Don't Shoot Until You See The Whites Of Their Eyes!

   As most of the world probably knows, prior to the American Revolutionary war and the founding of the United States of America, the Puritans, English Protestants who didn't believe that the Church of England was doing enough to distance itself from the practices of the Roman Catholic Church, left England en masse for the recently discovered land of North America. 

   They settled an area that is now known as New England (an area that comprises the states of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, & Rhode Island) and first established Plymouth Colony, and then a few years later, the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

   What followed after the establishment of those colonies was nearly 130 years of war between the English colonists and their allies the Iroquois people, and the French colonists and their allies known as the Algonquians.

   Cliff notes, gotta love 'em.

   Those wars dramatically changed the way wars were fought then, and are fought now (crazy that wars still exist in this enlightened age, eh?).

   The big change can be summed up in two words: Guerilla warfare.

   See, for a few thousand years Armies fought each other by forming regimented columns and then basically charging into each other, which generally resulted in victory for the largest army, as the larger the group of men a country could put into action, the better the chances would be that they'd have the last man standing, and thus be victorious.

   History credits a British Major, one Robert Rogers, with being the first person to codify guerilla warfare. He fused tactics he had learned and/or developed serving in various Colonial militias since 1746 with tactics he observed being used by the tribes fighting one another (and how they fought for and against the French & British).

   When he was charged with putting together a light infantry unit that became known as Robert's Rangers in 1756, he set down on paper the following rules and procedures (Note, this is being written down verbatim - no attempt has been made to contemporize the language or correct the grammar):

1) Don't forget nothing.

2) Have your musket clean as a whistle, hatchet scoured, sixty rounds powder and ball, and be ready to march at a minute's warning.

3) When you're on the march, act the way you would if you was sneaking up on deer. See the enemy first.

4) Tell the truth about what you see and what you do. There is an army depending on us for correct information. You can lie all you please when you tell other folks about the Rangers, but don't never lie to a Ranger or officer.

5) Don't never take a chance you don't have to.

6) When we're on the march we march single file, far enough apart so one shot can't go through two men.

7) If we strike swamps, or soft ground, we spread out abreast, so it's hard to track us.

8) When we march, we keep moving till dark, so as to give the enemy the least possible chance at us.

9) When we camp, half the party stays awake while the other half sleeps.

10) If we take prisoners, we keep 'em separate till we have had time to examine them, so they can't cook up a story between 'em.

11) Don't ever march home the same way. Take a different route so you won't be ambushed.

12) No matter whether we travel in big parties or little ones, each party has to keep a scout 20 yards ahead, 20 yards on each flank and 20 yards in the rear, so the main body can't be surprised and wiped out.

13) Every night you'll be told where to meet if surrounded by a superior force.

14) Don't never sit down to eat without posting sentries.

15) Don't sleep beyond dawn. Dawn's when the French and Indian's attack.

16) Don't cross a river by a regular ford.

17) If somebody's trailing you, make a circle, come back on your own tracks, and ambush the folks who aim to ambush you. 

18) Don't stand up when the enemy's coming against you. Kneel down. Hide behind a tree.

19) Let the enemy come till he's almost close enough to touch. Then let him have it and jump out and finish him up with your hatchet.

 Modifications of those rules and guidelines have been made by various Ranger units over the years (Roberts himself expanded them to 28 Rules of Rangin' in 1759) and are still in use to this day.