front cover of Queen Anne's War
Queen Anne's War
The Second Contest for North America, 1702–1713
Michael G. Laramie
Westholme Publishing, 2021
Although King William’s War (1689–1697) had established the basic disputes between New France and the English colonies, the conflict had resolved little beyond making it clear that the smaller French colony was more than capable of defending itself. When news of the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714), or Queen Anne’s War as it would become known in North America, arrived in 1702, few envisioned that the resumption of the previous conflict would grow to engulf eastern North America from Newfoundland to Florida, pitting the Spanish, English, and French colonies along with their respective native allies into a concerted contest for control of the continent. From the storming of Spanish St. Augustine and the opening shots along the Maine frontier, through the implementation of a series of profit-driven Indian Wars and the destruction of the Spanish mission system in Georgia and Florida, to the direct involvement of Britain in the closing days of the conflict, Queen Anne’s War: The Second Contest for North America, 1702–1713 carries the reader through this oft forgotten, but crucial period in North American history.
    Told from the halls of power in North America and Europe, and through the eyes of the men and women who found themselves embroiled in this brutal realignment of colonial interests, Queen Anne’s War recreates the world of early North American expansion at the ground level, providing riveting accounts of the battles across settlements and wilderness as well as the motives, conditions, triumphs, and failures of the Europeans and their respective Native American allies. Based on extensive primary source research and command of English, French, and Spanish sources, the narrative not only describes the economic and geopolitical ramifications of the war that reshaped North America, but intriguingly reveals the sense of independence emerging in the colonies, from Puritan New England to plantation South Carolina, at the close of the war.
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front cover of The Queen's American Rangers
The Queen's American Rangers
Donald J. Gara
Westholme Publishing, 2015
Founded by the Legendary Robert Rogers and Later Led by John Graves Simcoe, a Loyalist Unit that Fought Alongside the British Army Against the American Patriots
Prior to the British attack on Long Island in August 1776, French and Indian War hero Robert Rogers organized a regiment to join the fight—but not on the side of his native New Hampshire. Named in honor of Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, Rogers’s regiment recruited the bulk of its soldiers from the large number of Loyalist refugees on Staten Island who had fled from New York. Rogers’s command of the unit was short-lived, however, after a humiliating defeat in late October by a surprise attack on his headquarters. Under new leadership, the unit played a decisive role and suffered heavy casualties at the battle of Brandywine that brought them their first favorable attention from the British high command. With this performance, and under the able leadership of John Graves Simcoe, the Queen’s American Rangers—sometimes known as “Simcoe’s Rangers”—were frequently assigned to serve alongside British regular troops in many battles, including Monmouth, Springfield, Charleston, and Yorktown. Receiving frequent high praise from Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, the Commander in Chief of the British Army in America, the unit was placed on the American Establishment of the British Army in May 1779, a status conferred on provincial units that had performed valuable services during the war, and was renamed the 1st American Regiment. Before the end of the war, the rangers were fully incorporated into the British regular army, one of only four Loyalist units to be so honored.
The Queen’s American Rangers by historian Donald J. Gara is the first book-length account of this storied unit. Based on extensive primary source research, the book traces the complete movements, command changes, and battle performances of the rangers, from their first muster to their formal incorporation into the British Army and ultimate emigration to Canada on land grants conferred by a grateful British crown.
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