The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885Various
History
The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885
Various
Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
The next morning Pontiac came to the camp and the great chief of the
Ottawas, haughty, shrewd, politic, ambitious, met face to face the bold,
self-possessed, clear-headed Major of the British Rangers. It is
interesting to note how calmly the astute ally of the French accepted
the new order of things and prepared for an alliance with his former
enemies. He and Rogers had several interviews and in the end smoked the
pipe of peace. With dignified courtesy the politic Indian gave to his
new friend free transit through his territory, provisions for his
journey and an escort of Indian braves. Rogers broke camp on the twelfth
and pushed onward towards Detroit. By messenger sent forward in advance
he apprized Monsieur Belletre, Commandant of the fort, of his near
approach and the object of it. The astonished officer received him
Cautiously. Soon satisfied, however, of the truth of the unwelcome news
thus brought, he surrendered his garrison. On the twenty-ninth of
November the British flag floated from the staff which ever before had
borne only the lillies of France.
On the tenth of December, after disposing of the French force found in
the fort, and having taken possession of the forts Miamie and Gatanois,
with characteristic ardor Rogers pushed still farther westward for
Michilimackinac. But it was a vain attempt. The season was far advanced.
Indeed, the winter had already come, and while the ice prevented his
progress by water, the snows rendered impracticable his advance by land.
With reluctance he relinquished for the first time the completion of his
mission. Turning eastward, after a tedious journey, he reached New York
on the fourteenth of February, 1761.
From New York, there is reason to suppose, that he went this same year
as Captain of one of the His Majesty's Independent Companies of Foot to
South Carolina, and there aided Colonel Grant in subduing the Cherokees,
who had for a year or two been committing depredations upon the
Carolinian frontiers.
From this time onward for the next two years we lose sight of Major
Rogers, but he re-appears at the siege of Detroit in 1763. Hither he
went with twenty Rangers as part of a body of soldiers sent from Fort
Niagara under the command of Captain Dalzell for the re-inforcement of
the beleagured fort. He arrived on the twenty-ninth of July, and on the
thirty-first took an active part in the fierce battle of Bloody Bridge.
His valor was as useful as it was conspicuous on that occasion, and but
for his daring efforts the retreat of the British troops would have been
more disastrous even than it was. Having, for a time, in the house of
the Frenchman, Campean, held at bay a throng of savages which surrounded
it, his escape with a few followers at one door was hardly achieved ere
these burst in at another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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