Along the frontiers of the northern American colonies, where most of the battles of the French and Indian War (1754–63) unfolded, “Rangers” emerged as indispensable allies to both the regular and provincial armies. These backwoodsmen, skilled hunters, trappers, militiamen, and Indian fighters, operated independently rather than in regimented ranks. They relied on their knowledge of the terrain and their firearms to survive, living off the land. Despite the qualities that many commanders detested in the Rangers—their field attire resembling that of “savage” Indians, unconventional tactics, occasional obstreperousness, and democratic recruiting standards that included blacks and Indians—these very traits contributed to their exceptional ability to combat their formidable Canadian and Indian adversaries. They excelled in various weather conditions and environments.
Battles with Native American warriors in the early 17th century revealed the near-ineffectiveness of European armor, pikes, cavalry, and traditional maneuvers in the dense New World forests. Despite the courageous and adaptable nature of New England militia units during the devastating King Philip’s War (1676–77), it wasn’t until the early 1700s that colonists could produce frontiersmen capable of penetrating deep into uncharted Indian territory. For instance, in 1709, Captain Benjamin Wright led 14 Rangers on a remarkable 400-mile (640km) round trip by canoe, traversing the Connecticut River, crossing the Green Mountains, and reaching the northern end of Lake Champlain. Along the way, they engaged in four skirmishes with Native Americans.
Among the most effective of the early Rangers were the “Indian hunters” under the command of Massachusetts’ Captain John Lovewell. Their epic battle at Lovewell’s Pond on May 9, 1725, against the Pigwacket Abenakis, led by the bearskin-robed war chief Paugus, became a pivotal moment in New England frontier history. This battle was recounted around hearths and campfires for decades, serving as a testament to the fact that Indian warriors were not invincible in the woods. It provided valuable lessons to future Rangers, demonstrating that the wilderness could be conquered.
When the third war for control of North America erupted in 1744, commonly known as King George’s War after George II, several veterans of Lovewell’s fight formed their own Ranger companies and shared their valuable field knowledge. Among the recruits who joined one company assigned to scout the upper Merrimack River valley around Rumford (later Concord), New Hampshire, was the teenager Robert Rogers.
The war of 1744–48 turned into a largely defensive struggle for the northern colonies due to the incessant French and Indian inroads. Log stockades and blockhouses provided protection for refugee frontier families, and Rumford itself boasted 12 such “garrison houses.” While not on patrol or pursuing enemy raiders, Rangers served as armed guards for workers in the field. Bells and cannon from the forts sounded warnings whenever the enemy was detected in the vicinity.
At the onset of the final French and Indian War, each newly raised provincial regiment typically comprised one or two Ranger companies. These men were lightly dressed and equipped to serve as swift-reaction strike forces, as well as scouts and intelligence gatherers. The Duke of Cumberland, the Captain General of the British Army, not only encouraged their formation but also advised that some regular troops would need to reinvent themselves along Ranger lines before they could successfully conduct wilderness campaigns.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t until after the shocking 1757 fall of Fort William Henry that plans were finally accelerated to counterbalance the large numbers of Canadian and Indian partisans. Enlightened redcoat generals like Brigadier George Augustus Howe, the older brother of William, recognized that the forest war couldn’t be won without Rangers. Howe was so convinced of this that in 1758, he persuaded Major-General James Abercromby to revamp his entire army to resemble the Rangers in terms of dress, arms, and drill. Major-General Jeffrey Amherst, who would eventually lead the conquest of Canada, championed Major Robert Rogers and the formation of a Ranger corps as soon as he became the new commander-in-chief in late 1758. “I shall always cheerfully receive Your opinion in relation to the Service you are Engaged in,” he promised Rogers. In the summer of 1759, Amherst’s faith in the Rangers was rewarded when, during the siege of Fort Carillon at Ticonderoga, they once again proved themselves the only unit in the army skilled enough to handle the enemy’s bushfighters. Even the general’s highly regarded Louisbourg light infantry faced Amherst’s wrath after two night attacks by Indians resulted in 18 of their men being killed and wounded, primarily due to friendly fire.
