The American Guide Series, produced by the Federal Writers’ Project, is one of the most well-known WPA projects. Written as a collection of travel guides, the series included suggested tour routes as well as essays on the history and culture of each U.S. state and territory. Major U.S. cities and several regions were also given their own separate guidebooks.
The state guides give a fascinating snapshot of American life in the 1930s. Written in a lively and approachable style, they detail and celebrate the rich diversity that our country displayed at that time. The writers’ enthusiasm is infectious and their guide is as much fun to read today as it must have been for travelers in the 1930s.
Several historians have written about the American Guide Series over the past 80 years, but no one, to my knowledge, has used them as current-day travel guides. That is just what I set out to do. I am an American historian, art photographer, and enthusiastic traveler. I have read each of these guides. I love them for their wonderful enthusiasm and their curiosity about every aspect of regional life—from food, to linguistics, to folklore, to statistics, to geography, to environment, to history—and especially for their liberal attitudes and respect for diversity. In this series, I will be posting photo essays and articles based upon tours recommended in the guides.
Fern L. Nesson
The turning point in the American Revolution dates from 1777 on the border of Vermont and New York State. In that year, British General Burgoyne, leading a large British force, decided to march down from Canada along the Hudson Valley in a push to capture New York thus isolating New England from the rest of the colonies. He took Fort Ticonderoga easily but the colonists rallied and met his forces again at Bennington, Vermont and Saratoga, New York. The outnumbered American volunteers from MA, NH, VT, and NY won both battles against high odds and the ultimate defeat of the British became almost inevitable.
The writers of the Vermont and New York State Guides do a wonderful job of describing these battles and their significance and it is still possible to recapture the excitement of that moment by visiting the battlefields. Two hundred forty-six years later, I did just that. It was a raw, cold, cloudy day but worth every bit of effort to walk the bucolic sites on which our freedom was won.
The Battle of Bennington predated Saratoga and, in large part, determined the victory that would be achieved there. The Vermont Guide reports the events of the battle with evident pride:
In the summer of 1777, General Burgoyne pushed down the Champlain Valley, taking Ticonderoga and Mount Independence without a struggle [making] the British drive seem irresistible. The whole country was alarmed.
On July 30, Burgoyne tardily reached Fort Edward on the Hudson, after some days spent in dalliance with his mistress at Skenesboro. It appeared merely a question of time before he would join up with the British forces at Albany. But Burgoyne needed supplies badly, … and was fatally overconfident.
Learning of a storehouse in Bennington guarded only by militia, he dispatched Colonel Baum … under the following cocksure instructions, “Mount your dragoons . . . send me 1300 horses . . . seize Bennington . . . cross mountains to Rockingham and Brattleborough … take hostages and meet me a fortnight hence in Albany.” [Although Burgoyne] expected little or no opposition from the [Americans] he sent Breymann’s German regulars to support Baum in case of unexpected developments.
Meanwhile the fear-stricken Colonies were striving to raise volunteers for defense against Burgoyne’s advance. Colonel John Stark, veteran of the French War, Bunker Hill, Trenton, and Princeton, had retired to his New Hampshire farm in disgust when Congress promoted undeserving junior officers over his head. He was called back into service and given command of the forces gathered by New Hampshire.
On his withdrawal from service, writers of the day had referred to him as ‘ a rustic Achilles sulking in his tent.’ Now the promise of leadership filled him with eager activity, and he marched his men over the mountains to Bennington, arriving on August 9.
On the 12th, Baum started his eastward march, unaware of the increased strength at Bennington. His detachment of eight hundred included musicians, officers’ servants, and women camp-followers. His main strength was three hundred and seventy-five dismounted German dragoons, fifty British infantrymen, and some three hundred Indians, Tories, and Canadians.
By the 14th, Stark knew definitely of Baum’s advance and moved his militiamen up to meet them, strengthened by volunteers from Bennington and other towns in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, a total force of eighteen hundred. At Sancoick Mills a vanguard of American riflemen fired on Baum’s ranks from the brush, and they sniped at the enemy, as they fell back. Eleazer Edgerton stayed behind to burn St. Luke’s Bridge over the Walloomsac, and Baum, forced to halt and restore the bridge, took his position on a steep hill overlooking the river.
After some further skirmishing, Stark withdrew to plan the attack. On the 15th, it rained hard all day, and fighting was out of the question; sharp-shooting American scouts managed to keep enough powder dry to harass the enemy and pick off some outpost victims. Baum’s position [was] naturally strong. On the hill-shoulder three hundred feet above the Walloomsac River, he built a breastwork of felled trees to bolster his main defense. But the wide scattering of his four detachments was poor strategy.
August 16 was bright and clear after the storm. Wet leaves glistened and the green earth steamed in the sultry sunshine. It is legendary that the lean, grim-mouthed Stark said, ‘We beat them today, or Molly Stark’s a widow.’
At three o’clock in the hot afternoon, the American attack started, with Nichols and Herrick carrying the left and right flanks respectively. The Indians and Canadians fle[d] after but little show of opposition. [and the enemy’s front outpost, manned by Tories behind a flimsy barrier of fencerails and loose earth, fell before Hubbard and Stickney. The Tories [then] fled across the river and up the hill, and Stark and Warner launched the big drive at Baum’s main defense on the hill crest.
