SCHUYLER HEARS OF THE AFFAIR OF ORISKANY—APPLIES FOR
REINFORCEMENTS—HIS APPEAL TO THE PATRIOTISM OF STARK—SCHUYLER
SUPERSEDED—HIS CONDUCT THEREUPON—RELIEF SENT TO FORT STANWIX—ARNOLD
VOLUNTEERS TO CONDUCT IT—CHANGE OF ENCAMPMENT—PATRIOTIC
DETERMINATION OF SCHUYLER—DETACHMENT OF THE ENEMY AGAINST
BENNINGTON—GERMANS AND THEIR INDIAN ALLIES—BAUM, THE HESSIAN
LEADER—STARK IN THE FIELD—MUSTERING OF THE MILITIA—A BELLIGERENT
PARSON—BATTLE OF BENNINGTON—BREYMAN TO THE RESCUE—ROUTED—RECEPTION
OF THE NEWS IN THE RIVAL CAMPS—WASHINGTON URGES NEW ENGLAND TO
FOLLOW UP THE BLOW.
Schuyler was in Albany in the early part of August, making stirring
appeals in every direction for reinforcements. Burgoyne was advancing
upon him; he had received news of the disastrous affair of Oriskany, and
the death of General Herkimer, and Tryon County was crying to him for
assistance. One of his appeals was to the veteran John Stark, the
comrade of Putnam in the French war and the battle of Bunker’s Hill. He
had his farm in the Hampshire Grants, and his name was a tower of
strength among the Green Mountain Boys. But Stark was soured with
government, and had retired from service, his name having been omitted
in the list of promotions. Hearing that he was on a visit to Lincoln’s
camp at Manchester, Schuyler wrote to that general, “Assure General
Stark that I have acquainted Congress of his situation, and that I trust
and entreat he will, in the present alarming crisis, waive his right;
the greater the sacrifice he makes to his feelings, the greater will be
the honor due to him for not having suffered any consideration whatever,
to come in competition with the weal of his country: entreat him to
march immediately to our army.”
Schuyler had instant call to practise the very virtue he was
inculcating. He was about to mount his horse on the 10th, to return to
the camp at Stillwater, when a despatch from Congress was put into his
hand containing the resolves which recalled him to attend a court of
inquiry about the affair of Ticonderoga, and requested Washington to
appoint an officer to succeed him.
Schuyler felt deeply the indignity of being thus recalled at a time when
an engagement was apparently at hand, but endeavored to console himself
with the certainty that a thorough investigation of his conduct would
prove how much he was entitled to the thanks of his country. He
intimated the same in his reply to Congress; in the mean time, he
considered it his duty to remain at his post until his successor should
arrive, or some officer in the department be nominated to the command.
Returning, therefore, to the camp at Stillwater, he continued to conduct
the affairs of the army with unremitting zeal. “Until the country is in
safety,” said he, “I will stifle my resentment.”
His first care was to send relief to Gansevoort and his beleaguered
garrison. Eight hundred men were all that he could spare from his army
in its present threatened state. A spirited and effective officer was
wanted to lead them. Arnold was in camp; recently sent on as an
efficient coadjutor, by Washington; he was in a state of exasperation
against the government, having just learnt that the question of rank had
been decided against him in Congress. Indeed, he would have retired
instantly from the service, had not Schuyler prevailed on him to remain
until the impending danger was over. It was hardly to be expected, that
in his irritated mood he would accept the command of the detachment, if
offered to him. Arnold, however, was a combustible character. The
opportunity of an exploit flashed on his adventurous spirit. He stepped
promptly forward and volunteered to lead the enterprise. “No public nor
private injury or insult,” said he, “shall prevail on me to forsake the
cause of my injured and oppressed country, until I see peace and liberty
restored to her, or nobly die in the attempt.”[54]
After the departure of this detachment, it was unanimously determined in
a council of war of Schuyler and his general officers, that the post at
Stillwater was altogether untenable with their actual force; part of the
army, therefore, retired to the islands at the fords on the mouth of the
Mohawk River, where it empties into the Hudson, and a brigade was posted
above the Falls of the Mohawk, called the Cohoes, to prevent the enemy
from crossing there. It was considered a strong position, where they
could not be attacked without great disadvantage to the assailant.
The feelings of Schuyler were more and more excited as the game of war
appeared drawing to a crisis. “I am resolved,” writes he to his friend
Duane, “to make another sacrifice to my country, and risk the censure of
Congress by remaining in this quarter _after_ I am relieved, and
bringing up the militia to the support of this weak army.”
