Beginnings of the Battle

Beginnings of the Battle. Hubbardton Battlefield State Historic Site. , On July 5 and 6, 1777, American forces withdrew from Mount Independence and Fort Ticonderoga as the British pursued. They traveled over the military road built in the fall of 1776 to connect Mount Independence with sites on the Connecticut River. The road went through the gap in Sargent Hill, seen directly ahead, and crossed Sucker Brook in the valley below., On July 7, at about 5:00 a.m. on the start of another sultry day, American pickets in the Sargent Hill gap spotted British scouts and fired the first shots of the battle. Other soldiers, in the middle of cooking or eating breakfast, scrambled to make ready for the enemy. Heavy fighting began by 7:00 a.m. American fifer Ebenezer Fletcher recalled, "Every man was trying to secure himself behind girdled trees, which were standing on the place of action.", British Major Robert Grant and a light infantry advance force attacked the Americans encamped near Sucker Brook, where early American action killed Grant and 21 others., Some Americans soldiers who had gone down into the valley to assist fellow soldiers returned to the top of the hill where you are now., An American rear guard under the command of Colonel Seth Warner stopped at Hubbardton. On July 6 they prepared for the British by constructing defenses of large felled trees in this location. " The army...retreated from here to Hubbardton Vt., where it arrived in the afternoon...the rear of the army at this place made a halt." , Jonathan Aiken, Vermont Militia, (center drawing caption) The 1776 military road ran from Mount Independence on Lake Champlain, roughly 25 miles to the northwest, through the Sargent Hill gap and southeast to Center Rutland. (Edward Epstein, artist, 1988), (right drawing caption) American pickets fire on British Scouts (Edward Epstein, artist, 1988), EXPLORE THE BATTLEFIELD LANDMARKS , 1 Hubbardton Battlefield State Historic Site , 2 Beginnings of the Battle , 3 Monument Hill and the Morning Charge , 4 British Flank the Americans , 5 The Selleck Cabin , 6 Germans Arrive, Americans Retreat