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 Historical Overview of: Training Days
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   Each colony in New England set aside one or more days for training and disciplining the citizen-soldiers. This custom had been inherited from medieval England where similar days had been set aside for like purpose in each shire. When training day laws went unenforced the militias lapsed into mobs that were unable to coordinate their activities on the field of battle and were unwilling to obey their officers. Occasionally, part of the training days was set aside to repair and build fortifications. A chaplin opened and closed the day with a prayer and occasionally with a sermon. The minister also enforced morality laws to such a degree that public drunkenness was all but unknown and the camp followers that commonly accompanied men in arms were also nowhere to be found.
 
   During the French and Indian War a New York correspondent of the London-based Public Advertiser praised the moral character of the New England militiamen.
 
   We put no Confidence in any other Troops than theirs; and it is generally lamented that the British veterans were not put into Garrison and New England Irregulars sent to the Ohio. Their men fight from Principle and always succeed. The Behaviours of the New England Provincials at Albany is equally admirable and satisfactory. Instead of the Devastations committed by the [British regular] Troops in 1746, not a single Farmer has lost a Chicken or even a Mess of Herbs. They have five Chaplains and maintain the best Order in Camp. Public Prayers, Psalm-singing and Martial Exercises engrossed their whole Time at Albany. Twice a week they have Sermons and are in the very best frame of Mind for an Army, looking for success in a Dependence upon Almighty God . . . . Would to God the New England Disposition in this Respect were catching.
 
   The number of annual training days was fixed by law and varied considerably according to time and place. In 1631 the Massachusetts militia was so enthusiastic about training days that it mustered weekly. Within a year the enthusiasm waned and musters were then held monthly. By 1637 the interest had continued to decline and consequently drills were held only eight times a year. Subsequent changes in the law reduced the obligation to six times a year and then just four. Emergencies changed the militiamen's minds and prompted them to take muster more seriously. During King Philip's War the Massachusetts militia mustered every Sunday and one additional day per week.
 
   Training days became social occasions. Whole families attended. The women folk prepared the means which were taken in common. The children enjoyed a rare opportunity, at least in rural areas, to socialize and to play with large numbers of other children. Many young, single men met their future wives at these gatherings. Occasionally, a church or public building had to be repaired and this was done as a part of, or adjunct to, training days. A British officer described New England training under the watchful eye of five chaplains who assumed responsibility for the morality and general decorum.
 
   To Jeffery Amherst's seasoned, professional officers the Americans were utterly ill-mannered and ungentlemanly. They ignored class distinctions which were all important among the British officer corps. They reported to Amherst that the officers joined their men in carousing and carrying on, often into the wee hours of the morning. The militia officers were as bad as the men, engaging in all manner of outrageous behavior. They often wore costumes and unacceptable, non-military clothing. Many officers failed to wear insignia or distinctive uniforms that would identify them amongst their men. Moreover, they failed to obey even the most rudimentary rules of sanitation. Men and officers alike stank for they failed to bathe or change and wash their clothing.
 
   In 1759 General Jeffery Amherst, preparing at assault the French fort at Ticonderoga, reviewed the colonial militia and volunteers. He was so disturbed by the New England militia's lack of basic military knowledge that he ordered them trained with British regulars using the same handbooks, training manuals, and standards used with regular army recruits. Only by applying universal training standards could Amherst expect to integrate them with his own forces and deploy them as a single combat team. Amherst ordered that all regiments of volunteers and militia be given a copy of Humphrey Bland's Treatise of Military Discipline. Throughout the long campaign in upper New York and into Canada the New Englanders struggled to become acquainted with the unfamiliar rules and procedures of British military routine.
 
   Additionally, Amherst was amazed to discover that many militiamen had only the most rudimentary knowledge of how their firearms worked. He expected to find the fabled "nation or riflemen" but instead discovered to his dismay that many of the urban New England militiamen possessed only the faintest knowledge of how their arms operated and how to care for them. Many men had fired, at the most, a few rounds of ammunition, and these on rare occasions at militia musters when musket practice was held. Amherst immediately gave orders that the marksmanship training and instruction in the manual of arms be given top priority at future musters and that volunteers in his army be trained with his own men in standard British military fashion. To his mind, militia training days were a sham.
 
