In Defense of Hearth and Home: The history of the Thirteen Colonial Militias from 1607-1775

By Paul Hunt

In Defense of Hearth and Home is an analytical history of the thirteen colonial militias from their inception up to the American Revolution. This work chronicles the experiences of each individual militia system, how it interacted with its opponents, how and when it gained war time experience or decayed from a lack of such experience during long periods of peace. Uses a combination of first person accounts, historical narrative, and combat analysis to weave together a comprehensive history of the thirteen colonial militias through the colonial period.
A major theme of this work is that each colonial militia developed differing capabilities in response to the differing immediate threats each colony had to defend against. Each individual colony's war time experiences differed from that of its' neighbor, even when both participated in the same war. For instance, Queen Anne's War was a life and death struggle to Massachusetts and South Carolina, but barely merits a footnote in North Carolina's history. Through this process, chronicled herein, a patchwork of differing militias developed on the eve of the Revolution. Each individual militia system developed different levels of expertise, different capabilities, and became unique militia systems in response to differing histories. At the beginning of the American Revolution thirteen separate militia systems of varying quality opposed the English attempt to conquer the rebelling colonies. It was their experiences in the colonial period, or lack thereof, account for their differing quality in 1775. These differences explain many of the widely varying militia performances during the Revolution.
Another major theme is that the first colonists brought European methods of warfare to the New World. Over the next one hundred and seventy years their experience fighting against the Indian nations, the French, the Dutch, and the Spanish forced the colonies to create a unique fusion of Indian and European warfare. The process of this change occurred over generations and differed greatly from colony to colony. When the Revolution began the American militias had become the finest light infantry in the world, employing a unique form of warfare against the English Army.
In Defense of Hearth and Home will give the reader a greater appreciation of the sacrifices and sufferings of his or her colonial forefathers, and unique perspective on the militias that went on to fight the American Revolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098318772

Paul Hunt

Paul Hunt is president of Pricing Solutions, an international pricing consultancy. He has an MBA and has written numerous articles for magazines and associations on pricing. He has more than twenty years of experience in his field, lives in Toronto, and is a proud father to his daughter, Julia. Jim Saunders leads the Pricing Management Practice at Pricing Solutions. A professional engineer with an MBA, he has more than twenty-five years of management and pricing consulting experience and seeks to “make data fun” in his speeches, lectures, and writings.

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface- Methodology

Chapter 1- Introduction

Chapter 2- The Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and English Origins of the Colonial Militias

Chapter 3- The Early Beginnings: Action, Reaction, and Synthesis

Chapter 4- War to the Death: The New England Militias in the Pequot and King Philip’s Wars

Chapter 5- Clash of Three Empires: The Rise of the Southern Militias

Chapter 6- Decay and Renewal: The Virginia Militias

Chapter 7- Chapter Seven: The Residual Militias: Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey

Chapter 8- Pennsylvania: The Reluctant Warriors

Chapter 9- New York: Under the Shield of the Covenant Chain

Chapter 10- New England: Chapter Ten: The Struggle Between the New England Militias and New France- Searching for Solutions, 1689-1738

Chapter 11- New England: Imperial Solutions

Chapter 12- The Militias on the Eve of the Revolution, the English Way of War, And the Importance of the Center of Gravity

Conclusion

Appendix A- Jamestown Dataset and Methodology

Appendix B- King Phillip’s War Dataset and Methodology

Appendix C- Southern Wars Observations

Appendix D- Franco-Indian Invasion of Pennsylvania 1755-1758 Dataset and Methodology

Appendix E- Queen Anne’s War Dataset and Methodology

Appendix F- Battle Psychology and Lovewell’s Pond

Appendix G- Colonial Population and Militia Numbers

Appendix H- Robert Roger’s 28 Rules of Ranging

Appendix I- Discussion of the French Arrie’re Ban and French Military Diversions to the Coastline

Endnotes

Bibliography

ISBN: 978-1-09-831877-2

Citation for front picture: Attack on a Garrison House. Attacks like this occurred in almost all colonies throughout the colonial period.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost I would like to thank two people who in equal measure contributed to the writing of this book. Thank you my dear wife Suni who has put up with so much in my obsession to finish this. You have put up with many long nights on the computer and trips to libraries and battlefields hundreds of miles away without complaint. It was your support that enabled me to finish this. Thank you Dr. Robert Swierenga. You have been my mentor and encourager both in the 1990s and recently. You showed me the power and potential of a Quantitative look at history. I only hope this work meets your high expectations. Without you two I could not have written this book, thank you.

