Seth Warner (May 17, 1743 – December 26, 1784) was an American soldier. He was a Revolutionary War officer from Vermont who rose to the rank of Continental colonel and was often given the duties of a brigade commander. He is best known for his leadership in the capture of Fort Crown Point, the Battle of Longueuil, the siege of Quebec, the retreat from Canada, and the battles of Hubbardton and Bennington.Thompson, Charles Miner. Independent Vermont. Houghton Mifflin Company (1942), pp. 329–34; Chipman, Daniel. Memoir of Colonel Seth Warner. L.W. Clark (1848); Williams, Samuel. "Historical Memoirs of Colonel Seth Warner," The Natural and Civil History of Vermont. Burlington (1809), vol. 2, pp. 445–50.
Before the war, Warner was a captain in the Green Mountain Boys. He was outlawed by New York but never captured.
In the final years of the war, Warner remained loyal to the United States while the independent state of Vermont negotiated separately with the British.Jellison, Charles A. Ethan Allen: Frontier Rebel. Syracuse University Press (1969), pp. 266–67.
Early life Seth Warner was born on the Connecticut frontier in hilly western Woodbury, now Roxbury. He was the fourth of ten children born to Dr. Benjamin Warner and Silence Hurd Warner.Cothren, William. History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut. Waterbury, Conn. (1854), p. 753. His grandfather was Dr. Ebenezer Warner.Petersen, James E. Seth Warner. Middlebury, Vt. (2001), p. 14
Although Warner was not related to Ethan Allen, both men were cousins of Remember Baker, another notable Green Mountain Boy captain.Jellison, Charles. Ethan Allen: Frontier Rebel. Syracuse University Press (1969). pp. 39–40
An early historian wrote that Warner was “a fortunate and indefatigable hunter."Williams, Samuel. "Historical Memoirs of Colonel Seth Warner," Natural and Civil History of Vermont, 2nd edition, Burlington (1809), vol. 2. p. 445. The article originally appeared in The Rural Magazine in 1795.
As a teenager, Warner served for two summers in the French and Indian War.Rolls of Connecticut Men in the French and Indian War, 1755–1762, Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society 10, Hartford (1905) vol. 2, pp. 207–08, 349.
Warner had a common school education. He learned rudimentary medicine from his father. A 1795 account of his life asserts that he had “more information of the nature and properties of the indigenous plants and vegetables, than any other man in the country” and “administered relief in many cases, where no other medical assistance could at that time be procured.”Williams, p. 445.
In 1763, Warner's father purchased land in Bennington, now in the state of Vermont, a town that was chartered by a grant from the colonial governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth. Beginning in the mid-1760s, New York asserted that the boundary of the colony extended to the Connecticut River and the New Hampshire Grant charters were illegitimate.
It is likely the Warner family worked their land in the New Hampshire Grants for two summers before settling full-time in 1765. Seth Warner was chosen highway surveyor and then captain of the town's militia company.Early Bennington Town Records, May 20, 1766, Bennington Town Clerk Jellison, p. 61.
Green Mountain Boy During the land dispute with New York, Warner was a captain in the Green Mountain Boys, sometimes called the Bennington Mob, a militia organization that defended settlers in the New Hampshire Grants against New York authority. Warner was second in command to Ethan Allen, who was spokesman and colonel-commandant, but Warner often acted independently.Thompson, Independent Vermont. pp. 119–23, 146–53.
The largest confrontation between New York and the New Hampshire Grants took place at James Breakenridge's farm in North Bennington on July 18, 1771. Commanding the Bennington militia, Warner fortified Breakenridge's house and property against a large posse from Albany, New York, sent to evict the settler. No shots were fired, and the posse was turned back.Chipman, p. 20.
Warner was outlawed by New York after he struck New York Justice of the Peace John Munro with the flat of his cutlass, following Munro's attempt to arrest Warner's cousin Remember Baker.
But despite the violence, Warner gained a reputation as the Green Mountain Boy leader most likely to grant mercy to a New York settler.Thompson, pp. 330–31 In one case, rather than burn a New Yorker's house, Warner allowed him to remove the roof and then replace it once he had bought a New Hampshire Grant title.Petersen, pp. 19–20.
American Revolution
Ticonderoga and Crown Point On May 8, 1775, a council of officers appointed Warner third in command after Ethan Allen and James Easton of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, of an expedition to capture Fort Ticonderoga. But Warner and the men he had recruited were left on the east shore of Lake Champlain as a rear guard while Allen and newly arrived Colonel Benedict Arnold surprised the garrison on the morning of May 10."Edward Mott to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress," May 11, 1775, The Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, vol. 13, No. 5 (1977), p. 335.
A day later, Warner captured Crown Point, to the north. The fort, once the largest British fortification in North America, was in ruins and was garrisoned by only nine soldiers. But Crown Point still held 111 cannon, the best of which were taken to Ticonderoga. During the following winter, artillery colonel Henry Knox, acting under orders from George Washington, hauled guns from Lake Champlain to Boston. (See Noble train of artillery)Benedict Arnold to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, May 19, 1775, Naval Documents of the American Revolution, vol. 1. United States Printing Office (1964), pp. 366–67.
