As She Began. Bruce Wilson

this change in strategy, in September 1777 John Butler was commissioned to raise a corps of rangers. Butler’s Rangers, the last of the major Loyalist regiments operating out of Canada to be formed, was to consist of eight companies, two to be of “people speaking the Indian language and acquainted with their customs and manner of making war” and the six remaining “to be composed of people speaking the Indian language and well acquainted with the woods, in consideration of the fatigue they were liable to undergo.” At its height the corps contained about six hundred men. Butler’s Rangers were similar in organization and function to the rangers attached directly to the Indian Department; both were composed of colonials and in the field the two were often indistinguishable.