Unit 1 article review (Posted for Geniusalert92 only)

Virginia militiamen as they might have looked about 1610 raising the Cross of St. George over Jamestown. Photo cour- tesy Jam esto wn-Yorkto wn Foundation.

The First American Miiitio by William L. Shea

University of Arkansas at Monticello

N military history began with the establishment of the severai colonial militias in the first haif of the seven-

teenth century, but developments during this early period generally hí.ve been overshadowed by the imperial and revo- lutionary struggles of the eighteenth century. Consequently, re- latively little is known about the critical years when English paramilitary institutions were transferred across the Atlantic. This essay examines the origin and evolution of the oldest Anglo-American militia, that of Virginia, in order to iearn more about how Enghshmen first dealt with the problems of security in an alien land.

Officers of the Virginia Company of London knew that their tiny outpost in the New World would face certain hazards, but they did not have the financial resources to establish a mer- cenary corps or any other sort of formal, separate military organization. The company's employees in America would have to shoulder the burden of their own defense. Fighting, if required, was to be part of the job as well as a matter of self-perservation. In this casual manner the ancient Anglo-Saxon tradition of com- munal defense passed to the New World at the very beginning of the English colonial experience.'

Company policy did not, however, lead directly to the estab- lishment of a militia in Virginia. While officials in London stressed the dangers posed by the Spanish and the Indians, their employees in America were content to do little more than fortify their base camp at Jamestown. Military training and organi-

zation were nonexistent until a veteran mercenary named John Smith gained control. Smith was appalled to find that his col- leagues were "for most part of such tender educations and small experience in martiall [sic] accidents" as to be useless in a fight. Such a state of affairs was intoierable, and he hastened to trans- form the colonists into reasonably competent fighting men. "Tbe whole Company every Saturday exercised" and soon learned "to march, fight, and scirmish" and form an "order of battle" in the virgin forests of the New World.*

IMilitarization of the colony intensified after Smith's departure in 1609. The Virginia Company decided to reorganize its strug- gling outpost along the lines of contemporary EngUsh overseas military expeditions. The new leaders of the colony were all "excellent old soldiers" who had served with distinction in Ire- land or that "university of warre" the Low Countries. Upon arriving in Virginia with reinforcements and finding that much of Smith's work had been undone by famine and disease, they proceeded to divide the colonists into "severall Companies for warr" with officers "appointed over every fifty to traine them at convenient times and to teache them to use of their armes and weapons." The colony took on such an air of "Material manner and warlike Discipline" that this period has been known ever since as the military regime.^

The English soon felt confident enough to go on the offensive against the hostile Powhatan Indians, in whose territory they had landed. Beginning in 1610, raiding parties ravaged nearby tribes

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by "Cutteinge downe their Come, burneinge their howses, and Sutche lyke." These operations came to be called "feedfights" because they were aimed at destroying native crops and stores of food, there being no other way the armored settlers could hurt their fleet-footed antagonists. The success of these small-scale sallies demonstrated that the settlers needed only aggressive leadership and a certain amount of training and organization in order to take fuU advantage of their technological edge over the Indians. This first era of fighting came to an abrupt halt in 1614 when Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter, was captured and car- ried off to Jamestown. Her subsequent marriage to an English- man produced a "firme peace" between the warring parties in the best tradition of European diplomacy.*

Peace brought an end to the military regime and its embryonic paramilitary system. After a few years men no longer were required to drill, muster, or even possess arms. In 1618 the Virginia Company reorganized its American outpost once again, this time emphasizing that its employees should strive to keep the peace rather than prepare for war. The new form of govern- ment established in the colony was as civU as its predecessor had been militant ; none of the elective or administrative offices hada mUitary title or function. The problem of security was addressed by reminding everyone not to do or say anything "whereby the present peace might be disturbed and antient quarrells might be revived." Virginia had all but disarmed unilaterally.*

It is important to note that the striking militarization of the colony in its first years was only a passing phase, a temporary aberration. The military regime led not to the establishment of a mUitia, as some historians have assumed, but to the formation of a purely civil government which contained no military or para- military elements whatever.

T HE colony expanded rapidly — too rapidly — during thepeace. In 1622 the Indians displayed their displeasure at European acquisitiveness by launching a massive attack upon the unsuspecting Englishmen scattered along the banks of the James River. Over 400 settlers were killed in a single day, and Governor Francis Wyatt gathered the survivors into several palisaded villages. The natives promptly laid siege to these places, picking off anyone who ventured outside the walls to hunt, fish, or farm. Famine and disease soon ravaged the overcrowded strongholds, and the death toU mounted alarmingly.'

