Rogers’ Rangers on the eve of war

Posted in America, Historical articles, History, War on Tuesday, 28 June 2011

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This edited article about Rogers’ Rangers originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 979 published on 13 December 1980.

Rogers' Rangers, picture, image, illustration

The eve of war, when the French had Indian allies and the British used the rangers. Pictures by Ron Embleton

They were like white Indians, at home in the forests and on the lakes. And they fought not only in the fiercest summer heat, but in the depths of winter, when other troops – and even the Indians – took refuge from the ice and the snows.

Dressed in buckskins, and later in green uniforms and Highland bonnets which blended with the trees, they fought the French and their Indian allies in the wilderness that is now New York State and the eastern states of New England. They carried guns loaded with buckshot or bullets, or both, and wore tomahawks at their sides. They travelled on foot in the woods and on lakes in whaleboats or birch-bark canoes.

Mainly American-born Britons – for this was the 1750s, when Britain and France were striving for the mastery of a continent – the Rangers were led by a strongly-built frontiersman named Robert Rogers. He and his men were the forerunners of Britain’s Commandos and the United States Rangers of the Second World War. They were known simply as Rogers’ Rangers.

The rivalry between France and Britain in the New World had been growing in intensity for many years. The French had started colonising Canada early in the 16th century, and the English the coastal areas of what is now the United States early in the 17th.

Tension gradually mounted year after year between the rivals. The first half of the 18th century saw two wars between Britain and France, which affected the New World as well, but there was never really any peace in America between the wars. The second had ended in 1748, when, in return for Madras in India, the British returned the great fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island to the French, to the fury of the many New Englanders who had helped capture it in 1745.

The “peace” which followed was no peace at all in North America. The outnumbered French – there were only 55,000 of them against 1Ω million English-speaking colonists – were mainly traders and adventurers, not settlers, except along the St. Lawrence river. Trade meant the all-important fur trade.

The French were more in harmony with the Indians than the land-hungry British, and were better fighters in the thick forests. But thanks to an Irish-born trader and Indian agent, William Johnson, who genuinely liked Indians, the mighty Iroquois Confederacy of six nations, including the famous Mohawks, were usually pro-Britsh or neutral.

Though the war in which Robert Rogers and his men came to the fore officially began in 1756, and came to be known as the Seven Years’ War, Americans have always called it the French and Indian War, not least because it broke out earlier. In 1754, a 21-year-old Virginian, Major George Washington, destined to be his country’s first President many years later, had a brush with French troops near what is now Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

It was a victory, but he was soon overwhelmed by a larger force of French and Indians and made to capitulate. The French and Indian War had begun.

For the British, 1755 was a catastrophic year. An army under General Braddock was ambushed in the forest not far from where Washington – now with Braddock – had been forced to surrender. His command was almost annihilated by French and Indians. Soon Britain was to find herself fighting not just in North America, but across the globe, with her arch-rival, France.

The English colonies in America, which had a tendency to quarrel amongst themselves, did little to help, believing that it was the job of the British Army to defend them against the French. Fortunately, many frontiersmen saw things differently, and one of them was Robert Rogers.

Born in Massachusetts in 1731, he was completely at home in the wilderness from his earliest years. He never worried about staying on the right side of the law, and ran into trouble while counterfeiting New Hampshire money. To avoid prosecution, he hastily joined the New Hampshire regiment.

He found himself with William Johnson’s expedition which was to head northwards, while Braddock and his men were marching to their doom. Johnson’s task was to take the water route to New France, as French Canada was called. This meant going up the Hudson river from Albany in New York, across Lakes George and Champlain, and down the River Richelieu to the St. Lawrence.

Johnson’s first tasks were to erect two forts, Fort Edward below Lac du St. Sacrament, which he rechristened Lake George in the King’s honour, and Fort William Henry at the southern tip of the lake. With him, he had some 2,000 Colonial militia from different colonies, and over 200 Indians. In September, 1755, this inexperienced army was threatened by a force of French regulars and Indians. They had marched south, reinforced Crown Point, and built Fort Ticonderoga at the foot of Lake Champlain.

Misled by a prisoner into thinking the British had retreated, the French pressed southwards, only to run into an ambush. Though the British and Indians were few, a stand was made at Johnson’s camp beside Lake George, the British improvising a fort of logs, boats and carts. The French and their Indian allies were utterly defeated and their commander was captured.

There could be no pursuit: Johnson’s force was too weak to attempt it. Wounded in the thigh, he finished building Fort William Henry and then retired south for the winter. The only victor in a catastrophic year for Britain, he was made a baronet and Superintendent of Indian Affairs.

In the campaign, Rogers and a 20-strong band of hard-bitten frontiersmen had acted as Johnson’s scouts and proved equal to the Indians at their job. British commanders were soon to be so impressed that from that tiny band of 20 sprang a far larger force of scouts.

Yet though it was to get much larger, the individual was always far more important than a single soldier in a regular regiment. For Rogers and each of his men had to be prepared to act alone if necessary, to fight and survive alone in a terrifying wilderness. As we shall see, they were to prove equal to the task.

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