martinets halted the men ten times an hour to dress their ranks. The Germans, of whom the corps was mostly composed, were the most unwieldly portion of the British forces. "In addition to the ordinary hatchet, blanket and haversack of provisions, each bore a cap with a very heavy brass front, a sword of an enormous size, a coat very long skirted, and a canteen holding not less than a gallon."* Baum also wasted much time in administering the oath of allegiance to tories, real and pretended, listening to their flattering reports and giving them arms. On the third day, also, at the bridge of Sanhoik, over the Hoosic North Branch, he found a party of Americans. Not till a good deal of firing and some loss on his part, could he dislodge them from the bushes or chaparral under cover of which they fought. He was further delayed, since the Hessians shunned the water like cats, in repairing the bridge broken down by the Americans before they took to flight, but afterwards he made his way to the river Wallumscoik, within four miles of Bennington, and perhaps would have continued his march the same evening to that "cluster of poor cottages," as he called that village, had he not met Stark's brigade in battle array. Probably on account of this obstacle, Baum halted, and lodged his forces in six or eight log houses on the banks of the river.The next day, Friday, brought a deluge of rain, and the corps would gladly have kept under shelter, but were incessantly alarmed by rebel skirmishes, and were ordered to comply with one article of Burgoyne's instructions which was in these words: "Whenever you find it necessary to halt for a day or two, you must always intrench the camp of the regiment of dragoons, in order never to risk an attack or assault from the enemy.t” As if it were a thing incredible that our guerrillas should draw near an intrenchment. This morning also, or sooner, according to a British ofcer, Baum sent to Burgoyne for suecor, though according to his instructions, he was not to do so, unless a detachment were moved from Arnold's main army to intercept him. All day Friday, then, and far into the night, spite of the rain and rangers, the Germans tore down the houses, carried the logs of which they were built up a hill a little North, so placed them as to form a zigzag breastwork, and heaped up earth behind, and +Anbury I, 349. *Anbury I, 335. +Stevens, 470. sods before it. One of the cannon we have now assembled to receive, was planted at the North, and the other at the South corner of the intrenchment. They who had derided Yankees for fighting behind trees when standing, had no scruples about themselves fighting behind the same trees when laid horizontally. Within this fortification, all Baum's troops were concentrated, and lighting no fires for fear of hostile sharp shooters, passed the night alarmed by nothing but the whoops of their own Indians and the occasional random shot from their enemies.* The forces here bivouacing numbered about eight hundred, namely: 200 Germans, 100 Indians, Fraser's marksmen, 50 Chasseurs, and the remainder Tories who had flocked to the royal standard upon the march, and no less than 151 of whom were made prisoners the day following. On Wednesday, the second day of Baum's march, he was heard of by Stark, but mistaken for a scout, and only two hundred men sent against him under Colonel Gregg. These two hundred were the body with whom the affair at Sancoik's bridge took place.— But Stark had scarcely sent off this detachment, before his mistake was corrected by an express, who informed him of the approach of an enemy with cannon. He heard this news with surprise, for it was generally supposed that the British no longer threatened Vermont. Two weeks before, six of their battalions, for some time posted at Castleton, had left the State; two days before, Cushing's Regiment of Worcester Militia, thinking the danger over at Bennington, had marched thence to Stillwater. Schuyler thought one small regiment enough to defend Vermont, and letters were written from Bennington in this style: "The enemy have pointed their whole force toward Albany, and evacuated this State entirely." Stark had been but two days in Bennington, and had Baum's incursion been deferred three days longer, he would in all likelihood have left Vermont soldierless, and gone to threaten Burgoyne's rear, or, perhaps would have marched to join Schuy ler.t During the evening and night of Wednesday, an alarm was sounded from Bennington in every direction. Letters were dis *This account of Baum's march and measures is condensed from that of Glich, a Hessian officer. Stevens 477,491, 535. patched by the Vermont Council of Safety, bidding officers hurry forward with all speed whatever rangers were recruited.* On Thursday, Stark mustered his brigade, which nominally had 1332 privates, but actually perhaps only half that number, as one company was at Number Four, two on the mountains, others elsewhere, or weakened by sickness and desertion. His numbers were estimated by Schuyler at less than 7 or 800.