In desperation Wyatt assembled several groups of men, equipped them with what arms and armor were left over from the heyday of the miUtary regime, and ordered them to "make warr, kiU, spoUe, and take by force" anything of value to the enemy. The famiUar feedfight pattern emerged as Indian towns were destroyed and substantial quantities of food were seized. The demoraUzed natives graduaUy abandoned their siege of the strongholds in order to protect their own settlements. But even as the danger of outright annihUation passed, the colony's long- term security was threatened by an unforeseen problem. The demise of the military regime left Virginia without any insti- tutionalized means of organizing and supporting military oper- ations. The current method of carrying on the war amounted to Uttle more than rounding up a suitable number of volunteers and setting off after the Indians. Training was minimal if it took place at aU, though presumably some settlers recalled what they had learned during the miUtary regime. The colony's martial efforts were amateurish, arbitrary, and erratic, and public dissat- isfaction was becoming serious.'

Virginia was evolving from a commercial enterprise to a colo- nial society. Each year since 1614 an ever larger number of company employees served out their contracts and elected to remain in Virginia as free and independent tobacco farmers. By now these people made up the bulk of the population. They par- ticipated eagerly in the early offensives against the Indians partly because they wanted revenge and partly because they wanted to recover their precious farms as soon as possible. By

1623 the overaU situation had improved so much that Wyatt aUowed "as many [to] returne to theire Plantationes" as so desired. Now trouble developed. With more and more freemen getting back to the business of making money (and a great deal of money could be made from tobacco at this time), it became increasingly difficult to find people willing to engage in such an unprofitable and potentially hazardous activity as fighting Indi- ans. The governor noted with considerable exasperation that many colonists "having done and suffered much here thinke themselves Eméritos miUtes and free from pubUque dutyes.""

Wyatt resorted to martial law and impressment, ordering each of his lieutenants "to leavy (with as much equaUtie and indi- ferencie as he may)" the necessary number of men for raids. This tactic naturaUy did not produce enthusiastic soldiers. The unpaid draftees constantly petitioned to be released from duty and on one occasion mutinied and forced the canceUation of a major expedition. The problem basicaUy was one of economics. "The Chiefe tyme of doeing the enymie most spoyle" was Sum- mer, the very time the freemen could least afford to be away from their farms. Those pressed for mUitary duty during grow- ing season complained that when "a man be taken from his private labour but for a day or two it turnes to his great preju- dice" because "he hath no meanes to susteyne himself but what he getts by his owne industrie." Even Wyatt admitted that the free settlers were in a difficult position. Nevertheless, the war eould not be fought in fits and starts dictated by popular demand. Something had to be done, and it had to be done without any help from the financiaUy troubled Virginia Company."

The 1624 assembly attempted to make military service less onerous and capricious. In the future, any settlers wounded while in military service would be cared for at pubUc expense, and anyone maimed or crippled would be maintained permanently "accordinge to his persone and qualitie." Those few surviving "olde planters" who had arrived before 1612 were excused from further military duty. Most important of all, a method of com- pensation was established whereby the economic hardship in- flicted on those individuals pressed for service was eliminated or at least substantially reduced. The assembly declared that here- after "such persons as remaine at home" would "bere out the labours of such as are abroad upon the march." In other words, if a pressed farmer was gone five days on a raid, each of his five closest neighbors was required to work one day in his fields (or wherever the labor was most appropriate). Wyatt's Ueutenants were to see that the compensatory labor was assigned "equally by just computation and with aU indifferently, and see it duely executed." A man called upon to fight could do so knowing that his farm and family were being cared for by his neighbors under the stern eye of the local commander. Virginians now had a legal obligation not only to defend the colony and themselves but also to provide for one another, however grudgingly, in times of common danger.'"

With the coUapse of the bankrupt Virginia Company in 1624, proprietorship of the colony passed to the crown. The eventual emergence of a paramUitary institution no longer was threat- ened or impeded by the vicissitudes of company policy, though James and Charles Stuart proved no more able or wiUing than the company to pay for the Old Dominion's defense. The colonists remained on their own, and the next year the assembly declared that aU males from 16 to 60, except the "olde planters" and sickly "newe commers" just off the boat, were eligible for miUtary duty and would be taxed for "maintenance of the Warrs pro- portionably to their abiUties." (The legislators were careful to add that gentlemen such as themselves would not be forced to serve as common soldiers or in "places Inferior to their degrees, unless in cases of extream necessity.") For the first time since the demise of the military regime, local commanders were ordered to caU their people together at regular intervals in order to "exercyse and driU them, wherby they may be made the more fit for service uppon any occasione." Defensive measures were intensified. Settlers were instructed to impale and fortify their

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farmhouses if tbey had not already done so, to "keepe good watch" night and day, and to attend church services with their arms "fixed and in good order" to prevent sabbath ambushes. Five years later tbe assembly divided tbe colony into four mili- tary districts and modified tbe command structure to allow quicker response and greater flexibility. Local commanders were authorized to raise troops whenever "they in tbeir dis- cretion shall deeme it convenient to cleare the woods and the parts neere adjoyning when the Indians shall be a hunting or when they have any certaine knowledge of tbe Indian's aboad in tbose places.""