Before the year ended, Rogers had burned the Abenaki village of Odanak, located on the distant St. Francis River. Odanak’s warriors had long been the persistent adversaries of the New England frontier. In 1760, following the Rangers’ successful campaign in expelling French troops from the Richelieu River valley, Amherst dispatched Rogers and his men on a crucial mission. Their task was to deliver the news of Montreal’s surrender to the French outposts situated nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) to the west. Recognizing the unique capabilities of Rogers’ men, Amherst entrusted them with this formidable task, as they were the sole soldiers within his vast 17,000-man army capable of accomplishing it.
Captain Robert Rogers’ Ranger corps emerged as the primary model for the eventual transformation of the regular and provincial army in that region. While Rogers’ men played a pivotal role, other colonial irregulars, such as Israel Putnam’s Connecticut Rangers, companies of Stockbridge Mahican and Connecticut Mohegan Indians, Joseph Gorham’s and George Scott’s Nova Scotia Rangers, and home-based companies like Captain Hezekiah Dunn’s on the New Jersey frontier, also contributed significantly to the British military’s success during the war. During Pontiac’s War (1763–64), Ranger companies led by notable captains like Thomas Cresap and James Smith were mobilized to defend key towns and valleys along the Maryland and Pennsylvania border.
Rogers’ Rangers, the most renowned, active, and influential colonial partisan force during the French and Indian War, never achieved the long-term establishment of a British regular regiment, complete with a permanent officer cadre. Unlike the annually raised provincial troops, they were not classified as a regiment or a battalion. At its peak, Rogers’ command consisted solely of a collection, or corps, of short-term, independently raised Ranger companies. Technically, “Rogers’ Rangers” referred to the men serving in the single company he commanded. By courtesy, the title was extended to the other Ranger companies (excluding provincial units) with the Hudson Valley/Lake George army, as he held the senior Ranger officer position there.
Rogers first led Ranger Company Number One of Colonel Joseph Blanchard’s New Hampshire Regiment during the 1755 Lake George campaign. Despite the absence of bounties or salaries, thirty-two brave individuals volunteered to remain with him at Fort William Henry that winter. Their mission was to continue scouting and raiding enemy forts in the north.
Near the beginning of the spring of 1756, reports of Rogers’ success in the field prompted Massachusetts’ Governor-General William Shirley (then the temporary commander of British forces) to bestow upon him the command of an independent company of Rangers. This company would consist of 60 privates, three sergeants, an ensign, and two lieutenants. Notably, Rogers’ brother, Richard, would serve as his first lieutenant. No longer confined to provincial boundaries, Rogers’ Rangers would receive compensation and sustenance from the royal war chest and would be accountable to British commanders. Although not a permanent establishment, Ranger officers would receive nearly the same pay as redcoat officers, while Ranger privates would earn twice as much as their provincial counterparts, who were themselves paid higher wages than the regulars. (Captain Joseph Gorham’s older Ranger company, based in Nova Scotia, had the privilege of a royal commission, which granted them a permanency that was denied to those units serving in the Hudson Valley.) Rogers was instructed by Shirley to enlist only individuals who were accustomed to traveling and hunting, and in whose courage and loyalty he could place his trust.
Since the men of Rogers’ own company, as well as those from the additional companies raised by his veteran officers, were generally frontier-bred, the amount of basic training they underwent was not as extensive as that endured by the average redcoat recruit. For instance, a typical Derryfield farmer would have already demonstrated proficiency as a tracker and hunter when he joined the Ranger service. He was likely capable of constructing a bark or brush lean-to within an hour, navigating through the darkest woods, crafting rope from the inner bark of specific trees, and surviving for days on a sparse trail diet.
The typical New Hampshire recruit possessed exceptional marksmanship skills, as observed by Captain Henry Pringle of the 27th Foot. Based at Fort Edward and a volunteer in one of Rogers’ major scouting expeditions, Pringle documented an incident in December 1757 where a Ranger officer achieved remarkable accuracy. He shot four balls in four shots, successfully killing a brace of deer, a pheasant, and a pair of wild ducks, with the latter being shot at a single shot. According to an eyewitness in Nova Scotia, many New England troops were renowned for their exceptional marksmanship. They could carry their firelocks on their backs, turn on their bellies, and take aim at their enemies. Their entire joy lay in shooting at targets for wages, making them among the best marksmen in the world.
