Battle of Bennington

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The rain continued into the night. Although it kept most of the combatants in camp, Stark managed to field a number of skirmishers who scouted Baum’s positions and whose intermittent harassing fire hit two Indian chiefs. In addition, Americans began appearing along Baum’s picket lines with pieces of white paper stuck in their hats and their muskets clubbed in the European style of surrender, pretending that they were Loyalists who wanted to join the British army. Told by Burgoyne and Skene to expect such ‘cooperation,’ Baum naively ordered his pickets in and, much to the horror of his officers, allowed the Americans to occupy the empty spaces within his own lines.

As the rain ended on the morning of August 16, Baum received word of Breymann’s approach and sent Colonel Skene back to hurry him along. As Stark’s troops began leaving their camp to make their way to their assigned positions, Baum could see their every move from the top of his hill. Unconcerned as he was with the enveloping movement or the comings and goings of the newly arrived Loyalists he thought had joined his ranks, Baum must have been surprised when a shot rang out about midafternoon, killing one of his officers. The American attack was to have begun when Nichols’ and Herrick’s men met at the rear of the hill, but the unexpected shot — traditionally believed to have been fired by Jacob Onderkirke of Hoosick — started the battle early.

Upon hearing the shot, the Americans who had infiltrated the Anglo-German positions leveled their muskets and began firing at will, creating havoc as Nichols’ and Herrick’s troops closed in on the reverse sides of the Dragoon Redoubt. In the front, the Tories and Canadians guarding the bridge loosed a sweeping volley at the approaching rebels while the three cannons thundered in support. The moment the defenders paused to reload, however, the Americans rushed their positions, throwing them into a panicked retreat across the river. As his forward detachment continued its assault over the bridge, Stark himself followed closely with the balance of his army, some 1,200 troops.

Reaching the bridge, Stark dismounted, tied his brown mare to a post and uttered his famous challenge to his men. With a hurrah, his men dashed after him, and in a blind spot at the base of the hill where the enemy in the redoubt could not see them due to the steep grade, they fell on the retreating Tories and Canadians. In the short, bitter struggle between neighbors that followed, Loyalist Lt. Col. John Peters encountered an old childhood schoolmate, Patriot Captain Jeremiah Post. ‘Peters, you damn Tory, now I have got you,’ shouted Post as he rushed Peters and drove his bayonet into his side. Peters, who could still fire his gun, later said, ‘Though his bayonet was in my body I felt regret at being obliged to destroy him.’

Fire-breathing, gun-toting Parson Thomas Allen hopped on a tree stump and tried to encourage his Loyalist neighbors to defect to the Patriot side, only to hear a shout of ‘There’s Parson Allen, let’s pot him,’ followed by a shower of lead. Soon, however, Stark’s troops had cleared the base of the hill and the collection of cabins around the lower redoubt and began their climb to the summit.

Meanwhile, Nichols’ and Herrick’s men had stampeded the Indians, who fell back on Baum’s position and then fled the field entirely. The two flanking groups began to merge with the men who had infiltrated Baum’s lines earlier and advanced steadily toward the Dragoon Redoubt. As Baum saw the converging columns coming from all directions, his soldiers concentrated their efforts to make a heroic stand. Supported by their one remaining uncaptured cannon, Fraser’s red-coated marksmen and Baum’s Brunswick troops put up fierce resistance against their equally determined assailants. Suddenly, a thunderous explosion rent the air as a British ammunition cart blew up, and in a final rush the rebels stormed the ramparts of the redoubt.

Fighting at close quarters, neither side spared musket butt, sword or knife, but ultimately the outnumbered Germans and British either fell where they stood or turned back. Realizing the hopelessness of the situation and that Breymann would not reach him in time, Baum ordered his officers and remaining men to cut their way through the Americans. Soon afterward, Baum fell mortally wounded with a musket ball in the stomach. At that point his troops either surrendered or fought their way to the nearby forest.