Thanks also to Tony Zoskey and Allison Kelly who proof read for content many of the chapters of this work. Your suggestions and comments were very helpful and much appreciated.

I would like to thank the personnel of the College of William and Mary Library for their help in my research efforts. I especially would like to thank the front desk for consistently allowing me to take out more titles than I was allowed. By looking the other way while I borrowed many more titles than I was supposed to you measurably shortened the time this work took to write. Many thanks.

Note to the Reader

In Defense of Hearth and Home takes the story of the thirteen colonial militias up to 1775 and the eve of the Revolution. The companion work Forgotten Warriors Forgotten Battles continues their story through the American Revolution. If you enjoyed In Defense of Hearth and Home then I heartily recommend you continue with Forgotten Warriors Forgotten Battles. If you do then I promise you will never think of the militias in quite the same way again. Indeed, your ideas of how we won our independence will be greatly changed, permanently. Historical scholarship of the Revolution has resulted in large available databases, allowing for major portions of the conflict to be subjected to indepth critical analysis. I think you will find the answers surprising, shocking, and significantly change how view the entire conflict should be viewed.

Preface: Methodology

Beyond Generals and Arrows on Maps

Why write on the militias? They don’t exactly have the best reputation do they? The militias were the primary defense force for the American colonies for two centuries, a period when those colonies experienced explosive growth and prosperity amidst a highly hostile environment. Yet the militias have such a poor reputation. Normally in such hostile conditions, a poorly defended society does not prosper. Yet clearly America prospered. This incongruity has always bothered me. I knew the militias, being amateurs, had panics, made mistakes, and failed at times. But these failures have come to unjustly define them. This work attempts to correct this. Quite simply, they deserve to be remembered accurately. So I will call particular attention to their successes, successes that have received far too little recognition. I will not ignore their failures, but you must excuse me if we do not dwell on them, all too many have done so. My only hope is that this work accords them the honor to which their service and sacrifices entitles them.

To understand how good or bad the militias were and why, we must look at their wars. Wars are complex creatures. They can be studied on many levels and often have been. One level concerns the interaction of the opposing generals’ decisions, Rommel and Patton, Grant and Lee, Washington and Howe. Another method involves the clash of armies, a chronological recounting of combat as each army seeks to dominate and crush the other. Ever read Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe or Von Manstein’s Lost Victories? Another way to study a conflict is from the soldiers’ eyes. Anderson’s A People’s Army or Forrest’s Soldiers of the French Revolution are great examples of this. Each level of historical study uncovers valid truth about the conflicts studied, but often not the same truths. Frequently, a truth is unclear at one level but quite prominent at another. Skilled, ambitious authors have penned multi-level studies. For example, Scheer and Rankin’s Rebels and Redcoats manages a fine synthesis of the personal level and the clash of armies. From this one book you can learn a lot about our Revolution and the men who fought it.

One of the finest works I have read is David Chandler’s The Campaigns of Napoleon. Chandler examines the French Revolution and Napoleon’s Wars on several different levels. One is the institutional level. He sees the Napoleonic Wars as a clash between a newly reorganized French Army and Napoleonic tactical system arrayed against other European powers that used military institutions and war fighting methods developed 50 years previously. Chandler’s thesis is that an improved and modernized institution translated into higher French Army combat effectiveness and was a major reason for their successes. It is this level or perspective we look at. We will examine how the exigencies of combat against, first Indians and then their French and Spanish allies, slowly transformed the Plymouth and Jamestown Trainbandsmen into the Revolutionary militias. We will see how militia combat experience, or lack thereof, influenced organizational adaptation and effectiveness over the colonial period. This level of study is somewhat under-examined. It is also a level at which certain truths are apparent that are not readily discernable at other levels.

Every war is a clash between two military institutions. Each is a complex product of its’ constituent peoples’ culture and government, its’ interaction and experience against opponents, and the parent civilization’s technological inheritance. These factors convey different strengths and weaknesses to the military institution. In wars between culturally similar nations, the institutional gulf is usually small. In clashes between civilizations, this gulf is often quite large. In such cases, their large dissimilarity prevents both from being fully effective against one another. Successes mix with failures, sometimes large failures. These failures stimulate adaptation as each army tries to gain an advantage and grapple with its’ foe. German philosopher Hegel’s thesis, antithesis, new synthesis accurately describes how these attempts to cope mutate into complex cycles of interactive adaptation. You see these cycles in short wars. In long wars, they often determine the victor and the vanquished. Unfortunately, these adaptive cycles often go unrecognized and are studied coherently even less often.

