Sunday, 10 September 2023

Led Canadians during the Saratoga campaign.

 

BOUCHER DE BOUCHERVILLE, RENÉ-AMABLE, army and militia officer, seigneur, office holder, and politician; b. 12 Feb. 1735 at Fort Frontenac (Kingston, Ont.), son of Pierre Boucher* de Boucherville, an officer in the colonial regular troops, and Marguerite Raimbault; d. 31 Aug. 1812 in Boucherville, Lower Canada.

From here where there is a biography

See here and here

Butler's Rangers private 1780-1782 Don Troiani

 Print from here


The Story of Butler's Rangers E. Cruikshank.

 This book from 1893 is available to read free if you have an interest. Here is a sample bit on the formation of Butler's Rangers.

https://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/cruikshank-butlers/cruikshank-butlers-00-h-dir/cruikshank-butlers-00-h.html

Butler went to Quebec to settle his accounts, taking with him three of the principal chiefs to present them to the Governor. He then renewed his proposal to raise a battalion of rangers to serve with the Indians, to which Sir Guy Carleton readily consented, and furnished him with “beating orders” for the enlistment of eight companies, each composed of a captain, a lieutenant, three sergeants, three corporals, and fifty privates. Two of these companies were to be formed of “people speaking the Indian language and acquainted with their customs and manner of making war,” and were to receive four shillings, New York currency, a day. The remaining companies, “to be composed of people well acquainted with the woods, in consideration of the fateague they are liable to undergo,” were to receive two shillings a day. The whole were required to clothe and arm themselves entirely at their own expense. This was considered extremely [38]high pay, and it was subsequently estimated by General Haldimand that these eight companies of rangers cost the Government as much as twenty companies of regular infantry.



 From The Burning of the Valleys G. K. Watt

Putman observed the Indians’ methods of setting the fires, “. . . one of the party . . . after swinging a fire-brand several times over his head until it blazed, applied it to the well-filled barns which were soon in flames . . . several of the party fired their guns into a number of stacks and barracks of grain . . .”

Image from John Ford's Drums Along the Mohawk


Across the Ocean, Into Battle: German Soldiers, Families, and Communities in the American Revolution

  Historian Friederike Baer focuses our attention on the varied experiences of the German auxiliaries in the American Revolution. Between 17...