As yet he did not know who was to be his successor in the command. A
letter from Duane informed him that General Gates was the man.
Still the noble part of Schuyler’s nature was in the ascendant. “Your
fears may be up,” writes he in reply, “lest the ill-treatment I have
experienced at his hands, should so far get the better of my judgment as
to embarrass him. Do not, my dear friend, be uneasy on that account. I
am incapable of sacrificing my country to a resentment, however just;
and I trust I shall give an example of what a good citizen ought to do
when he is in my situation.”
We will now take a view of occurrences on the right and left of
Burgoyne, and show the effect of Schuyler’s measures, poorly seconded as
they were, in crippling and straitening the invading army. And first, we
will treat of the expedition against Bennington. This was a central
place, whither the live stock was driven from various parts of the
Hampshire Grants, and whence the American army derived its supplies. It
was a great deposit, also, of grain of various kinds, and of wheel
carriages; the usual guard was militia, varying from day to day.
Bennington was to be surprised. The country was to be scoured from
Rockingham to Otter Creek in quest of provisions for the army, horses
and oxen for draft, and horses for the cavalry. All public magazines
were to be sacked. All cattle belonging to royalists, and which could be
spared by their owners, were to be paid for. All rebel flocks and herds
were to be driven away.
Generals Phillips and Riedesel demurred strongly to the expedition, but
their counsels were outweighed by those of Colonel Skene, the royalist.
He knew, he said, all the country thereabout. The inhabitants were as
five to one in favor of the royal cause, and would be prompt to turn out
on the first appearance of a protecting army. He was to accompany the
expedition, and much was expected from his personal influence and
authority.
Lieutenant-colonel Baum was to command the detachment. He had under him,
according to Burgoyne, two hundred dismounted dragoons of the regiment
of Riedesel, Captain Fraser’s marksmen, which were the only British, all
the Canadian volunteers, a party of the provincials who perfectly knew
the country, one hundred Indians, and two light pieces of cannon. The
whole detachment amounted to about five hundred men. The dragoons, it
was expected, would supply themselves with horses in the course of the
foray; and a skeleton corps of royalists would be filled up by recruits.
The Germans had no great liking for the Indians as fellow-campaigners;
especially those who had come from Upper Canada under St. Luc. “These
savages are heathens, huge, warlike and enterprising, but wicked as
Satan,” writes a Hessian officer. “Some say they are cannibals, but I do
not believe it; though in their fury they will tear the flesh off their
enemies with their teeth. They have a martial air, and their wild
ornaments become them.”[55] St. Luc, who commanded them, had been a
terror to the English colonists in the French war, and it was intimated
that he possessed great treasures of “old English scalps.” He and his
warriors, however, had disappeared from camp since the affair of Miss
McCrea. The present were Indians from Lower Canada.
The choice of German troops for this foray, was much sneered at by the
British officers. “A corps could not have been found in the whole army,”
said they, “so unfit for a service requiring rapidity of motion, as
Riedesel’s dragoons. The very hat and sword of one of them weighed
nearly as much as the whole equipment of a British soldier. The worst
British regiment in the service would march two miles to their one.”
To be nearer at hand in case assistance should be required Burgoyne
encamped on the east side of the Hudson, nearly opposite Saratoga,
throwing over a bridge of boats by which General Fraser, with the
advanced guard, crossed to that place. Colonel Baum set out from camp at
break of day, on the 13th of August. All that had been predicted of his
movements was verified. The badness of the road, the excessive heat of
the weather, and the want of carriages and horses were alleged in
excuse; but slow and unapt men ever meet with impediments. Some cattle,
carts and waggons, were captured at Cambridge; a few horses also were
brought in; but the Indians killed or drove off all that fell into their
hands, unless they were paid in cash for their prizes. “The country
people of these parts,” writes the Hessian narrator, “came in crowds to
Governor Skene, as he was called, and took the oath of allegiance; but
even these faithless people,” adds he, “were subsequently our bitterest
assailants.”
Baum was too slow a man to take a place by surprise. The people of
Bennington heard of his approach and were on the alert. The veteran
Stark was there with eight or nine hundred troops. During the late
alarms the militia of the State had been formed into two brigades, one
to be commanded by General William Whipple; Stark had with difficulty
been prevailed upon to accept the command of the other, upon the express
condition that he should not be obliged to join the main army, but
should be left to his own discretion, to make war in his own partisan
style, hovering about the enemy in their march through the country, and
accountable to none but the authorities of New Hampshire.
