The Bay State Monthly. Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885

I ought, perhaps, to mention, that in 1749, as Londonderry became filled to overflowing with repeated immigrations from the North of Ireland, James Rogers, the father of Robert, a proprietor, and one of the early settlers of the township, removed therefrom to the woods of Dunbarton, and settled anew in a section named Montelony, from an Irish place in which he had once lived.[6 - New Hampshire Gazeteer, 1833, p. 121.] This was before the settlement of the township, when its territory existed as an unseparated part only of the public domain. He may, quite likely, have been attracted hither by an extensive beaver meadow or pond, which would, with little improvement, afford grass for his cattle while he was engaged in clearing the rich uplands which surrounded it.

Six years only after his removal (1755), he was unintentionally shot by a neighbor whom he was going to visit; the latter mistaking him for a bear, as he indistinctly saw him passing through the woods. This incident was the foundation of the story said to have been told by his son, some years after, in a London tavern. The version given by Farmer and Moore is as follows, viz.:[7 - Historical Collections, by Farmer and Moore, vol. 1, p. 240.] "It is reported of Major Rogers, that while in London, after the French war, being in company with several persons, it was agreed, that the one who told the most improbable story, or the greatest falsehood, should have his fare paid by the others. When it came to his turn, he told the company that his father was shot in the woods of America by a person who supposed him to be a bear; and that his mother was followed several miles through the snow by hunters, who mistook her track for that of the same animal. It was acknowledged by the whole company that the Major had told the greatest lie, when in fact, he had related nothing but the truth."[8 - The Great Meadow and the site of the elder Rogers’ house is easily accessible to any person possessed of a curiosity to visit them. They are in the South-Easterly section of Dunbarton, some six or seven miles only from Concord. The whole town is of very uneven surface, and the visitor will smile when he reads upon the ground, in Farmer and Moore’s New Hampshire Gazeteer, that he will find there but "few hills, nor any mountains." He soon learns that the declaration of its people is more correct when they assure him that its surface is a "pimply" one.]

As the largest part of Roger’s fame rests upon his achievements in the ranging service of our Seven Years’ War, we must recall for a moment the condition of things in the British Colonies and in Canada at the beginning of this war.

The thirteen American Colonies had, at that time, all told, of both white and black, a population of about one million and a half of souls (1,425,000.)[9 - Bancroft’s History of the United States, vol. 4, p. 127.] The French people of Canada numbered less than one hundred thousand.[10 - Encyclopedia Brittanica.]

The respective claims to the Central part of the North American Continent by England and France were conflicting and irreconcilable. The former, by right of discovery, claimed all the territory upon the Atlantic coast from New Foundland to Florida, and by virtue of numerous grants the right to all west of this to the Pacific Ocean. The latter, by right of occupation and exploration, claimed Canada, a portion of New England and New York, and the basins of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, together with all the territory upon the streams tributary to these, or a large part of the indefinite West.

To maintain her claims France had erected a cordon of forts extending diagonally across the continent from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. If one will follow, in thought, a line starting at Louisburg, and thence running up this great river to Quebec and Montreal, and thence up Lake Champlain to Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and on westward and south-westward to Frontenac, Niagara and Detroit, and thence down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, he will trace the line across which the two nations looked in defiance at each other, and see instantaneously that the claims of France were inadmissable, and that another war was inevitable. It mattered little that of the forty-five years immediately preceding the treaty of Aix La Chapelle, fourteen, or one-third of the whole number, had been years of war between these two neighbors. They were now, after a peace of only half a dozen years, as ready for a fresh contest as if they were to meet for the first time upon the battle field. In fact, another conflict was unavoidable; a conflict of the Teuton with the Gaul; of medievalism with daylight; of conservatism with progress; of the old Church with the new; of feudalism with democracy—a conflict which should settle the destiny of North America, making it English and Protestant, or French and Roman Catholic; a contest, too, in which the victor was to gain more than he knew, and the vanquished was to loose more than he ever dreamed of.

Hostilities may be said to have been commenced by the French, when, on the 18th day of April, 1754, they dispossessed the Ohio company of the fort which they were erecting at the forks of the Ohio River, afterwards named Fort Du Quesne.

The plan of a Colonial Confederation, formed at the Albany convention in July of that year, having failed of acceptance by the mother country and the Colonies both, the Home government was forced to meet the exigency by the use of British troops, aided by such others as the several Provinces were willing to furnish.

The campaign of the next year (1755) embraced:

1st. An expedition, under General Braddock, for the capture of Fort Du Quesne.