Following the capture of the forts, Warner accompanied Allen to St. John (today's Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec), a British outpost on the Richelieu River, the outlet of Lake Champlain. Arnold had successfully raided the outpost, destroying supplies and seizing a British sloop, but had sailed away. Allen attempted to hold the outpost but was driven off by British reinforcements.Jellison. Ethan Allen. pp. 128–31.
Selection as commander On June 23, 1775, Allen and Warner appeared before the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to ask that the Green Mountain Boys be recognized as a regiment. Congress recommended to the Provincial Congress of New York that they "embody them among the Troops you shall raise."Journals of the Continental Congress, June 23, 1775, vol. 2, p. 105. Although New York was hesitant to incorporate men who had opposed them in the land dispute, the provincial congress established the regiment under the command of a lieutenant colonel and a major.New-York Provincial Congress, July 4, 1775, American Archives, Ser. 4., vol. 2. pp. 1338–39. Most leaders, including Major General Philip Schuyler, commander of the Northern Department, assumed that Allen would lead the regiment.
A convention of New Hampshire Grant leaders was held at Cephas Kent's tavern in Dorset on July 26, 1775. Warner was selected as lieutenant colonel by a vote of 41 to five.Records of the Council of Safety and Governor and Council of the State of Vermont (1873), vol. 1, pgs. 6–10. No reasons for the action were given in the minutes. Soon afterwards Ethan Allen wrote, "How the old men came to reject me, I cannot conceive, inasmuch as I saved them from the encroachments of New-York."Ethan and Ira Allen: Collected Works, J. Kevin Graffagnino, ed. (Benson, Vt.: Chaldize Publications,1992), vol. 1, p. 47.
Historians debate the reasons for the selection. Was the vote a response to Allen’s mistakes during the spring campaign on Lake Champlain? Did Allen’s unconventional Deist religious beliefs play a role? Did the delegates see Warner as a steadier and less impetuous leader?Jellison, pp. 144–45.
The new regiment, unofficially called the Green Mountain Boys, was known in most returns and reports as Warner's Regiment. It should not be confused with the pre-Revolutionary War Green Mountain Boys. Although the regiment was based in the western New Hampshire Grants, some recruitment took place outside that area.Shalhope, Robert E. Bennington and the Green Mountain Boys: The Emergence of Liberal Democracy in Vermont, 1760–1850. The Johns Hopkins University Press (1996), p. 165.
Invasion of Canada
Along the St. Lawrence River, fall 1775 In the late summer and fall of 1775, an American army under command of Philip Schuyler and then Brigadier General Richard Montgomery invaded Canada by way of Lake Champlain. By then the British had refortified St. John, and the Americans besieged the fort on the Richelieu River.
In mid-September, Warner and his regiment saw action near Fort St. John before being stationed along the St. Lawrence River where they kept watch on Montreal and the British shipping."Diary of Captain John Fassett, Jr. (1743–1803) When a First Lieutenant of ‘Green Mountain Boys,’" Harry Parker Ward, The Follett-Dewet Fassett-Safford Ancestry of Captain Martin Dewey Follett and his wife Persis Fassett, (1896), pp. 220–25.
Warner's headquarters became the Château fort de Longueuil, a late 17th-century "castle" with turrets in the village of Longueuil.
On October 30, Governor General Guy Carleton and approximately 800 men in 35 to 40 boats attempted to cross the St. Lawrence and relieve Fort St. John. The landing was opposed by Warner, commanding his regiment and companies from the 2nd New York under Captain Capt. John Visscher, totaling about 350 men. The American victory in the Battle of Longueuil led directly to the surrender of Fort St. John on November 3.Smith, Justin H. Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony: Canada and the American Revolution. G. P. Putnam's Sons (1907), vol. 1, pp. 449–55.
Montreal surrendered on November 13, and Warner was part of the forces that entered the city. General Montgomery ordered Warner’s Regiment to prepare to go by canoe to Quebec, the last British stronghold in Canada. But the regiment had received no winter clothing or equipment, and many men were reluctant to stay in Canada. In the end, Montgomery grudgingly permitted the regiment to return home to equip themselves for the next campaign.“Diary of Captain John Fassett, Jr., p. 237.Richard Montgomery to Philip Schuyler, December 5, 1775, Correspondence of the American Revolution; Being Letters of Eminent Men to George Washington, from the Time of His Taking Command of the Army to the End of His Presidency, Jared Sparks, ed., Vol 1, (1853), p. 493.
Siege of Quebec, winter 1776 Warner and his regiment were at home when General Montgomery was killed and Benedict Arnold was wounded in a predawn attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775.
Brigadier General David Wooster, commanding in Montreal, wrote to Warner calling for reinforcements. "You, sir, and the Green-Mountain corps are in our neighborhood. Let me beg of you, to collect as many men as you can, five, six, or seven hundred, and if you can, and some how [sic] or other, convey into this country, and stay with us till we can have relief from the Colonies."Wooster to Warner, January 6, 1776, American Archives, Ser. 4, vol. 4, pp. 588–89, 766. Within a few days, companies from the southwest New Hampshire Grants and western Massachusetts had formed and were marching north. They crossed the length of frozen Lake Champlain to St. John, visited Montreal for supplies, and then headed east to Quebec, a distance of at least .Chipman, pp. 40–41.