   All militia required discipline and organization. These were based on, or obtained from, some standard infantry field manuals and books of instruction on military drill. The standard drill manual for British troops was The Manual Exercise as Ordered by His Majesty in 1764, printed as early as 1766 in the colonies, but it had never been officially adopted for militia exercise. Thomas Simes, a young British officer in 1772 had written a Military Guide for Young Officers, reprinted in 1776 in Philadelphia. It proved to be among the most popular manuals in the colonies in the years immediately preceding the War for Independence. Sir Humphrey Bland had produced a work on military discipline which proved to be popular in the colonies. On the eve of the Revolution there was no shortage of manuals upon which the American militia officers might draw.
 
   But Americans seemed inclined to produce their own manuals, influenced though they might be by British works. Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts was always interested in military matters as he was a militia officer, and in 1775 he published a militia training manual, An Easy Plan of Discipline for a Militia. Later, Washington, recommended him to Congress for the office of Adjutant General, commending him in these words, "He is a great military genius cultivated by an industrious attention to the study of war." Pickering's book was based upon a similar work known as Norfolk Discipline, written in 1757 for the use of the militia of Norfolk County, England. That work was the text book used by the militia of Rhode Island; and was, in fact, the basis for the training of most of the New England militia. Massachusetts for a time instructed her militia with William Windham's A Plan of Exercise for the Militia of the Province of Massachusetts, written in 1771. Windham's book was based upon the Norfolk work. In the preface to his manual, Pickering listed his sources: Norfolk Discipline; Exercises Ordered by His Majesty; Memoirs of Saxe; The Young Artillery-Man, by Barrisse; Exercises of the Army; Regulations for the Prussian Infantry; Bland's Military Discipline; General Wolfe's Instructions for Young Officers; The Cadet; and Young's Essays on the Command of Small Detachments.
 
   There were few major engagements fought in the new world. Battles on the European continent and in the West Indies rarely touched the colonists. The wars came and peace again reigned and there were long periods of rest in between the wars. The Revolution was a different matter.
 
   All battles in the Revolution were fought on American soil, save only for a few, relatively minor, naval engagements. There were no regular army units to fight the war, save for those ultimately drawn from the militia. The militia was constantly on the move, fighting against both the English and the Amerindians. Frontier militiamen who served far away from their homes had real reason to worry about the fate of their families at home, especially after the Six Nations entered the war with a vengeance. Men were away from their homes and farms or other occupations for extended periods of time. Women and children at home might make do with the principal bread-winner being absent for one season, but continued absence over several years took a horrible toll. Since most farms had operated essentially on a subsistence level, it meant that fewer people had to raise more food to feed more people. Someone had to grow the food to feed those in the armed forces.
 
   During the first two years of the Revolutionary War there were few problems. By 1777 the war was taking a toll on the patriots. Men were tiring of the war. Taxes were high and the currency depreciating at a rapid rate. High inflation and high taxes placed many father-less families at the mercy of money lenders. Some taxes went unpaid. Militia fines were substantial, and providing a substitute was beyond the means of the typical household. Since the lame, halt, blind and others who were handicapped or disabled had to procure a substitute each time they were drafted, this obligation fell heavily on a segment of society which was ordinarily unable to sustain the cost. Wages of the enlisted men, whether in the continental line or militia, were insufficient to support a family. The pay of soldiers in 1776 was given in paper money which exchanged freely on par with silver. In January 1777 silver brought a premium of 25% and by January 1778 silver was valued at four times the stated value of paper money. In 1780 silver was worth sixty times the face value of the depreciated currency. By May 1781 it was essentially worthless and had ceased to circulate for virtually no one, the most ardent patriots included, would accept it.
 