Swarming across the bridgeways or splashing through the stream, the Americans clambered up the blazing hillside, a motley army in tattered shirt-sleeves and sweaty jackets. Stark and Warner were greeted by a ball from the Hessian four-pounder. ‘The rascals know we’re officers, all right,’ cried Stark.
‘They salute us with big guns.’
A powder explosion threw the English redoubt into confusion, and the charge of ragged farmers and tough woodsmen cleared the barricade. Deserted by their allies and hopelessly outnumbered, Baum and his Germans stood firm until their ammunition gave out; then, drawing their great broadswords and led by Baum, they tried to cut their way out. Baum fell, shot in the belly, and the rest, who were still alive and unwounded, either fled or surrendered.
By five o’clock the [British] forces were smashed and broken, and the Americans scattered in pursuit, … gathering plunder, or herding of prisoners.
In the meantime, Breymann was marching his five hundred and fifty Germans regulars to the aid of Baum at the rate of only one-half mile per hour, dragging their cannon through the mud. [Breymann] halted ten times to the mile to dress and re-dress his ranks with eighteenth century Prussian precision. But for these foolhardy parade-ground tactics, Breymann could have been there a day earlier and the issue might have been entirely changed.
[On August 17 Breymann finally arrived at Bennington but], instead of meeting Baum’s detachment, he ran into a scene of utter confusion. Rifle-fire raked his lines from rail-fences and wooded ridges but he marched doggedly on.The Americans, scattered and disorganized now, were wearied from their exertions in the August heat, wilted by the scorching sun…. Stark was in favor of falling back to re-form his ranks and prepare to meet the German reinforcements, but Seth Warner persuaded him to stay and fight it out on the spot. When the tired volunteers turned Baum’s cannon on Breymann, Stark had to dismount and show his inexperienced men how to load and fire the guns.
[Although] the Hessians were fatigued from marching through mud in their heavy equipment, they were forcing the farmers back when, just before sunset, Warner’s company of three hundred and fifty arrived from Manchester. The only fresh men on the field, they again turned the tide of battle and the Continentals surged forward. The German ammunition was running low, and Breymann’s retreat in the fading light of day was turned into a rout.At dusk the Colonial victory was complete. Stark took about six hundred prisoners, and over two hundred of the enemy were left dead on the field. The American losses were small, thirty killed and forty wounded. Baum and Tory Colonel Pfister were carried to a farmhouse, where both died of wounds, and were buried on the bank of the Walloomsac. The prisoners, many of them wounded, were paraded along the street between the log huts of Old Bennington, before being lodged in the original Meeting House, the schoolhouse, and other houses and barns. The dead soldiers of both sides were interred in the Old Burying Ground.
Vermont WPA Guide, p. 88-90.
The loss at Bennington was devastating to Burgoyne. Fully aware that his professional soldiers were beaten by untrained volunteers, Burgoyne wrote to his superiors:
‘The colonies and the Hampshire Grants in particular—a country unpeopled and almost unknown in the last war — now abounds with the most active and rebellious race on the continent, and hangs, like a gathering storm, on my left.’
Vermont WPA Guide, p 90.
The Battle of Bennington was followed swiftly by the decisive Battle at Saratoga. Burgoyne had expected to meet General Howe and General Clinton at Albany, thus establishing control over New York. This plan was jeopardized, and eventually foiled in large part by by the loss at Bennington. Howe left for Philadelphia instead and Clinton remained tied up with the colonials in the lower Hudson Valley. When Burgoyne arrived in Saratoga in September with his force of 10,000 British soldiers, he had failed to replenish his supplies, his ability to fight indefinitely was compromised.
The Americans, on the other hand, were rested and they skilled in fighting in countryside comprised of farm fields and patches of woods. On September 19, the two armies met at Freeman’s Farm. The Americans were greatly outnumbered. The British lined up in ranks on the open field while the colonists led by Benedict Arnold (who was still loyal to the American cause at this point) peppered them with fire from the surrounding woods. After three hours, Burgoyne was forced to retreat.
Arnold asked Gates for permission to pursue Burgoyne, but Gates refused and the battle ended at that point with 590 British and 320 American casualties.
Three weeks later, on October 7, with his food supplies running low, Burgoyne led a group of 1700 men to raid nearby farms for food. Gates sent Arnold with orders to investigate but Arnold initiated a full-scale assault instead. Again, Burgoyne withdrew, but Arnold turned to attack a small fort held by Breyman’s Hessian forces. This second attack was disastrous for the British. By nightfall, they had lost 630 men, while the Americans lost only 150.
The next morning, Burgoyne retreated to Saratoga in a torrential thunderstorm. Exhausted and half-starved, his army camped in Saratoga on October 9. Gates laid siege and Burgoyne was forced to surrender on October 17.
Within 24 hours after receiving the news of Saratoga , the French Government decided to come to the aid of the Colonies and to declare war on Great Britain. It was the beginning of the end for the British and a new beginning for us.
December, 2023
