CHAPTER III. ROGERS'S RANGERS. MONG the colonial recruits raised for the British army in the year 1755, after the awful defeat of Braddock, was Captain Robert Rogers, who was at the head of a small company of rough fellows from New Hampshire. He was over six feet high, physically the most powerful man in the army. He had been virtually brought up in a hunter's camp. From boyhood he had, with gun, blanket, and kettle, some ammunition, and a little sack of parched corn, ranged the untrodden forests of New England and Canada in search of furs and game. had slept with the savages in their wigwams, wrestled and gambled with their warriors, ogled their squaws, shot the rapids with them in their frail bark canoes, until the Indian character and methods hid no secret from him. When the recruits assembled at Albany, New York, General Johnson, knowing Rogers by reputation, employed him from time to time on important scouts. His head-quarters were at Fort William Henry, a new fort erected by the British at the southern extremity of Lake George. He Taking four or five trusty men with him, he would proceed up the lake to a convenient point, hide the canoe in the rushes, and push his way through the forest, penetrating the sentry lines to the very camp of the enemy. At Crown Point, one of the French forts, his men, under cover of night, concealed ROGERS'S RANGERS. themselves in the willows only three hundred yards from the fort. When morning dawned, Rogers, holding some bushes in his hand, crawled nearer. While making his reconnoissance, numbers of soldiers and Indians came out of the fort and engaged in drilling or shooting at marks so near that Rogers could not rejoin his men, nor could the latter retreat without discovery. As he lay behind a small log, a Frenchman left his companions and walked directly toward the spot of concealment. Rogers sprang at him with his gun, offering quarter. The stranger, instead of submitting, whipped out a dirk, and made a quick lunge at Rogers, but the latter shot him dead. The report instantly gave the alarm. The Frenchmen ran to the spot where lay the bleeding corpse, but no sign was there of the hand which had done the deed. If Rogers and his men had suddenly evaporated, the mystery, understood only by themselves, could not have been more perfect. Soon after their safe return, with information of the enemy gained on the above scout, Rogers took thirty men and two small cannon in four bateaux, and, pushing down the lake, discovered the enemy in an open camp in the forest. Runners bore the information to Fort Henry asking for re-enforcements. The delay caused them to be discovered. The British moved forward to surprise the French, when they perceived a fleet of hostile canoes coming down the lake. No doubt a similar force was advancing by land to catch the British between two fires. Rogers at once threw fifteen men into canoes to decoy the French within range of the two cannon. He steered as if meaning to escape. The French at once headed diagonally toward the shore, to cut him off. The stratagem succeeded. Two cannon shots sunk as many canoes, and the remainder fled, pursued unsuccessfully by the entire force of British, who had swiftly embarked for the chase. In another scout, toward Fort Ticonderoga, Rogers and two companions were discovered on the lake by the enemy. Determined not to retreat, the scouts quickly assumed the guise of fishermen. All day they coolly floated within gunshot of the French, dropping hook and line into the placid lake, and at evening actually sold their catch to the French. When night came on the adventurers pushed on toward their destination. Their CrownPoint FOR South B William 4. BattleField Glens Fa Des onderoga Whitehall FortAnn Fyller Sandy Hill MILES 15 Wood C. FortEdward 44 45 VICINITY OF LAKE reconnoissance at Ticonderoga, rendered difficult by the intense cold, was about completed, except as to capturing a prisoner, when a snow began to fall. No art could conceal their trail, if they lingered till the snowfall ceased. So the return trip was hastily begun. By Christmas Lake George was entirely frozen from shore to shore. But Rogers and his tireless woodsmen, instead of remaining idly in the warm quarters at the fort, equipped themselves with skates, and braved the wintry tempest in many an expedition. Their success was unvarying. Taking a force of from ten to fifty men, on skates, Rogers would skim along the icy floor of the lake surface to a point opposite Ticonderoga or Crown Point, order his men to change their skates for snow-shoes, and move swiftly to some ambush along the roads leading to the fort. Here they would lie in the snow, exposed to the bitter cold, sometimes for two or three days, with no shelter but a few pine boughs hastily thrown together, and without a spark of fire, the smoke of which would