Some desultory firing from back along the Cambridge road, where Breymann was brushing off roving parties of Americans who had been pursuing Baum’s survivors, warned the rebels of the approaching threat. An alarmed Stark ordered his exultant men to reassemble, but it proved difficult, since some had discovered liquor among the plunder they found in the captured redoubt. The arrival of Warner’s fresh regiment of Green Mountain Boys, however, galvanized Stark’s men with the prospect of another victory. Leaving the captured cannons behind — Stark was the only one who knew how to use them — the Americans moved off to meet the new enemy force.

Breymann had reached Sancoick’s Mill when he met Colonel Skene at about 4 p.m. The fighting at the Dragoon Redoubt had reached its peak, but because of the phenomenon of acoustic shadow, the Brunswick troops heard nothing until some of Baum’s men stumbled from the woods, filled with conflicting stories of the battle. Convinced by the optimistic Skene and his own confidence in European arms, Breymann decided to move on, continually stopping his tired, overheated men on the march to redress their lines.

Soon Skene spotted groups of Lt. Col. Samuel Safford’s Vermont Rangers as they scouted the advancing column from a wooded ridge on the north side of the road. Thinking they might be Loyalists, Skene rode out and hailed them: ‘Are you for King George?’ They replied with a scattering of shots that killed his horse and drove him back to the German lines. Breymann aggresively ordered an immediate advance. As his men fired their muskets and trained their cannons on the Americans, Safford ordered a retreat until he was able to rejoin the rest of Warner’s regiment and Stark’s scattered troops on a nearby rise. Breymann’s troops were right behind him, and upon encountering the main rebel force they tried to circle around the American right. Warner had much the same idea as he moved half his regiment to his left, trying to flank the Brunswick corps’ right, while using Stark’s men to extend his own right and check the enemy’s flanking movement.

By dusk both forces had spread themselves out as far as they could go and began exchanging musket volleys in earnest. As German ammunition began to run low, however, their cannons fell silent, their musket fire became intermittent and Breymann ordered a withdrawal. Perceiving their enemies’ predicament, the Americans pressed them. Forced to abandon his cannons, Breymann managed an orderly retreat at first, but the New Englanders, with plenty of ammunition left, soon resorted to their specialty — harassing their retiring foes from the cover of nearby woods. Ultimately, the German formations disintegrated, as some Braunschweigers tried to surrender while others were cut down. Breymann ordered a drumroll, signifying a request to parley, but the backwoods farmers were not versed in European military etiquette and continued firing.

Night fell at last, and the running fight petered out as Stark, fearing his men would be more of a threat to each other than to the enemy in the darkness, reluctantly ordered a halt to the chase. Although he had been shot in the leg, and his clothing was riddled with bullet holes, Breymann personally commanded the rear guard and succeeded in getting two-thirds of his men safely to Cambridge.

Cheated though Stark felt of achieving complete victory, he and his untrained citizen soldiers had won a great one. At a cost of about 30 men killed and 40 wounded, they had killed 207 professional soldiers and captured more than 700. With the decimation of Baum’s and Breymann’s forces, Burgoyne had been stripped of a good portion of his army. That, coupled with the repulse of Lt. Col. Barry St. Leger’s western force at Fort Stanwix two weeks earlier, made his final defeat at Saratoga in October almost inevitable.

In the meantime, the victors at Bennington celebrated the end of their private war, still independent of the Continental Army and Congress. Their captives were paraded through the streets of Bennington to the hoots, hollerings and rustic crudities of its citizens.

Colonel Baum was carried from the field by the Americans, but he died of his wounds soon after and was buried along the road to Bennington. As for John Stark, upon returning to the bridge over the Walloomsac he found that his brown mare and saddle had been stolen by some’sly, artful, designing’ character; a month later, he was still advertising for their return.

This article was written by Pierre Comtois and originally published in the August 2005 issue of Military History magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!

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Tags: 17th - 18th Century, American Revolutionary War, Historical Conflicts

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