Frigid Fury:
The Battle on Snowshoes, March 1758
Page 2

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The Battle: Phase Two

Rogers himself was unable to form the remaining rangers into line facing the attacking French and Indians. Some rangers were caught scalping and searching the dead at the first ambush site, others were scattered through the woods where they had followed Bulkeley's men in pursuit of the defeated Indians. Now as the French counter-attack came in on his right, Rogers found his flank turned and himself in danger of being enveloped. Rogers, a superb combat leader, was nothing if not mentally and emotionally resilient. He took in the chaotic situation and made his decision in a moment, ordering the rangers to fall back toward the high ground of Bald Mountain. If he could not break contact he would make his stand there. Thus ended phase two of the battle. Phase three, the rangers "last stand" was about to begin.

The Battle: Phase Three

The remainder I rallied, and drew up in pretty good order, where they fought with such intrepidity and bravery as obliged the enemy to retreat a second time; but we not being in a condition to pursue them, they rallied again, and recovered their ground, and warmly pushed us in front and both wings, while the mountain defended our rear."

Loescher, the historian of Rogers Rangers, estimates that Rogers now had not more than 120 men, many wounded, on his firing line. Ensign Joseph Waite and the ten men of his rear guard, on the left, were cut off and overwhelmed in the confusion as the rangers scrambled up toward the high ground. The officer and one man succeeded in escaping the carnage and fled into the woods.

The French and Indians, well handled by Langy and Durantaye, pressed the rangers on all sides and attempted to envelop the perimeter around both flanks. The rangers' position held, however, and "they were so warmly received that their flanking parties soon retreated to their main body with considerable loss. This threw the whole again into disorder, and they retreated a third time."

However Rogers found a resumption of the offensive impossible. "Our number being now too far reduced to take advantage of their disorder, they rallied again, and made a fresh attack upon us." The French and Indians, infuriated by the sight of scalped corpses, victims of the first ambush, threw themselves into repeated assaults and, as casualties continued to mount, Rogers position became more and more precarious.

Most of the Indians seemed concentrated on the English right where, under Lieutenant William Phillips, the perimeter was first strained to the breaking point. But soon Rogers, who had now been in action about an hour and a half, was patching and filling everywhere.

Lieutenant Phillips informed me that about 200 Indians were going up ye hill on our right to take possession of ye rising ground upon our backs. . . I ordered him with 18 Men to take possession of ye rising Ground before the Enemy, & try to beat them back. Accordingly he went, but I being Suspicious that ye Enemy would go round on our left & take possession of the other part of the hill, I sent Lieutenant [Edward] Crofton with 15 Men to take possession of the ground there and soon after desired Captain Pringle to go with a few men & assist Crofton, which he did with Lt. Roche & 8 Men. But the Enemy pushed So close in the front that the party's were not more than 20 yards apart & oftentimes intermixed with each other.

Darkness was now approaching and Rogers, having lost eight of fourteen officers and over 100 men, sought only to hang on until nightfall. Rogers himself with Ensign Joseph Waite held the center with some thirty-one men still effective. Phillips held the right flank with eighteen men, not nearly enough, while Crofton and Pringle held the left with twenty-three.

Langy and Durantaye were equally determined to finish the rangers before they could break up and escape in the darkness. The final assault came in from all sides but Lieutenant Phillips on the right was the first to be cut off and overwhelmed. He attempted to surrender on terms and did receive assurances of quarter. However, once in enemy hands scalps were discovered on the persons of the survivors and most "were inhumanly tied up to trees" and hacked to death by the enraged Indians.

Only Phillips and three others survived. They were eventually taken north where they were paraded and exhibited as "live letters" through the Indian villages around Montreal. After a series of harrowing experiences, Phillips, the only ranger officer captured alive, escaped and made his way back to British lines. The fate of the other three MIA's is unknown but can be surmised. They never returned to New England.

While Lieutenant Phillips and his men were surrounded but still fighting, Rogers and Ensign Joseph Waite continued to hold the center while casualties mounted. Finally, their strength now down to about twenty men, their right flank cut off from Phillips and the enemy so close that combat was virtually hand to hand, Rogers ordered his men to fall back upon Crofton and Pringle holding the left. Rogers wrote:

Upon finding that Phillips & his party was obliged to Surrender, I thought it most prudent for me to retreat & bring off as many of my people as I possibly could. Which I immediately did.

