Gaff, Alan Scalp Hunter

Major Robert Rogers and His Rogue Rangers, 1755 - 1760

Volume 159: "From Reason to Revolution 17211815." Major Robert Rogers is regarded as an icon of American historya status, however, that he does not deserve. *Scalp Hunter* offers the first comprehensive examination of Rogers and his Rangers. It is the most complete account to date of the Rangers' wartime sagatold by the Rangers themselves as well as by their officers of all ranks, including generals; and it is by no means a modern interpretation by authors lacking a military background. Warfare in the Province of New York during the 1750s was characterized by extreme brutality. American publishers lauded British and colonial troops while portraying their French and Native American enemies as bloodthirsty barbarians. Robert Rogers raised a corps of seasoned woodsmen whose mission was to range through the wilderness, harass the enemy, and provide vital intelligence. Rogers and his Rangers, however, quickly descended into cold-blooded barbarism: they scalped wounded and fallen opponents to collect bounties, and cold-bloodedly murdered unarmed prisoners. During his famous raid on St. Francis in 1759, Major Rogers and his force ruthlessly murdered women and childrenthereby violating the express orders of their commanding general. When Rogers published his heavily edited *Journals* in 1765, he deliberately concealed these atrocities. *Scalp Hunter* provides the first in-depth account of Rogers and the men who served under his commandincluding a wealth of new information that was previously inaccessible. Rogers, his Rangers, and the soldiers who fought alongside them recount here, in their own words, new and previously unknown details. Over the course of the last 250 years, Major Robert Rogers has risen to become an iconon par with other pioneers and frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Davy Crockett, and Kit Carson. *Scalp Hunter* will help remove Robert Rogers from this pantheon of heroes.