"A Memoir of Colonel Seth Warner" by Daniel Chipman, L.L. D

 

A Memoir of Colonel Seth Warner by Daniel Chipman, L.L. D Vintage Lists, 2023 Introduction:  In the first several decades after the American Revolution, Seth Warner’s name was a footnote in most historical accounts of the American Colonies’ struggle for independence. His contributions were overshadowed by the mythical figure of his fellow Vermonter, Ethan Allen. In 1848, Daniel Chipman—the author of the book you are holding—politely called Warner’s absence in Vermont’s history as “unintentional errors,” but looking back it appears the Allen family, particularly Ethan and his brother Ira, made a concerted effort to amplify Ethan’s reputation at the expense of Seth Warner’s.      The traditional view of Seth Warner as a chivalrous, but unaccomplished, sidekick to Allen saw print in the early historical accounts of Vermont. This vision of Warner as nothing much was created and propagated by the Allens. Ethan, in his A Narrative of Col. Ethan Allen’s Captivity (1779), gave a single sentence to Warner’s capture of Fort Crown Point, while he spun his own victory at Fort Ticonderoga into a spectacle of personal heroism. He even included a brilliant one-liner for good measure: When asked by Ticonderoga’s British commander whose authority Allen was demanding the garrison’s surrender, Allen responded, “In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress.” Ira Allen, first as a source in Samuel Williams’s Natural and Civil History of Vermont (1794), and then in his own The Natural and Political History of the State of Vermont published in 1798, continued to minimize, often completely ignoring, Warner’s contributions to America’s struggle for independence.      And Warner’s contributions were significant, arguably eclipsing that of Ethan Allen’s. Warner was elected as the commander of Vermont’s militia, The Green Mountain Boys in 1775 in Dorset, Vermont. He fought the British valiantly from 1775, when Warner and his men captured Fort Crown Point in New York, until the illness that prematurely took his life forced him to retreat from his post in 1781. He volunteered to command the rearguard as the Northern Army retreated from Canada ahead of the British Army in 1777, taking care of the sick and injured all the way to Fort Ticonderoga. His leadership at the battle of Hubbardton on July 7, 1777, while technically a battlefield defeat for the Americans but a pyrrhic victory for the British, allowed their Northern Army to escape and fight another day ahead of Burgoyne’s troops. Warner’s regiment was pivotal in the Continental Army’s decisive victory at Bennington later that summer. Yet most casual readers of history know little or nothing about Seth Warner.      He was a strong and moral leader. His concern for those in his charge is obvious from the correspondence between he and George Washington, since each letter is asking for things his men needed, clothes especially. He was respected by his superior officers. General Stark, who led the Americans at Bennington, complimented Warner’s help in planning the engagement and his performance on the battlefield in a letter to General Gates. In his last years, Warner was afflicted with an illness that had nagged at him since the late-1770s. It developed into dementia, which many historians think may have been caused by exposure to mercury then used to cure animal hides, that robbed him of his faculties and his dignity.      While Seth Warner’s legacy is still shadowed by Ethan Allen, his star has risen in the eyes of those interested in the history of New England and the Revolutionary War. This rehabilitation of his reputation began with the book you are holding, Memoir of Colonel Seth Warner, by Daniel Chipman, published by L. W. Clark in Middlebury, Vermont, in 1848. Chipman, as a boy, had known Seth Warner and his desire in writing this slim biography was to correct those “unintentional errors” accepted as historical fact about Warner. Chipman’s writing is precise, interesting, and well-documented. It is a book that both entices and informs nearly 200 years after its first printing. The cover was designed by Karadraws.com Purchase the Kindle edition here or the paperback here at Amazon.