RR-002 - Rangers preparing for a raid set #2.

Supplies were usually placed in bags , which in turn were rolled up in a blanket, tumpline pack, or carried in a knapsack. Supplies for a raid would include ‘beef, pork, rum, sugar, rice and peas’. Kegs of gunpowder were also included for such a large raid. During the initial stages of the St. Francis raid, the infamous “Gunpowder Mystery” was to reduce the raiding force by twenty-five percent. An “explosion” was to lead to 2 officers and 38 men sent back before the raid had hardly begun.

There was usually little time to prepare for a raid, Rangers were expected to be ready and in their boats in less than an hour.

In Roger’s rules of ranging, it was instructed that every evening all Rangers were to appear at roll-call, each equiped , with a musket, sixty rounds of powder and ball, and a hatchet. At a sudden crisis, the order would be shouted, “Turn out, Rangers!” and the men would rush to their parades with arms in hand.