The emphasis on marksmanship in Rogers’ corps, coupled with the issuance of rifled carbines to many of the men, resulted in their frequent victories against the Canadians and Indians. Marksmanship remains one of the most significant legacies of the Rangers, a skill that continues to be emphasized in the training of today’s high-tech special forces. Even in Rogers’ only significant defeat, the battle on Snowshoes on March 13, 1758, the sharpshooting of his heavily outnumbered Rangers held off the encircling enemy for an impressive 90 minutes. Over two dozen Indians were killed and wounded, including one of their war chiefs. This unusually high casualty rate for the stealthy Native Americans, who were not accustomed to such losses, according to Montcalm of the battle, left the Indians enraged. In response, they summarily executed a similar number of Rangers who had surrendered on the promise of good quarter.
Learning how to operate watercraft on the northern lakes and streams was another crucial skill for every Ranger. In Rogers’ earliest forays on Lake George, birchbark canoes and bateaux (rowing vessels designed for transporting goods) were used. However, in 1756, these were replaced by newly arrived whaleboats made of light cedar planking. These boats were designed for speed and featured keels, round bottoms, and sharp ends, enabling quick changes in direction and agile handling even on choppy waters. Blankets could be rigged as improvised sails.
Additional skills that the new recruit had to learn or perfect included building a raft, fording a rapid river without a raft or boat, portaging a whaleboat over a mountain range, logging a position in the forest as a makeshift breastwork, designing and sewing a pair of moccasins, uttering bird and animal calls as “private signals” in the woods, and sometimes lighting and hurling a grenade.
Since the modus operandi of Rangers remained unknown to the regular army, Rogers was ordered in 1757 to compile a compendium of “rules, or plan of discipline” for those “Gentlemen Officers” who desired to learn Ranger methods. To ensure proper understanding of the lessons, 50 regular volunteers from eight regiments formed a special company to fall under Rogers’ tutelage. His task was to instruct them in “our methods of marching, retreating, ambushing, fighting, &c.” Many of these rules, totaling 28 in number, were essentially derived from old Indian tactics and techniques, which were well-known to New England frontiersmen.
Rule II, for instance, stipulated that if your scouting party was small, “march in a single file, maintaining a distance from each other that prevents one shot from killing two men.” Rule V advised that a party leaving enemy territory should return home via a different route to avoid ambushes on familiar ground. Rule X warned that if the enemy was about to overwhelm you, “disperse the entire body, and each person take a different road to the rendezvous point designated for the evening.”
Other rules required that even the most skilled recruit undergo specialized training in bush-fighting tactics. For example, Rule VI stated that if 300–400 Rangers were marching “with the intention of attacking the enemy,” “divide your party into three columns…and let the columns march in single files. The columns to the right and left should maintain a distance of twenty yards [20m] or more from the center column, with proper guards positioned in front, rear, and on the flanks.” If attacked from the front, “form a front of your three columns or main body with the advanced guard, keeping out your flanking parties…to prevent the enemy from pursuing aggressively on either of your wings or surrounding you, which is the typical tactic of the savages.”
Rule VII advised the Rangers to “fall, or squat down,” if forced to take the enemy’s initial fire, and “then rise and discharge at them.” Rule IX suggested that “if you are compelled to retreat, let the front of your entire party fire and fall back, until the rear has done the same, making for the best ground you can. By this means, you will compel the enemy to pursue you, if they do so at all, in the face of a continuous fire.”
During the war, most of Rogers’ activities were not battles and skirmishes but rather lightning raids, pursuits, and other special operations. As General Shirley’s 1756 orders stated, Rogers was tasked with using his best efforts to distress the French and their allies by sacking, burning, and destroying their houses, barns, barracks, canoes, battoes, and other property. The “&c” included slaughtering the enemy’s herds of cattle and horses, ambushing and destroying their supply sleighs, setting fire to their fields of grain and piles of cordwood, sneaking into the ditches of their forts to gather intelligence, and seizing prisoners for interrogation.
When the large armies led by Johnson, Abercromby, Forbes, Wolfe, Amherst, Bouquet, and others marched into enemy territory, Rangers served as advanced and flank guards. They often engaged and repelled the kind of partisan attacks that had devastated Braddock’s force. In bush fighting, camouflage was of utmost importance, and for Rogers’ men, green attire became a constant throughout the war. Other Anglo-American irregulars, such as Gage’s 80th Light Infantry and Putnam’s Connecticut Rangers, wore brown. Some, like Bradstreet’s armed bateau men and Dunn’s New Jersey Rangers, wore gray. A few Ranger companies in Nova Scotia wore dark blue or black.
