Danks' Rangers

rdf:langString Danks' Rangers

rdf:langString Danks' Rangers

rdf:langString British Army Ranger

rdf:langString Captain Benoni Danks

rdf:langString One Company

rdf:langString Reconnaissance, counter-insurgency, and light infantry operations

rdf:langString Reconnaissance, Counter-insurgency, and Light Infantry

rdf:langString Danks' Rangers

rdf:langString Danks' Rangers was a ranger unit raised in colonial North America and led by Captain Benoni Danks (ca. 1716-1776). It was modeled on and often served alongside of the better known Gorham's Rangers. The unit was recruited in early 1756, during the early stages of the Seven Years' War / French and Indian War, from among men serving in two then-disbanding New England provincial battalions stationed in Nova Scotia. Raised to help protect the British garrison on the Isthmus of Chignecto and secure the area after the siege of Fort Beauséjour, their principle foes were Acadian and Mi'kmaq Indians conducting a low-level insurgency against the British authorities in Nova Scotia. Their primary area of operations was the northwestern portion of Nova Scotia and the north and eastern parts of what would later become New Brunswick. The unit averaged a little over one hundred men for much of its existence, although it seems to have been augmented to 125 for the attack on Havana in 1762.The company often operated in tandem with Gorham's Rangers, based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and after 1761, the two companies were combined into a Nova Scotia ranging corps, led by Major Joseph Gorham.