Battle on Snowshoes

On March 13, 1758, amid the ongoing French and Indian War, a clash known as the Battle on Snowshoes unfolded between a British contingent under Captain Robert Rogers and a combined force of French soldiers and their Indian allies. The fighting occurred close to Lake George, in territory that today lies within northern New York but that at the time formed the contested frontier separating the British Province of New York from French Canada. The engagement earned its distinctive name from the fact that Rogers' men trekked through the snow wearing snowshoes.

Rogers had set out with roughly 180 men, a mix of rangers and regular soldiers, on a mission to observe French troop movements. Word of their advance reached the French commander stationed at Fort Carillon, who dispatched a body of fighters, primarily Indians, to intercept them. What followed was brutal combat that left Rogers' command shattered, with casualties exceeding 130. Believing Rogers had died in the clash, the French were misled in part because he had shed his regimental coat, along with the commission papers tucked inside it, while fleeing the battlefield.

Out of this engagement grew a legend claiming that Rogers evaded capture by hurtling down a 400 foot (120 m) rock face onto the frozen expanse of Lake George below. This same outcropping bears his name today, remembered as Rogers Rock or Rogers Slide.

Background

Territorial quarrels along the colonial frontier ignited fighting between British and French settlers in 1754, and within a year regular soldiers had joined the conflict. The French found themselves winning most frontier engagements by 1756, with one significant exception: their push southward from Lake Champlain had been halted by the British during the 1755 Battle of Lake George. Operating out of Fort St. Frédéric, situated at present-day Crown Point, New York, and Fort Carillon, which the British called Fort Ticonderoga, French forces and their native allies kept probing British positions around Lake George and the upper Hudson River, gathering intelligence along the way. Lacking the same strength in Indian alliances, the British turned instead to bands of colonial rangers to handle scouting and reconnaissance work. Captain Robert Rogers organized and led these ranger companies, which in time came to be called Rogers' Rangers.

Battle

Rogers' company wasted no time laying a trap. At two in the afternoon, Durantaye's men wandered into range, and gunfire erupted from the British position, cutting down what Rogers himself described as "above forty Indians." The force under Durantaye disintegrated and fled in chaos. Roughly half of Rogers' men pursued them, careless enough to leave their muskets unloaded in the heat of the chase, while the remainder paused behind to take scalps from the fallen.

The sound of gunfire had already tipped off Langy's men, who quietly prepared an ambush of their own. As Rogers' pursuing force pushed forward, Langy's men struck, killing or wounding around fifty of them. Despite being badly outnumbered and watching their ranks thin rapidly, the Rangers held their ground with courage, managing several times to keep the enemy from wrapping around their flanks. Still, ninety minutes of fierce combat took a heavy toll, leaving their force greatly diminished.

Eventually what remained of the British troops attempted to break away from the fighting. Rogers escaped along with a portion of his men, though not everyone was so fortunate. One cluster of soldiers chose to surrender, but their fate turned grim when a scalp was found in one man's pocket, leading to their execution and scalping on the spot.

Aftermath

On March 15, what remained of Rogers' company made its way back to Fort Edward. The French had initially claimed that Rogers himself had died, though in truth he lived through the ordeal. This mistaken claim arose from how he made his getaway, shedding items along the way, including his regimental coat, which happened to hold his military commission. Out of this episode grew a local tale that he had eluded his pursuers by sliding down a four hundred foot slope to reach the frozen expanse of Lake George. No evidence confirms this happened, yet the cliff he was said to have descended soon earned the name Rogers' Slide.

Accounts of how many fought and how many fell varied widely after the engagement. Rogers himself placed the French-Indian force at roughly 700 men, claiming between one and two hundred of them were killed or wounded. Various observers questioned these figures, since they clashed with other versions of events. It was a letter from Henry Pringle, composed while he was a prisoner at Carillon, that helped clear Rogers' name by explaining the edge the French held during the second ambush. Afterward, Rogers set about reconstituting his companies and took part in the Battle of Carillon in July 1758.