When the provincials reached Fort Edward, they were drilled daily and taught to fire by platoon and to shoot at a mark. They were sent into the woods to learn how to fight.
One company from each regiment of the regulars was fitted out as light infantry and clothed lightly. Plenty of powder and ball was given to these men, and we used to go into the woods with them and give them an idea of wood-fighting. We had a good deal of fun out of all this. It was solid comfort to go out with a batch of conceited fellows and show them how very green they were.
The soldiers were sent in bathing daily. The sick, if they had sufficient strength, had to go to the doctor for their medicines and to the river to wash and bathe. Amherst thought that spruce beer was a remedy against scurvy and made great quantities of it. We could have all we wanted at the rate of half a penny for a quart.
MILITARY PUNISHMENTS
Discipline was very rigid. Men were constantly being flogged. And one sometimes saw the drummers give a man two or three hundred stripes with the cat-o'-nine-tails, at the head of his regiment. Every now and then the drummers would rest, and a surgeon would examine the man to see if he could endure the remainder of the punishment. Some were punished by riding the wooden horse, and a couple were hanged for stealing cattle.
The woods along the path from Fort Edward were cut down for quite a distance on either side of the path, that the enemy might not ambuscade our parties. And little forts were built every three or four miles along the road. No one died of idleness that spring.
Our old uniforms were pretty well used up. When a jacket or a pair of breeches gave out, we replaced them with a deerskin shirt or breeches, which we made ourselves.
In the spring General Amherst gave the Rangers a new uniform. It was a blue cap or bonnet, such as the Highlanders wore, and a waistcoat and short jacket of black frieze lapelled with blue. There were no arms to the waistcoat or jacket, only armholes, and on the shoulders were little wings, such as the drummers and grenadiers wore. Hector called us Amherst's angels. The buttons were of white metal. We had drawers of linen or light canvas, and over them leggings of black frieze reaching to the thighs. From the calf down, they were buttoned with white metal buttons, and came over the feet like splatterdashes. At our waist was fastened a short kilt of blue stuff, which reached nearly to the knees. Our dress was much like that of the Highlanders.
Most of the regulars who had joined us since the last campaign came from Louisburg, and had been sufficiently long in the land to lose a portion of that feeling of immense superiority which Englishmen have when fresh from the old country. Still they laughed heartily at the awkward appearance of the green provincial troops. And no one could help it who had experience in military life.