THE MINUTE-MEN: WHAT THEY WERE
It was at the same time provided that one-quarter, at least, of the respective companies in every regiment should be formed into companies of fifty privates at the least, who were to equip and hold themselves in readiness to march at the shortest notice from the Committee of Safety upon any emergency. Each company so formed was to choose a captain and two lieutenants, and they were to be grouped in battalions to consist of nine companies each and the captains and subalterns of each battalion were to elect field officers to command them. These were the minute-men, and were organized under this resolve, nearly six months before the affair of April 19, 1775; and the promptness with which they assembled in response to the alarm upon that memorable occasion is thereby accounted for. The foregoing statement will also serve to explain what has been a matter of confusion to many people; namely, the distinction between minute-men and militia. The minute-men, while of the militia, were, for a short time at the beginning of the war, a distinct body under a separate organization. A minute-man was a member of the militia who had engaged himself, with others, to march at a moment’s warning; while a militiaman was one who had not so engaged, and yet was equally liable to be called upon for service, when the Committee of Safety should deem it necessary to order out the militia. It happened, therefore, that companies of minute-men and companies of militia from the same town responded under different commanders to the alarm of April 19, 1775. The service of one was as patriotic as that of the other; but the minute-men were under special engagement to hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment’s warning, and you may assume that they were, as a rule, the youngest, most active, and most patriotic members of their respective communities.
In December, 1774, a patriotic address by the committee on the state of the Province was accepted by the Provincial Congress, and a copy thereof sent to all the towns and districts in the Province. In this address after a recital of the grievances and oppressions laid upon the people, and of the necessity of guarding their rights and liberties, it was recommended that particular care should be taken by each town and district to equip each of the minute-men not already provided therewith with an effective firearm, bayonet, pouch, knapsack, thirty rounds of ball cartridges and that they be disciplined three times a week and oftener, as opportunity might offer. The militia in general were also not to be neglected, and their improvement in training and drill was strongly recommended. Thus early before open hostilities were declared did the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts take prompt and energetic measures to place themselves upon a military footing, so as not to be taken at a disadvantage when the shock of armed strife should occur.
The second Provincial Congress in February, 1775, confirmed the powers of the Committee of Safety, to whom all military matters were directly intrusted, repeated the recommendations of the previous Congress relative to the militia, and appointed four general officers. The commanding officer of each regiment of minute-men, as well as the colonels of the militia regiments, were recommended to review their respective commands and to make return of their number and equipment. Six days before the 19th of April the Committee of Safety was authorized to form six companies of the train artillery already provided by the Colony, to immediately enter upon a course of discipline and be ready to enter the service whenever an army should be raised.
The events of the historic 19th of April, 1775, brought matters to a crisis more rapidly than had been anticipated; and, following that incursion of the British troops (excursion it is sometimes called in the quaint language of the day, although one would hardly term it a pleasant one), the Provincial Congress resolved that an army of 13,600 men should be raised immediately by the Province of Massachusetts Bay. A few days later it was moved and passed that the companies in each regiment should consist of fifty-nine men, including three officers, and that each regiment should consist of ten such companies.
The militia and minute-men, as reorganized and prepared in accordance with the directions of the Provincial Congress, responded with marvelous promptitude when the call to arms came. Within ten days after the battle of Lexington between fifteen and twenty thousand men had assembled at Cambridge and Roxbury. But it was an armed assemblage rather than an army. There was practically no cohesion beyond the company organization. They were not accustomed to act with other units as battalions or regiments. There was no term or limit of service prescribed or that could be required of these men that came forward in response to the alarm. Their own patriotic fervor or the persuasiveness of their officers made the measure of their stay in the service. It was, in consequence, a fluctuating force from day to day, with arrivals and departures in constant progress. The problems involved in making it a united or cohesive force for either aggression or defence would drive the modern military man frantic. Yet of necessity this force had to serve as the nucleus of the army it was proposed to raise to serve for eight months or to December 31, 1775.