By the 1630s Virginia could muster over two thousand able- bodied men for military service, most of wbom possessed "a Peece, a Jacke, a Coat of Maile, a Sword or Rapier" or similar collection of armaments. Tbe conflict witb tbe Powbatan Indians dragged on, but it no longer was mucb of a contest, Tbe natives now made only feeble efforts to resist tbe colonists wbo ham- mered away with monotonous regularity from Spring through Fall. Sometime in 1632 figbting sputtered inconclusively to a close."

Tbe war demonstrated, among otber tbings, that Virginia's greatest economic asset — tobacco — also was its greatest mili- tary liability. Tobacco caused tbe planters to live in a widely dispersed pattern of settlement and to value tbeir individual interests over tbe welfare of tbe community, Virginians were determined to defend tbemselves and tbeir property if tbey could, but were not inclined to participate in time-consuming communal offensive operations. Governor Wyatt was able to demonstrate to the settlers that under certain conditions military service would cause them little or no economic hardship, The 1624 laws regulating service and compensation enabled Virginians to farm and figbt simultaneously, and were tbe key to tbe eventual creation of a full-fledged institutionalized militia.

T HE second peace witb the Powhatan Indians did not causethe kind of demobilization tbat bad occurred 18 years ear- lier. The emerging paramilitary system was retained, reorgan- ized, and strengthened. In 1634 Virginia was divided into eight counties, and the militia was reorganized along county lines. The men of each county were formed into a company, and an officer called the lieutenant was appointed by the governor to command them. The new system incorporated practically all of the mili- tary developments of the past decade and also included some features taken directly from tbe contemporary Englisb militia. Tbe post of company lieutenant or commander, for example, clearly was derived from tbe office of lord lieutenant back home, for the Virginia officer's responsibilities were said to be "tbe same as in England, and in a more especial manner to take care of tbe warr against Indians,'""

An incident wbicb occurred in 1639 illustrates tbe decentralized county system in operation. After receiving complaints about Indian thievery and vandalism, the Lower Norfolk County com- mander called 15 "sufficient men" from his militia company and directed them to seek out and chastise the guilty natives. Each of the militiamen provided his own weapons but otberwise was supported in tbis enterprise by 20 "adjacent and inbabitinge neigbbours" wbo pooled their resources and supplied him with shot, powder, provisions, and looked after his farm while he was away. Note that unlike the 50-man companies of the military regime, the new county companies were not operational units. They served as reservoirs of trained manpower from which soldiers were drawn as needed,"

When the Powhatan Indians launched a second devastating surprise attack on the colony in 1644, the militia responded quickly with a series of powerful counterattacks. At one point an "army " of 300 men was in the field for nearly six weeks wreaking havoc on native towns and crops. The paramilitary system func- tioned quite well in this emergency, though the government at Jamestown experienced some difficulty coordinating the various

offensive operations. The next assembly therefore divided the colony into two semi-autonomous military associations or dis- tricts, one on either side of the James. The counties within each association then cooperated in carrying on the war as they saw fit within the parameters of provincial strategy. As the war pro- gressed, the associations developed special ranger units and garrison forces to meet their particular needs, Tbe final capitu- lation of tbe exhausted Powhatan empire in 1646 was the high- water mark in colonial Virginia's military history. The hard-won victory seemed to prove to the populace that the militia in its present form was tolerably well suited to tbe peculiar political, geograpbical, and economic conditions in tbe Cbesapeake Bay area, as indeed it was. Consequently, no cbanges were made in the immediate postwar years,"

This complacency faded after mid-century as the colonists became aware of developments in England. Wben Parliament, Cromwell, and Charles II attempted in various ways to revitalize the moribund Englisb militia between 1648 and 1664, tbeir efforts apparently bad an unintended impact in the Old Dominion, Wbile records are particularly scarce for tbis period, it appears tbat Virginians attempted, as colonials sometimes will, to emulate what was happening back bome by reorganizing and re- furbisbing tbeir own militia. Tbe result was a notable "An- glicization" of the system,"

