In September 1756, fifty American soldiers set off on a routine reconnaissance near Lake George, determined to safeguard the upper reaches of the New York colony. Caught in a devastating ambush by French and native warriors, only a handful of colonials made it back alive. Toward the end of the French and Indian War, another group of survivors, long feared dead, returned home, having endured years of grim captivity among the native and French inhabitants of Canada. Pieced together from archival records, period correspondence, and official reports, Hodges' Scout relates the riveting tale of young colonists who were tragically caught up in a war they barely understood. Len Travers brings history to life by describing the variety of motives that led men to enlist in the campaign and the methods and means they used to do battle. He also reveals what the soldiers wore, the illnesses they experienced, the terror and confusion of combat, and the bitter hardships of captivity in alien lands. His remarkable research brings human experiences alive, giving us a rare, full-color view of the French and Indian War - the first true world war.
Len Travers is a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He is the author of Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic.
Acknowledgments Prologue. Recovering Lost Lives Part One 1. "Kill'd or taken" 2. Captain Hodges' Company 3. General Winslow's Dilemma 4. "Ye very bane of New England Men" 5. Slaughter 6. Captain de Bougainville's American Adventure Part Two 7. Ensign Lincoln's Great Escape 8. The Peregrinations of Peleg Stevens 9. Isaac Foster at the Edges of Empire 10. Homecomings 11. The Court-Martial of Jonathan Barnes 12. Coda Appendixes A. The Roll of Hodges' Scout B. The Captives C. William Merry's Account, Recorded 1853 D. Captain Hodges' Sword Notes Essay on Sources Index
Fascinating, vivid, and highly informed. Travers is a master of foreshadowing and verisimilitude. This is the social history of war at its best. -- Gregory Evans Dowd, University of Michigan, author of War under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire
Hodges' Scout is meticulously researched from both English and French primary sources, and it does a superb job of conveying the great brutality that characterized frontier warfare (and captivity) during the eighteenth century. All those who are interested in how colonial warfare was conducted will greatly enjoy reading this book. Journal of America's Military Past Overall, Travers succeeds in using Hodges's scout to recover the common soldier's experience in war and captivity... this book is a tale well told, one that uses the experiences of a small number of mostly anonymous men to deepen our understanding of how the Seven Years' War transformed the individual and collective lives of New England soldiers. American Historical Review