The method of recruiting seems odd in these days, but in reality it was simple enough and was effective at the same time. “Beating orders,” as they were called, were issued to captains and lieutenants, or rather to those desiring to be commissioned in such capacities; and, upon their securing the specified number of men agreeing to serve under them, they were accepted with their men, and their commissions assured to them. In this way the men practically chose their officers, while at the same time each officer in a regiment from the colonel down became his own recruiting officer, captains and lieutenants in order to fill up their company strength, and colonels in order to obtain their full quota of companies. No commissions were issued to any regiment until it was completed. It was this practice that caused several New Hampshire companies to be embodied in Massachusetts regiments.
The effectiveness of this method of enlistment can best be judged by the fact, officially verified, that commissions had been issued to the officers of fifteen regiments, they having at that time the proper complement of men. It could not be expected, under the conditions that prevailed, that an army so hastily gotten together and formed from small local organizations, totally unused to acting in masses under any military system as regiments or brigades, should have presented, either in the matter of discipline or equipment, anything that would commend itself to the trained military man. One thing, however, all those who had assembled, whether as minute-men or militia, possessed in common; and that was the patriotic determination to resist by every means in their power any further encroachment upon their rights and liberties. A goodly number of the recruits and many of the officers had served in the expeditions against Canada; and these were sufficient to leaven the mass, and communicate by example and precept something of the military spirit to their younger comrades who had never rendered service in the field. At that time the army was a Massachusetts army, and in fact it is so termed in the official documents. The regiments were really what would be designated in these days as State regiments, being enlisted, officered, and maintained entirely by Massachusetts. There was no lack of officers of the higher grades, as there were provided in addition to the general officers previously named as having been appointed in making the establishment for the organization of the army, May 23, 1775, one lieutenant-general, two major-generals, four brigadier-generals, two adjutant-generals, and two quartermaster-generals.
By June 13, 1775, it had been resolved that twenty-three regiments should be commissioned, exclusive of one regiment of artillery, which latter was to consist of ten companies, and had already been partly organized. Such were the constituent parts of the army organized by Massachusetts inside of two months after the 19th of April, 1775, from her local militia; and it was these same raw and undisciplined levies, assisted by the contingents from the neighboring Colonies, which had assembled at Cambridge and Roxbury upon news being conveyed to them that Massachusetts had accepted the gage of battle, who time after time repelled the attacks of picked regiments of troops of Great Britain, until compelled to leave the field by lack of ammunition upon the seventeenth day of June, 1775. No better test of the mettle of the American militiaman, when converted into a soldier, can be conceived than was furnished upon that day when a number of these hastily organized regiments met and shrank not from the attack of trained soldiers. Although, naturally enough, regarded as a defeat, and, therefore, in a measure discreditable to the provincials, so much so that in after years veteran survivors cared not to exploit their participation in the battle, it really had a tremendous moral effect upon each side, the provincials being assured thereafter that under anywhere near like equal conditions they could defeat the British, while for the enemy there resulted the enforced conviction that the colonists were not unworthy foes, and that like victory would be altogether too dearly bought.
The encouragement offered to men to enlist into the eight months’ service would hardly be considered in the light of a very extravagant bounty in these days. The Provincial Congress provided that a woollen coat should be supplied to every soldier who enlisted, in addition to his wages and travel allowance. These coats were to be provided by the different towns throughout the Province; and a schedule was made up, allotting a definite number to be furnished by each town. They were to be of a uniform pattern, as far as the style of the coat was concerned; but apparently the only distinctive military attachment in connection with them was the buttons, which it was enacted should be of pewter and bear the regimental number, when the coats were distributed to the men belonging to the different organizations. It may well be imagined that this method of securing coats did not result in very prompt delivery, and in consequence it was provided later in the year that soldiers might receive a money equivalent for the value of the coat. Inasmuch as many of the men served the full term of their enlistment without ever being gratified with the sight of the promised bounty coat, it is not to be wondered at that thousands of them accepted the money equivalent, and received it in some instances after the expiration of their term of service. With the appointment of Washington as commander-in-chief by the Continental Congress, the Massachusetts army, raised as I have described, together with the levies raised by the other Colonies, became a part of the Continental establishment. The eight months’ men raised by Massachusetts can properly be regarded accordingly as Continental soldiers, although originally raised under State auspices, without any outside encouragement or assistance. The actual transfer of State stores, supplies, etc., did not take place for some little time after Washington had taken command at Cambridge; and many of the officers exercised the duties of their positions under their State commissions, and did not receive Continental commissions until September or October, 1775.