Tbe process began in 1651 or 1652 and lasted about a decade. Tbree more associations were created, and a relatively sopb- isticated province-wide command structure was established. At tbe apex of tbe system was the governor and captain-general. He was assisted in martial matters by an adjutant, a lieutenant- general, and assorted aides and guards. Tbe association around Jamestown was commanded by tbe governor; the others, "being more remote," were commanded by major-generals and tbeir adjutants. The county lieutenant was replaced by a group of prominent local men known as commissioners, and the unwieldy county company became a regiment composed of eigbt or ten companies of foot, a troop of borse, and tbree small quick- response units mis-named "trainbands." Members of these squads, some of America's earliest minutemen, were expected to be "in readinesse at an bowers warning witb tbeir armes and 12 sbott of powder and ball a man" to rush "to the rescue of dis- tressed places or persons." All indentured servants except those of "undoubted Fidelity" bencefortb were excluded from the re- organized militia, a move caused by alarm over tbe recent up- beavals in England and tbe growing number of servant revolts at bome, Tbe militia now was reduced in size — perbaps balved — and cbarged witb increased responsibility for internal security. Social and political instability, not Indian attacks, was becoming the gravest threat to the peace and well being of the colony. Finally, the time-honored method of compensation was aban- doned. Men called to active duty bereafter were paid a set a- mount by tbe county for tbeir services, a change in policy caused in part by tbe increasing number of poor, landless freemen who could only be reimbursed effectively in tbis way."

The militia's more sophisticated form, reduced size, altered composition, and modified role after mid-century reflected the maturation of Virginia society and the deliberate effort by Vir- ginians to Anglicize that society and its institutions as much as possible. Of tbese latest cbanges, only tbe creation of the "train- bands" truly reflected tbe fact tbat Virginia was perched on the edge of a hostile continent. Tbe era of experimentation and innovation was ending. Tbe militia was coming of age.

T HE first American militia evolved gradually, sometimesbaltingly, over the first half-century of settlement. It did not spring into being upon the founding of Jamestown, nor did it become establisbed by law at some precise point thereafter. It was the end product of 50 years of constant interplay between culture and heritage on the one hand, and environment and necessity on the other. And while emerging Virginia militia fairly

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bristled with contemporary English weaponry and terminology, it was in truth different in many ways from its counterpart across the sea.

The seventeenth-century English militia existed largely on paper. Perhaps a tenth of the ablebodied males in the realm participated, with varying degrees of skill and enthusiasm, in occasional musters. The remaining nine-tenths of the military population had long since been relegated to the status of an inactive reserve. Few Englishmen believed they would ever have to take up arms against an invader. The Stuart militia, when mobilized, served primarily as a constabulary force spe- cializing in riot control. The kingdom's external security rested as usual on its insularity and "wooden walls." Not so, of course, in Virginia."

Thus, while it is true that Enghshmen migrating to America brought the concept of a militia along as part of their cultural baggage, they did not — they could not — transplant an English- style militia on American soil, not in Virginia or anywhere else. Conditions in the New World were radically different from those in the Old. European institutions which survived the Atlantic crossing usually were reduced to a rudimentary form, altered somewhat in purpose, and adjusted to fit changed and changing circumstances. 'The militia was no exception.

Like their Anglo-Saxon ancestors, about whom they un- doubtedly knew or cared very little, the early Virginia colonists lived in an isolated and simple society which was threatened by powerful, elusive enemies. The ancient concept of the com- munity in arms, a mihtia composed of all adult males who were expected to take up arms whenever danger threatened, was initially more appropriate to that society than the current Eng- lish notion of a smallish peacekeeping militia. It is perhaps not overly romantic to say that a kind of hybrid Anglo-American f yrd existed for a brief time on the shores of Chesapeake Bay.

In addition to its anachronistic, inclusive composition, the early Virginia militia differed from its English counterpart in several other ways. It was an all-purpose military institution : an expeditionary force, army of conquest, main line of defense, home guard, and reserve of last resort all in one. It was pre- dominantly offensive (or counteroffensive) in nature, ably de- fending the Old Dominion for half a century by pounding away relentlessly at native enemies. Finally, it was remarkably plas- tic. Alterations were made almost constantly up to the 1660s when a kind of organizational plateau was reached prior to the militia's gradual decline in the last quarter of the century.

It is difficult to say how much of the early Virginia experience was unique and how much was shared by other English colonies, for far too little work has been done to allow proper com- parisons." One thing is clear, however, and it is that the roots of American military history are more complex and interesting than generally supposed.