General Lincoln had informed Stark of the orders of General Schuyler,
that all the militia should repair to Stillwater, but the veteran
refused to comply. He had taken up arms, he said, in a moment of
exigency, to defend the neighborhood, which would be exposed to the
ravages of the enemy, should he leave it, and he held himself
accountable solely to the authorities of New Hampshire. This act of
insubordination might have involved the doughty but somewhat testy old
general in subsequent difficulty, had not his sword carved out an ample
excuse for him.
Having heard that Indians had appeared at Cambridge, twelve miles to the
north of Bennington, on the 13th, he sent out two hundred men under
Colonel Gregg in quest of them. In the course of the night he learnt
that they were mere scouts in advance of a force marching upon
Bennington. He immediately rallied his brigade, called out the militia
of the neighborhood, and sent off for Colonel Seth Warner (the quondam
associate of Ethan Allen) and his regiment of militia, who were with
General Lincoln at Manchester.
Lincoln instantly detached them, and Warner and his men marched all
night through drenching rain, arriving at Stark’s camp in the morning,
dripping wet.
Stark left them at Bennington to dry and rest themselves, and then to
follow on; in the mean time, he pushed forward with his men to support
the party sent out the preceding day, under Gregg, in quest of the
Indians. He met them about five miles off in full retreat, Baum and his
force a mile in their rear.
Stark halted and prepared for action. Baum also halted; posted himself
on a high ground at a bend of the little river Walloomscoick, and began
to intrench himself. Stark fell back a mile, to wait for reinforcements
and draw down Baum from his strong position. A skirmish took place
between the advance guards; thirty of Baum’s men were killed and two
Indian chiefs.
An incessant rain on the 15th prevented an attack on Baum’s camp, but
there was continual skirmishing. The colonel strengthened his
intrenchments, and finding he had a larger force to contend with than he
had anticipated, sent off in all haste to Burgoyne for reinforcements.
Colonel Breyman marched off immediately, with five hundred Hessian
grenadiers and infantry and two six-pounders, leaving behind him his
tents, baggage, and standards. He, also, found the roads so deep, and
the horses so bad, that he was nearly two days getting four and twenty
miles. The tactics of the Hessians were against them. “So foolishly
attached were they to forms of discipline,” writes a British historian,
“that in marching through thickets they stopped ten times an hour to
dress their ranks.” It was here, in fact, that they most dreaded the
American rifle. “In the open field,” said they, “the rebels are not
much; but they are redoubtable in the woods.”[56]
In the mean time the more alert and active Americans had been mustering
from all quarters to Stark’s assistance, with such weapons as they had
at hand. During the night of the 15th, Colonel Symonds arrived with a
body of Berkshire militia. Among them was a belligerent parson, full of
fight, Allen by name, possibly of the bellicose family of the hero of
Ticonderoga. “General,” cried he, “the people of Berkshire have been
often called out to no purpose; if you don’t give them a chance to fight
now they will never turn out again.” “You would not turn out now, while
it is dark and raining, would you?” demanded Stark. “Not just now,” was
the reply. “Well, if the Lord should once more give us sunshine, and I
don’t give you fighting enough,” rejoined the veteran, “I’ll never ask
you to turn out again.”
On the following morning the sun shone bright, and Stark prepared to
attack Baum in his intrenchments; though he had no artillery, and his
men, for the most part, had only their ordinary brown firelocks without
bayonets. Two hundred of his men, under Colonel Nichols, were detached
to the rear of the enemy’s left; three hundred under Colonel Herrick, to
the rear of his right; they were to join their forces and attack him in
the rear, while Colonels Hubbard and Stickney, with two hundred men,
diverted his attention in front.
Colonel Skene and the royalists, when they saw the Americans issuing out
of the woods on different sides, persuaded themselves, and endeavored to
persuade Baum, that these were the royal people of the country flocking
to his standard. The Indians were the first to discover the truth. “The
woods are full of Yankees,” cried they, and retreated in single file
between the troops of Nichols and Herrick, yelling like demons and
jingling cow bells. Several of them, however, were killed or wounded as
they thus ran the gauntlet.
At the first sound of fire-arms, Stark, who had remained with the main
body in camp, mounted his horse and gave the word, _forward!_ He had
promised his men the plunder of the British camp. The homely speech made
by him when in sight of the enemy, has often been cited. “Now, my men!
There are the red coats! Before night they must be ours, or Molly Stark
will be a widow!”
Baum soon found himself assailed on every side, but he defended his
works bravely. His two pieces of artillery, advantageously planted, were
very effective, and his troops, if slow in march, were steady in action.