Green may have been their preferred color, but Rogers’ men never had a consistent uniform pattern throughout their five-year career, unlike the regulars and some provincial regiments. During a campaign with Rogers in Nova Scotia in July 1757, a Derryfield farmer-turned-Ranger would have been dressed in “no particular uniform,” as noted by observer Captain John Knox of the 46th. Each Ranger wore their “cloaths short,” which likely signified a variety of coats, jackets, waistcoats, or just shirts, all deliberately trimmed to make them lighter. In the field, the Rangers often resembled Indians, exhibiting a “cut-throat, savage appearance,” as one writer at Louisbourg recorded in 1758.
Among the numerous dangers faced by a Ranger assigned to a winter scout in the Adirondack Mountains were temperatures that sometimes reached 40 degrees below zero, snowblindness, bleeding feet, hypothermia, frostbite, gangrene, and lost fingers, toes, and noses. Deep slush often covered the frozen lakes, and sometimes a man would fall through a hole in the ice. Rogers routinely sent back those who began limping or complaining during the first days on the trail. Things only became more challenging as they approached the enemy forts. Fireless camps had to be endured unless they found a depression on a high ridge where a deep hole could be scooped out with snowshoes to accommodate a small fire. Around this fire, they set up shelters of pine boughs, each containing “mattresses” of evergreen branches overlaid with bearskins. Wrapped in their blankets like human cocoons, the Rangers would dangle their feet over the flames or coals to spend a relatively comfortable night.
Guarding the Ranger camp in no-man’s land or enemy territory required sentry parties of six men each, with two of them constantly on alert. When relieved, the sentries should be relieved without making any noise. At dawn, the entire detachment was awakened, as it was the time when the savages usually attacked their enemies. Before setting out again, the area around the campsite was searched for enemy tracks.
To prevent burning too many calories and sweating excessively, the men carried provisions, bedding, and extra clothing on hand-sleds. As expert snowshoers, they could climb over several large mountains in a single day, as demonstrated by provincial Jeduthan Baldwin during a trek with Rogers in March 1756. In addition to extra warm clothing like flannel under jackets, woolen socks, shoepack liners, fur caps, and thick mittens, the marching winter Rangers wrapped, belted, and sometimes hooded their blankets around them, much like the Indians did.
Battling the French and Indians in snow that was often chest-deep could be fatal for a Ranger with a broken snowshoe. Ironically, the green clothing worn by Rogers’ men proved to be a disadvantage when they had a white slope of snow behind them. According to Captain Pringle, during the 1758 battle on Snowshoes, Rogers’ servant was forced to discard his green jacket in the field, as I did with my fur-lined cap, which became a target for the enemy and likely caused a slight wound on my face. Pringle, who was not accustomed to snowshoes, was unable to join the surviving Rangers in their retreat at the end of the battle. He and two other men endured seven days of wandering the white forest before surrendering to the French.
Given the nature of their operations, the Rangers had to be exceptionally disciplined with their rations. During a winter trek in 1759, Ranger sutler James Gordon recorded, “I had a pound or two of bread, a dozen crackers, about two pounds of fresh pork, and a quart of brandy.” Henry Pringle, who survived his post-battle ordeal in the forest, subsisted on “a small Bologna sausage, a little ginger, water, and the bark and berries of trees.” They also consumed the Indians’ favorite trail food, parched corn, corn that had been parched and then ground into flour. This was essentially an appetite suppressant: a spoonful of it, followed by a drink of water, expanded in the stomach, making the traveler feel as though they had consumed a substantial meal.
Obtaining food from the enemy helped sustain the Rangers on their return home. Slaughtered cattle herds at Ticonderoga and Crown Point provided tongues, which Rogers described as “a very great refreshment.” In 1759, David Perry and several other Rangers of Captain Moses Hazen’s company raided a French house near Quebec, finding “plenty of pickled Salmon, which was quite a rarity to most of us.” They also dined on “hasty-pudding” at another house. At St Francis, Rogers’ men packed corn for the long march back, but after eight days, he noted that their “provisions grew scarce.” For some reason, game was also scarce in the northern New England wilderness during the fall of 1759, putting the Rangers’ survival skills to severe tests even as they were being pursued by a vengeful enemy. Occasionally, they found an owl, partridge, or muskrat to shoot, but much of the time, they dined on amphibians, mushrooms, beech leaves, and tree bark. Volunteer Robert Kirk of the 77th Highland Regiment recounted their dire situation, stating, “We were obliged to scrape under the snow for acorns, and even to eat our shoes and belts, and broil our powder-horns, and thought it delicious eating.”
