Gentlemen Volunteers
Captain Fraser’s Company of British Volunteers, also known as the Company of Select Marksmen, Fraser’s Rangers, or the British Rangers, was a composite unit formed on the orders of Governor Guy Carleton from a draft of the best marksmen from the British regiments serving in Canada during the American Revolution. They served throughout the war, and members went on to become some of the earliest settlers of Upper Canada.
The unit is part of a larger organization, Colonel Campbell’s Indian Department, which encompasses the Volunteers and several other units that frequently operated together. These units are: the Volunteers, Monin’s Company of Canadian Volunteers, Lieutenant Digby’s Detachment of Grenadiers, a Detachment of the Royal Artillery, and his Majesty’s Native Allies.
The purpose of the Company of Select Marksmen, first and foremost, is to gain a better understanding of the lives and culture of the men and women who served with the British Army during the American Revolution by living them as accurately as we can.
By doing so we expect that we will be better able to educate others on the lives we are representing and the times they lived in, hopefully dispelling the many distortions and myths that hang about the period, obscuring the truth.
It is our belief that shortcuts, modern conveniences, and anachronisms are a barrier to understanding and education, and as such we eschew their use except where safety dictates specific exceptions. Further, it has been our experience that once you have become accustomed to living in this fashion you will find that modern conveniences are anything but, especially if you have to carry them up a mountain on your back.
It is important to note that we don’t do this to prove how tough we are; quite the contrary in fact. The only thing we are trying to prove is that we can make ourselves comfortable whatever the conditions using the materials available to our historical counterparts.
Often achieving our goal requires hard work, which we expect that all will willingly contribute, as the result is our mutual comfort. Sometimes this may result in some doing more than others, but such is life, and it is important to know that in our eyes those who do more are worth more.
Military discipline is an unavoidable aspect of our activity. As volunteers we will never fully enforce its rigours, nevertheless we must expect that we will be given orders by our NCOs and officers, and will be expected to follow them promptly and willingly.
Last and perhaps most important, it is our belief that we can do all of this and make it fun. Experience has shown us we are correct, often despite unfortunate circumstances. However, we also recognize that we can’t have fun all the time, and realize that we may have to work together to make the best of a bad situation.