Wars are endeavours of crucial importance. To the fighting men the matter is literally life and death. They therefore operate at the height of innovative and adaptive ability. For example, in World War II what Americans did with the tank was astounding. Tanks that float; sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it? Yet tanks swam ashore at Normandy, fighting until they were burned out hulks.a In Europe and the Pacific, dozens of variations emerged to solve individual problems. There were tanks that swam, tanks that swept mines, flamethrower tanks, tanks that tunneled through hedgerows, tank bulldozers, etc., literally dozens of varieties. Some were developed within days or weeks of the need arising. This was innovative adaptation at it fastest and finest. But this was adaptation at the micro level. There is also adaptation at the institutional level. The French Napoleonic Army of 1805 was a vastly different institution from the Ancien Regime Army of 1789, just 16 years prior. But here the changes were organizational. All major changes separating the Ancien Regime Army from the army Napoleon used to crush all Europe were organizational or tactical (granted, the artillery equipment was better). So too the German Army of 1940 was a completely different (and far more robust) creature than that of 1918, much to the chagrin of the French. It is these kinds of adaptations this work focuses on.

The first settlers in North America were militiamen, with all the institutional heritage England’s long, celebrated military traditions could impart. They came to the New World with a specific way of waging war, and met a completely different way of waging war in that of the indigenous tribes. We will examine the clash between these two different militaries. We will chronicle how the American, Spanish, French, and Indian ways of fighting interacted and changed over time. We will show how and why militia fighting effectiveness fluctuated over the 170 years from Jamestown to Lexington. During that time, Indian warfare and life in America evolved the Elizabethan Trainband into the colonial militias. When the American Revolution began, the English Army clashed with a very different group of militias than those transplanted to Jamestown and Plymouth.

In order to gain a firm understanding of each colonial militias’ strengths, weaknesses, and development in combat, we trace each individual colony’s militia over the colonial period to the Revolution. This is not intended as a comprehensive institutional study. We focus on each militias’ combat experiences or their lack, taking note of the institutional changes they adopted during and after each conflict. We then proceed to an overall assessment of each militia on the eve of the American Revolution. I apologize in advance for this approach’s repetitive nature. You will hear of King William’s and Queen Anne’s wars, and other conflicts on multiple occasions. We trace how each colony’s militia was affected by the differing stresses of these conflicts. What was to one colony a life or death struggle, to another merited a bare footnote. Only by tracing each colony’s militia history as a continuous progression can we understand their differing military capabilities in 1775. Only by understanding this can we understand why each separate militia performed well or poorly during the Revolution.

This work studies colonial militia combat effectiveness in their long struggle against first the initial Indian opponents, then the Spanish, French, and Indians encountered later. Historians often depict the militias as randomly unreliable and of little real worth. Much of the seeming randomness in militia combat effectiveness was not random when viewed through the lens of adaptive cycles. You must view the colonial militias as many separate, differentiated organizations each possessing different strengths, weaknesses and capabilities. An examination of militia combat effectiveness from these perspectives illuminates many of the reasons for their good and poor showings in the Revolution. To view the militias as a monolith is a serious error.

A brief comment about methods. In order to understand how a military institution evolves and adapts under the pressures of war, you need to ask certain questions. Specifically, exactly who fought who, how, and with what success? Patterns will emerge. Then you need to ask how these patterns changed over time as the opponents’ changing patterns of attack and defense interacted in a complex mosaic. At the macroscopic scale only the most general trends can be discerned. Not so at the microscopic, where answers are often readily apparent. This work uses a quantitative method to bring out these patterns and cycles of adaptation. Periodically during the colonial militias’ histories, we take primary source accounts of engagements and reduce them to a database that is scrutinized for these patterns. This is primarily a study of how the opposing institutions interacted with and upon one another. It is more than that though. At the microscopic level individual men made decisions that either resulted in their death or survival. This study examines how those individuals struggled and strove to survive in an environment brutally unforgiving of failure. In turn, their individual decisions collectively changed the nature of their parent militias over time. This work studies how individual men fight and adapt in order to survive. Most often they were sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. Occasionally, they were even generals.

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a Granted, many sank in the high surf, especially at Omaha Beach. Still, the creativity underpinning the concept was remarkable.

