Let's form a militia and drill...

[Gary]

Fall in for Militia Muster! Not a modern one mind you, but a militia muster circa 1830s. So,
git your guns, powder horns, scalp'n knives and tomahawks out boys! We're going to conduct a militia muster. It's for the safety of hearth & home, our loved ones, our community and for our nation.

...from the year 1825 until the law obliging all men to drill was abolished, the musters were more or less a farce. The laws regulating the militia of the Commonwealth were amended and changed so often that, as a consequence, they became more complicated than the maneuvers were unmilitary. Humphrey Marshall, in 1824 ("History of Kentucky, Vol. 2, page 14), wrote: "It is in vain to suggest tha tneither officer nor soldier will ever trouble himself to know the law, when it may, and probably will, be changed before he has an opportunity of reducing his knowledge to practice." Musters became gatherings in which everybody participated, regardless of age or social position. The men who attended were not so much prompted by a desire to drill, and thus live up to that article of the Constitution, as they were to take advantage of the chance to mingle with the crowd of men, women, and children, renew old friendships, make new ones, hear the news, see the races, trade horses, partake of a good dinner, and incidentally have a good time at "the big to-do."

Sounds like our modern rendezvous, don't they? Read on.

The military features of these affairs grew insignificant as compared with those of their social, political, and business nature. The ordinary picnic basket was too small for these gatherings. Trunks and boxes packed with fired chicken, boiled ham, roasted pork, pies and other edibles, with coffee-pots and whiskey-jugs, were brought to the place of rendezvous in wagons, and everybody was welcome to their contents. Gunsmiths were in abundance. Since the greater number of people came in wagons or on horseback, there was neccesarily a large aggregation of horses, from colts and two-year-olds down to worn-out plow-horses, and from carefully groomed quarter-nags to neglected horses whose tails and manes were filled with burrs. This led to the appearance of blacksmiths, who repaired wagons and shod horses. It also resulted in much "horse swapping," which in turn gave occasion for betting and horse-racing. The combination led to drinking, and drinking frequently brought on "fist and skull fights" and other disturbances.

In those days, as in the earlier days, every man furnished his own gun - muzzle-loaders of any sort, flintlock rifles, muskets, shotguns, or horse-pistols. Those who had no firearms to bring, or who had forgotten them, would enter the drills with a trimmed sapling or a cornstalk - consequently the name, the Cornstalk Militia.

When the captain was ready to order his company into ranks he usually mounted a convenient stump, rail fence, or empty barrel and called out: "Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Oh, yes! All you who belong to Captain So-and-So's company (giving his name) fall into ranks and parade!" The "Oh, yes," it might be well to add, is derived from the old French "oyez" - "hear ye." Hence the Court of Oyer and Terminer - to hear and to finish. If the captain's first order failed to move his men he would again appeal to them - "Everybody in my company, off the fence there and fall into line! Now come on, men, come on, everybody, and let's get started with our revolutions!" After all, or nearly all, of his company had responded to his call, he ordered ""Tention, the whole!" after which most men gave him more or less attention. Right or left dress was usually lengthened into the command to "Look to the left and dress!" or right, as the case might be. "Stop!" or "Hold!" was the command for halt. It is also said that although keeping step was a matter indifference or beyond the control of some of the privates, they were nevertheless permitted to remain in ranks and follow as best they could or would through the drills.

Company, battalion, and regimental drills were conducted on the Russell Old Field from May to October, making a total of at least six different musters on that tract every year. It became a great gathering place, especially when a Big Muster (a battalion or regimental drill) was scheduled. Horse-races on such occaisons were then by far the most prominent feature on the program, and they soon became more frauds than the drills were farces...

It gets better, but that's our next installment.

 

[Gary]

We continue our tale of the militia muster.

Every nation has a memorable day - a day of songs and rejoicings. With us the fourth of July, twenty-second of February, and Christmas, are all holidays, or days of joy and pleasure. But of all the grand days in this martial old Commonwealth of ours, those set apart for militia training are (at least in the estimation of militia captains) the grandest and most exciting. If you should happen within ten miles of a mlitia muster on one of those eventful days, every step you took, and every object that met your gaze, would remind you of war, with its glorious and thrilling panoply, its noise and wild tumult. Boys, negroes, and men, on foot and on horseback, in cart, wagon, and carriage, single, double, and treble, are crowding from every direction and hurrying with anxious speed toward the scene where mimic battles are to be fought and won. Old shotguns, rustly rifles, long-untried fowling-pieces, cornstalks, and hickory sticks are in great demand, while the Sunday fineries, drawn from their secret hiding-places, adorn the martial forms of their proud-treading owners. Cider-wagons, ginger-cakes, apples, whiskey, and all the other et ceteras of the camp, are rushing pellmell into the place of rendezvous. Arriving at the parade field, your ears are greeted with every imaginable noise - the squealing of pigs, neighing of chargers, barking of dogs, braying of asses, laughing of happy negroes, and hoarse commands of military chieftains being mingled together in the most harmonious concord of discord. Jingling spurs, rusty sabers, black cockades, and the fierce little red plume, everywhere meet your wandering eye and fill up the interstices of this moving, animated scene.

