Robert Rogers Character Traits

Robert Rogers was born in Methuen, Massachusetts on November 7th, 1731 to a family of immigrants from Ireland, James Rogers and Mary McFatridge Rogers (Anderson, 2005). Robert was in the middle of the pack among his 4 brothers and 2 sisters (Ross, 2009). When Rogers was 8 years old, James Rogers, always considering himself as a lucky man, uprooted his family and move north to the Great Meadow area of New Hampshire where James help founded a small settlement the call “Munterloney” (Ross, 2009). A unsettled area in New Hampshire, Robert spent most of his childhood in this large Indian Territory where he learned traits like carving splint brooms from the local Indians (Ross, 2009), a trait well known by children in the this outskirts towns of

New Hampshire. These splint brooms were made of yellow birch and traditionally very popular throughout the area.
Robert spent a considerable amount of time tracking through the woods, in both the snow and heat of summer, to the nearby trading posts to claim his bounty for the brooms he had created.

The post was a large gathering place for local Indians that were there looking to trade their furs for goods yielded by the colonialist. Rogers grew fond of the Indians and their way of life. He studied how the Indians trapped their prey and moved through the woods with such ease and usually without notice to not only the animals they tracks but even grown men. As the rumors of war started to reach this area of New Hampshire, these new tracking trades would start to prove invaluable to the young Robert

Rogers.
Along with the impending King Georges War, Rogers and this family was facing a war for land and jurisdiction of the Mountalona. Border wars with Massachusetts Bay Colony had come to a head and now a decision had been made to turn control over the now colony, to Captain John Mason. This would put the ownership of the Rogers property into question as the purchase of the land was not recognized by the Colony. After a short time the Rogers would retain a partial mount of land. As James Rogers was killed by a mistaken identity years earlier, the eldest son took ownership of the Rogers land. Ready to move on his own, Robert took his leave and moved to a plot of land that his father had held in trust for him near Merrimack. This land did not have the prosperous options of the family farm and so Rogers’s began taking work as a surveyor. This position was hired to track through dangerous wooded area searching for the best rough for a new road to be constructed.
In 1744, Rogers joined the militia under Captain Daniel Ladd’s scouting Company putting his Indian learned talents to good use.

A year later move under command of his good friend Ebenezer Eastman's Scouting Company defending the frontier of New Hampshire. In 1775 Rogers was asked to start recruiting and training men under Colonel John Winslow. The small group of men came to be known as Rogers’s Rangers. Rogers began training this group of militia men to in the ways of guerilla war fair. Looking at the way the current British infantry fought, Rogers trained his men to take cover and to separate in to single man groups when under fire in order to not allow a single bullet to kill two men. He men also fought with not only guns but hatchets that Rogers instructed them to use in close contact with the

enemy.
Roger’s men were vastly more effective that even the most highly skilled British enlisted men. These four small groups of rangers could move through Indian filled wooded areas, mostly in the Northern New York area of Lake George, virtually undetected and with lethal force. Lead by “Rules of Ranging” a manual that was created as a service manual to all Rangers. Rogers’s believed that the rangers would be quick moving and leave little evidence that they were even there. Quick movers, the rangers were very light weight travelers as well. Each man carried his one equipment and minimized the overall weight of the gear needing to be carried by hunting for food instead of carrying it on their back.
Specializing in operation in weather conditions that other military forces would considered too extreme. One such even was a battle at which there was little to no fighting as the Rangers invaded a fort in the middle of the winter when the soldiers were completely unprepared and under trained to combat. The Rangers’ victories and skilled recognizances started to grow in popularity and at the height at which news was quickly spread by word of mouth or by the power of the press, these Ranger events brought the attention of the British commanders. Looking to extend the power of the British infantry, Rogers was asked to train groups of British soldiers who would then return to their own infantry and train them on the tactics they had learned. The downside to the Rangers, to the British, was the cost of each man vs. the cost of an infantry man in terms of pay which stood at nearly double the cost. The British commanders did not feel that the cost was justified despite the clear past of victories of these troops. Rogers took it upon himself to be sure his Rangers were compensated for their work in which he himself never recovered from.
Following the French and Indian war Robert Rogers found himself in a place that was common to the time in the boots of a commander, debt. Rogers spent some time in post war America looking for way to recover from the financial deficit that the war had put him in. Unable to capitalize, he returned to England looking turn this adventure in the New Land into a book and even a screen play of which he earned an audience with the King and was granted a new expedition to find a way from Michigan to the Pacific ocean later known as the Northwest Passage for England under King George III. Titled as Governor, Rogers returned to the Americans posted out of Fort Michilimackinac, Rogers began looking for the Northwest Passage with help of Jonathan Carver and James Tute but with no success. Rogers maintained a powerful alliance with the Indian people that he had come to respect and even employ as rangers. Thomas Gage, commander in the British army, did not find much he liked about Robert Rogers. Some speculations of this dislike may be rooted in the strong friendship Rogers had with General Amherst whom was highly hated by Gage. Due to this Commander Gage carried animosity against Rogers and sought to take any opportunity possible to remove Rogers from his command. This animosity eventually and persistence by Gage yielded an opportunity to put Rogers into a questionable lite with King George III and eventually lead to Rogers being arrested on charges of treason to the crown.
In 1775, Rogers we sent back to England to stand trial however the charges were eventually dropped but he damage had been done. Robert Rogers would not return to American under British authority. Angered by this Rogers sought to side with the colonial army and reached out to George Washington to offer his services. Washington was apprehensive as Rogers’s reputation and history with the British army lead to fears of Rogers being a British loyalist or at least being subject to being tempted to turn his back to the colonies if enlisted. These fears in mind, Washington declined his offer.
Losing his what could be his last change to return to the only world he had ever know, that of war, Rogers, some say, became a broken man. A lifetime of historical events did no justice for him was rejected by the colonial army and a return to England would only offered another trip to a debtor’s prison for him for payment of his mounting debt accrued while commanding the rangers so many years ago. Through it would seem that the later life of Robert Rogers was not a historically documented as his life as a Ranger, Rogers would not be forgotten and his events would live on for centuries to come. In 1776 Rogers formed the Queens Ranges however in 1777 he was forced to retire. In 1779 Rogers as commissioned to Canada to train and create the Kings Rangers which was short lived as alcoholism over took him to the point that he later died in obscurity and debt (McNab, 2013).
The US army centuries later would adopted “Rogers Standing Orders” in the Army Rangers Creed. The US Army proudly display their belief in Rogers Rangers. His strategic reconnaissance techniques and training on hand to hand combat was a base point of the US Rangers one of the most elite military force in the United States.