Chapter One

Introduction

Most Europeans who came to colonial America were people no one wanted. Many were religious outcasts, some were downtrodden, not a few came dreaming to get rich, and only a very few were from the privileged classes. All of them possessed the courage to uproot their lives, cross a dangerous, forbidding ocean vast in breadth and storm tossed, to settle in a land whose fantastic dangers were spoken of in every homeland tavern. Of one thing only were they certain. When they got here, they faced those dangers alone. The distance was too great; the difficulties in sending aid over such distances prohibited assistance. For the most part they were people their monarchs thought not worth the treasure to send expensive soldiers such vast distances to aid. It was solely up to them whether they lived or died. Either they defended themselves or they died, for no one else would defend them. The early wars in Virginia and Massachusetts hammered this stark truth home. When both colonies were fighting for their lives and on the verge of losing, the throne grudgingly sent a few obsolete pikes or barrels of gunpowder; but not one of the King’s soldiers. Precariously perched on the edge of a vast wilderness an entire ocean away, these colonists were simply not worth the trouble.

So these new Americans developed their own defenses, relying solely on themselves. All adult men became militiamen, all served to defend themselves, their colonies, their towns. For over 180 years, to be a man in America was to be a militiaman. During the entire colonial period militiamen were the mainstay of colonial defense. All that time they farmed, wielded blacksmith’s hammers, worked in tanner’s sheds, or plied the coast in fishing boats. They worked hard to provide for their families in a land that severely punished the least mistake. When threatened, they laid down the tools of domesticity to pick up weapons of war. Over every militiaman’s hearth was a musket, nearby lay sword or tomahawk, a cartridge box or powder horn and a pouch of lead balls. Though he desired peace, for all those years the militiaman stood squarely between his loved ones and those who came to plunder, torture, slay, or enslave. Each time danger threatened, militiamen gathered to defend their towns against all who came against them. Nor did they lack for enemies. The warrior societies native to America fought hard to keep them from settling the land. The Spanish warred against them and so did the French and also the Dutch. Pirates often filled the void between wars. And yet, somehow thirteen little colonies clinging precariously on the edge of a continent-sized wilderness prospered. Somehow the militiamen always seemed to be just good enough to keep the foe at bay. So a tiny group of 104 adventurers grew to a population of two million souls by the Revolution.

Restored colonial Hearth, Hancock House Salem, New Jersey. Note that musket, bullet pouch, and powder horn are quickly available.

By the only measure that matters, the militiaman was a tremendous success. The society he defended prospered and grew. No North American English colony was ever conquered.a Some came to within the knife’s edge of defeat, but every time militiamen rose to the challenge. Every time his colony was threatened, he interposed himself between a merciless enemy and his family, his village, and all he held dear. He often willingly sacrificed himself to ensure their survival. He developed the curious knack of being just good enough, however high or low the bar was set. The emergency over, he quietly returned to plow, sickle, or hammer. The militiaman was, in the truest sense, an amateur soldier. He was only a soldier as long as needed; when his soldierly skills were no longer wanted he was a farmer, tanner, blacksmith, fisherman, or any one of the many vocations of colonial America.

The American colonial militias were quite possibly the most successful military institutions in the world in the 17th and 18th centuries. Yet despite his success the American militiaman has been much maligned in history, from the day he lived through the centuries to today. His prowess has been belittled, his accomplishments scorned, his soldierly skills scoffed at. Only his enemies grew to respect him, and they only after they fought him. This simple truth has been much neglected in colonial histories. The list of enemies laid low by unskilled, lowborn, rabble militiamen is long indeed. Powhatan warriors tried and failed, and so did New England’s Algonquin tribes. The French, Dutch, and Spanish all crossed swords and failed to conquer. So too the Iroquois, Creek, and Cherokee, the Abenaki, the Ohio Indians, the Delaware, and numerous pirates all came against our lowly militiaman and failed. Yet history has judged him oh so harshly. Why?

Often it was men with an agenda. The gentry and monarchs did not want to promote the idea that free men- peasants could succeed without them. So too they scarcely understood the Indian warriors’ capabilities until an arrogant General Braddock marched a thousand doomed regulars into the wilderness. Yet even then they did not believe the militiaman possessed soldierly qualities. After Concord, Generals Gage and Sir Percy were surprised at their steadfast enemy. A brave, resolute militiaman was outside of all their familiar paradigms. As did their monarchs, professional soldiers scorned him, disparaging his ability, the difficulties he faced, and most of all his accomplishments.

This view was seconded by Continental officers during and after the Revolution. Daniel Morgan, wrote that he had 800 men at Cowpens, the number of Continentals. But he forgot to mention the hundreds of militiamen who fought in the battle. After the Revolution, General Knox downplayed militia numbers and their role. So did Hamilton whose Federalist ideas were congruent with a large professional army.

