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.
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Description
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
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