Simcoe’s Military Journal. A History Of Operations Of A Partisan Corps, Called The Queen’s Rangers.

8vo. pp. xvii, [1 leaf], [13]-328. 10 folding lithographed plans. modern quarter calf (spine faded, significant foxing throughout). First American (First Trade) Edition, enlarged, with a memoir of the author. The book was originally printed at Exeter in 1787 by Simcoe for private distribution and copies are very rare. Simcoe came to America with the 35th Regiment in 1775, at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. From 1777 to 1781, he commanded the loyalist regiment known as the Queen's Rangers, which had been organized in 1776 by Col. Robert Rogers. Simcoe proved to be a very successful commander, and under his leadership, the Queen's Rangers developed a high degree of efficiency and a reputation for distinguished and honourable conduct. This is his history of the regiment and its operations in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, and Virginia. ".Simcoe brought [the regiment] up to strength, mainly by recruiting loyalist refugees and American deserters. Organized in 11 companies of 30 men each - one hussars, one grenadiers, and the rest light infantry - they served continuously for the duration of the war as reconnaissance and outpost troops: in the Pennsylvania campaign of 1778 and the subsequent retreat to New York, in Benedict Arnold's raid on Richmond, Va., and in the Yorktown campaign. Their training gave little attention to formal drill, but insisted on physical fitness, rapid movement, bayonet fighting, and, most particularly, discipline in the field.[Simcoe] was invalided home just before the surrender of Yorktown in 1781. The war had been for him a great personal success: he had risen in army rank from lieutenant to lieutenant-colonel; in action he had been one of the two or three most consistently successful of British regimental commanders; and he had acquired a reputation as a tactical theorist, which was soon enhanced by the publication at Exeter in 1787 of his Journal of the operations of the Queen's Rangers." (S.R.Mealing, DCB) Upon his appointment as the first lieutenant-governor of the newly created province of Upper Canada in 1791, Simcoe resurrected the Queen's Rangers as an infantry corps, including many officers and men from the former unit, to accompany him and serve as a pioneering force. Howes S-461. Lande 794. Sabin 81135. TPL 562. DCB V pp. 754-59 & 452-53. Winsor VIII p. 502. cfChurch 1223. cfJCB II 3160. cfStreeter II 808.…