2nd New Hampshire Regiment

By the spring of 1777, the 2nd New Hampshire had marched back north to Mount Independence and Fort Ticonderoga, the headquarters of the American Northern Army, where they would remain until July.

These Yankee soldiers must have eagerly exchanged their old hunting fowlers and Committee of Safety muskets which they had used for the first two years of the conflict for these state of the art French weapons, which today are the only surviving regimentally marked American arms from the Revolutionary War.

Only three months later, at Hubbardton, Vermont, while retreating from the Siege of Fort Ticonderoga in July, Colonel Hale, Captain James Carr and part of the regiment were captured by the British Army in a surprise dawn attack as the New Hampshire soldiers were having breakfast.

While their colors were lost, the 2nd New Hampshire fought bravely in the autumn of 1777, where they were heavily engaged with British forces at Saratoga, leading to the surrender of General John Burgoyne's army.

The unit portrayed was originally a militia company commanded by Captain Jonathan Wentworth in what is now Dover and Rollinsford in Strafford County, New Hampshire.

Wentworth was court martialed and cashiered in July 1776 for dereliction of duty, though he claimed it was because he was lacking a tent and still recovering from "small pox and camp distemper".

He became paymaster in 1779, and Samuel Cherry, originally a native of Ireland, became company commander and led the soldiers during their greatest moment at Yorktown when they stormed the British lines.