Lieutenant Henry Pringle, writing later as a French prisoner, described the conclusion of the action to his former commanding officer:

Capt. Rogers with his party came to me, and said (as did all those with him) that a large body of Indians had ascended to our right; he likewise added, what was true, that the combat was very unequal, that I must retire, and he would give Mr. Roche and me a Sergeant to conduct us thru the mountain. No doubt prudence required us to accept his offer; but, besides one of my snowshoes being untied, I knew myself unable to march as fast as was required to avoid becoming a sacrifice to an enemy we could no longer oppose. I therefore begged of him to proceed and then leaned against a rock in the path, determined to submit to a fate I thought unavoidable. Unfortunately for Mr. Roche, his snow-shoes were loosened likewise, which obliged him to determine with me, not to labour in a flight we both were unequal to.

In the event Pringle and Roche both managed to escape from the battlefield in the darkness. They wandered in the forest half frozen until 20 March 1758, seven days later, when they reached Fort Carillon and succeeded in surrendering to French officers before the Indians encamped around the fort could claim them as captives.

The Battle: Phase Four

If the enemy is so superior that you are in danger of being surrounded by them, let the whole body disperse, and every one take a different route to the place of rendezvous appointed for that evening which must every morning be altered and fixed for the evening ensuring, in order to bring the whole party, or as many of them as possible together, after any separation that may happen in the day; but if you should happen to be actually surrounded, form yourselves into a square, or, if in the woods, a circle is best, and, if possible, make a stand till the darkness of night favors your escape.

As the rangers dispersed into the gathering gloom Rogers threw off his uniform coat which was later discovered on the battlefield by the French. In the pocket was found his captain's commission, dated 24 March 1756 and signed by Sir William Shirley. The French were briefly convinced that Rogers was indeed among the dead. One Iroquois warrior later boasted to Governor Vaudreuil that "he had himself killed him." Rogers actually made good a legendary escape, supposedly climbing up the west slope of Bald Mountain and then sliding down the smooth, frozen, near vertical, east face of the mountain to the surface of Lake George over a thousand feet below. Loescher suggests that he back-tracked to the lip of the cliff in order to convey the impression to his pursuers that he had actually used "Roger's Slide." Rogers does not mention his escape, saying only that "the Indians closely pursuing us at the same time, took several prisoners."

The Retreat

By the morning of 14 March 1758, several more rangers arrived, some also wounded. At daybreak they started south for Fort Edward where his first messengers arrived at noon and informed the garrison that Rogers "Had a Hot Ingagment Such as Scare Even was Knowed in ye Country & Most of His Party Destroyed."

Lieutenant Colonel Haviland ordered three companies of rangers, Stark's, Shepard's and Durkee's, to Rogers' support. They met the survivors at Sloop Island, six miles from the head of Lake George. Rogers spent the night of 14-15 March on Sloop Island, and sent again to Fort Edward for three horse-drawn sleighs to carry his remaining wounded. These arrived in the morning under the command of Lieutenant John Belscher, 27th Regt. of Foot. 15 March 1758 was described by Jabez Finch as "a Vast Cold & Tedious Day Espacially for ye Wounded Men." The defeated rangers trickled into Fort Edward in small groups from about 3 p.m. Rogers, bringing up the rear, reached the fort about 5 p.m. He had brought with him fifty-two survivors, eight badly wounded. He had lost 124 men and one more, his own orderly, died of the cold during the retreat.

Conclusion

Rogers dictated his journal account of the action on 17 March 1758, four days after the battle. On 6 April 1758, General Abercromby confirmed Rogers' promotion to "Major of the Rangers in His Majesty's Service." It was a vote of confidence in the defeated partisan that subsequent events would more than justify. Now Rogers set about the task of reconstructing his shattered force.

To Read More on the Battle on Snowshoes

Dr. Joseph F. Meany Jr., a member of the Advisory Board of the New York State Military Heritage Institute, is a Senior Historian at the New York State Museum in Albany, New York.

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