   The British regulars assigned to North America were generally well trained and subjected to the most harsh discipline known among military organizations anywhere. During the many wars with France, many times the British army stood against savage assaults because of this discipline. The colonial militias never accepted such discipline because of the egalitarian spirit that pervaded the colonies.
 
   The militia failed to work effectively as regular combat units for several reasons. Few, if any, militiamen were interested in prolonged campaigns far from home. Training had long been oriented toward serving short-term home guard service. The militiamen were especially ineffective as garrison troops in various fortified areas, as they became bored quickly and had little interest in such service. When a man served a tour of duty far from home he remained concerned for the protection and economic well-being of his family. Most militiamen could ill afford the costs of leaving home, farm, business, or shop. The Amerindians, Tories and British were a constant threat to their property.
 
   Perhaps the most important reason for failures of the militia can be traced to the volunteering and drafting militiamen. Those who were most interested in the military life volunteered first. Militia units preferred to send their best men to the Continental Line. With the ranks depleted, the militia units were increasingly filled with those least interested, or least able to serve, in military service. By the end of the war grizzled, and often semi-invalided, veterans mixed with young, raw recruits, and those who had, by some device or another, escaped regular state or national service.
 
   Local boards and militia officers were under constant pressures to increase their procurement of men for regular army service. With each passing month there were fewer volunteers, but more calls from the states and the Continental Congress for men. The most ardent patriots had already enlisted for the duration of the war. Others with more modest pretenses of patriotism had also volunteered, or at least not resisted a draft, for shorter terms of service. Most of those left at home by 1777 either preferred to fill their responsibilities at home, were reluctant associators or were handicapped in some way. Some may have been so worried about the safety of the home folks that they did not choose to abandon their responsibilities to their families and neighbors.
 
   In truth, by 1781, after nearly six years of uninterrupted warfare, neither units of the continental line nor militia units were up to their full and expected strengths. Many times partial companies, battalions and regiments of each took the field, seriously undermanned. Few were the able-bodied men who had not served on active service in some way or another. Many had come away horrified by the realities of war or repelled by army life in the field. Many had developed such a strong dislike for military duty that they paid large fines rather than even attend militia muster. Some had seen their families reduced almost to financial ruin during their service and would not place them in jeopardy again. Others had feared for the safety of their families during their absence and were unwilling to serve except in local tours of militia patrols again. Thus, even the militiamen often resisted short periods of duty outside their home counties.
 
   Appeals to sentiment and patriotism began to fall on deaf ears. Military discipline was extremely harsh and British rule could be viewed as humane when compared with military discipline. Officers were a generally intolerant lot, allowing few deviations from a strict regimen which repulsed many who had become accustomed to the enjoyment of freedoms at home. There was little freedom of thought or of action. Moral discipline was imposed even on those with few moral principles. Much of military life was reduced to drill and camp routine which was monotonous and boring. There was much military routine and preparation for each day of battle, especially for those in the militia, on garrison duty or standing watch. Sheer boredom as well as home-sickness were greater enemies than the opposing armies.
 
   All of these things might be said of the soldier's life at any period, but it was at least as great during the Revolution as at any time in human history. Its greater burden may be found in the context of the time which allowed for far greater freedoms than had heretofore been the case. The fact that all these factors were at work throughout history makes it none the easier for those undergoing it in the present.
 
   The militia worked well as an emergency force, deployed for a limited time, in a limited operation, operating near home and for a short duration. Indeed, under these circumstances there may be no formidable military force. It certainly is well used as an auxiliary force to protect the home-front while the majority of eligibles are serving in the regular armed force. In the case of prolonged war conducted throughout a large geographical area the primary use of a militia is to serve as a definable register of those available for a draft into a regular military unit. Some militia training is certainly advantageous to the regular army for it introduces military drill, use of arms and general military regimen to civilians. The American War for Independence marked the end of the militia as the primary fighting force in America and the beginning of the emergence of a regular army as the primary military and defense force of the nation. The emergence of a regular force might have come much sooner had it not been for the continual presence of the British army in North America.
 
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