Bennington

Bennington: The Raid That Broke an Empire's Campaign

Long before the first shots of the American Revolution echoed across Massachusetts, the rough country of the New Hampshire Grants — the territory that would become Vermont — was already a place defined by defiance. Bennington, nestled in the southwestern corner of that disputed region, had been the political and organizational heart of resistance for nearly a decade before independence was even declared. It was here, beginning in 1769, that Ethan Allen, Seth Warner, Remember Baker, and other frontier leaders organized the Green Mountain Boys, a militia force originally formed not to fight the British Crown but to resist the colonial government of New York, which claimed jurisdiction over lands that settlers held under grants from New Hampshire. As their headquarters, the Green Mountain Boys chose the newly built Catamount Tavern — originally called the Green Mountain Tavern — built by Stephen Fay, whose convenient location beside the main north-south road in Bennington and reputation for serving the best liquor in the area made it an ideal gathering place.

Settlers posted a stuffed catamount on the tavern's signpost to repel the New Yorkers who claimed their land — its snarling face pointed west toward New York in perpetual defiance. Fay and his sons supported the patriot cause wholeheartedly; five of Fay's seven sons would later fight in the Battle of Bennington, and one was killed there. The Green Mountain Boys were rowdy, ungovernable, and effective — qualities that would prove remarkably useful when the nature of the enemy changed. By the time the Revolution began, Bennington had already cultivated a culture of armed self-reliance and suspicion of distant authority that made it a natural cradle of rebellion.

The town's first major contribution to the Revolution came early and dramatically. On May 10, 1775 — barely three weeks after Lexington and Concord — Ethan Allen led roughly eighty Green Mountain Boys, joined by Benedict Arnold, in a predawn assault on Fort Ticonderoga at the southern tip of Lake Champlain. The British garrison, numbering fewer than fifty soldiers, was caught entirely by surprise. Allen famously demanded the fort's surrender "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," though some historians have questioned whether his actual language was quite so elevated. Regardless, the capture of Ticonderoga was a galvanizing moment for the patriot cause. It secured a vast store of artillery — cannon that Henry Knox would later haul across the frozen wilderness to Boston — and it demonstrated that Americans could seize a British stronghold, not merely defend a bridge or a hilltop. Seth Warner, a resident of Bennington who had joined the Green Mountain Boys alongside his cousins Ethan and Ira Allen, took part in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and, more importantly, the capture of twenty-nine cannons at Crown Point on May 11, 1775. The men who accomplished these feats had been recruited, organized, and drilled, such as they were, in and around Bennington. The town could fairly claim to have furnished one of the Revolution's first offensive victories.

Meanwhile, the territory surrounding Bennington was forging its own political identity with astonishing speed. A Convention of the New Hampshire Grants, representing the different towns, met in January 1777 and declared the district a free and independent state. By July, delegates meeting at Windsor had adopted a constitution — modeled on Pennsylvania's, but with important changes: its Bill of Rights abolished slavery and extended voting privileges to all freemen. The convention elected Thomas Chittenden, Ira Allen, and others to a Council of Safety, the interim government that would administer this fledgling republic in the middle of a war. Bennington served as a critical early seat of this new government, with the Committee of Safety operating from Fay's Tavern — the Catamount Tavern — and functioning as the government of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vermont.

But Bennington's most consequential hour came in the summer of 1777, when the town found itself at the center of a campaign that would alter the course of the entire war. During that summer, the British put in motion an ambitious campaign designed to isolate New England from the rest of the colonies. General John Burgoyne led his army of eight thousand troops down the Lake Champlain–Hudson River corridor toward Albany, capturing several American forts along the way. By August, however, he found himself in desperate need of provisions, wagons, cattle, and horses, and made the fateful decision to send an expeditionary force to the small town of Bennington to capture these much-needed supplies.

A Continental Storehouse filled with much-needed supplies stood on the site now marked by the Bennington Battle Monument — and it was the intended goal of the British expedition.

Burgoyne dispatched Lt. Col. Friedrich Baum, one of the German officers in his command, with orders to capture the military supplies being stockpiled at Bennington and to collect cattle and horses for shipment back to the main army. Philip Skene, a prominent local Loyalist landowner, accompanied Baum as an interpreter, since Baum spoke no English.

Burgoyne ordered 375 of his men under Baum to attack the supply depot, which he believed to be undermanned. Baum and his men were later joined by a local company of Loyalists, Canadians, Native Americans, and British sharpshooters, giving him roughly 800 men in all.

What Burgoyne did not know was that a formidable opponent had already arrived. John Stark, a Continental Army colonel who had fought at the battles of Bunker Hill, Trenton, and Princeton, had resigned his commission in March 1777 after being passed over for a promotion.

By that summer, he had agreed to serve as a brigadier general in the New Hampshire militia — but only on the condition that he would never take orders from the Continental Army.

With Stark in command, some 1,400 men enlisted for thirty days and departed for Bennington from Charlestown, New Hampshire.

The Americans, under Stark, received word about the advancing British troops and decided to head them off to defend the Bennington supply depot. The battle took place approximately five miles northwest of Bennington near Walloomsac, New York. Fighting began at three o'clock on the afternoon of August 16, 1777. By five o'clock, British troops were retreating, Baum was mortally wounded, and the Americans had captured many of his demoralized soldiers. Then, in a surprise second engagement, Colonel Breymann appeared with a unit of Burgoyne's reinforcements, and the exhausted and hungry Americans began to weaken. The victory that had seemed so complete suddenly hung in the balance. But when Breymann's German reinforcements threatened the disorganized Americans, Seth Warner led his newly arrived Green Mountain Boys in a counter-attack that turned the tide.

Stark himself later described the moment: "Luckily for us Col. Warner's Regiment came up, which put a stop to their career."

The results were devastating for Burgoyne. At the end of the battle, a group of mostly untrained militia had defeated some of Europe's best troops. Two hundred and seven British and allied soldiers were killed, and 700 more were captured along with supplies and artillery.

American casualties, by contrast, were estimated at roughly 30 killed and 40 wounded.

For the first time in the war, patriot militiamen had defeated an entrenched force of professional soldiers defended by artillery.

The battle was a major strategic success for the American cause and is considered one of the turning points of the war: it reduced Burgoyne's army in size by almost a thousand men, led his Native American allies to largely abandon him, and deprived him of much-needed supplies — mounts for his cavalry, draft animals, and provisions — all factors that contributed to Burgoyne's eventual defeat at Saratoga. The victory galvanized colonial support for the patriot cause and played a key role in bringing France into the war on the American side.

Burgoyne's army suffered irreplaceable losses and failed to gather the supplies needed for a timely push on to Albany. He surrendered to the Americans on October 17, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga. George Washington himself was impressed, calling it "the great stroke struck by Genl Stark near Bennington."

Congress promoted Stark to brigadier general in the Continental Army in October 1777 for his actions at Bennington. Years later, in 1809, veterans invited him to attend a commemoration of the battle. Too ill to travel, Stark sent a letter instead, closing it with the words: "Live free or die. Death is not the greatest of evils" — the phrase that became the New Hampshire state motto in 1945.

The battle also left behind one of the most iconic relics of the Revolution — or at