Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Baum (1727-1777), German dragoon officer serving under Baron Friedrich Adolph von Riedesel in support of British General John Burgoyne's 1777 campaign to attack the Lake Champlain-Hudson River corridor, which ended in Burgoyns's surrender at Saratoga on October 15, 1777.

For Friedrich Baum, the campaign ended at the Battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777. Burgoyne detailed Baum with about 600 Brunswickers, British and Indians from Fort Edward to try to collect provisions, horses, and loyalist reinforcements for Burgoyne's main force for the march south toward Albany. However, arrayed against Baum's men were about 1,800 rebels, consisting of New Hampshire forces under John Stark, and the renmants of Seth Warner's Green Mountain Boys after the costly Battle of Hubbardton, July 7, 1777. Also among Stark's forces were Massachusetts men under the Rev. Thomas Allen, leading a contingent of Pittsfield militia. Rev. Allen, who had been outraged at the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga to Burgoyne at the beginning of July, complained to Stark that if his men did not get to fight at Bennington they would never answer another call to arms.

While Baum had served in several engagements in Europe during the French and Indian War, he had little battlefield command experience. In contrast, his adversary at Bennington, John Stark, had served with Robert Rogers' Rangers, including at the famous battle at Ticonderoga, July 8, 1758, and had distinguished himself as a leader in the Revolutionary War at Bunker Hill, Trenton and Princeton.

Baum's lack of experience showed at Bennington, where he encamped his forces in such a way that they were separated and unable to communicate easily with each other. Communications were also hampered in some degree by Baum's own inability to speak English.

Putting his superior numbers to best use, Stark surrounded each of Baum's forces and attacked simultaneously, overwhelming each redoubt. In the melee, Baum was captured after sustaining a mortal stomach wound, from which his surgeon, Julius Friedrich Wasmus , also captured, was unable to save him.

Seeing he was badly outnumbered, Baum had requested reinforcements from Burgoyne, who sent Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Breymann and a corps of light infantrymen and Brunswick grenadiers to support him. However, Breymann, who disliked Baum, marched notably slowly to the site, making less than one mile per hour, and arrived at Bennington after Baum had already been overrun and captured.

References

• Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga (1997).