Warner proved his qualities to the local community, and was elected Captain of the Green Mountain Boys, the local militia formed to resist New York authority over Vermont. With his cousin and the militia?s founder, Ethan Allen, he was outlawed, but never captured.
During the Revolutionary War, he fought on the side of the Continental Army, though later in the war as a foreign unit under the Republic of Vermont, and was granted a commission as a colonel.
He made a mark in such engagements as the Battle of Crown Point, the Montreal campaign, the Battle of Hubbardton and-?most famously-?the Battle of Bennington.
Then, in 1782, with his health failing, he returned to Roxbury. Warner was never skilled in financial matters, and failed to make money on land speculation like so many others in the new territories. At the end of his life, his wife Hester had to apply to Congress for charity. After a long delay a grant of 2,000 acres (8 kmē) in the northeast of the state was made, the so-called Warner?s Grant. The grant, however, came too late; Warner had already been dead for four years. A further honor came with the Bennington Battle Monument in Bennington, Vermont, which includes a sculpture of Warner on its grounds.
Warner?s great-grandnephew Olin Levi Warner, was a well-known sculptor.
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