In the summer of 1777, British General John Burgoyne’s march south from Montreal stalled in the North American wilderness, slowed by felled trees and destroyed bridges while his horses and supplies ran out. To find mounts and provisions, he sent Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Baum and about 800 men, including dismounted Hessian dragoons in heavy riding boots, toward a supply depot at Bennington he believed was lightly defended.

This episode explores how John Stark, who had quit the Continental Army after being passed over for promotion, raised 1,500 New Hampshire militiamen in six days, refused General Benjamin Lincoln’s orders, and placed his force directly in Baum’s path. It covers the rain-soaked standoff, the white-paper-in-the-hat deception, the fight on August 16, 1777, the late arrival of Breymann’s reinforcements and Seth Warner’s Green Mountain Boys, and how the defeat set up Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga and the French alliance.

• The British three-pronged plan to seize Albany and cut New England off from the other colonies
• Why dismounted Hessian dragoons were badly equipped for a march through dense American forest
• How flintlock muskets made a day and a half of rain halt all fighting
• Stark’s trick of copying the Loyalists’ white paper hat markers to surround the Hessian hilltop
• The casualty toll, the loss of Burgoyne’s Native American scouts, and the chain of events leading to Saratoga and French entry into the war