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Angry Staff Officer

6 Feb, 47 tweets, 12 min read

Hey there. It's Friday night. The gin is flowing like...gin. or water, they're both liquids, they flow, it's a thing.

More importantly, who wants to hear about an insane guy from New Hampshire who helped win the American Revolution?

Yes, it's time for some #drunjhistory

Ok, this all starts, as most stories do, with a baby being born to some people who were from some part of the British Empire because holy shit did those people like to colonize. John Stark was born in Londonderry, NH in 1828 to parents from Londonderry, Ireland, bc of course

You might be wondering what a New Hampshire is. Well, it aint old hampshire, that's for sure. It's like, almost Canada, but not. It's sorta like Vermont but more granite-y and flintier or something. There's lots of snow and taciturnity. And primaries. And Manchester is gross

Pardon my gin, 1728. I'm sure something happened in 1828, but it wasn't this. NH of the 18th century was not a pleasant time. Being trapped between New France and New England basically just meant that raiding parties to and fro burnt your house down as they went by

Not much to do in NH in the 1750s other than try not to get smallpox and stay out of the way of the all the warfare going on. Johnny Stark did pretty well with all that up until he gets captured during an Abenaki raid for prisoners in 1752, which put a dent in his social life

He gets carried off as a prisoner and here the historical narrative gets all diluted with the doggone colonial penchant to over dramatize every little thing, but especially these prisoner narratives from people who get captured by native nations

But

As the story goes, Stark is running this gauntlet, a line of dudes hitting you with sticks. Stark grabs a stick and starts hitting everyone back, everyone is impressed, and just like that he's one of the boys, gets adopted, he learns their ways & language etc etc etc

How much of this is true, we dunno. Because captivity narratives in the colonial era are basically like tabloid gossip

"Omg did you hear that Evarthian Unity Peacemaker got all his fingers cut off but still could recite the Magna Carta and so they made him a warrior? "

Irregahdless, Stark does develop connections with the Abenaki. He gets bought back by Massachusetts, who always has the cash, go figure, and Stark comes home to his wife Elizabeth, also known as "Molly" because why not

They have 11 kids together.

ELEVEN.

I dunno, after thinking about 11 kids in middle of nowhere NH, I'm beginning to think the real hero of this story is molly stark. I mean, damn. But hey - it's the 1750s. We all know what that means! It's time for the first world warrrrr yaaaaaaay

The 7 years ear kicks off in '54

And there's Johnny Stark, and what does he do? He goes and gets a commission in the rangers with Robert "I wrote the book on writing books to make myself look good, suckit, SEALS" Rogers

Let's pause for an interlude on Robert fuckin rogers, shall we?

First off, ranging was a thing way before Bob came around. Benjamin Church was the dude who pioneered it, by basically telling the puritans to go fornicate themselves & having the first racially integrated force in America, which kicked ass repeatedly

Take that, racist fucks

Ranging took off as a military tactic and was well in place by the time Rob waltzed in. Then he proceeded to use his rangers to basically get killed a lot. And starve. And freeze to death. Then he wrote a book on it and gets cited in all the history books

Johnny takes part in some of these misadventures but when Rob is like, hey, let's go kill some innocent women and children in this Abenaki village, Johnny bows out because he ain't about that shit and goes back home to Molly

To do, uh, you know, colonial stuff

Ok, so, the 1760s pass, John and Molly have some more kids, there's probably some candle making involved, maybe some spinning, I dunno, go to Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth to find out, but I'm gonna guess most of it involves removing rocks from fields & being cold

Then BAM it's 1775 and shit is getting kindddda weird around ol New England. Lexington and Concord pops the fuck off, and Johny finds himself in high demand as a dude with prior military experience. He's made a colonel and takes charge of the 1st New Hampshire Regt

Now, it's May, and there's not a shit ton going on other than everyone in New England conglomerating on Boston which is basically just what we now call Boston traffic. Nothing but assholes and dropped r's as far as the eye can see

The Army of Observation outside Boston gets a little froggy come June and Israel Putnam and Artemas Ward take a break from bar brawls to think about maybe doing something warlike, like fortifying the Charlestown neck at Breeds Hill, and send troops there the night of 15 June

On the morning of 16 June, the British wake up and are like "are you shittin me?" Because there's a no shit little fort on Breeds Hill looking down on the Royal Navy and Admiral Graves is all "i mean, we fired, but it was loud, & I was trying to sleep, soooo...sorry?"

The Brits realize they gotta take the hill. And as for Bill Prescott, in the redoubt, he realizes he is IN IT now and calls back for some help. Enter John Stark with his Granite Staters who he calmly marches in under the fire of the Royal Navy without losing a man

Ok, so terrain. Yes. Theres a few parts to the Breeds Hill battlefield. You got the fort on the hill, then to the left, a reinforced stone wall & trenches, then to the far left, the beach along the water. & Charlestown on the right but it's on fire, so whatevs

Stark leads his troops down to the left, identifying the flank as the weak spot. And then he just basically looks into the future, sees what will fuck the British up the most, and does that thing. He forms his men in 3 ranks behind a stone wall along the Mystic River

Then he places white birch branches in the sand about 25 yards out, which is about the reliable range for a smoothbore musket handled by amateurs. He tells his men to aim at the leggings of the redcoats, knowing that their inclination is going to be to overshoot

This basically puts their fire center mass. The rangers may have done some stupid shit, but they definitely taught Stark some good lessons. Then they hunkered down and waited.

