John Stark was captured by Abenaki warriors in 1752 on a hunting trip in New Hampshire. They made him run the gauntlet. Two lines of warriors with sticks. The custom was to run fast and absorb the blows. Stark grabbed a stick from the nearest warrior and hit back. He struck the first man in the line so hard it stopped the whole proceeding. The Abenaki chief adopted him into the tribe. Twenty-five years later, Congress promoted a junior officer over Stark for brigadier general. The man they promoted had not fought at Bunker Hill. Stark had. He resigned his Continental commission and went home to New Hampshire. He told the men who came to talk him out of it that he would still fight if a threat came from the north. But not under Continental command. Under his state, and his state only. Burgoyne came from the north that summer with 8,000 men, pushing south from Canada toward Albany. Fort Ticonderoga fell without a significant fight. The northern army was demoralized. Washington could spare nothing. Stark accepted a commission from New Hampshire, under the explicit condition that he would never subordinate his force to Continental command. When a Continental officer tried to order him toward Saratoga to reinforce the northern army, Stark refused. He had his own theater and his own plan. Intelligence told him Baum’s detachment of 800 Germans was moving toward Bennington to seize American supplies. Stark moved to intercept with 1,500 New Hampshire and Massachusetts militia. Farmers and tradesmen who knew the ground and had been shooting accurately since childhood. Before the assault he told his men: there are the British. Tonight the flag flies over that position, or Molly Stark sleeps a widow. He sent flanking parties around both sides of Baum’s hilltop position while a diversionary force held the front. The attack hit from three directions at once. Baum’s position collapsed in under two hours. Baum was mortally wounded. Over 200 Germans killed. Nearly 700 captured. Stark’s losses: 30 killed and 40 wounded. A relief column of 550 Germans arrived as the fighting wound down. Stark reformed enough men to hold until Seth Warner’s Continentals arrived and drove them back. Six weeks later Burgoyne surrendered his entire army at Saratoga. Stark’s militia had slipped in behind Burgoyne’s line of retreat and closed the road to Canada. Burgoyne could not go forward. He could not go back. He surrendered. Saratoga brought France into the war as an American ally. It is the turning point of the Revolution. John Stark, who had been home farming because Congress promoted the wrong man, was one of the principal architects of it. The institution failed him. He served the mission anyway. On his own terms, in his own theater, with men who answered to his state and not to the structure that had treated him unjustly. He said it best himself, years later, in a toast: Live free or die. Death is not the greatest of evils. Neither is being passed over. Get back in the field. Rule 9 of 76 Rules of Command is live on Substack. When the institution fails you serve the mission anyway. 👇🇺🇸 #AmRev