2d. A second, under General Shirley, for the reduction of Fort Niagara, which was not prosecuted.

3d. A third, under Colonel Moncton, against the French settlements on the Bay of Fundy, resulting in the capture and deportation of the Acadians.

4th. A fourth, under General William Johnson, against Crown Point, a strong fortification, erected by the French, in the very heart of New England and New York, whence innumerable bands of Indians had been dispatched by the French to murder the defenceless dwellers upon the English frontiers, particularly those of New Hampshire, to destroy their cattle and to burn their buildings and other property.

To the army of this latter expedition New Hampshire contributed, in the early part of this year, a regiment of ten companies, the first being a company of Rangers, whose Captain was Robert Rogers, and whose Second Lieutenant was John Stark. [11 - New Hampshire Adjutant General’s Report, vol. 2, 1866, p. 129.]

But a few words just here in explanation of the character of this ranging branch of the English army. It was a product of existing necessities in the military service of that time. Most of the country was covered with primeval forests and military operations were largely prosecuted in the woods or in limited clearings. The former were continually infested with Indians, lying in ambush for the perpetration of any mischief for which they might have opportunity.

It became necessary, therefore, in scouring the forests to drive these miscreants back to their lairs, as well as in making military reconnoissances, to have a class of soldiers acquainted with Indian life and warfare; prepared, not only to meet the Indian upon his own ground, but to fight him in his own fashion. The British Regular was good for nothing at such work. If sent into the woods he was quite sure, either not to return at all, or to come back without his scalp. And the ordinary Provincial was not very much better. From this necessity, therefore, was evolved the "Ranger."

He was a man of vigorous constitution, inured to the hardships of forest life. He was capable of long marches, day after day, upon scant rations, refreshed by short intervals of sleep while rolled in his blanket upon a pile of boughs, with no other shelter but the sky. He knew the trails of the Indians, as well as their ordinary haunts and likeliest places of ambush. He knew, also, all the courses of the streams and the carrying places between them. He understood Indian wiles and warfare, and was prepared to meet them.

Stand such a man in a pair of stout shoes or moccasins; cover his lower limbs with leggins and coarse small clothes; give him a close-fitting jacket and a warm cap; stick a small hatchet in his belt; hang a good-sized powder-horn by his side, and upon his back buckle a blanket and a knapsack stuffed with a moderate supply of bread and raw salt pork; to these furnishings add a good-sized hunting-knife, a trusty musket and a small flask of spirits, and you have an average New Hampshire Ranger of the Seven Year’s war, ready for skirmish or pitched battle; or, for the more common duty of reconnoitering the enemy’s force and movements, of capturing his scouts and provision trains, and getting now and then a prisoner, from whom all information possible would be extorted; and, in short, for annoying the French and Indian foe in every possible way.

If you will add three or four inches to the average height of such a soldier, give him consummate courage, coolness, readiness of resource in extremities, together with intuitive knowledge of the enemy’s wiles, supplemented with a passable knowledge of French and Indian speech, you will have a tolerable portrait of Captain Robert Rogers at the beginning of our Seven Year’s war.[12 - "An engraved full-length portrait of Rogers was published in London in 1776. He is represented as a tall, strong man, dressed in the costume of a Ranger, with a powder-horn strung at his side, a gun resting in the hollow of his arm, and a countenance by no means prepossessing. Behind him, at a little distance, stand his Indian followers."—[Parkman’s Conspiracy of Pontiach, vol. I, p. 164.]

He received his first Captain’s commission in the early part of 1755, and was employed by the New Hampshire government in building a fort at the mouth of the Ammonoosuc River and in guarding its Northern and Western frontiers until July, when he was ordered to Albany to join the army of Major General Johnson. His first service there was in furnishing escort, with a company of one hundred men, to a provision train from Albany to Fort Edward. From this latter point he was afterwards repeatedly despatched, with smaller bodies of men, up the Hudson River and down Lake George and Lake Champlain to reconnoiter the French forts. Some of these expeditions extended as far north as Crown Point and were enlivened with sharp skirmishes. He was absent up the Hudson upon one of these when the French were defeated at the battle of Lake George and Baron Dieskan was made prisoner.

The efficiency of the campaign of the next year (1756), which contemplated the taking of Crown Point, Niagara and Fort Du Quesne, was seriously impaired by the repeated changes of Commander-in-Chief; Major General Shirley being superceded in June by General Abercrombie while he, about a month later, yielded the command to the inefficient Lord Londown. The only occurrences of particular note during this campaign were the capture of our forts at Oswego by General Montcalm and the formal declarations of war by the two belligents.

