[siebert] the AMERICAN LOYALISTS 9 



month they received an accession of twenty-six, and two days later — 

 the date on which they took part in the battle of Bennington — sixty- 

 eight more enlisted. Thirty-seven others joined the corps at various 

 times, apparently before Baum's expedition.* These figures are taken 

 from the muster rolls and seem to show that a total of 164 men joined 

 the corps up to the time of the engagement. That they fall far short 

 of what were probably the facts will appear below. On the day be- 

 fore the battle Francis Pfister and Robert Leake, according to the 

 testimony of the latter, joined Baum with upwards of 200 men. 

 These were less than a third of the whole number which Leake says 

 they had raised under orders from General William Howe.f But 

 Pfister's father-in-law, John McComb, of Hoosick, Albany County, 

 New York, says in a memorial to Haldimand that Lieutenant Pfister 

 and he engaged upwards of 500 effective men, of whom 318 actually 

 joined Burgoyne. t This continual enlistment of loyalists was shrewdly 

 taken advantage of by the enemy to impose on the credulity of the 

 British leaders. Colonel Baum himself, according to General Riedesel, 

 suffered small bodies of armed men to encamp on his sides and rear 

 under the representation that they were loyalists. Later, stronger 

 forces of revolutionists arrived and attacked Baum's contingent, 

 which was made up mostly of Germans, whereupon the seeming loyal- 

 ists also began to attack the Germans. The result was that "Baum 

 suddenly found himself cut off from all his detached posts." 

 After two hours of hard fighting the German officer was mortally 

 wounded, most of his men were lost, and he was forced to surrender.^ 

 In an undated memorial to Haldimand, Colonel Peters states that 

 his own losses at Benningtin (August 16) were one lieutenant, one en- 

 sign and 210 privates killed, one captain, one lieutenant, one ensign 

 and twenty-seven privates taken prisoners.^ Of Pfister's regiment, 

 Pfister himself fell, and Leake tells us that 121 of Pfister's men were 

 killed or captured, the remainder retreating to Ft. Miller, where they 

 joined the main body of the army, and were placed under the com- 

 mand of Samuel Mackay. He also states that they were joined within 

 a few days by others of Pfister's men to the number of 229. " The 

 muster rolls indicate that six days after the battle about a hundred 

 men left the corps. This was in accordance with the terms of their 

 enlistment, but whether they dispersed or betook themselves to 



♦Haldimand Papers, B. 167, muster roll of Peter's corps, 

 tibid., B. 214, pp. 41, 42. 

 jlbid., p. 207. 



* For Riedesel's account, see Stone, Burgoyne's Campaign, 31, 32; for Burgoyne's 

 account, see the latter's State of the Expedition. 

 5 Haldimand Papers, B. 215, p. 210. 

 "Ibid., B. 214, pp. 41,42. 



