Battle of Bennington

Battle of Bennington, in the American Revolution, a victory August 16, 1777, by American militiamen who were defending colonial military stores in Bennington, Vermont, against a British raiding party.

After capturing Fort Ticonderoga (see Siege of Fort Ticonderoga) in July 1777, the British commander, General John Burgoyne, pushed into western New York State toward Albany. His long supply line to Canada could not provide adequate supplies, and so, hoping to capture needed provisions and overawe New Englanders, he dispatched a well-equipped regiment to Bennington under the German Colonel Friedrich Baum. The raiding force, numbering about 650 German and British regulars, along with 500 Canadian and Loyalist volunteers and 100 Indigenous allies, departed on 9 August and plundered the countryside for five days. On 14 August, a group of American militia sent by Vermont Brigadier General John Stark lost a skirmish with Baum’s raiders near Bennington. The American force grew to 1,100 men the next day when Stark arrived with reinforcements in a heavy rain. Baum realized he was badly outnumbered. He sent a courier to Burgoyne requesting more troops and had his men build earth breastworks in the meantime for defense. Soon after he did so, Continental regulars under the command of Colonel Seth Warner arrived, swelling the American force to about 2,350, while local Loyalists joined Baum’s command, bringing its number to about 1,450,

On 16 August, Stark, who had distinguished himself at the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Battle of Trenton, led his militia in a multipronged assault against Baum’s positions. The complex American plan worked perfectly, hitting the positions simultaneously from several directions. Most of the Loyalists and Indians left the fight at the first volley, but the British and German regulars fiercely defended their redoubt for two hours until their ammunition was gone. In a vain attempt to break out, Baum had his dismounted Hessian cavalrymen draw sabers and attack on foot. Baum fell fatally wounded, and the survivors surrendered. Reinforcements sent by Burgoyne were delayed by the rain and arrived after the battle. Stark reformed his celebrating men and attacked the arriving Germans. In the fight, the German commander was killed and the rest forced to retreat. The outcome of this engagement went far in enhancing American morale, while also lowering Native American confidence in British fighting ability; at a council after the battle, the Indigenous allies decided to withdraw to Canada, leaving Burgoyne’s army without a reliable reconnaissance force and further weakening his campaign to cut off New York and New England from the southern colonies.

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The battle, which took place at the site of the present village of Walloomsac, New York (several miles west of Bennington), contributed to the defeat of Burgoyne in the Battles of Saratogatwo months later, not least because his army was significantly reduced with the loss of Baum’s command. The defeat at Saratoga in turn brought France into the Revolutionary War on the American side, even as it forced a change in British strategy, which thereafter concentrated on carrying on the war in the South.

The Battle of Bennington is commemorated by a historical park near Walloomsac and by a 306-foot (93-metre) obelisk at the village of Old Bennington.

Losses: American, some 30 dead, 42 wounded; British and Loyalist, 207 dead, 700 captured.