THE BUSHFIGHTERS
The Unsung Rangers, from Georgia to Nova Scotia, 1754–1764
Vol. Two of "Rangers of the French & Indian, Cherokee and Pontiac's Wars"

GARY S. ZABOLY, author and illustrator

Trade paperback, 8.5ʺ x 11ʺ
556 pages including a 16-page color insert
26 maps and fort plans, 47 other illustrations—paintings, photographs, drawings & 9 full-color paintings by the author

ISBN 979-8-9995144-0-0 $49.95
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The epic sweep of this book offers, for the first time, the largely unwritten narratives of the unsung, colonial Rangers—both white and Native American—from Britain’s 14 colonies (including Nova Scotia), whose contributions to the conquest of the eastern seaboard during the brutal forest wars of 1754–1764 were as important as those of Rogers’s Rangers, their more famous counterparts. Many of these irregulars began as untested amateurs, but with time and trial they became so proficient in unconventional warfare that they began inflicting consequential defeats on their French and Indian foes, and many later served as commanders on both sides during the American Revolution, their skills honed 10–20 years previously by the scouts, expeditions, and battles waged in the desperate crucible of no-holds-barred forest warfare.
…..This comprehensive, complex, well-sourced and illustrated history relies heavily on the Rangers’ own scouting reports, journals, letters and memoirs, and on the testimonies of those who campaigned with, or against them.
…..While this book’s primary focus is the Ranger experience between 1754 and 1764 in the final French and Indian War and the nearly concurrent Cherokee and Pontiac Wars, it also traces the origins and evolution of Anglo-American ranging from the early days of each colony, from King Philip’s War through the numerous English-Indigenous conflicts in the 1600s and 1700s, as well as the earlier French and Indian wars—King William’s, Queen Anne’s, and King George’s.
Among the Ranger leaders who emerge in these pages: Connecticut’s John Talcott and Israel Putnam, Delaware’s John McClughan, Georgia’s John Brown and John Milledge, Maryland’s Thomas Cresap, John Dagworthy, Evan Shelby, and Lemuel Barrett, Massachusetts’s Samuel Moseley, Benjamin Wright, Thomas Baker, Phineas Stevens, and William Barron, New Hampshire’s Winthrop Hilton and Nathaniel Folsom, New Jersey’s Peter Salnave, Walter Van Tuyl, and Amos Ogden, New York’s Henry Wendell and Cornelius Cuyler, North Carolina’s William Brice and Hugh Waddell, Pennsylvania’s Asher Clayton, John Armstrong, and James Smith, Rhode Island’s Harry Babcock, South Carolina’s James McPherson, John Grinnan, and William Thompson, Virginia’s Andrew Lewis, William Baylis, and William Christian, and Nova Scotia’s John and Joseph Gorham, Francis Bartelo, Benoni Danks, and Moses Hazen.
This is Volume Two of a series that began with To Distress the French and Their Allies: Rogers’ Rangers, 1755–1763 (Rangers of the French & Indian, Cherokee, and Pontiac’s Wars, Volume One), by Timothy J. Todish. Since Rogers’s companies are skillfully covered with fresh research and insights in that book, this volume is devoted primarily to the many other Ranger companies—independent, short-term provincial, or frontier volunteers—that served in, during the same time period. However, considering their frequent collaborations with their provincial or militia counterparts, Rogers’s Rangers necessarily reappear frequently in this volume.

AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR Gary Zaboly was born in New York City in 1950, and educated at the High School of Art and Design and the Art Students League. His membership résumé includes the Alamo Society, the New-York Historical Society, the Friends of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, and Fellowship in the Company of Military Historians. In 1997 he received the Gold Award of Merit in Texas History. In 2012 he won two awards—the Summerfield G. Roberts, and the Reuben Potter—for his book, An Altar for Their Sons: The Alamo and the Texas Revolution in Contemporary Newspaper Accounts. His other works of history include the comprehensive, definitive biography, A True Ranger: The Life and Many Wars of Major Robert Rogers, and American Colonial Ranger: The Northern Colonies, 1724–1764.
Since 1973 Zaboly has also specialized in historical art for publications, museums, prints, and other venues, including TV documentaries and CD-ROMs. Books containing his works include Texian Iliad : A Military History of the Texas Revolution, by Stephen L. Hardin; The Annotated and Illustrated Journals of Major Robert Rogers, by Timothy J. Todish and Gary Zaboly; Blood of Noble Men: The Alamo Siege and Battle, by Alan C. Huffines; The Texas Frontier and the Butterfield Overland Mail, 1858–1861, by Glen Sample Ely; The Scottish Jacobite Army 1745–46, by Stuart Reid; On the Prairie at Palo Alto: Archaeology of the U.S. Mexican War Battlefield, by Charles M. Haecker and Jeffrey G. Mauck; Empires in the Mountains, by Russell P. Bellico; The Alamo and Beyond: A Collector’s Journey, by singer Phil Collins; Rising above Circumstances: The Rogers Family in Colonial America, by Robert J. Rogers; Strong Ground: Mount Independence in the American Revolution; and To Distress the French and Their Allies: Rogers’ Rangers, 1755–1763, Vol. I of Rangers of the French and Indian, Cherokee, and Pontiac’s Wars, by Timothy J. Todish. In 2017 Zaboly won the Susannah DeBlack Award for Best Illustrated book in Arkansas history, William R. Jones’s Petit Jean: A Wilderness Adventure.
Periodicals containing his articles include American History Illustrated, The Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, True West, Muzzleloader, Muzzle Blasts, Military Collector and Historian, The Alamo Journal, The Journal of the Bronx County Historical Society, The Riverdale Press, and The Journal of the Alamo Battlefield Association. Institutions and private parties owning his artwork include the Fort Ticonderoga Museum; the Alamo (some of it exhibited in its Wall of History and new Visitor Center Museum); The Aztec Club of 1847; the Lake George Historical Society; the Montana Historical Society; the Custer Battlefield Museum; the Caddo Mounds Historic Site; the Bankton House (Scotland); the Fort Number Four Living History Museum; the Mount Independence Historic Site; the Chambers County Historical Commission (Texas); the Derry Historical Society (New Hampshire); the Kingsbridge Historical Society; the Rogers Island Visitors Center; the Upcountry Museum (South Carolina); Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson; and singer Phil Collins. Since 1977 Zaboly has also lectured at various historic sites.