battle, and during the battle itself. Colonel Warner's regiment had been stationed at Manchester, and word had been received on August 14 that it was needed at Bennington, but owing to the absence of a large scouting party under Capt. John Chipman the regiment did not leave until the morning of August 15. Marching all day through the rain, it was nearly midnight when Warner's men reached a point about one mile from Bennington village, and encamped. A considerable part of Saturday forenoon was spent in drying arms and equipment and securing additional ammunition, of which there was a shortage, so that it was noon or after before a start was made from Bennington. A short stop was made at Stark's encampment, where coats and knapsacks were left and each man was served with a gill of rum and water.

It was late in the afternoon when Warner's regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Safford, only about one hundred and thirty men being left after the Hubbardton defeat, arrived on the battle field. Some of the American troops had been rallied, and a defence was being made against Breymann's troops, but Stark's forces were falling back slowly, contesting every inch of ground.

In the second engagement the two brass cannon captured in the first battle were used by the Americans, but it is said that Breymann's two guns were of larger calibre. Warner's fresh troops arrived just in time to furnish a rallying point for the somewhat demoralized American forces. A misunderstanding of orders sent some of Warner's force into a swamp, but they soon. extricated themselves. The regiment retreated slowly

and in good order for about three-quarters of a mile, firing constantly. When high ground was reached a stand was made. An attempt on the part of the enemy to execute a flanking movement on the right was partially successful, but finally was defeated. Gradually the scattered American troops were assembled, and after severe fighting lasting two hours, Breymann's force was repulsed, his two field pieces were taken, and the fleeing enemy were pursued into the forest as long as their pursuers could see to follow them. Stark says the whole body would have been captured with another hour of daylight.

Breymann's soldiers made better time on the return march than they did on the advance, reaching Cambridge, N. Y., about midnight of August 16, where they remained until morning, when the march was renewed, and on Sunday afternoon Burgoyne met the defeated troops at the camp of the Twentieth regiment, which had advanced on the road to Sancoik.

In Stark's report to Gates he summarized the spoils of victory as four brass cannon, seven hundred stands of arms, some brass barreled drums, and several Hessian swords. About seven hundred prisoners were taken and two hundred dead were found on the battle field. Stark's letter to the New Hampshire Council after the battle, dated August 18, gives the list of prisoners as follows: One Lieutenant Colonel, since dead, one Major, seven Captains, fourteen Lieutenants, four Ensigns, two Cornets, one Judge Advocate, one Baron, two Canadian officers, six Sergeants, one aide-de-camp, one Hessian Chaplain, and seven hundred prisoners. He

says that upward of two hundred of the enemy were killed in battle. In a letter written to General Gates on August 22, Stark says two hundred and seven dead were left by the enemy on the battle field. General Lincoln, writing to General Schuyler two days after the battle, gave the list of prisoners substantially the same as did General Stark, so far as officers are concerned, but he mentions thirty-seven British soldiers, thirtyeight Canadians, one hundred and fifty-one Tories and three hundred and ninety-eight Hessians among those taken, in addition to eighty wounded prisoners. He estimated the number of the enemy's dead at two hundred. General Stark gave his own losses as forty wounded and thirty killed. Lincoln's letter to Schuyler on this subject says: "We had about twenty or thirty killed in the action and perhaps fifty wounded." General Burgoyne, in a letter to Lord George Germaine, written August 20, gives the British loss in killed and prisoners in both actions at Bennington as twenty-six officers and about four hundred men, and he adds that the American loss in killed and wounded was "more than double to ours." While it may be natural for an American writer to prefer American estimates, the weight of evidence appears to be in favor of the figures given by Stark and Lincoln. Burgoyne was writing to the rulers of England, in whose favor, naturally, he desired to stand as well as possible, and it is not strange that he should minimize his own losses and magnify those of his opponents, when his story, at best, was that of a defeat.

Stark was a plain, blunt soldier, who did not seek to win favor for himself by fair words or boastful claims. The only note of exultation in his brief and modest reports may be found in a postscript to his letter to the New Hampshire Council, in which he observed: "I think in this action we have returned the enemy a proper compliment for their Hubbardston (Hubbardton) engagement." It is probable that the British dead in the battle of Bennington amounted approximately to two hundred and fifty. In the skirmishing of August 14 they are said to have lost thirty, and Stark reports two hundred and seven dead on the field. Very likely some were slain in the pursuit of Breymann's fleeing troops through the forest.

General Lincoln's estimate of the forces engaged was about two thousand American and fifteen hundred British soldiers. President Bartlett of Dartmouth College, in his address delivered on the centennial anniversary of the battle of Bennington, presented a careful statement of the number of American troops engaged in this conflict, most of his figures being taken from official records. Of Stark's brigade of one thousand, five hundred and twenty-three men, one company had been left at Charlestown, N. H., but the two companies sent to guard the height of land between Charlestown and the sources of Otter Creek were called in before the battle. The records for the Vermont and the Massachusetts troops are far from complete, but President Bartlett estimates them at five hundred Vermont and two hundred and fifty Massachusetts soldiers, or approximately two thousand, two hundred and fifty men.

Capt. Peter Kimball, a New Hampshire officer, recorded in his diary that the plunder taken at Bennington was divided among two thousand, two hundred and fifty men. Possibly a few men who came in too late for the battle may have had a share, but the best sources of information indicate that the forces under Stark's command were between two thousand and two thousand, two hundred and fifty officers and soldiers.

The prisoners were crowded into the meeting house at Bennington until it was feared that the safety of the structure was endangered, and some of them were withdrawn. It is said that some of these escaped. Most of the prisoners who were in the custody of General Fellows were sent to Massachusetts, many going to Bos

ton.

On August 19 they were at Lanesboro, Mass. A few were left in Berkshire and Hampshire counties. By order of the General Court some of these prisoners were consigned to committees representing various towns in these counties, and, as labor was scarce, they were permitted to be hired for wages. A few of these laborers became permanent residents of the towns where they were assigned. The Tory prisoners were marched into the village, two by two, and the women of Bennington took down their beds to obtain cords with which to bind them, a fact to which General Stark alluded in a letter written in his old age. Capt. Samuel Robinson was appointed overseer in charge. Some of them were kept, for a time, at least, in the meeting house, others in Captain Dewey's barn, and in the school house. Later, some of them were banished from the town, under penalty of death if they should return; some were sentenced to labor