William L. Shea is an Associate Professor of History at the Univer- sity of Arkansas at Monticello. A graduate of Louisiana State Uni- versity, he received his doctórate from Rice University in 1975 and has authored articles on military matters in the colonial era. the Civil War. and WWI. Tbis article was accepted for publication in Sep- tember 1980.

R E F E R E N C E S For the sake of brevity notes hare been reduced to a minimum by abbreviating some entries and excluding some secondary works on Tudor-Stuart England and colonial Virginia.

1. Wesley F. Craven, Dissolution of the Virginia Company; The Failure of a Colonial Experiment (Oxford, 1932), 24-29; Philip L. Barbour, ed.. The Jamestotcn Voyages Under the First Charter, 1606-1609 (2 vois., Cambridge, 1969), I, 50-52.

2. Barbour, I, 202, II, 373; Edward Arber and A.G. Bradley, eds., Traueis and Worlcs of Captain John Smith (2 vois., Edinburgh, 1910), II, 433-34.

3. Darrett B. Rutman, "The Virginia Company and Its Mili- tary Regime," in Rutman, ed.. The Old Dominion: Essays for Thomas Perkins Abernethy (Charlottesville, 1964), 1-20; William Strachey, The Hisiorie o/ Travell into Virginia Britania, Louis B. W r̂ight and Virginia Freund, eds. (London, 1953), 91; Susan M. Kingsbury, ed.. The Records of the Virginia Company of London (4 vois., Washington, 1906-1935), III, 21-22, 27, 220.

4. George Percy, "A Trewe Relacyon," Tyler's Quarterly His- torical and Genealogical Magazine, 3 (April 1922), 270-73; Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia (Rich- mond, 1957), 5-16.

5. Rutman, 20; Kingsbury, III, 164-73. 6. Kingsbury, III, 550-555; Wilham S. Powell, "Aftermath of

the Massacre: The First Indian War, 1622-1632," Virginia Maga- zine of History and Biography, 66 (Jan. 1958), 44-75.

7. Kingsbury, III, 678-79; Arber and Bradley, II, 590-603. 8. Kingsbury, IV, 99, 237. 9. Kingsbury, IV, 250-51, 260-61, 292, 450-51; Edmund S. Mor-

gan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York, 1975), 178.

10. Kingsbury, IV, 580-84; H.R. Mcllwaine, ed.. Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia, 1622-1632, I670-I676 (Richmond, 1924), 18.

11. Public Record Office, CO 5/1354, ff. 262-69 (microfilm; Colonial Williamsburg Research Library) ; Mcllwaine, 104-107, 147; H.R. Mcllwaine and J.P. Kennedy, eds.. Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1619-1776 (13 vois., Richmond, 1905-1915), I, 52-53.

12. Arber and Bradley, II, 886; Mcllwaine, 480. 13. William W. Hening, ed.. The Statutes at Large; Being a

Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619 (13 vois., Richmond, 1810-1823), I, 193, 224.

14. Lower Norfolk County Records, Minute Book, 1637-1646, ff. 35, 39, 99 (microfilm: Virginia State Library).

15. William L. Shea, "Virginia at War, 1644-1646," MiUtary Affairs, 41 (Oct. 1977), 142-47.

16. J.R. Western, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Cen- tury : The Stcry of a Political Issue, 1660-1802 (London, 1%5), 5-16.

17. Warren M. Billings, ed., "Some Acts Not in Hening's Staiues: The Acts of Assembly, April 1652, November 1652, and July 1653,"VMHB, 83 (Jan. 1975), 30-31; Hening, I, 387; Mcll- waine and Kennedy, I, 95; Charles City County Records, 1655-1665, pp. 20-21, 61, 279-80 (microfilm: Virginia State Library); Public Record Office, CO 1/20, ff. 220-21 (microfilm: Colonial Williamsburg Research Library); Northumberland County Records, Order Book, 1652-1665, p. 119 (microfilm: Vir- ginia State Library).

18. Lindsay Boynton, The Elizabethan Militia,1558-1638 (Lon- don and Toronto, 1967), passim; Allen French, "The Arms and Military Training of Our Colonizing Ancestors," Mass- achusetts Historical Society Proceedings 67 (Oct 1941-May 1944), 3-21.

19. Two pioneering efforts in this general area are Louis Mor- ton, "The Origins of American Military Policy," Miiiiary Af- fairs,22 (Summer 1958), 75-82, and John W. Shy, "A New Look at Colonial Militia," Wiiiiam and Mary Quarterly 3rd series 20 (April 1963), 175-85.

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