Active 1756–1762 Allegiance British Crown | Country Great Britain Branch British Army Ranger | |
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Type Reconnaissance, Counter-insurgency, and Light Infantry Role Reconnaissance, counter-insurgency, and light infantry operations | ||
Danks' Rangers was a ranger unit raised in colonial North America and led by Captain Benoni Danks (ca. 1716-1776). It was modeled on and often served alongside of the better known Gorham's Rangers. The unit was recruited in early 1756, during the early stages of the Seven Years' War / French and Indian War, from among men serving in two then-disbanding New England provincial battalions stationed in Nova Scotia. Raised to help protect the British garrison on the Isthmus of Chignecto and secure the area after the siege of Fort Beauséjour, their principle foes were Acadians resisting removal from the region and Mi'kmaq Indians resisting British authority. Their primary area of operations was the northwestern portion of Nova Scotia and the north and eastern parts of what would later become New Brunswick. The unit averaged a little over one hundred men for much of its existence, although it seems to have been augmented to 125 for the attack on Havana in 1762. The company often operated in tandem with Gorham's Rangers, based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and after 1761, the two companies were combined into a Nova Scotia ranging corps, led by Major Joseph Gorham.
Contents
Composition & Activities
In addition to Yankees from New England, the unit contained Scots and Irish immigrants as well, and a half-dozen Native Americans from New England. The company performed reconnaissance duties and frontier guerrilla warfare. They not only played an important role in the Acadian Removals (1755-1760), but they took part in a number of important campaigns during the war, particularly the landing at Louisburg in 1758, and the Siege of Quebec in 1759. The unit suffered heavy casualties as a result of repeated skirmishing with Canadian militia and allied Indians around the edges of the Quebec siege and, for a time, after Danks was seriously wounded, the unit was absorbed into the ranger company of Captain Moses Hazen. As part of the combined Nova Scotia ranger corps, Danks and his company took part in the Siege of Havana in 1762, where, according to Israel Putnam, Danks sold his commission in the rangers at Havana on 23 Sept. 1762 to Andrew Watson, who commanded the company for the next few months until the unit was disbanded after half its men had succumbed to tropical diseases. The survivors were drafted into British infantry regiments at Havana whose ranks were equally depleted by illness.
Scalping Controversy
The unit was loathed by the Mi'kmaq who lived near Fort Cumberland, the units' main base of operation, and they also suffered from a poor reputation among the early British settlers to the region—apparently because of their reputation for cruelty and for their scalping of enemy combatants and non-combatants alike, regardless of ethnicity. The following account of Danks and his company comes from the notes compiled by Arthur G. Doughty, the editor of the journals of John Knox, an Irish officer in the regulars who was stationed at Fort Cumberland in 1759 and often assigned to accompany Danks' unit on missions:
Doughty says of Danks, "He appears to have been one of the most daring officers in the service, and particularly energetic in attacking the Indians," but goes on to say that the company "were not over scrupulous in the matter of taking scalps." He makes this claim as there is evidence that while they were given (so-called) permission by British authorities to scalp Indians, they were accused of scalping Acadians and Canadians as well. His source for this accusation is a letter written in 1791 by an early Nova Scotia settler, the Rev. Hugh Graham. In it, Graham has the following to say about the activities of Danks' company during the dark days of the Expulsion of the Acadians:
"A Party of the Rangers, a Regiment chiefly employed in scouring the Country of the deluded French who had unfortunately fallen under the Bann of British Policy, came upon 4 French Men, who had with all possible Caution ventur'd out from their Skulking Retreats to pick up some of their straggling Cattle or hidden Treasure. The solitary few, the pitiable four had just sat down, weary & faint, on the Bank [of] a Stream in order to refresh themselves with some Food and Rest, when this Party of the Rangers surprizd & apprehended them. And as there was a Bounty on Indian Scalps (a Blot on Britain's Escutcheon) the Soldiers soon made the supplicating Signal, the Officers turn'd their Backs and the French were instantly shot and scalp'd. A Similar Instance happened about the same time. A Party of the Rangers brought in one day 25 Scalps pretending that they were Indian. And the Commanding Officer at the Fort then Col. Wilmot, afterwards Governor Wilmot (a poor Tool), gave Orders that the Bounty should be paid them. Capt. Houston who had at that time the Charge of the Military Chest objected [to] such Proceedings both in the Letter & Spirit of them. The Col. told him 'That According to Law the French were all out of the French, that the Bounty on Indian scalps was according to Law, and that tho' the Law might in some Instances be strain'd a little yet there was a Necessity for winking at such things.' Upon which Huston in Obedience to Orders paid down, telling them that the Curse of God should ever attend such guilty Deeds."
Doughty further observed that "these Rangers almost without Exception clos'd their days in Wretchedness and particularly a Captain Danks, who ever rode to the Extreme of his Commission in every barbarous Proceeding. In the Cumberland Insurrection [during the American Revolution] he was suspected to be "Jack on both Sides of the Bush" left Cumberland (that place) in a small Jigger bound for Windsor, was taken ill on the Passage, thrown into the hold among the ballast was taken out at Windsor half dead, and had little better than the burial of a Dog. He liv'd under a general Dislike & died without one to regret his Death."
While there is a chance Graham's moralizing account is embellished or merely tall tales told of a more barbaric time, as it was written more than thirty years after the events it discusses by a religious figure, a recent article by historian Brian D. Carroll suggests the Mi'kmaq targeted rangers from Danks' company specifically for violent retribution. And Carroll further quotes Knox himself recording regular British troops having to defend an Acadian woman from members of the company during the Petitcodiac River Campaign in 1758.
Company's Personnel
The sources for the names of the company's personnel below are two muster rolls, one (incomplete) from 1758, and another (complete) from 1761. Both are in the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester Massachusetts (the French and Indian War and Massachusetts Collections, respectively). Another source was a list of sick rangers and deserters from the company in the same collections.