It may be interesting to note how the effective forces at Washington’s disposition compared with the authorized number directed to be raised by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. They had provided for an army of 13,600 men; but on July 10, 1775, Washington expressed his concern at finding the army inadequate to the general expectation and the duties which might be required of it. In this communication he states that the number of men fit for duty of the forces raised by the Province, including all the outposts and artillery, did not amount to 9000. He also states that the troops raised in the other Colonies were more complete, although they also fell short of their establishment; and his estimate at that time of the total number of men at his disposition available for duty was not more than 13,500. The proportion, however, of the troops furnished by the different Colonies, and composing the army that invested Boston, is shown by a general return, signed by Adjutant-General Horatio Gates in July, 1775. It gives twenty-six Massachusetts regiments (an additional regiment not being completed is not included in the number), four independent companies, also of Massachusetts, with a regiment of artillery, three Connecticut regiments, three New Hampshire regiments, three Rhode Island regiments, and a Rhode Island company of artillery, making altogether a total force of 17,355 men.
At a council of war, July 9, 1775, it was estimated that the force of the enemy amounted to 11,500, and that the army investing Boston ought to consist of at least 22,000 men; and it was recommended, in order to supply the deficiency, that an officer from each company raised in Massachusetts Bay should be sent out to recruit all the regiments up to their standard efficiency as fixed by the Provincial Congress, Rhode Island and Connecticut being at the time engaged in recruiting for the purpose of filling up their quotas of troops to the full establishment. Naturally enough, the commander-in-chief found much to lament over in the deficiencies both as to number and equipment of the army he found almost ready made to his hand, and yet so lacking in all things from a military point of view; but there is little of criticism in his letters of the period, although they are filled with pleadings, expostulations, and exhortations for the purpose of bringing up the army to a desired state of efficiency.
While the enlisted men comprising this eight months’ army held the line and were being brought more or less under military discipline and system, there were times when their numbers fell short of the estimated number required for a besieging army, where it was at any time possible that the enemy equal in effective force might make an attack and break the line. It was found necessary from time to time to call forth the local militia from the towns in the vicinity of Boston to do duty for longer or shorter periods; but then, as later, the general officers criticised the efficiency of the militia thus called upon, as they could not be depended upon for a continuance in camp for any definite period, or regularity and discipline during the time they might stay. Such criticism was inevitable, and was applied during the whole term of the Revolutionary War to the militia contingents that were called forth in all the Colonies by the officers commanding the regulars or the Continental forces.
After the expiration of the term of service of the eight months’ men a call was made for twelve months’ men; and many of those who served the first term or first campaign, as it was called, both officers and men, engaged for the second campaign. The organization of the standing militia thereby became broken up and disrupted by the depletion of the local organizations. It therefore became necessary to make a reorganization and redistricting of the militia of the Province. An act was accordingly passed January 22, 1776, by which this object was attained. It provided that all able-bodied male persons from sixteen years of age to fifty, with certain specified exemptions, in every town and district should be considered members of the train band. The alarm list should consist of all male persons from sixteen years of age to sixty-five, not liable to be included in the train band and not exempted under special provision. Each company was to consist of sixty-eight privates, exclusive of the alarm list, officered by a captain and two lieutenants, non-commissioned officers to be four sergeants, four corporals, with a drummer and fifer for each company. A brigadier-general was directed to be chosen for each county, and under him the field officers of the different regiments were authorized to divide up and district the regiments, each regiment having a colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and two majors. Three major-generals were also to be chosen by the Council or House of Representatives. Under this enactment the county regiments were numbered, officered, and their organizations established, and from the standing militia thus provided for all detachments and drafts of Massachusetts militia that were made, either for short terms of service upon alarms or as re-enforcements to the Continental Army, were made during the remaining period of the war. This establishment for the militia continued in force until after the adoption of the State Constitution in 1780.
Boston.
James J. Tracy.
(Read before the Massachusetts Sons of American Revolution, 1904.)