The Bennington Battlefield NYS Historic Site will host its annual Battle Weekend Events on Saturday, August 15, and Sunday, August 16, in three locations on the site – the upper Park, the Visitors’ Center at the Barnett Homestead and the “Tory Fort” on Cottrell Road on the opposite bank of the Walloomsac River. All outdoor events are free and open to the public; tours of the Battle Gallery and Barnett Homestead are offered at a reduced rate of $3 per person.
The Walloomsac Battle Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution will exhibit prints and other displays at the top of the upper Park near the summit of “Hessian Hill,” as it has been commonly termed. The
designation is a misnomer, as the German troops who fought there were from an area of Germany known as Brunswick. The Barnett Homestead Visitors Center, on Caretaker’s Road just past the entrance to the upper Park, will extend hours for regular tours to 11:30 am to 4 pm on Saturday and 10 am to 3 pm on Sunday, featuring demonstrations of pit cooking at 11 am and textile production at 1 pm. Revolutionary re-enactors will also be on site at the Homestead, and British re-enactors will present the “manual of arms” on the site of the Tory Fort from 10 am to 3 pm.
Events on Sunday will conclude at 4 pm at the top of the upper Park, with a special commemoration ceremony to honor the veterans of the Battle, and all veterans as well. In addition to featured speakers Peter Schaaphok, of the Brigade of the American Revolution, and Paul Loding, who will read a German surgeon’s account of the Battle, a presentation, “People of the Revolution,” under the direction of Ingrid Schaaphok, will detail the experiences of ordinary people living in the period, who each add their personal perspectives on the conflict.
The Battle of Bennington, which took place on August 16, 1777, was an important, though sometimes overlooked, victory for American militia that led to General John Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga two months later. Burgoyne’s summer campaign of 1777, had it been successful, would have accomplished a collaboration of three separate British armies in the conquest of the State of New York, which could have made American victory unlikely. The Battle of Bennington, a foray of German and Loyalist troops to steal badly needed supplies from storehouses in Bennington, resulted in a loss of nearly one-fourth of Burgoyne’s troops, four cannons and foiled his attempt to re-supply his forces.
For further information, contact Phyllis Chapman at 518-686-4438 or the Barnett Homestead at 518-686-8266 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays between 1 and 4 pm.