Seth Warner (May 17, 1743 [O.S. May 6, 1743] – December 26, 1784) was an American soldier. He was a Revolutionary War officer from Vermont who rose to the rank of Continental colonel and was often given the duties of a brigade commander. He is best known for his leadership in the capture of Fort Crown Point, the Battle of Longueuil, the siege of Quebec, the retreat from Canada, and the battles of Hubbardton and Bennington.
Before the war, Warner was a captain in the Green Mountain Boys. He was outlawed by New York but never captured.
In the final years of the war, Warner remained loyal to the United States while the independent state of Vermont negotiated separately with the British.
Seth Warner was born on the Connecticut frontier in hilly western Woodbury, now Roxbury. He was the fourth of ten children born to Dr. Benjamin Warner and Silence Hurd Warner. His grandfather was Dr. Ebenezer Warner.
Although Warner was not related to Ethan Allen, both men were cousins of Remember Baker, another notable Green Mountain Boy captain.
An early historian wrote that Warner was “a fortunate and indefatigable hunter."
As a teenager, Warner served for two summers in the French and Indian War.
Warner had a common school education. He learned rudimentary medicine from his father. A 1795 account of his life asserts that he had “more information of the nature and properties of the indigenous plants and vegetables, than any other man in the country” and “administered relief in many cases, where no other medical assistance could at that time be procured.”
In 1763, Warner's father purchased land in Bennington, now in the state of Vermont, a town that was chartered by a grant from the colonial governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth. Beginning in the mid-1760s, New York asserted that the boundary of the colony extended to the Connecticut River and the New Hampshire Grant charters were illegitimate.
It is likely the Warner family worked their land in the New Hampshire Grants for two summers before settling full-time in 1765. Seth Warner was chosen highway surveyor and then captain of the town's militia company.
During the land dispute with New York, Warner was a captain in the Green Mountain Boys, sometimes called the Bennington Mob, a militia organization that defended settlers in the New Hampshire Grants against New York authority. Warner was second in command to Ethan Allen, who was spokesman and colonel-commandant, but Warner often acted independently.
The largest confrontation between New York and the New Hampshire Grants took place at James Breakenridge's farm in North Bennington on July 18, 1771. Commanding the Bennington militia, Warner fortified Breakenridge's house and property against a large posse from Albany, New York, sent to evict the settler. No shots were fired, and the posse was turned back.
Warner was outlawed by New York after he struck New York Justice of the Peace John Munro with the flat of his cutlass, following Munro's attempt to arrest Warner's cousin Remember Baker.
But despite the violence, Warner gained a reputation as the Green Mountain Boy leader most likely to grant mercy to a New York settler. In one case, rather than burn a New Yorker's house, Warner allowed him to remove the roof and then replace it once he had bought a New Hampshire Grant title.
On May 8, 1775, a council of officers appointed Warner third in command after Ethan Allen and James Easton of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, of an expedition to capture Fort Ticonderoga. But Warner and the men he had recruited were left on the east shore of Lake Champlain as a rear guard while Allen and newly arrived Colonel Benedict Arnold surprised the garrison on the morning of May 10.
A day later, Warner captured Crown Point, 13 miles (21 km) to the north. The fort, once the largest British fortification in North America, was in ruins and was garrisoned by only nine soldiers. But Crown Point still held 111 cannon, the best of which were taken to Ticonderoga. During the following winter, artillery colonel Henry Knox, acting under orders from George Washington, hauled guns from Lake Champlain to Boston. (See Noble train of artillery)
Following the capture of the forts, Warner accompanied Allen to St. John (today's Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec), a British outpost on the Richelieu River, the outlet of Lake Champlain. Arnold had successfully raided the outpost, destroying supplies and seizing a British sloop, but had sailed away. Allen attempted to hold the outpost but was driven off by British reinforcements.
On June 23, 1775, Allen and Warner appeared before the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to ask that the Green Mountain Boys be recognized as a regiment. Congress recommended to the Provincial Congress of New York that they "embody them among the Troops you shall raise." Although New York was hesitant to incorporate men who had opposed them in the land dispute, the provincial congress established the regiment under the command of a lieutenant colonel and a major. Most leaders, including Major General Philip Schuyler, commander of the Northern Department, assumed that Allen would lead the regiment.