The Rangers trace their origin back to the frontiersmen of the new world. The settlers there encountered stiff resistance from some of the native Indian tribes, who practiced a form of warfare alien to the settlers. Using concealment, long range scounting, and swift savage raids, the Indians inflicted a heavy toll on colonists and their property.
The Americans responded by adopting these tastics, and applied them effectively against the marauding parties of the East Coast tribes. Bands of men would often leave their settlement to search for approaching Indian raiding parties; upon completing their mission, they would report that they had "ranged" of patrolled a certain destance from their homes. The use of "ranged" led to naming these scouts, rangers.
The first organized Ranger unit was activated in 1670 to combat a hostile tribe under the leadership of Metocomet, also called King Phillip. The Rangers, commanded by Captain Benjamin Church, crushed the attacks and ended King Phillip's War in 1675.
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The French and Indian War saw the return of the Rangers. Major Robert Rogers from New Hampshire organized nine companies to fight or the British from 1756 to 1763. He published a list of 28 common sence rules, a set of 19 standing orders stressing operational readiness, security, and tactics.(Rogers Standing Orders) He astablished a training program in which he personally supervised the application of his rules. In June 1758, Rogers was cinducting life-fire training exercises.
Roger's operations were characterized by solid preparation and bold movements. His Rangers most famour action was a raid against the Abenaki Indians, reowned for their ferocity. 200 men traveled by foot and boat and covered 400 miles in roughly 60 days. Reaching the native camp undetected on September 29, 1759, the Rangers destroyed it and killed several hundred Indians. The once fearsome Abenaki tribe never posed a threat again.
The Rangers broke new ground in waging war in another way, while other units bivouached for the winter, they took the fight to the indians and French on skis, snowshoes, and even ice skates. The Rangers distinguished themselves as scouts and lethal adversaries.
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Little more than a decade later the Continental Congress called for ten companies of "expert riflemen" from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Called the "Corps of Rangers" by General George Washington, this group of 500 men would also be known as Morgan's Riflemen for their commanding officer, Colonel Daniel Morgan. The Rangers caused great losses to British troops at the battle of Freeman's Farm in September 1777 and Cowpens in January 1781. English General John Burgoyne stated that Morgan's Riflemen were "the most famous corps of the Continental Army, all crack shots."
also active during the Revolutionary War were Thomas Knowlton's Connecticut Rangers. This force of less than 150 hand-picked men were used primarily for reconnaissance. Knowlton was killed leading his men in action at harlem Heights.
Another Ranger unit of the Revolutionary War operated from the swamps of South Carolina. Here Colonel Francis C. Marion raised a group called Marion's Partisans. The Partisans were all volunteers with little or no military training but were experts in handling horses and rifles. They ranged in number from a handful to several hundred at one time. Normally working separately from the Continental army, the Partisana carried out frequent attacks against the British camps and outposts, severely disrupting lines of communication and supply. Marions men would often capture or kill colonists sympathetic to Great Britian; thisdeprived the King's Army of an efficient intelligence network in the Carolinas.
While the Partisans chiefly fought a guerrilla war from their island base deep in the marshes, they also took part in the capture of three forts and fought on the first line in the Battle of Eutaw Springs, a crucial engagement of the war. Rogers' standing orders were used by them in many o their actions.
The fighters from South Carolina finally established themselves as such a threat to British plans for conquest that a detachment led by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was assigned to wipe them out. They failed. Tarleton once chased Marion's band through 25 miles of swamp and brush; upon reaching a section that seemed impossible to navigate, Tarelton cursed Marion, crying "the dammed swamp fox, the devil himself could not catch him." Marion was named the "Swamp Fox" from then on.
Ranger tactics weren't used only by Americans during the War for Independence. John Simcoe's Queen's Rangers, Patrick Ferguson's Rangers and Thomas Browne's King's Carolina Rangers all applied their scouting and weapons skills in support of the crown.
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In the time period between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, Amercian Ranger units saw more action against the British in the War of 1812. At least 12 companies were active during this time, according to the Army Register for December 28, 1813. Rangers would also continue their familiar role of patrolling in search of indian parties in several states. The Texas Congress mobilized a ranging company in the mid-1830's. These volunteers, issued only ammunition by the state, would soon become the celebrated Texas Rangers.
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When war broke out between the union and the secessionist states, it was the Confederacy that employed Ranger tactics more widely and with greater succedd. The prominent rebel Rangers were groups led by Colonel John Singleton Mosby, General John Hunt Morgan, and Colonel Turner Ashby.
Colonel John S. Mosby organized his Rangers in north central Virginia in January 1863. From a three-man scout unit in 1862, Mosby's force grew to an operation of eight companies of Rangers by 1865. Heavily influenced by Francis Marion, Mosby adopted a similar style of hit-and-run operations that plagued Union officers and left them bewildered and woundering where he would strike next. The Rangers encouraged this confusion, since it led wary Federal units to reinforce too many points and drained needed soldiers away from the front lines. Mosby's force would then select a weaker target and deal another strong blow to their enemies.
Mosby's Rangers were proficients riflemen and horsemen who knew the stretch of Virginia in detail. They were so confident of their mastery of the terrain that they would even carry out night operations, a frist at that time.
Mosby's most well-known mission didn't result in a fire fight or a single ranger casualty. A Union colonel named Percy Wyndham once insulted Mosby and his group by calling them criminals. Mosby resolved to make Wyndham pay for his words by kidnapping him. Wyndham was located at Fairfax Courthouse, Virginia, which was a Union Army post deep behind the lines. Mosby moved out at night with 29 men. They first cut the telegraph wires runing between Centerville and Fairfax. They moved past light sentry patrols and arrived at what was supposed to be Wyndham's house. Their information was wrong, it was not his house. Mosby learned from one of his prisoners that Colonel Wyndham had recently left the camp. He also discovered that a General Edwin H. Stroghton was in Fairfax. Mosby set out to capture the Union commander instead. Posing as Federal messengers, Mosby and his men gained entry to the General's home, grabbed him and returned to a Confederate camp. That night the Rangers succeded in seizing a Union General, several other officers and enlisted men, and numerous horses while in enemy territory and had come home without a scratch.
mosby's unit contributed greatly to the Southern cause. Their deeds would win their Virginia home the name "Mosby's Confederacy." General Sheridan considered him the South's most annoying guerrilla. General Ulysses S. Grant once ordered that family members of Mosby's Rangers be captured and even called for their summary execution of known rangers without benefit of trial.
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