Forming and Supplying the Colonial Militia
Government Set Rules but Gave Little Support on Local Level
Mar 12, 2009
Under mandate, each little settlement formed its militia, trained them and kept an “alarm” list. Those on the list were the “minute men”, literally prepared to band together and march off on a minute’s notice, as they famously did at Lexington and Concord.
How the Alarm List Began
The need for these response units arose decades before the American Revolution during long periods of Indian “wars”. Some marauding Indians acted on their own, raiding and plundering American villages, killing settlers and taking captives.
Other times Indians were aligned with American enemies, most notably the French, and marched their captives back to Canada, killing those who could not keep up. The American colonies responded by using the local militia as a pool from which they could form an army.
Rules for Equipping the Militia
Colonial law required that all males from ages 16 to 60 should always bear arms and be equipped with “a well fixed firelock musket, of musket or bastard bore” as well as a knapsack, a collar with twelve bandoleers, or cartouche box, one pound of good powder, twenty bullets fit for his gun, twelve flints, a good sword or cutlass, and a worm and priming wire fit for his gun. (The bandoleers—similar to shoulder straps—and cartouche box were for carrying gun cartridges.)
Men Exempt from Militia Service
Then, as now, some men were exempt from military service. The exemptions covered members of the council, the council secretary, justices of the peace, those exempted by college charter, “masters of art”, church ministers, elders and deacons, sheriffs, allowed physicians and surgeons and professional school masters. These were the people needed to keep the community functioning in time of war.
The list goes on to include coroners, treasurers, the attorney general, deputy sheriffs, court clerks, constables, “constant ferrymen”, one miller to each gristmill, revenue officers, masters of vessels of thirty tons and upwards, herdsmen, lame persons, Indians and Negroes.
Well-to-do men often hired others to take their place.
Composition of the Alarm List
In 1702, the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted a law that required the commissioned officers of each military company to keep “a fair list of one quarter part at least of the soldiers in their company, such as are most able and fit for service…and the chief officer shall give notice to every such soldier of his being enlisted, and require him to be always in readiness and completely armed to be sent forth and march into the service against the enemy when he shall be thereto commanded.”
Had the militia system not been in place, the colonies would not have been able, at the outbreak of the American Revolution, to field such a large army that could be readily deployed to fight on multiple fronts.
Source:
King, Marquis F., compiler, Baptisms and Admission from the Records of First Church in Falmouth, Now Portland, Maine, with Appendix of Historical Notes, published by the Maine Genealogical Society (Portland: 1898).
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