Provisions were becoming scant in the army of Burgoyne, and he determined to seize for his use the stores which the Americans had collected at Bennington. To accomplish this, he dispatched Colonel Baum, a German officer of tried valor, with 300 dismounted dragoons who had won reputation on European fields, and whom it was a part of the plan of operations to provide with horses. There were also a body of marksmen under Captain Frazer, Colonel Peters's corps of Tories, some Canadian volunteers, and 100 Indians,--in all amounting to nearly 800 men, with two light field-pieces. Colonel Skene accompanied the German colonel, by request of Burgoyne, to give him the benefit of his knowledge of the country, and to use his influence in drawing the supposedly numerous Loyalists to the support of the British. Lieutenant-Colonel Breyman was ready to support Baum, if occasion required, with a veteran force of Brunswickers, 620 strong, with two more field-pieces. On the 13th of August Baum set forth with his "mixed multitude," and on the same day reached Cambridge, sixteen miles from Bennington, and next day arrived at Sancoick, on a branch of the Walloomsac River. Here a party of Americans was posted in a mill, which they abandoned on his approach. The Brunswickers had had a sharp taste of the quality of Yankee valor at Hubbardton, yet Baum held his present adversaries in supreme contempt, and expected no serious opposition from them. He wrote to Burgoyne, on the head of a barrel in the mill, that prisoners taken agreed there were fifteen to eighteen hundred men at Bennington, "but are supposed to leave on our approach." Being first apprised of the appearance of a party of Indians at Cambridge, General Stark sent Lieutenant-Colonel Gregg with 200 men to oppose them, but he was presently informed that a more formidable force was closely following the Indians and tending towards Bennington, and he sent at once to Manchester for Colonel Warner's regiment and all the militia of the adjacent country to come to his support. Early on the morning of the 14th he set forward with his brigade, accompanied by Colonels Warner, Williams, Herrick, and Brush, and after marching about five miles met Gregg retreating from Sancoick, closely pursued by the enemy. Stark formed his troops in line of battle, but Baum, perceiving the strength of the Americans, halted his force in a commanding position on a hill, and Stark fell back a mile to a farm, where he encamped.