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CHAPTER 5 The Compagnies Franches de la Marine of Canada
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Militiamen In Combat ( 1 page )
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Canadian militiamen loved ambushes. While their counterparts in New England practised the complicated manoeuvres of European-style battles, they paid no attention to all this. An American militiaman held prisoner in Quebec commented that he had never seen militiamen "so ignorant of military ways." 62 They did not even know whether one placed his musket on the right or left shoulder. The Canadians, of course, had never received training of this kind. They found European-style battles needlessly dangerous, and fought well "only in entrenchments," 63 according to Governor General Vaudreuil. In an attack, they came out of nowhere, fired a volley at their enemies and charged them, hatchets in hand and uttering war-whoops like the Amerindians, cries that served both to signal the charge and "to frighten the enemy who [was] surprised" and overtaken before having t
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