General Emory Upton, a strong advocate of a professional army, wrote a scathing indictment of the militia in The Military Policy of the United States published in 1904. Historians have since picked up where he left off. One, speaking at the 6th Military History Symposium in 1976 said, But when was the militia ever viable as an institution? I do not think that you could have convinced Washington or Knox that it was ever viable during the Revolution. Of late that view has seen some needed revision. Still, the militias are often described as static, incompetent, randomly good or bad, easily panicked, and unable to improve.¹

How do we reconcile these two views? Were the successful colonial defenders for 180 years truly incompetent, static, unable to change, and of little real ability in battle? If so why did they have such an unbroken record of success? Why did their society flourish behind such a poor bulwark in such hostile conditions? Come, and together we will walk through their history to find the answers. We will look at each militia and the colony it defended to see how it grew, what influenced it, what enemies it faced, and in what condition it entered the Revolution. We will then look at the American Revolution as a clash of institutions from the militias’ perspective, to see how well or poorly they did and why. You will be surprised at exactly who the colonial and Revolutionary militiaman was and how much he sacrificed and accomplished.

If so many have such a poor opinion of the militias, how do we change such entrenched opinions? Were I only to write a prose history, it might convince a few, but only a few. Two centuries of disparagement will not so easily be altered. But the militiaman’s sacrifices demand he be remembered accurately. No, to convince history of the need to view him more kindly, we must give proofs. Numbers don’t lie. While they can be manipulated, I assure you they were not. To overturn entrenched ideas we need to use numbers. We need to offer objective proofs. So, in this work we include a number of tables and graphs. I apologize for using such tedium, but it serves a purpose. Through these tools we show how well or poor the militiaman did, why, and when. By the end of this work I hope you agree he is due far more respect than he has heretofore been accorded. You must pardon me if I commandeer a well-known phrase, but a single graph is worth a thousand pages of prose.

In spite of the graphs, and sometimes because of them, we will wade through a fair amount of history. Just as I in writing it, in reading this work you will learn quite a bit about the militiaman and his world. By and large, the men and women who settled these lands were uncommonly brave. Some of the deeds women performed in these pages would put most of today’s men to shame. You cannot read these pages without coming away with an understanding of the hardships and trials they faced. I would like to claim this results from good writing, but it does not. It is a consequence of the tremendous deeds they accomplished, the terrific trials they overcame in order to survive. We owe them far more than we realize, and they accomplished much more than we remember. My only desire is that when you finish reading this, you understand some of what they strove and fought for. I hope you will come to know them, with all their faults, as the noble men and women they were. Above all, this is the story of a free people, fighting first for survival, and later to maintain that freedom against tremendous odds.

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a New York in 1673 does not count. As a Dutch colony just conquered by the English, when the Dutch invaded, the mostly Dutch militia unsurprisingly failed to turn out.

Chapter Two

The Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and English Origins of the Colonial Militias

The militiaman who stepped onto the shore at Cape Charles in 1607 did not take the field as a member of a new military institution. Rather, he represented the latest incarnation of a long established military tradition spanning 1,500 years, past the Middle and Dark Ages and stretching into the time of Rome’s expansion into the Germanic tribal heartlands. TGenesis of the idea free men are responsible for defending themselves, their families, and their rights had its origin in Germanic tribal traditions. Tacitus writes in Germania all free Germans were warriors and tribal leaders had the right to call on all free men for armed service. Tacitus even records that the Germanic definition of a free man was one who bears arms. This warrior tradition, brought to England by the Germanic Angles and Saxons, formed the foundation upon which the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd was based.a In Anglo-Saxon England, the Fyrd comprised all free men organized into a warrior army to defend their kingdom, village, and families. The Fyrd was an early manifestation of the ‘nation in arms.’ was the basis of the Anglo-Saxon military until 1066 AD and was the basis of the Anglo-Saxon military until 1066 AD¹

When King Alfred ascended the throne of Wessex in 871 AD, the Fyrd was well established in England. It is often divided into two tiers.b The first, and most frequently used branch, was the Select Fyrd comprised of Fyrdmen thegns, Ealdormen, and the King’s retainers or Hearthband. The Select Fyrd was recruited on the basis of land, and was subject to a personal call to serve the King. Each three hundred acres of farmers (usually five ‘hides’ or five farmers) were tasked to support one Fyrdman. The second branch consisted of the Great Fyrd, composed of all freemen. The Great Fyrd was more numerous and less well trained than the Select Fyrd. Call up of the Great Fyrd for any extended time severely reduced farm production. Call up of the Great Fyrd of Wessex was reserved for dire national emergencies, and was was rarely called up en mass.c Usually only shire Fyrds adjacent to the area under attack were called up.

