Author Description

King William's War (1689-1697) was the first in a series of bloody conflicts known collectively as the French and Indian Wars in which the two great super powers, England and France, with their Indian allies vied for control of North America.Best known for his exploits in the earlier King Philip's War (1675-1676), Benjamin Church and his English and Indian soldiers brought an end to that war by hunting down and killing Philip and capturing the Wampanoag field commander Anawan.Although he returned to civilian life, Church was called back to service-time and time again. Over the latter part of the 17th century and into the 18th Church led five expeditions against the French and Indians into northern New England and New France.Drawing from numerous sources, including Church's memoirs, Edward Lodi recounts the story of those expeditions, for which Church with his guerrilla tactics and reliance on Indian soldiers became famous as the forefather of the Rangers.The scope of King William's War was immense. Lodi includes a Chronology listing dozens of events: naval battles, the raid on Schenectady, Sir William Phips's capture of Montreal and his fiasco at Quebec, massacres in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Acadia; and a detailed Who's Who of roughly 150 individuals (French, English, Indian, Dutch, including women and children) such as Hannah Dustan, Kancamagus, Count Frontenac, Baron Castine, Madockawando, Peter Schuyler, Sarah Gerrish.with illustrations