Citizens More than Soldiers: The Kentucky Militia and Society in the Early Republic

1. Rethinking the Social Role of the Militia

[ 1 ] rethinking the social role of the militia ( In Requiem for a Nun, William Faulkner introduces the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi, located in the equally fictitious Yoknapatawpha County. Central to his story, set in the 1830s, is the capture of a gang of ruffians: “A gang—three or four—of Natchez Trace bandits . . . [was] captured by chance by an incidental band of civilian more-or-less militia and brought in to the Jefferson jail because it was the nearest one, the militia band being part of a general muster at Jefferson two days before for a Fourth-of-July barbecue, which by the second day had been refined by hardy elimination into one drunken brawling which rendered even the hardiest survivors vulnerable residents.” The story continues as Jefferson’s residents struggle to find a suitable place to secure the “bandits,” but of greater historical significance is the brief appearance of the local militia. Faulkner’s portrayal of the volunteer soldiers conforms to popular perceptions of the early national militia. Incompetent at best, dangerous at worst, militiamen are usually depicted as drunken buffoons who stumbled into a crooked line, poked each other with cornstalk weapons, and inevitably shot their commander in the backside with a rusty, antiquated musket. Caricatures of the over-accoutered captain and his clownish part-time charges are familiar to even casual scholars of the new republic. Yet even in Faulkner’s amusingly inept company of Yoknapatawpha “more-or-less” citizen-soldiers, there are hints of something more at work. His militia had mustered in preparation for the upcoming July Fourth celebration, an occasion that typically included men in uniform. Militiamen frequently organized the day’s activities, made patriotic speeches at the afternoon barbecue, and concluded the day with a long series of toasts. The Jefferson militia company had also deemed it necessary to curtail further celebration to capture the wandering felons, car- re thinking the social role of the militia [ 2 ] rying out another responsibility generally ascribed to citizen-soldiers —the maintenance of civil order. The militiamen’s appearance in Faulkner’s tale bears one additional similarity to the traditional understanding of the American militia’s place in the early nineteenth century: it is peripheral and fleeting. Beyond stereotypes, little is known about the ways the militia affected communities in the early republic. In his study of the trans-Appalachian frontier, Malcolm J. Rohrbough hints that historians have underestimated the social influence of the militia, noting that musters were “the largest gathering of people” communities witnessed, where “men would gather in small groups to play at politics, swap horses, engage in rough and tumble, debate the leading questions of the day (the price of land and crops), or simply exchange news.” A reassessment demonstrates that scholars have indeed erred by ignoring or discounting the militia’s significance in early nineteenth-century American society. In the years between the ratification of the U.S. Constitution and the rising sectional conflict of the 1850s, American society underwent a rapid transition, if not in fact a revolution. Frontier outposts exploded into cities in which social, political, and economic competition was daily fare. The Revolutionaries’ belief in an organic society led by a natural aristocracy gave way to the Jacksonians’ faith in the common man, while an aversion to factionalism was overcome by the competitive spirit of the second party system. The simple and intimate practice of bartering among neighbors surrendered to the impersonal complexity of a market economy. And more subtly, concepts of masculinity that honored a man’s independence and self-sacrifice lost out to the competitiveness and self-interest of capitalism. The militia’s involvement in these transformations has eluded both military and social historians. What role did the militia play in creating and reinforcing the complex processes that created a community out of disparate individuals? How did the militia’s activities confirm the stability of long-established social and economic hierarchies while fostering the aspirations of the common man? How significant was its part in the rejection of the elites’ political hegemony? How did it influence men’s self-identity, particularly their conception of masculinity and appropriate male behavior? Themilitiaremainedanactiveandinfluentialcivilinstitutionthroughout the great transitions of the early nineteenth century. Evidence of its influence is found in the public sphere—the arena in which individu- re...