instantly reveal them to the neigboring fort. Here they intercepted the sledges carrying fresh beef, venison, and corn to the fort, captured the drivers, and appropriated the provision. When they had caught several prisoners, they would glide into the French settlement, cut the throats of the cattle, set fire to the barns full of grain and to the houses of the villagers, and just as the red flames shot upward into the winter night, throwing their angry glare far across the whitened landscape, the mysterious and deadly Rangers would disappear in the forest as suddenly as they came. So valuable were the services of Rogers and his hardy woodsmen, that, in the spring of 1756, he received a special commission from the commander-in-chief to raise an independent corps of experienced foresters, men whom he was to choose himself, of the most approved courage and fidelity, and of the greatest physical inurement to exposure. The corps was to be known as ROGERS'S RANGERS, the men receiving the pay of regular soldiers, but carrying on warfare as scouts in their own brave fashion. This famous corps became the right arm of the British troops. Their official instructions were "to use their best endeavors to distress the French and their allies, by sacking, burning, and destroying their houses, barns, barracks, canoes, bateaux, etc., and by killing their cattle of every kind; and at all times to endeavor to destroy their convoys of provision, by land and water, in every part of the country." On the way to Fort Henry, with his new Rangers, Rogers made an elaborate scout around Crown Point. After killing large numbers of cattle, the tongues of which were carefully removed for the Rangers' use, they were discovered and closely pursued by an overwhelming force of French and Indians. In this emergency, Rogers executed a masterly maneuver. Appointing a rendezvous at a distant point on the lake shore, the Rangers suddenly separated, every man taking his own course. Where there had been five minutes before a stout body of men, the enemy found no one. The Rangers had dispersed and left only thin air. From this point on, their history is a succession of thrilling and successful exploits, of which we may only take an occasional glimpse. Not a week passed without some daring scout or victory. The Rangers only had to go out in order to catch a net full of birds, as they called their prisoners. These Rogers would examine separately and with great care, to see if their stories agreed, concerning the strength, movements, plans, supplies, and situation of the enemy. Keen and sagacious in these examinations, able at a glance to separate the truth from falsehood, and wonderfully skillful in reading character, Rogers kept the British head-quarters more accurately posted with regard to the enemy than were the French and Indian commanders themselves. From time to time, during the war, the "Rangers" were gradually increased from their original strength of sixty-two men, to more than a thousand. One night in July, 1756, while on a lengthy scout, the Rangers prepared to attack a French schooner, lying one mile from the lake shore. Just then two lighters, laden with provision and strongly guarded, came in sight, and made for the shore as if to encamp, it being about ten o'clock at night. As they drew close to land, the Rangers fired from the forest, and Rogers offered quarter to the enemy. The latter, however, put about, and made every effort to reach the opposite shore. Before they reached it the terrible Rangers had made prisoners of the entire party, and sunk and destroyed both cargoes, consisting of wheat, flour, wine and brandy. At this time the French were offering the Indians sixty francs for every English scalp, and prisoners were sold in Canada for sixty crowns. Rogers's first-lieutenant was John Stark, afterwards major-general of the American army in the Revolution. The fall and winter of 1756 were busily employed in harassing the enemy in the neighborhood of Lake George. On the 21st of January, 1757, Rogers had a company of eighty men with him, equipped with skates and snow-shoes. They were encamped three miles from the lake, on elevated ground, near Ticonderoga, from which they commanded a view of the snowy landscape for many miles. Far off on the glittering ice, they saw a small object moving across the lake. The keen eye of Rogers pronounced it to be a sled laden with provision. Lieutenant Stark set out with ten men to head it off, while Rogers and the others moved swiftly to intercept the retreat. Soon after Stark had departed, Rogers detected ten other sleds following the first. It was too late to warn Stark of the fact. The latter struck out for the first sled, and the other sleds, still at a distance, discovering him, instantly put about. Pursuit was the only thing possible. The sleds were |