Things grew so dire that some Rangers resorted to roasting Abenaki bounty scalps for the small circles of flesh they contained. A small party of Rangers and light infantry was ambushed and nearly annihilated by the French and Indians. Upon discovering the bodies, other Rangers were driven to cannibalism, consuming parts of the victims raw and stuffing the remaining flesh, including heads, into their packs. One Ranger later confessed that he and his starving comrades “hardly deserved the name of human beings.”
In 1758, a lieutenant of the 55th Foot stationed at Lake George expressed his despair, stating, “We are in a most damnable country, fit only for wolves and its native savages.” In such a challenging environment, the Rangers were constantly pushed to their physical and psychological limits, especially when captured by the enemy.
One such instance involved teenager Thomas Brown, who was severely wounded after Rogers’ January 1757 battle near Ticonderoga. He was bleeding profusely from three bullet holes and, if possible, decided to crawl into the woods and die of his wounds. Brown was later captured by Indians who frequently threatened his life. He was forced to dance around a fellow Ranger who was being slowly tortured at a stake.
After recovering from his wounds, Brown was later traded to a Canadian merchant, who treated him no better than a slave. However, Brown managed to escape. Captain Israel Putnam himself was once saved from a burning stake by the last-minute intervention of a Canadian officer. Ranger William Moore endured a harrowing experience when his heart was forced into his mouth by a slain comrade. Later, Moore was subjected to the torture of having approximately 200 pine splints stuck into his body, each one about to be set afire by his captors. Fortunately, a woman of the tribe intervened and adopted him.
Two captured Indian Rangers were shackled with irons and shipped to France, where they were sold into “extreme hard labor.”
Tasks that seemed insurmountable to others were routine for the Rangers. In July 1756, Rogers and his men carved a 6-mile (10km) path through the forested mountains between Lake George and Wood Creek. They then transported five armed whaleboats over the path to conduct a raid on French shipping on Lake Champlain. During their march to St. Francis, the Rangers endured nine days of slogging through a bog where they barely had a dry place to sleep. Rogers himself reportedly escaped pursuing Indians after his battle in March 1758 by sliding down a smooth mountain slope nearly 700ft (210m) long. In 1760, his four-month mission to Detroit and back covered over 1,600 miles (2,500km), one of the most remarkable expeditions in American history.
At the end of the campaign, of course, there were rewards to be enjoyed. In late August 1758, Rogers treated his company to a barrel of wine. After a large bonfire was lit, the men gathered around it to celebrate their recent British victories. As the Richelieu Valley was being cleared of French troops in 1760, provincial captain Samuel Jenks expressed delight, stating that the Rangers had learned that the women in the area were very kind. This seemed to suggest that they would fare better when they reached the more settled parts of the country. Natural wonders that had never been seen by any British soldiers, including Niagara Falls, awaited the 200 Rangers who followed Rogers that year. Their mission was to lay claim to Canada’s Great Lakes country for England and to win the friendship of some of the very tribes they had frequently fought against.
When Congress established the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, the original 10 Rifle Companies were predominantly composed of frontiersmen and some militia leaders who were already veterans of a unit known as Roger’s Rangers.
Roger’s Rangers were skilled woodsmen who fought for the British during the French and Indian War. They frequently conducted winter raids against French outposts, skillfully blending native-American techniques with pioneering skills. Their operations were particularly effective in terrains where traditional militias struggled to operate.
According to historian Glenn Williams at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, the American ranger tradition actually originated in the early 17th century on the frontier.
Williams explained that the rangers would “range” between one post and another. These rangers were typically full-time soldiers drawn from the militia and were paid by colonial governments to patrol between frontier posts. Their primary responsibility was to “look for Indian signs” and provide early warnings of hostile Indian intentions.
In 1675, Benjamin Church of Massachusetts established a unit that combined frontiersmen with friendly Indians to conduct raids against hostile native Americans. Some consider his memoirs, published in 1716 by his son, to be the first American military manual.
