by Bea Peterson
Saturday, June 20, was a lovely day and families visiting the Bennington Battlefield in the morning had an opportunity to hear how and why the Battle of Bennington took place in Walloomsac, NY. Well known historic interpreter Phyllis Chapman, dressed in colonial attire and equipped with maps and tiny soldiers, explained how the British wished to divide the northern colonies from the southern colonies by cutting out and occupying the colony of New York. [private]
General John Burgoyne was to come from Canada, Sir William Howe was to come up the Hudson with ships and General Barry St. Leger would drive down the Mohawk Valley. However, Howe chose to pursue George Washington to Philadelphia and St. Leger captured some places and suffered defeat in others and didn’t arrive in time to be of any help to Burgoyne. Meanwhile Burgoyne’s lavish lifestyle put him in dire need of supplies and horses and he sent a contingent of 1,000 of his men, led by Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Baum, and supported by troops under Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich von Breymann toward a place called Bennington where he heard supplies were plentiful. Little did these Colonels know a rebel force of 2,000 men, primarily composed of New Hampshire and Massachusetts militiamen, led by General John Stark, and reinforced by men led by Colonel Seth Warner and members of the Green Mountain Boys and well as New York militiamen knew they were coming and would defeat them in August of 1777. Thus, when Burgoyne reached the Saratoga area in September he was short of troops and supplies and after two battles, surrendered to American forces. Chapman explained that Bennington and Saratoga are called the turning point of the war because it provided a great moral victory for the Americans, and at the same time the French, no friend of the British, saw the possibility of the colonies defeating Great Britain and sent money, troops and ships to aid the colonists. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Chapman then supplied the visitors with a map that would take them past historic markers en route to the Bennington Monument where her husband, Mike Chapman, would tell them the history of the monument and that area. It was an excellent program. [/
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