Army on the left is employing an Anglo-Saxon Shield Wall.

The king’s thegns (vassals), retainers, and his personal bodyguard were mounted and highly mobile. But Shire Fyrds were slow to assemble and move, being almost all foot soldiers. Although the king’s thegns were mounted for movement to battle, there is scant evidence of their using horses in battle. All, including the King, fought on foot. Alfred’s army was overwhelmingly an infantry army. They fought in a close formation called a shield wall. This formation possessed great defensive strength, but required trained men. While many nations succumbed, time and again Anglo-Saxon armies used shield walls to inflict costly defeats on invading Danish armies.²

Alfred the Great assumed the Anglo-Saxon throne of Wessex in the midst of the terrible 8th century Danish invasions. From before his ascension until well after his death, Wessex came under repeated Viking attack. In one year (878 AD), Wessex was invaded twice, and in 892-896 AD Danish armies struck Wessex from all four cardinal points of the compass! Alfred’s reign was very much that of a warrior king during what the Chinese call ‘interesting times.’ ³

Over the course of his reign, Alfred made a number of innovations to the Fyrd. He divided Shire Fyrds into three parts. He created a field force with two thirds; one half staying ready at home and one half forming the field army. With the last third, he formed the defense force for burh forts, 27,000 men (if William‘s Doomsday census is accurate). The better armed and more mobile horse-owning neighbors were probably allocated to form the field army. This division allowed the peasantry to keep the local farm economy running, both for themselves and their absent neighbors, except when their home shire was invaded. He established or improved numerous forts in each shire called‘burhs.’ These formed strong points the home defense Fyrds could assemble on and defend. Alfred also reorganized the Fyrd in coastal towns to establish a navy. With strong leadership and utilizing these innovations Alfred stymied the Danes, maintaining Wessex’s independence despite unremitting, furious onslaughts by successive Danish kings.⁴

The Fyrd of Alfred’s later reign possessed several strengths as a military institution. The combination of ‘burh’ strong points and Shire Fyrds created a formidable defense. Mounted thegns and retainers provided a professional and highly mobile offensive core to the kingdom’s military. Thegns and mounted Fyrdmen could fight on short notice year round. Highly mobile, they were eminently suited for offensive warfare. The system was economical in a period of limited economic surpluses, subsistence farming, and frequent famines. There was no large standing army to strain the nascent state’s resources. Still, when Wessex was invaded, the Fyrd provided the means to quickly assemble large armies. More important, the German warrior ethos ensured that though Fyrdmen were amateurs, they were unusually competent amateurs. The Vikings went on to terrorize an entire continent, from Kiev to Ireland, Germany to Sicily. But in England, time and again Wessex Fyrdmen fought the dreaded raiders to a standstill.⁵

While the Fyrd had strengths, it also had several weaknesses. One drawback revolved around the inescapable conflict between the farming cycle and military requirements. In 878 AD Gunthrum invaded Wessex before the February sowing season; the timing was deliberate. During planting and harvest, militia armies cannot be employed in strength without seriously dislocating the economy or the militia refusing to mobilize. You see this weakness in all militia armies up to the American Revolution. It is an inherent weakness. We will see this problem rear its ugly head again in the critical year of 1066 AD and later.

While the king’s retainers, thegns, and some select fyrdmen were mounted, the Great Fyrd was infantry. This limited their mobility to that of the Great Fyrd when they acted in concert. Infantry was also at a disadvantage when dealing with small groups of fast moving Viking raiders. Though Alfred’s neighbor Charlemagne, faced with similar pressures, converted the Frankish infantry into a heavy cavalry force, the Anglo Saxons took a different tack. They used horses for strategic mobility, but continued to rely on the infantry shield wall for combat. One final weakness was the Fyrd’s amateur status. The Fyrd, consisting of farmers, was an amateur army. The demands of the farm meant Fyrdmen could never attain the skill of professional warriors such as the king’s hearthband.⁶

This mix of amateur Fyrd, semi-professional thegns, and professional retainers formed the Anglo-Saxon military in the seminal year of 1066 AD. That year’s events demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of a national militia. Anglo-Saxon King Harold expected a challenge to his throne following a disputed coronation. He mobilized the Fyrd and kept it under arms most of the summer. Only after he released it in late August to take in the harvest did not one but two invasions come. The first came not from France, but from Norway. Norwegian King Hardrada and Harold’s brother Tosig landed near York in September, defeating the Northern Fyrd. Harold moved by forced marches, hastily raising what men he could from the Middle and Northern Fyrds. Catching the Vikings by surprise, Harold severely defeated them at Stamford Bridge. ⁷

