March 16th, 1758, five miles below Fort Ticonderoga, NY, then an outpost of the French, called Fort Carillon: This was a world conflict known as the Seven Years War, called locally the French and Indian War. The snow was deep and the temperature had been below zero, snapping cold, for weeks.
Major Robert Rogers´ celebrated Ranger detachment, about one hundred men, while on a scout north from Fort Edward—what today would be called a reconnaissance in force--identified a similar sized group of Mohawk Indians and French partisans moving in single file along a trail through the woods, and arrayed themselves to ambush the column. They rose and gave first fire with their muskets, then running downhill to close with their hand weapons (tomahawks, belt knives, and cutlasses.) As they engaged hand-to-hand, it was found that this was only a forward detachment of a much larger force, that immediately rushed toward the musket fire.
Captain Charles Bulkley´s company had led the ranger advance downhill, and were—thus—the first to be attacked. They were mostly over-run and killed or taken prisoner. Having run down-hill in their snowshoes, the rangers now had to reverse themselves and travel uphill through deep snow, to flee. All their pursuers had to do was to step on the backs of their snowshoes and the rangers were tripped and completely vulnerable. Then, as the natives and French viewed the extent of the casualties to their first detachment, they began to butcher the pinioned, captive rangers.
Meanwhile, the main ranger contingent under Robert Rogers fell back in a fighting retreat uphill, closely followed and engaged—sometimes at close quarters-- by the Mohawk and French. Rogers men shucked their blanket rolls and overcoats, which encumbered their movement, the better to snowshoe and to fight, but by night-fall some began to die due to exposure. Rogers rallied his men to beat off a number of attacks and flanking efforts by the enemy. During the night, the word was passed to escape and evade. Rogers attempted to make an obvious trail away from the paths his wounded would take. In doing so, he mounted the back side of the eminence now know as Rogers Rock, on Lake George. He said that he then tied his snowshoes on backwards and walked from the cliff side, giving the appearance that his tracks disappeared over the cliff—that he had jumped. He then traversed to a less steep section, dumped his gear over, and slid, fell, down-climbed, and tumbled to the frozen lake.
He had already dispatched John Stark back to Fort Edwards for aid and sleighs for the wounded. He—like individual and small groups of rangers scattered through the area, made their way to a rendezvous point at Woods Creek, I believe. The nature of the retreat and escape was such that pockets of men were lost or went in circles. Some of the wounded were so cold that they built fires, fully knowing that the enemy would find them, but hoping for clemency or being beyond all caring. Thus, a number of rangers were caught and killed, scalped, or taken captive. This, too was a mixed fate, as some captives were kept to be traded or paroled by the French: Others were ritually tortured, even hacked to death and eaten, by the infuriated Mohawks. Some were lost in the woods and died of exposure.
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