Meanwhile, in British land...

(Gin break)

But really, back on the British side. Aw shit. I gotta go even nerdier for this next part. Sigh. Ok. In the British regiments the elite companies were the 2 flank companies, the light infantry and grenadiers. The LI were the smart, fast guys. The grenadiers were big &...big

For battles, they usually pulled the flank companies out and put all the light infantry together, and all the grenadiers together. Nice little elite task forces. So, Howe, at the beachhead, sends the grenadiers up the hill & the light infantry running off to the flank

Bad. Move. I mean, tactically smart, but maybe do a recon first? The first light company ran up and got the first rank's dead-on volley. Then the second's. Then the third's. The first two light companies basically ceased to exist after that

Out of the 200 light infantry attaching along the beach, 96 are killed, most of the rest wounded. Stark inflicts casualty rates like, uh, we won't see again in North America until Antietam. General Howe is like "ok maybe we never go that way ever, ever again, ok?"

As we all know, poor logistical decisions lead to shit being all the way fucked on breeds hill, they run out of ammo, fall back, and natch, Johnny Stark is there to provide a rear guard because of course he is

He'll go on to lead his regiment into the Continental Army, do some shit at Princeton and Trenton, and then goes home in early '77 to do some recruiting. And lo and behold, the shitty officer career management of the Continental Army strikes again

Stark gets back home and discovers that a less competent officer got made a general by the Continental Congress before him, so he's like, "I'm taking my balls and going home"

This same thing will happen with Daniel Morgan and Benedict Arnold. Morgan also goes home. Arnold...well

Buuuut when Burgoyne invades into NY and VT that summer, NH is all "pretty pleeeeeeaaaaase, we'll make you a general" & Stark caves, but on the principal that he works for New Hampshire and no one else. The dude is DONE with the DRAMA of the Continental Army

Oh, and there's SO MUCH DRAMA. you've got Gates plotting against Schuyler AND Washington while backing Arnold but not really while Wilkinson stabs everyone in the back and Arnold hates Gates, Schuyler hates Gates, and Lincoln is just sorta there like

Stark gets a brigade of Granite State militia, some crazy Vermonters (all Vermonters are nuts, what am I saying) as well as some late-comers from MA who missed the "holy fack, dude, get some beers from the packie, we're getting invaded" memo. About 2,000 in all

They head towards Bennington, where the Continental Army has a supply dump that is being deeply coveted by the Brunswickers of LTC Friedrich Baum's dismounted dragoon regiment. They specifically coveted horses so they could cease being dismounted dragoons

Baum's detachment from Burgoyne was a weird task force of Brunswickers, Hessians, British, Canadiens, Iroquois, and loyalists. You basically had to be trilingual to just push orders out to everyone. Still, they were mostly regulars & should have no probs w militia

Should

Lol

Baum's force starts running into resistance so he stops, digs in, places his artillery, and stands by to butcher some militia

About that tho. Stark takes a look at the defenses and is like "I'm gonna flank your whole damn world"

With the Germans and Brits dug in on the hill, Stark breaks his command into four parts. One force would demonstrate in front, one attack from the north, one would attack from the south. Stark kept the remainder in reserve to exploit the flank attacks.

Oh yes.

The enemy force gets triple-enveloped by loose waves of New England militia who shoot down the Hessian artillerymen, storm the redoubt, and totally rout the poor, confused Germans who don't have enough ammo and aren't getting paid nearly enough for this shit

A relief force of more Germans starts pressing the NH militia but gets yeeted into eternity by a regiment of Vermonters with nothing better to do than rout Germans that day

Stark himself went right into battle with "we'll beat them before night, or Molly Stark is a widow"

Molly Stark wasn't in the mood to be a widow, so Johnny didn't get waxed. At the cost of less than 100 casualties, he inflicted over 900 on Baum and Breymann. Like. Damn.

Bennington bought time for the Continentals to reinforce & then for Arnold to do crazy shit at Saratoga

Stark was hanging around at Saratoga but found Gates to be too annoying and left before the battle, to go do New Hampshire things and roam around. Nominally under the command of Benjamin Lincoln, Lincoln knew his man & just let Stark do his own things

Lincoln played his cards right because Stark puts his brigade right in the way of Burgoyne and cuts off his retreat after Saratoga. Bam. Mischief fuckin managed.

Stark will finally get his Continental Army commish, but Bennington was his magnum opus.

After the war, Stark retires. like, retires retires. To his farm. He's like the ideal that Thomas Jefferson had of the virtuous farmer. Problem was, he was the only one. In 1809 he was invited to a vets reunion. Too ill to travel, he sent a letter which ended with:

And thus, John Stark heralded into being a world of cheap booze at NH state liquor stores, fireworks, not paying sales tax, and you don't have to have auto insurance

Ok, that's maybe not the greatest legacy, but the people of Numpsha are certainly proud of it. Be well

And