United States or Mexico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Efforts were made to keep the disaster a secret from the army, but the movements made in consequence of it told the story but too plainly. In the first place, the whole army was hurried up to Batten-Kill in order to cover Breyman's and Frazer's retreat, for Frazer had been ordered to recross the Hudson at once.
That is not all. "On the sixteenth, old John Stark fell upon Baum's and Breyman's Hessians at Bennington, killed and wounded over two hundred, captured seven hundred; took a thousand stand of arms, a thousand fine dragoon sabres, and four excellent field-cannon with limbers, harness, and caissons.... And lost fourteen killed!"
Stout Ober-forster Hermann listened, with mouth agape, to Sergeant Breyman's loud denunciation of the wounded prisoner as the two men exchanged confidences, in the dining hall, where antlers and wolves' heads, grinning bears' skulls, and eagles' wings told the tale of many a wild jagd.
At last the combatants were firing in each other's faces; so close was the encounter, so deadly the strife, that Breyman's men were falling round him by scores, under the close and accurate aim of their assailants. Darkness was closing in. His artillery horses were shot down in their traces, his flanks driven in, his advance stopped.
The police matron who had been Leah Einstein's secret jailer on the voyage was now listening to Braun's stubborn negations of all Sergeant Breyman's formal questions. Atwater, with a touched heart, listened to Irma Gluyas in her passionate ravings. "The lying fiend! I will tell all! I will go on my knees to pray God to strike him dead!"
With steady tread his veterans fired and moved on, pushing the Americans back, toward the scene of the first encounter; but Baum was no longer there to assist, the scattered militiamen were fast closing in round Breyman's flanks, and Stark had now brought one of Baum's cannon to bear, with destructive effect, upon the head of the enemy's advancing column.
In no long time the deadly fire, poured in on all sides, began to tell upon Breyman's solid battalions. Our marksmen harassed his flanks. His front was hard pressed, and there were no signs of Baum. Enraged by the thought of having victory torn from their grasp, the Americans gave ground foot by foot, and inch by inch.
To protect it, the left, or German division, marched along the meadows, next the river. The centre, or British division, kept the heights above; while Frazer's corps moved at some distance, on the right of it, with Breyman's following just behind in support. Two divisions were therefore marching on the heights, and one underneath them.
Baum's corps was virtually destroyed, Breyman's badly cut up, Burgoyne's well-laid plans scattered to the winds. A battle monument, designed to be three hundred and one feet high, is now being built on a commanding site at Bennington Centre, which is the old village.
Burgoyne then began manoeuvring so as to mask Baum's movements from Schuyler. Frazer was marched down to Batten-Kill, with his own and Breyman's corps. Leaving Breyman here to support either Baum or himself, in case of need, Frazer crossed the Hudson on the fourteenth, and encamped on the heights of Saratoga that night. The rest of the army moved on to Duer's, the same day.
Word Of The Day