What greeted the European soldier upon reaching the theater of conflict in North America, 1660-1760, was adversity. Endless seas of seemingly barren forest, swamps with swarms of biting insects, extremes in weather, and misunderstood indigenous peoples all required conquering before armies could face off at each other with “European tactics.” Armies that failed to address these conflicts were simply swallowed by them. European-trained armies drilled to perfection and disciplined in rank and file struggled to move and deploy in the forests where natives dealt them unforgiving lessons of the “ambuscade” and “hit and run” tactics. The French eagerly allied themselves with the natives and adopted their tactics. Combined with new European teachings of “la petit guerre,” the French forces easily dominated the early years of the conquest of North America. The English answered the need, “men accustomed to woods warfare, good marchers, men that are expert at firing ball and all in general must be alert, spirited soldiers, able to endure fatigue,” with the ranging company, light infantry, thus the irregular was created. Uniforms were altered for swift woods travel; regimentals were cut down, hats trimmed, useless hangar’s were replaced with tomahawk, and bulky cartouche boxes were returned to company stores. Indian leggings, “matuzzes,” were adopted to protect the leg and Indian slippers, “moccasins,” replaced buckled shoes. In some instances, cumbersome and heavy first pattern long land muskets were exchanged for lighter, shorter artillery carbines. Officers were familiarized with native tactics and “ranging’ tactics “exercising their men as such.” Thus trained, the colonial wars of the Hudson-Champlain, St. Lawrence, and Ohio river valleys raged for 100 years. Before the turn of the seventeenth to eighteenth century North America saw King William’s War. Early in the eighteenth century war again returned as Queen Anne’s War, then culminated with King George’s war in conjunction with Europe’s Seven Years War, more commonly known as The French & Indian War (1754-1763). Colonial Americans lived and died through them all and better referred to them as the “borderland wars.” It was a time of insecurity, of swift and brutal raids upon poorly defended settlements and forts. Places like Fort Massachusetts, Fort Lyman, Saratoga Plantation, Deerfield, and Schenectady were attacked by parties of French Marines and native allies bent on taking captives and plunder, but ultimately hoping to silence the northern frontier of the English language.