Harold only learned of William’s invasion of Kent after the battle. He conducted a forced march back across the length of England to oppose this invasion. In these marches, he covered 200 miles each way over four to five days (20-24 September and 2-6 October). This fifty miles a day average was possible only by horse-mounted fyrdmen, thegns, and retainers. In an era of rudimentary roads Harold’s marches display impressive strategic mobility.⁸

Harold issued a general call for all Fyrdmen to assemble at London. The Southern Fyrd was only partly assembled when he returned. Waiting only five days, Harold moved against William with a partly mobilized Fyrd and a tired, decimated force of thegns and retainers. He now took three days to march 60 miles from London to Hastings, indicating his army was now mostly infantry. The battle was hard fought, lasting all day. Victory nearly came within Harold’s grasp, but three times ill-disciplined rushes by Fyrdmen resulted in serious losses. When he was wounded and ridden down, his army collapsed.⁹

The Hastings campaign illustrates the Fyrd’s strengths and weaknesses. That Harold could mount an effective defense against two simultaneous invasions is testimony to the Fyrd’s formidable defensive power. His Fyrd defeated the first invasion and came within a hairs-breadth of defeating both. Had he awaited a full muster of the Southern Fyrd, he likely would have beat William. It is a mistake to think of Hastings as the inevitable victory of a medieval cavalry army against obsolete Dark Age infantry. Still, Fyrd indiscipline seriously undermined Harold’s defense at Hastings. His need to release them in August to bring in the crop pinpoints another weakness. It is not coincidental Hardrada and William invaded within days of each other and at the height of the harvest, a time when Harold was hard pressed to fully mobilize the Fyrd. It is likely the timing of both invasions represents an intentional exploitation of a known Anglo-Saxon military weakness by old, familiar enemies.¹⁰

Medieval Fyrd

With Harold’s death Anglo-Saxon England died. But the Fyrd did not. King William understood how close-run Hastings was. He certainly respected the Fyrd’s military potential. He may even have recognized that an infantry Fyrd, wedded to Norman heavy cavalry and archers made for an imposing battlefield combination. He acknowledged this in his ‘Laws of William I,’ by codifying the Fyrd and reaffirming the English freeman’s obligation to serve in defense of the realm. William was quick to utilize the Fyrd, using it first in 1067. From 1067 to 1071, he frequently called out the Fyrd to suppress Anglo-Saxon revolts. King William and his immediate successors continued to call out the Fyrd frequently, including 1075, 1088, 1098, and 1101.¹¹

Norman kings also made frequent use of mercenaries, and their use increased as England slowly transitioned to a feudal state. As it did the number of free commoners declined, eroding the Fyrd’s freemen foundations. As feudalism took root, the Fyrd necessarily declined. England came to resemble the rest of Europe’s military, a noble-dominated heavy cavalry supported by feudal levies of only secondary ability. Gradually, the Fyrd came to be regarded principally as a manpower reserve of partially trained men.¹²

After 1100, England’s wars ceased to be internal, the Normans having cemented their grip on the throne. Wars became offensive against neighboring kingdoms and overseas enemies. Multiple wars were fought in Wales and Scotland. England fought overseas campaigns in France, Ireland, Portugal (1147), and Palestine during the Crusades.a Not surprisingly, the use of shire militias declined. However, burghal militias from Northhampton, Lincoln, Malmeaburg, Nottingham, Dunwich, and the city of London were utilized several times. The trend lines were clear. They were away from large Fyrd mobilizations, and towards limited, targeted recruitments for foreign expeditions. In an era of offensive wars, the Fyrd’s defensive strength was rarely needed.¹³

The Assize of Arms of 1181 is an intermediate step between the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd and feudal levies. Henry III reissued the Assize in 1242 and 1253. Edward I reissued and updated it in his Statute of Winchester in 1285. This document completes the transition from Anglo-Saxon Fyrd to the heavy cavalry feudal host of Edward I. In his campaigns, the mounted knight is the core of the army. Instead of shield and battle axe armed heavy infantry, the majority of infantry were archers. Most archers were drawn from the retinues of noble retainers, lords, and knights not from the Fyrd. By Agincourt in 1415, almost all archers emanated from noble retinues. The remaining infantry were usually Welsh or Irish mercenaries, or English Fyrdmen recruited from frontier shires bordering Scotland and Wales. In a final step, Edward VI (1547-1553) reaffirmed the military obligation of all subjects. Though the Fyrd reached its nadir in the 15th century, it enjoyed an unbroken history from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Tudor dynastic reigns. The Fyrd, in its feudal manifestations, was the institutional forerunner of the Elizabethan militia which became, in its turn, the progenitor of the colonial militias.¹⁴

Matchlock Musketeer- Note the bulky weapon requiring a firing stand and the smouldering slowmatch.