For two hours the discharge of fire-arms was said to have been like the
constant rattling of the drum. Stark in his despatches compared it to a
“continued clap of thunder.” It was the hottest fight he had ever seen.
He inspired his men with his own impetuosity. They drove the royalist
troops upon the Hessians, and pressing after them stormed the works with
irresistible fury. A Hessian eye-witness declares that this time the
rebels fought with desperation, pressing within eight paces of the
loaded cannon to take surer aim at the artillerists. The latter were
slain; the cannon captured. The royalists and Canadians took to flight,
and escaped to the woods. The Germans still kept their ground, and
fought bravely, until there was not a cartridge left. Baum and his
dragoons then took to their broadswords and the infantry to their
bayonets, and endeavored to cut their way to a road in the woods, but in
vain; many were killed, more wounded, Baum among the number, and all who
survived were taken prisoners.[57]
The victors now dispersed, some to collect booty, some to attend to the
wounded, some to guard the prisoners, and some to seek refreshment,
being exhausted by hunger and fatigue. At this critical juncture,
Breyman’s tardy reinforcement came, making its way heavily and slowly to
the scene of action, joined by many of the enemy who had fled. Attempts
were made to rally the militia; but they were in complete confusion.
Nothing would have saved them from defeat, had not Colonel Seth Warner’s
corps fortunately arrived from Bennington, fresh from repose, and
advanced to meet the enemy, while the others regained their ranks. It
was four o’clock in the afternoon when this second action commenced. It
was fought from wood to wood and hill to hill, for several miles, until
sunset. The last stand of the enemy was at Van Schaick’s mill, where,
having expended all their ammunition, of which each man had forty
rounds, they gave way, and retreated, under favor of the night, leaving
two field-pieces and all their baggage in the hands of the Americans.
Stark ceased to pursue them, lest in the darkness his men should fire
upon each other. “Another hour of daylight,” said he in his report, “and
I should have captured the whole body.” The veteran had had a horse shot
under him, but escaped without wound or bruise.
Four brass field-pieces, nine hundred dragoon swords, a thousand stand
of arms, and four ammunition waggons were the spoils of this victory.
Thirty-two officers, five hundred and sixty-four privates, including
Canadians and loyalists, were taken prisoners. The number of slain was
very considerable, but could not be ascertained; many having fallen in
the woods. The brave but unfortunate Baum did not long survive. The
Americans had one hundred killed and wounded.
Burgoyne was awakened in his camp towards daylight of the 17th, by
tidings that Colonel Baum had surrendered. Next came word that Colonel
Breyman was engaged in severe and doubtful conflict. The whole army was
roused, and were preparing to hasten to his assistance, when one report
after another gave assurance that he was on his way back in safety. The
main body, therefore, remained in camp at the Batten kiln; but Burgoyne
forded that stream with the 47th regiment and pushed forward until 4
o’clock, when he met Breyman and his troops, weary and haggard with hard
fighting and hard marching, in hot weather. In the evening all returned
to their old encampments.[58]
General Schuyler was encamped on Van Schaick’s Island at the mouth of
the Mohawk River, when a letter from General Lincoln, dated Bennington,
Aug. 18th, informed him of “the capital blow given the enemy by General
Stark.” “I trust,” replies he, Aug. 19th, “that the severity with which
they have been handled will retard General Burgoyne’s progress. Part of
his force was yesterday afternoon about three miles and a half above
Stillwater. If the enemy have entirely left that part of the country you
are in, I think it would be advisable for you to move towards Hudson
River tending towards Stillwater.”
“Governor Clinton,” writes he to Stark on the same day, “is coming up
with a body of militia, and I trust that after what the enemy have
experienced from you, their progress will be retarded, and that we shall
see them driven out of this part of the country.”
He now hoped to hear that Arnold had raised the siege of Fort Stanwix.
“If that take place,” said he, “it will be possible to engage two or
three hundred Indians to join this army, and Congress may rest assured
that my best endeavors shall not be wanting to accomplish it.”
Tidings of the affair of Bennington reached Washington, just before he
moved his camp from the neighborhood of Philadelphia to Wilmington, and
it relieved his mind from a world of anxious perplexity. In a letter to
Putnam he writes, “As there is not now the least danger of General
Howe’s going to New England, I hope the whole force of that country will
turn out, and, by following the great stroke struck by General Stark
near Bennington, entirely crush General Burgoyne, who, by his letter to
Colonel Baum, seems to be in want of almost every thing.”
We will now give the fate of Burgoyne’s detachment, under St. Leger,
sent to capture Fort Stanwix, and ravage the valley of the Mohawk.