Rogers and his men were stationed at Fort William Henry, and made repeated visits to Ticonderoga and Crown Point to ascertain the power of the enemy and to annoy him as they had opportunity. They went down Lake George, sometimes by land upon its shores, and sometimes by water and in boats. In the winter their land marches were frequently upon snow-shoes, and their boats were exchanged for skates. On such occasions each Ranger was generally his own commissary and carried his own supplies.

In his journal for this year (1756) Rogers notes thirteen of these expeditions as worthy of record. The first was down Lake George on the ice, in January, with seventeen men, resulting in the capture of two prisoners and two sledges laden with provisions.

The second was made in February with a party of fifty men to ascertain the strength and operations of the French at Crown Point. Having captured one prisoner at a little village near by the fort, they were discovered and obliged to retire before the sallying troops of the garrison. With very marked sang froid he closes his account of this reconnoissance by saying: "We employed ourselves while we dared stay in setting fire to the houses and barns in the village, with which were consumed large quantities of wheat, and other grain; we also killed about fifty cattle and then retired, leaving the whole village in flames."

There often appears a ludicrous kind of honesty in the simple narratives of this journal. He occasionally seized certain stores of the enemy which a Ranger could destroy only with regret. He naively remarks, in narrating the capture in June, of this same year, of two lighters upon Lake Champlain, manned by twelve men, four of whom they killed: "We sunk and destroyed their vessels and cargoes, which consisted chiefly of wheat and flour, wine, and brandy; some few casks of the latter we carefully concealed."

His commands on such occasions varied greatly in numbers, according to the exigency of the service, all the way from a squad of ten men to two whole companies; and the excursions just mentioned afford fair specimens of the work done by the Rangers under Rogers this year.

Rogers possessed a ready wit and an attractive bonhomie, which made him agreeable to his men, notwithstanding the necessary severity of his discipline. A story has come down to us which well illustrates this trait in his character. Two British Regulars, it seems, a good deal muddled, one night, by liberal potations, became greatly concerned lest their beloved country should suffer dishonor in consequence of inability to discharge its national debt, and their loyal forebodings had, at length, become painful. The good-natured Captain, encountering them in their distress, at once relieved them by the remark: "I appreciate the gravity of your trouble, my dear fellows. It is, indeed, a serious one. But, happily, I can remove it. I will, myself, discharge at once one-half the debt, and a friend of mine will shortly pay the other half." From this incident is said to have arisen the expression, at one time common, "We pay our debts as Rogers did that of the English nation."

But Captain Rogers had qualities of a higher order, which commended him to his superiors. His capacity as a Ranger Commander had attracted the notice of the officers on duty at Lake George. The importance of this branch of the service had also become apparent, and we shall not be surprised to learn that, in March, 1756, he was summoned to Boston by Major General Shirley and commissioned anew as Captain of an independent company of Rangers, to be paid by the King. This company formed the nucleus of the famous corps since known as "Roger’s Rangers."

In July another company was raised, and again in December two more, thereby increasing the Ranger corps to four companies. To anticipate, in a little more than a year this was farther enlarged by the addition of five more, and Captain Rogers was promoted to the rank of Major of Rangers, becoming thus the commander of the whole corps.

The character of the service expected of this branch of the army was set forth in Major General Shirley’s orders to its commander in 1756, as follows, viz.: "From time to time, to use your best endeavors to distress the French and allies by sacking, burning, and destroying their houses, barns, barracks, canoes, and battoes, and by killing their cattle of every kind; and at all times to endeavour to way-lay, attack and destroy their convoys of provisions by land and water in any part of the country where he could find them."[13 - Roger’s Journal (Hough’s edition), p. 46.]

On the fifteenth of January of the next year (1757) Captain Rogers, with seventy-four Rangers, started down Lake George to reconnoiter the French forts; travelling now for a time upon the ice, and by and by donning snow-shoes and following the land. On the twenty-first, at a point half way between Ticonderoga and Crown Point, they discovered a train of provision sledges, three of which they captured, together with six horses and seven men. The others fled within the walls of Ticonderoga and alarmed the garrison. Feeling the insecurity of his situation he commenced at once his return. By two o’clock in the afternoon, his party was attacked by two hundred and fifty French and Indians, who endeavored to surround it. A vigorous fight was kept up until dark. Rogers was wounded twice and lost some twenty of his men. The French, as was subsequently ascertained, lost one hundred and sixteen. The proximity of Ticonderoga rendered vain the continuance of the contest, and he availed him of the shelter of the night to return to Fort William Henry.

