Robert Rogers, commander of Rogers' Rangers during the French and Indian War, was the war's best-known colonial military hero and, in the ensuing peace, one of the best-known Americans of any description, rivaling Benjamin Franklin in popularity. Rogers is known today for his role in developing the mystique of the modern Ranger, but what explains his meteoric rise and his long, depressing fall?
Robert Rogers, Ranger: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon by Martin Klotz is a fresh look at the life of this famous, yet highly flawed man. Rogers undeniably had great personal strengths. At the same time Rogers had enormous weaknesses that undermined his ability to lead effectively. Rogers never found a comfortable place in America. Instead, his aristocratic patrons in London, who knew him mostly from his own self-description, gave him his most valuable opportunities, including commanding an important military and trading center on the colonial frontier and establishing the Queen's Rangers to fight alongside Crown forces during the Revolution. But when the British cause failed in America, Rogers became an anathema on both sides of the Atlantic. A fascinating inquiry into an eighteenth-century life, Robert Rogers, Ranger presents this American legend as he lived, crossing the line between fame and misfortune.