210 NEW HAMPSHIRE MEN AT BUNKER HILL AND BENNINGTON.
��diers " in good order I"
Let us now inquire how American his- torians record these facts. After recit- ing the fact that Col. Prescott, with about one thousand men, including a company of artillery with two field pieces, had. during the night of June 16th, 1775. thrown up a considerable re- doubt, Mr. Hildreth proceeds to say: " Such was the want of order in the pro- vincial camp, and so little was the appre- hension of immediate attack, that the same troops, who had been working all night, still occupied the intrenchments. General Putnam was on the field, but he appears to have had no troops and no command." Other historians make Put- nam the commander-in-chief on that memorable day. He adds : " Two New
Hampshire regiments, under Stark, ar- rived on the ground just before the ac- tion began and took up a position on the left of the unfinished breastwork, but some two hundred yards to the rear, un- der an imperfect cover made by pulling up the rail fences, placing them in par- allel lines a few feet apart and filling the intervening space with new-mown hay, which lay scattered on the hill. 1 ' This is all he says of the New Hampshire troops; and the phrase above, "under Stark," is the only mention of that com- mander. This is small credit for the part he took in that battle. Col. Reed is not named at all; and these two men brought on to the hill more than one- half of all the available troops there en- gaged. Mr. Hildreth gives the British loss as one thousand killed or wounded; the Provincial loss was four hundred and fifty ; and among the slain was Gen- eral Warren. He makes no mention of the brave McClary from New Hamp- shire.
In his account of the battle of Benning- ton he is equally forgetful of New Hamp- shire. He shows the spirit of a clown in the mention of Gen. Stark. He never gives him title or honor; but simply calls him " Stark," without recognition of previous services or present laurels. Of the battle of Bennington he says : " Langdon, the principal merchant of Portsmouth, and a member of the New Hampshire Council, having patriotically
��voluntered the means to put them in mo- tion, a corps of New Hampshire militia, called out upon news of the loss of Ticon- deroga, had lately arrived at Bennington under the command of Stark." Now, who was this Stark? All the informa- tion we get is, " that he had resigned his commission in the Continental army, and having command of the New Hampshire militia, declined to obey the order of Lincoln to join the main army — a piece of insubordination that might have proved fatal; but which, in the present case, turned out otherwise." How many " rus- tics " followed "Stark" from New Hampshire? It would be pleasant to know how many of our fathers heard and obeyed that distant call to duty, and how large a share of the glory of one of the most important battles of the Revolution belonged to them. Mr. Hildreth gives no information on these points, and is as dry as " a remainder biscuit " in the en- tire account of the battle. Only one page is given to it ! He records " Stark's " speech at the beginning of the onset thus : " There they are ! " exclaimed the rustic general, — u We beat to-day, or Sally Stark's a widow! "
Bancroft, in his expansive history, em- bracing in it the diplomatic history of all Europe, is less specific is his account of New Hampshire's role in the Revolu- tionary war than he is of the history of the old Germans as given by Tacitus. He says of the battle of Bennington : " The supplicatory letter of Vermont to the New Hampshire Committee of Safety reached Exeter just after the session of the legislature, but its members came to- gether again on the seventeenth of July, promptly resolved to co-operate with the troops of the new State, and ordered Stark, with a brigade of militia, ' to stop the progress of the enemy on their west- ern frontier.' " This is the most definite account we have of what he calls one of the most brilliant aud eventful victories of the war. Langdon, whose patriotism fired the hearts, and whose money fur- nished the arms and shod the bare feet of the New Hampshire volunteers, is not mentioned. We should like to know how many men constituted that Brigade, and how many " Green Mountain Boys,"
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