For this exploit he was highly complimented by General Abercrombie, and, at a later period of this same year, was ordered by Lord Londown to instruct and train for the ranging service a company of British Regulars. To these he devoted much time and prepared for their use the manual of instruction now found in his journals. It is clearly drawn up in twenty-eight sections and gives very succinctly and lucidly the rules governing this mode of fighting.

The campaign of 1757 contemplated only the capture of Louisburg. To the requisite preparations Lord Londown directed all his energies. Having collected all the troops which could be spared for that purpose, he sailed for Halifax on the twentieth of June with six thousand soldiers, among them being four companies of Rangers under the command of Major Rogers. Upon arriving at Halifax his army was augmented by the addition of five thousand Regulars and a powerful naval armament. We have neither time nor inclination to consider the conduct of Lord Londown on this occassion farther than to say that his cowardice and imbecility seem wonderful. Finding that, in all probability, Louisburg could not be taken without some one getting hurt, he returned to New York without striking a blow. If about this time our heroic commander of the Rangers used some strong language far from sacred, it will become us to remember "Zeke Webster" and think as charitably of his patriotic expletives "as we can." He returned to New York three weeks after the surrender of Fort William Henry, where with his Rangers he might have done something, at least, to prevent the horrible massacre which has tarnished the fair fame of Montcalm indellibly.

England and America both were humbled in the dust by the events of 1757 and 1758. Failure, due to the want of sufficent resources is severe, but how utterly insufferable when, with abundant means, incompetency to use them brings defeat. Still, we are under greater obligation to Lord Londown than we are wont to think. His imbecility helped rouse the British nation and recall William Pitt to power, whose vigor of purpose animated anew the people of other countries and promised an early termination of French dominion in America.

Lord Londown was succeeded in the early part of 1758 by General Abercrombie and plans were matured for capturing the Lake forts, Louisburg and Fort Du Quesne. By the close of November, the two last, with the addition of Fort Frontenac, were ours. The movement against Crown Point and Ticonderoga did not succeed. In the assault upon the latter Rogers and his Rangers fought in the van and in the retreat brought up the rear.

In the spring of this year (1758) Rogers went down Lake George at the head of about one hundred and eighty-men, and near the foot of it had a desperate battle with a superior body of French and Indians. He reported on his return one hundred and fourteen of his party as killed or missing. Why he was not annihilated is a wonder. General Montcalm, in a letter dated less than a month after the encounter, says: "Our Indians would give no quarter; they have brought back one hundred and forty-six scalps." For his intrepidity on this occasion he was presented by General Abercrombie with the commission of Major of Rangers, before alluded to.

The adroitness with which Rogers sometimes extricated himself from extreme peril is illustrated by his conduct on one occasion, when pursued by an overwhelming number of savages up the mountain, near the south end of Lake George, which now bears his name. Upon reaching the summit he advanced to the very verge of the precipice, on the east side, which descends 550 feet to the lake. Having here reversed his snow shoes he fled down the side opposite to that by which he had come up. Arriving soon after the Indians, upon seeing the tracks of two men, apparently, instead of one, and Rogers far below upon the ice, hastening towards Fort Edward, concluded that he had slid down the precipice aided by the Great Spirit, and that farther pursuit was vain.

Mr. Pitt proposed in the campaign of 1759 the entire conquest of Canada. Bold as was the undertaking it was substantially accomplished. Ticonderoga and Crown Point were abandoned in July, Fort Niagara capitulated the same month, and Quebec was surrendered in September.

Their violation of a flag of truce in this last month now called attention to the St. Francis Indians, who had been for a century the terror of the New England frontiers, swooping down upon them when least expected, burning their buildings, destroying their cattle, mercilessly murdering their men, women, and children, or cruelly hurrying them away into captivity. The time had now come for returning these bloody visits. The proffering of this delicate attention was assigned by Major General Amherst to Rogers. In his order, dated September 13, he says: "You are this night to set out with the detachment, as ordered yesterday, viz., of 200 men, which you will take under your command and proceed to Misisquey Bay, from whence you will march and attack the enemy’s settlements on the south side of the river St. Lawrence in such a manner as you shall judge most effectual to disgrace the enemy, and for the success and honour of his majesty’s arms.

* * * * *

"Take your revenge, but don’t forget that tho’ those villains have dastardly and promiscuously murdered the women and children of all ages, it is my orders that no women or children are killed or hurt."

