiment came up, which put a stop to their career," Stark wrote. "We used their own cannon against them… At Sunset we obliged them to retreat a second time; we pursued them till dark, when I was obliged to halt for fear of killing my own men."

Why it mattered

The British foraging force was virtually wiped out. Burgoyne had lost about 10 percent of his army, was still short of supplies, and his Indian allies were discouraged. For the Patriots, the victory brought in hundreds of new militia recruits. On October 17, 1777, after his defeat at Saratoga, Burgoyne surrendered his entire army — some 6,000 men, who marched out "with the Honors of War" and stacked their arms beside the Hudson. Many historians believe Saratoga might have gone differently had Bennington given Burgoyne the supplies he expected, letting him strike before the Americans gathered enough men. The battle is a reminder that the Revolution was, in places, a bitter civil war.

Visiting

The Bennington Battlefield is a New York state historic site near Hoosick Falls, on Route 67 off Route 22, two miles from the Vermont border, open May through October. The Bennington Battle Monument in Old Bennington, Vermont, is a short drive away.

Sources

Based on "The Battle of Bennington: An American Victory," a Teaching with Historic Places lesson by Kathleen Hunter, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The lesson draws on Richard Greenwood's National Historic Landmark documentation for the Bennington Battlefield (1975) and Philip Lord, Jr., War Over Walloomscoick: Land Use and Settlement Patterns on the Bennington Battlefield—1777 (1989). Durnford's plan, from Burgoyne's A State of the Expedition from Canada (1780), is in the public domain; the lesson's copy came from the University of Vermont.