I wasn’t super excited to visit Fort Stanwix, because forts are usually not that interesting to me. I made this video when I first arrived at the fort.
During the siege of 1777, there were 800 men and two women here. One of those ladies was eight and a half months pregnant. On the last day of the siege, she was walking around, minding her own business, when she got hit in the butt with a cannon ball. It took out a large chunk of flesh (like, the size of the cannon ball I’m holding)! While she was in the hospital, she went into labor. Can you imagine???
Schuyler rebuilt the fort because he had a feeling shit was going to go down. (The Mohawk Valley was an easy spot to pass through the mountains.) He did this without permission from Congress, because he knew the process would take too long, and it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission, right?
The British officer leading the siege was informed that the fort had been upgraded and had a bunch of new weapons, but he didn’t believe it. The intel came from a Native American, who he saw as untrustworthy. A Loyalist and a German gave him the same info, but he thought they were scum, too. In fact, he didn’t like most of the men fighting for him, because very few of them were British. On top of that, he was intoxicated for most of the siege and had his girlfriend with him, so his military job clearly wasn’t a priority.
Comments