Excerpt from Roll of New Hampshire Soldiers at the Battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777

New Hampshire, one of the thirteen original States, contains only square miles. One hundred and fifty-two years had come and gone since the first settlement at Dover Neck. The hardy pioneers and their descendants, poor in this world's goods, but in energy and self reliance the equal of the same number of people on the face of the earth, had pushed on into the wilder ness, contending at every step, with savage Indians and wild beasts. When the Revolutionary war commenced, in 1775, there were within its borders inhabitants.

In April, 1775, when the British soldiers held Boston, New Hampshire men were in the ranks under the command of Stark, Reed, Prescott, and others; and on june I7, names appear on the rolls as taking part in the battle of Bunker Hill, 48 of them consecrating with their lives the ground on which the monument stands, the proudest emblem of Massachusetts on her soil. The battle of Bennington, fought August 16, 1777, under the command of General John Stark with men, of them New Hampshire men, as appear by the rolls, or 73 men of every hundred, - prepared another, as Stark aptly characterizes the place, fortunate spot for Vermont to raise her crowning glory.

The officers are generally well known, but what of the rank and file who, in the July and August heat, marched the weary miles and dusty roads? Even the muster or pay-rolls do not show where the men were from, and the object of this publication is mainly to make a permanent, alphabetically arranged, record of the New Hampshire men (the residence being supplied by the compiler from every available source), omitting all who died or left before, or enlisted after, August 16, 1777, from the roll, but entering the others in foot notes. The men in the Bennington cam paign were enlisted for two months. The names of the towns changed, are given as they are now.

Capt. Peter Kimball of Boscawen, who commanded a company in the battle, wrote in his diary of the campaign, Plunder money divided to men.

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