When the French and Indian War commenced in 1755, Capt. Robert Rogers of New Hampshire enlisted frontiersmen to form companies that could support the British Army. These companies were tasked with conducting long-range patrols through the wilderness in all weather conditions and challenging terrains. Their primary objectives included gathering intelligence, capturing prisoners, and conducting raids.
The Rangers also engaged in retaliatory attacks on the villages of hostile Native American tribes, such as the Abenakis, in response to raids on British settlements. Subsequently, Rogers relocated the Rangers westward to capture Fort Detroit for the British, along with several other French posts located on the Great Lakes.
When the American Revolution erupted in 1775, some colonial militia units were led by veterans of the Rogers Rangers. Among these was John Stark.
At the onset of the American Revolution, John Stark commanded the 1st New Hampshire Militia. His unit participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill before being integrated into the Continental Army.
Stark achieved significant recognition during the Battle of Bennington in 1777. He successfully encircled a British infantry force that comprised Indians, Tories, and Hessians. The American victory across the New York border from Bennington, Vermont, was considered one of the most strategic victories in the early years of the Revolution, according to historians from the Committee of Military History (CMH).
The British were marching toward Bennington to acquire horses for their cavalry and supplies for their main army, as stated by Williams. Their defeat in Bennington prevented the main force from receiving much-needed supplies, which ultimately contributed to the British Northern Army’s surrender after the Battles of Saratoga.
Stark later became a major general and commander of the Northern Department of the Continental Army. He later coined the phrase “live free or die,” which became the New Hampshire state motto.
When the New England militias encountered the British at Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775, the Continental Congress convened to discuss a unified strategy. On June 14, they authorized the establishment of 10 Rifle Companies: six from Pennsylvania, two from Virginia, and two from Maryland.
Williams explained that the rifle was believed to be a weapon capable of instilling fear in the British defending Boston.
At that time, rifles were primarily used by frontiersmen in the middle colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, according to Williams. In contrast, the New England militias strictly used muskets. Williams explained that muskets were more effective for massed volley fire and could be reloaded three times as quickly. Additionally, the sturdier and more robust muskets could be equipped with bayonets.
Rifles, however, boasted three times the range and could be effective up to 300 yards away. The sharpshooters in the Continental Army companies often targeted British officers from a distance, leading to complaints that the colonials were not fighting fairly, according to Williams.
In essence, the Rifle Companies functioned much like the Army Ranger units of today, Williams explained. They were specialized light infantry that conducted independent long-range scouting missions because they were accustomed to operating in that manner on the frontier.
Legend has it that as a young boy, Israel Putnam killed the last wolf in Connecticut, making the area safe for sheep farming. He reportedly crawled into the den with a torch in one hand and a musket in the other.
As a member of Roger’s Rangers, Putnam was captured by the Caughnawaga Indians during a campaign in northern New York. He was reportedly saved from being roasted alive only by a torrential thunderstorm. In 1759, he led a regiment in the attack on Fort Carillon near Lake Champlain, which was eventually captured and renamed Fort Ticonderoga.
In 1762, Putnam survived a shipwreck during the British invasion of Cuba, which resulted in the capture of Havana. Legend has it that he brought tobacco seeds back that were planted near Hartford and eventually became the renowned “Connecticut wrapper.”
In the late 1760s, as a member of the Connecticut General Assembly, Putnam frequently voiced his opposition to British taxation and played a pivotal role in founding the Sons of Liberty. When the conflict erupted in 1775, Putnam offered his services and was appointed a major general in the militia, second only to Artemas Ward. He emerged as a prominent figure during the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Legend has it that Putnam instructed William Prescott to instruct his troops at Bunker Hill to refrain from firing until they could see the whites of their eyes. This strategic decision was crucial due to the militia’s limited ammunition supply and the tendency of untrained troops to shoot high when firing downhill, as explained by Williams.
Following the Battle of Bunker Hill, when the Continental Army was established in July 1775, Putnam was commissioned as a colonel and entrusted with the command of the 3rd Connecticut Regiment. Subsequently, he was appointed to the defense of New York.
As the British evacuated Boston in March 1776, the Continental Army remained uncertain about the potential location of the British invasion. New York was a likely target, and Putnam took charge of preparing defenses there until General George Washington led the main Continental Army to the city.
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