War on the Run; The Epic Story of Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America's First Frontier

New York: Bantam Books, 2009. Book Club Edition (No price on DJ, no printing information on verso. Hardcover. Good/Good. Robert Bull (Maps). 548, [2] pages. Illustrations. Maps. List of Maps. Dramatis Personae. Chronology. Introduction; Part I: New in a New World; Part II: Reinventing War; Part III: Ordeals of Empire; Part IV: Continental Visions; Part V: Patrons and Enemies; Part VI: Hard Choices; Epilogue; Acknowledgments; Appendix 1: Rogers' Rules of Ranging; Appendix 2--Saint-Francois Map of 1759; Appendix 3--The Hopkins Letter; Appendix 4--General Washington to the President of Congress. This is followed by Notes, Map Credits, A Note on Sources and Usage; Selected Bibliography, and Index. John F. Ross is an American historian and author. He is the recipient of the 2011 Fort Ticonderoga Award for Contributions to American History. The author of over 200 articles, Ross' works have appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, The Atlantic, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Outside Magazine, and the Washington Post. He has reported from Greenland, Siberia, Galapagos, Panama, Thailand, and Mexico.[In addition to his written work, Ross has been featured on more than fifty radio and television programs, including PBS's American Experience, NPR's On Point, Science Friday, C-SPAN, the Discovery Channel, the John Batchelor Show, and the Pritzker Military Presents. Ross was the former Executive Editor of American Heritage and has served on the Board of Editors at Smithsonian Magazine. He received the 2009 Harryman Dorsey Periodical Article Award from the Society of Colonial Wars for "Battle of Carillon" in American Heritage, Spring/Summer 2008. John Ross has brought to electrifying life Maj. Robert Rogers, a man who has been even more forgotten than the war he fought. Yet Rogers is remarkably relevant to the wars we are fighting today. American Special Forces units operating along the murderous border of Afghanistan and Pakistan owe thanks to him for their training and manuals. The irregulars who routed the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 were another set of Rogers's unwitting disciples. On March 23, 1756, Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, commander in chief of the British war effort in North America, authorized Rogers to create an independent company of "rangers" whose salaries would be paid directly by the Crown. His exploits over the next two years made Rogers a colonial hero. Ross does an amazingly good job of bringing these forays, which Rogers often undertook in the bitter winter of northern New York, to life. He tells how Rogers taught his men to cope with almost insurmountable hardships and keep their heads in moments of terrible danger. He also introduced the latest weaponry into their tactics. In one encounter, rangers used swivel guns mounted in bateaux to wreak havoc on surprised French and Indians on Lake Champlain. Soon Rogers was a major in command of a nine-company ranger regiment. To educate his men, he wrote "Rules of Ranging,"a carefully distilled set of 28 principles that he ordered every man to read and ponder. Perhaps the most important message was in the final paragraph, in which Rogers observed there was only one maxim that applied in all situations: "preserve a firmness and presence of mind on every occasion." Ross describes in vivid detail the climax of ranger exploits, the 1759 attack Rogers and his raiders made on the Arenac Indian town of St. François on the Richelieu River in Canada. He chose that town because its warriors had been raiding English settlements in New Hampshire and Massachusetts for a century, without any retaliation. By destroying that town, he sent a message that no one was safe from Robert Rogers and his men. In a gripping narrative, Ross describes how Rogers eluded a pursuing force of 200 French and Indian woodsmen and struck the village at dawn, killing and burning with no quarter asked or given. After Québec fell to a British army, the British commander sent Rogers west to receive the surrender of the remaining French and Indian forces, adding the whole gigantic swath of Canada to Britain's empire. Rogers even prophesied Anglo-American destiny, calling for an expedition to find the Northwest Passage and inspire Englishmen to settle this huge wilderness. Ross's superb narration of the feats of Rogers and his rangers while serving their fellow Colonials creates a reflected glow for the contemporary reader. This is extracted from a review by Thomas Fleming from MHQ that was found on line. Hailed as the father of today's elite special forces, Robert Rogers was not only a wilderness warrior but North America's first noteworthy playwright and authentic celebrity. In a riveting biography, John F. Ross reconstructs the extraordinary achievements of this fearless and inspiring leader whose exploits in the early New England wilderness read like those of an action hero and whose innovative principles of unconventional warfare are still used today.