Burgoyne set out in June, captured Ticonderoga, and advanced to the upper Hudson. As he came southward, the sturdy farmers of Vermont and New York began to gather on his flank, and collected at Bennington many horses and large stores of food and ammunition. As Burgoyne needed horses, he sent a force of Hessians to attack Bennington. But Stark, with his Green Mountain Boys and New Hampshire militia, met the Hessians six miles from town, surrounded them on all sides, beat them, and took seven hundred prisoners and quantities of guns and some cannon.