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

2. The Hunters of Kentucky

[ 9 ] The militia was not designed as an agent of social, economic, or political transformation, nor did citizen-soldiers necessarily see themselves in that role. Yet that was indeed the role the militia played in the early republic, and it played the role well. Nevertheless, citizen-soldiers maintained their traditional responsibility as a military force commanded by community leaders, and the history of battlefields and the militia’s organizational evolution warrants a brief overview. In addition, this chapter includes an analysis of the militia participants’ financial well-being and the offices held by enlisted men and officers, which further demonstrates the influence that citizen-soldiers held in their communities. The conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 eliminated for British settlers the centuries-old annoyance of their French neighbors to the north and west. For royal officials, however, the victory initiated new challenges in governing the colonies. More adventurous-minded Americans began to trek westward, crossing the Appalachian Mountains in search of land, furs, and fortune. Ignoring the ill-conceived Proclamation Line of 1763, settlers traveled through passes such as the Cumberland Gap and into the fertile Kentucky District of Virginia. By 1775 the westward flow of Americans had grown from a trickle to a torrent, and although the French were gone, the Native American population posed a serious threat to western whites. Encounters with Shawnee, Miami, Mingo, and Wyandot warriors meant sleepless nights for white settlers and political consternation in the halls of government as first colonial and then federal officials sought a policy to avoid increasingly violent confrontations. The linchpin of an effective frontier strategy was the militia. Settlers who journeyed west carried with them the framework of Virginia’s milithe hunters of kentuck y ) [ 10 ] the hunters of kentuck y [ 10 ] tia system and established a county-based defensive organization. A colonel, confusingly known as the county lieutenant, commanded militia members by supervising drills and muster days and organizing measures to thwart Indian attacks. Before the 1790s, necessity dictated that every able-bodied male who could handle a gun—and often those who could not—be prepared to answer the alarm in the event of an Indian raid. In 1777 Kentucky County held its first formal muster when 144 men turned out, and for the next fifteen years they and those who followed engaged in an on-again, off-again battle with Native Americans. Initially governed by the laws of Virginia, Kentucky’s citizen-soldiers differed little from their eastern counterparts. Statute required all free males ages eighteen to forty-five to participate in seven musters per year, five company musters and two regimental. Each company, at least on paper, consisted of eighty to one hundred men, with ten companies in a battalion and two battalions in a regiment. Each man was to furnish a rifle or musket, a half pound of powder, and one pound of lead, all to be kept in good order. They trained in the manner prescribed by Baron Von Steuben’s 1779 Manual of Discipline and Formation and were supervised either by officers of their own choosing or by those selected by a designated committee of local militiamen. Field grade officers with a rank of major or higher gained their rank at the hand of the governor, where political connections were more valuable than military expertise. The law granted exemptions to men deemed essential to the state’s economic and political viability and to those involved in activities critical to defense, such as gunsmithing. Millers, ironworkers, and tobacco inspectors as well as legal clerks, elected civil officials, and seminary professors legally avoided the periodic muster days and the occasional calls for service. Kentuckian James Dunlap, although claiming none of the standard exemptions, recalled later that he was sure he would “be excused on a/c of having but one eye.” Unfortunately for him, “Col. McDowell stepped forward, & s[ai]d, as good a soldier as he ever had in his regiment was Joe Young, & he had but 1 eye. So I had to pay a man 40/s to be my substitute.” Some officers obviously took militia service more seriously than others, but fines imposed for nonattendance achieved only moderate success in rousting wayward soldiers. The poorest had no cash and the well-to-do saw payment as preferable to mingling with their less-refined neighbors. [ 11 ] the...