† He was joined by Captain Robinson with the Bennington Militia,‡ and by many volunteers from the vicinity. About four miles from Bennington, he met the detachment he had sent out the day before, on a rapid retreat. His army and the enemy looked each other in the face, but neither ventured to commence an attack. The skirmishes during the rainy Friday, resulting in some loss to the British and none to the Americans, habituated the raw levies to the sight of enemies, and raised their ideas of their own prowess. On Saturday morning, Stark was joined by Colonel Symonds with part of a regiment of Berkshire militia, and by Colonel Herrick at the head of three hundred Vermont Rangers, in a uniform of green with red facings. Stark's disposition of his forces on this day, shows, not only that he was resolved to force Baum to fight, but that his greatest fear was lest his enemies should make good their retreat. Accordingly, more than half his men were ordered to make a wide circuit so as to fall upon the right and left flanks of the enemy, at the moment Stark himself should storm the breastwork in front. The marching necessary to effect this manœuvre, required them to ford the swollen Wallumscoik twice, and consumed most of the day, and according to the Hessian account of the battle, produced in the hearts of the intrenched corps, as strange a vagary as any that ever deluded Don Quixote.Scouts came in to the Hessian commander, reporting that bodies of armed men were approaching, though whether with a friendly or hostile intention, neither their appearance nor actions enabled the scouts to ascertain.§ Baum became so duped as to believe that the armed bands of whose approach he was warned, were loyalists, on their way to make a tender of their services to the *Stevens, 513. +Ibid. 535. At this point the speaker showed the original roll of Robinson's company, numbering seventy-one. Glich's Narrative. leader of the king's troops! Hence he sent orders to the outposts that no molestation should be offered to the advancing columns, "Those outposts," says a Hessian who was present, "withdrew without firing a shot, from thickets which might have been maintained for hours against any numbers." This was like Napoleon's mistaking Blucher for Grouchy. At length, about three o'clock in the afternoon, a sudden tramp. ling was heard in the forest North of the fortification, then a loud shout, then a rapid, though straggling fire of musketry. The shout was a signal given by the detachment of Americans which had furthest to march, that they had reached their appointed post. The attack at once began on three sides of the breastwork. The first volley discharged by the New Englanders drove in the Indians from the surrounding woods, and a movement of the flanking assailants to unite in the rear, frightened them to a precipitate, though not bloodless flight. The tales of terror they carried home, shielded and tabooed every village but one in Vermont from Indian assaults through all the remaining years of the revolution. In the gap left by the desertion of the Indians, one of the field pieces now before you* was mounted, while the brazen mouth of the other thrust forth a tongue of flame in whatever direction the assailants were seen standing thick together. But the Americans sheltered themselves, as with an extemporaneous breastwork, behind stumps, trees, rocks and hillocks. The conflict was long a trial of sharpshooting, as it were a thousand duels at one time and in one place. The simple Hessians had been persuaded they were to fight with Cannibals, and that if captured they would be roasted and eaten. Every moment they heard, no, they only hoped they heard, Breymann's far-off bugles as he hastened to their rescue. They still had hopes of forcing their way back to that father-land they were homesick to behold once more. Baum cried in their ears that their discipline, their position, their intrenchments, and their cannon must make them conquerors, even over men fighting for their own farms. The tories, who had joined the king's troops, confident that in these last days the time of recompense for all their maltreatment had come, were entrenched in front of the German bat *The cannon were laid on a platform between the speaker and his audience. tery. They braved the battle-fire that they might, if it were by any means possible, turn their castle in the air into a castle on the earth. On the other hand, the assailants saw before them a band of mercenaries, bought at thirty crowns a head, and of whose speech they could not understand a syllable. They saw a horde whose orders were to make spoil of every horse, every ox, every wheel carriage, every saddle, every bridle, leaving only the milch cows. as special clemency, to carry off all provisions, to tax every village as much as it could pay, tories being judges, to take hostages for payment of the tax, to let loose Indians and tories to do what they pleased with the refractory vanquished. They knew that they were the last hope of New England, that if they were repelled there was no reserve to fall back on, that the dragoons, now dismounted before them, on the morrow would be cavalry, a winged army pouncing on the fugitives in every valley, while Indians would set fire to every hill-side hamlet and scalp its inmates.Stark was full of high disdain from a sense of injured merit. Rivals had been promoted over his head and he left a subaltern,— "Men That never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of battle knew More than a spinster, except the bookish theorick." He had insisted on having a separate command and independent authority. Had he taken this position only to expose his weakness, like one who plunges into deep water, though he cannot swim? He was tried and to be found wanting or not wanting? It was for him in these moments a fearful question: Was he to prove a mere partisan, a scout, or was he to prove a General, Expert, When to advance, or stand, or turn the sway He heard the war-whoop of the savages who had captivated him in his boyhood, and forced him to run the gauntlet. Is it any wonder his words to his men were: "There are your enemies, the red coats and tories; we must have them in half an hour, or THIS NIGHT MY WIFE SLEEPS A WIDOW!" No wonder the engagement |