Such an exhibition of warlike enthusiasm might have been seen, if you had only been present, dear reader, at Pleasant Grove, on the morning after the night described in our last chapter. Noise and wild confusion were the order of the day. The thrilling fife and a cracked drum were pealing forth their stirring notes, and calling loudly upon the brave sons of old Kentucky to shoulder their arms and sustain the glory of their ancestors. Generals, colonels, majors, captains (we have no lack of titled gentry in Kentucky), and privates were mingled together in a confusd mass, talking, laughing, shouting, swearing, drinking, and eveyr now and then taking a pleasant knock-down, merely to vary the bill of entertainment, keep up the excitement, and cultivate a proper military ardour. Candidates were there, too (like all other aspirants for office), shaking hands, treating, speaking, and making known to the warlike assembly the past, present, and future (they were no prophets, merely reasoning from cause to effect) glory and renown of Kentucky and her gallant sons. Horse-racing, cock-fighting, rifle-shooting, wrestling, and boxing, upon this occaison, all had their votaries, and all were busily engaged in their respective amusements. Bable, in her planiest day, was a mere "tempest in a teapot" compared with a militia muster in the backwoods of Kentucky. The Carnival at Rome or the ancient Saturnalia of the Romans, in the very height of their revelling, would be tame and insipid when placed in juxtaposition with such an occasion. We know of nothing that can be compared, for noise and wild confusion, with a regiment of boisterous, merrry, reckless militia, along with their chivalrous leaders, adorned with flowing red sahs, bullet-button coats, tin-foil epaulets, and stiff, ragged, red plumes, just preceding or succeeding "the training."

But suddenly a great change comes over the moving, tossing mass gathered on the battlefield at Pleasant Grove. Some order (a devilish little, by-the-by, if it can be called order at all) takes the place of the late disorder, and a comparative calm - in a figurative sense - settles down upon this raging storm. The commanding officer of the day, strippling his saddle of its red girth, belts on his trusty, trenchant blade, dons his swallow-tailed blue, adorned with bullet-buttons and red tape, borrows the best charger he can find, scrambles on his back with the assistance of a stump or a kind hand, and, when once safely moored, waves his plumed beaver around his warlike head and shouts his order to parade. Now comes a busy, stirring, wild and moving panorama. Men, before ignoble and unknown from the common herd, draw from their bosoms, pockets, and hats the red plume and sash (that is if they are so lucky to have any), and soon become leaders and chieftains of the day. A fierce struggle now commences who shall get their companies first formed into a line, or who shall first gain a preemption right to the shade of a tree, under which to marshal and form. Although each company has, or rather has had at some former time, a captain and inferior officers (for they often assemble on parade-ground with out any), in reality every man in the corps, being fully competent to command, takes the responsibility of giving orders.

 

[greenneck]

If this is a quote, how about mentioning the source? Why does someone have to ask?

Steve

 

[Gary]

Another installment...

It may be thought an easy matter by the inexperienced to form a company of men into a straight line; but if it is so, our militia captains have never discovered that fact. They commence at one end of the winding line, and with threats, entreaties, and much trouble to get a tolerably fair and straight row, especially if there be any corn-ridges in the immediate neighborhood, but, unfortunately, before they reach the other extreme, their soldiers having a predisposition for Mahometanism, are generally in a crescent, and then they are compelled to begin afresh. And thus we have seen them go on for hours and hours, and at last end of their labours, not being in much better array or condition than at the beginning of their arduous and impossible undertaking. Tall, low, long, short, thin, and fat, old and young, men and boys, clothed with fur and wool hats, caps, and no hats at all; cloth coats and jeans, calico and linsey, and no coats at all; boots, shoes, and moccasins, and no shoes at all; new and old pants, white, black, and striped, and no pants at all; shirts ruffled and unruffled, white, black, green, and gray, cotton, linen, and calico, and no shirts at all - are all mingled together in the most beautiful and checkered confusion, giving a motley and ludicrous appearance to the ununiformed, straggling, and crooked corps.

The officers are generally the most silly and ignorant men of the community, for none but such will seek a command in so farcical a concern as a militia company; and most frequently elected, as the saying is, unanimously, for they are considered most “unanimous fools,” and no one will vote either for or against them. As for a knowledge of military tactics, they never dream of any such thing. They are unable (with a few exceptions, of course) to form even a straight line, unless they have the assistance of a ditch or a corn-row, and as for giving any other orders save “About face!” to which they add “right!”) “March!” it is a thing not only unknown but unheard of. Those who can read are accustomed to carry “Scott’s Tactics” in their pockets, from which they read out the different commands for manoeuvres, but as for knowing what it is then to be done, after spelling through the various movements, they don’t think of such a thing, for it is none of their business. They are placed there to give the orders, and it is the duty of the company to obey; and if they fail to do so, then it is their own fault, for their skillful captains have read out all the necessary instructions as plain as Scott himself could give them.

 

[Mad Monk]

Gary,

You might want to look up:
The Pennsylvania Militia: The Early Years,
1669-1792

By Samuel J. Newland, PhD

Published by Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs
Annville, Pennsylvania

This book goes into the politics behind the Pennsylvania militia movement. Prior to the Rev War the state did not really sanction or support militia groups.

 

[Rick Davis]

... Prior to the Rev War the state did not really sanction or support militia groups.

At the risk of too much subject drift, PA still isn't too keen on militias. At first glance, it seems clear to simply steer clear of explosives and activities under § 5515 but evidently some law enforcement circles have gone a little further, and now shooting ranges are getting worried. Note that it does not address historical reenactments, creating a potential policy application conflict, or at least complaint. How they got these anti-milita/paramilitary statues to fly without conflicting with the second amendment is beyond my understanding.