Defending Fort Stanwix: A Story of the New York Frontier in the American Revolution

In 1776, the Mohawk River Valley had become a strategically important region. To protect it against a British and Canadian incursion, the nascent American army sent a force to restore Fort Stanwix, a dilapidated wood-and-earth fort that dated back to the 1750s. It would protect a rural community of Oneida people, White settlers, and German immigrants. A force of Loyalists, led by Lieutenant Colonel Barrimore St. Leger, attempted to control the Mohawk River and thereby threaten Albany and New England. A three-week siege unfolded, in which the stubborn defenders blocked the British force from reaching Albany and the Hudson River and contributed to the defeat of Burgoyne a month later. Despite the frequent minutiae of daily life in the fort, Kidder (a retired high school history teacher who taught for 40 years and the author of several books, including Revolutionary Princeton) provides an entertaining account of military life on the frontier and the problems of both the defenders and the British.