In pursuance of these orders Major Rogers started the same day at evening. On the tenth day after he reached Missisquoi Bay. On the twenty-third, with one hundred and forty-two Rangers, he came, without being discovered, to the environs of the village of St. Francis. The Indians had a dance the evening following his arrival and slept heavily afterwards. The next morning, half an hour before sunrise, Rogers and his men fell upon them on all sides, and in a few minutes, ere they had time to arouse themselves and seize their arms, the warriors of that village were dead. A few, attempting to escape by the river, were shot in their canoes. The women and children were not molested.

When light came it revealed to the Rangers lines of scalps, mostly English, to the number of six hundred, strung upon poles above the door-ways. Thereupon, every house except three containing supplies was fired, and their destruction brought death to a few who had before escaped it by concealing themselves in the cellars. Ere noon two hundred Indian braves had perished and their accursed village had been obliterated.

The operations of the next year (1760) ended this long and fierce struggle. The attempted re-capture of Quebec by the French was their final effort. The army of the Lakes embarked from Crown Point for Montreal on the sixteenth day of August. "Six hundred Rangers and seventy Indians in whale-boats, commanded by Major Rogers, all in a line abreast, formed the advance guard." He and his men encountered some fighting on the way from Isle a Mot to Montreal, but no serious obstacle retarded their progress. The day of their arrival Monsieur de Vaudveuil proposed to Major General Amherst a capitulation, which soon after terminated the French dominion in North America.

The English troops, as will be remembered, entered Montreal on the evening of the eighth of September. On the morning of the twelfth Major Rogers was ordered by General Amherst to proceed westward with two companies of Rangers and take possession of the western forts, still held by the French, which, by the terms of the capitulation, were to be surrendered.

He embarked about noon the next day with some two hundred Rangers in fifteen whale-boats, and advanced to the west by the St. Lawrence and the Lakes. On the seventh of November they reached the mouth of the Cuyahoga, where the beautiful city of Cleveland now stands. The cross of St. George had never penetrated the wilderness so far before. Here they encamped and were soon after waited upon by messengers from the great chieftain Pontiac, asking by what right they entered upon his territory and the object of their visit. Rogers informed them of the downfall of the French in America, and that he had been sent to take possession of the French forts surrendered to the English by the terms of the capitulation. Pontiac received his message remarking that he should stand in his path until morning, when he would return to him his answer.

The next morning Pontiac came to the camp and the great chief of the Ottawas, haughty, shrewd, politic, ambitious, met face to face the bold, self-possessed, clear-headed Major of the British Rangers. It is interesting to note how calmly the astute ally of the French accepted the new order of things and prepared for an alliance with his former enemies. He and Rogers had several interviews and in the end smoked the pipe of peace. With dignified courtesy the politic Indian gave to his new friend free transit through his territory, provisions for his journey and an escort of Indian braves. Rogers broke camp on the twelfth and pushed onward towards Detroit. By messenger sent forward in advance he apprized Monsieur Belletre, Commandant of the fort, of his near approach and the object of it. The astonished officer received him Cautiously. Soon satisfied, however, of the truth of the unwelcome news thus brought, he surrendered his garrison. On the twenty-ninth of November the British flag floated from the staff which ever before had borne only the lillies of France.

On the tenth of December, after disposing of the French force found in the fort, and having taken possession of the forts Miamie and Gatanois, with characteristic ardor Rogers pushed still farther westward for Michilimackinac. But it was a vain attempt. The season was far advanced. Indeed, the winter had already come, and while the ice prevented his progress by water, the snows rendered impracticable his advance by land. With reluctance he relinquished for the first time the completion of his mission. Turning eastward, after a tedious journey, he reached New York on the fourteenth of February, 1761.

From New York, there is reason to suppose, that he went this same year as Captain of one of the His Majesty’s Independent Companies of Foot to South Carolina, and there aided Colonel Grant in subduing the Cherokees, who had for a year or two been committing depredations upon the Carolinian frontiers.

From this time onward for the next two years we lose sight of Major Rogers, but he re-appears at the siege of Detroit in 1763. Hither he went with twenty Rangers as part of a body of soldiers sent from Fort Niagara under the command of Captain Dalzell for the re-inforcement of the beleagured fort. He arrived on the twenty-ninth of July, and on the thirty-first took an active part in the fierce battle of Bloody Bridge. His valor was as useful as it was conspicuous on that occasion, and but for his daring efforts the retreat of the British troops would have been more disastrous even than it was. Having, for a time, in the house of the Frenchman, Campean, held at bay a throng of savages which surrounded it, his escape with a few followers at one door was hardly achieved ere these burst in at another.