By the 15th century, feudal society and its’ manorial economic system began to break down, undermining the feudal military system. It was at this juncture that the Tudors came to power. They revived the moribund Fyrd, first as the English and later the Elizabethan militia. Henry VIII (1509-1547) was the first king since Harold to place reliance for the realm’s defense upon a national militia. In 1511 he rejected feudal retainers and reaffirmed the Statute of Winchester. Going beyond proclamations and decrees, he ordered a national mobilization in 1511. In 1522 he again mustered the militia and assembled an impressive 128,250 able, if poorly trained and armed men. It was, at least, a foundation to build upon.¹⁵

While societal changes undermined feudalism’s economic base, other developments undercut the feudal military. Henry VIII’s shift away from reliance on armored knights was impelled by several developments that ultimately doomed the knights. The castle was the lynchpin of the manorial system and feudal military. But, gunpowder cannon rapidly relegated traditional castles to obsolete rubble. Concurrently, improved gunpowder firearms made infantry much more effective against armored knights. Better trained infantry utilizing massed, layered pikes also proved inimical to feudal cavalry. No longer could a charge of lance-armed knights reliably break and ride down infantry with ease. Finally, improved state identity and resources led to national armies that supplanted and eventually dwarfed feudal levies. The synergy of these changes increasingly challenged and finally overturned heavy cavalry battlefield dominance. It was the death knell of the feudal knight.¹⁶

During the Tudor Dynasty, Europe transitioned from feudal cavalry hosts to matchlock and pike armed national infantry armies. The gunpowder age had arrived. These conditions made possible a revival of the Fyrd. The Tudors placed England’s defense once again in the hands of a resurgent and revived militia of freemen led by shire nobles and landed gentlemen.

Except for the War of Roses, England’s medieval wars were offensive against Scotland, Wales, Ireland, or France. The obligatory crusade to Palestine served to break the monotony of these repetitious neighborhood brawls. But England’s military dominance ended with the demise of the knight. By 1450 France had divested England of all her continental possessions except Fortress Calais. The Christian position in Palestine collapsed beyond any hope of recovery in the 13th century. Scotland and Ireland proved intractable; neither were pacified until the 18th, and the Irish arguably never have been. As nation states coalesced, superior demography and more centralized governments permitted France and Spain to field ever larger armies. England’s position shifted from aggressor to one of weakness and defense. But England was an island; her monarchs understood that a superior navy checkmated large continental armies. What she needed was a strong, relatively cheap defensive army to complement her growing naval prowess.

European warfare in the 1500s. The army in the foreground has deployed four Tercios in the middle.

The 16th century was a period of political and military turbulence. The key event was the Protestant Reformation and its resulting religious wars. The Reformation split Christian Europe as kingdoms chose up sides. It left England a Protestant island amidst a sea of Catholic enemies to include Ireland, France, and the combined Hapsburg realm. In short order, England found herself surrounded by demographically larger religious enemies, all with a long list of historical grievances.

In 1492, Castile completed a multi-century campaign to wrest the Spanish peninsula from Moslem rule. Her rulers unexpectedly inherited the Hapsburg dynastic lands and found themselves possessed of a formidable continental empire. The Spanish emerged from the Reconquista as the strongest, toughest, most professional army in Europe. This was made abundantly clear in the 16th century Franco-Hapsburg wars. The Conquistadors’ rapid conquest of the Incan and Aztec empires was due less to technological superiority (though considerable) than to professionalism, superior tactics, and superb combat leadership. Her conquests gave Spanish coffers an annual treasure fleet, and the income stream to support an expansionist foreign policy and a first rate navy. Spain was in the ascendant.¹⁷

A key element in Spain’s rise was her development of the Tercio. This formation combined pikemen and Arquebrusiers (early musketeers). The Tercio gave Spanish armies an excellent infantry formation mating the formidable defensive power of massed pikes to the growing offensive power of the arqeubus and matchlock. The Spanish Tercio outclassed the Swiss pike mass, decimating the enemy with firepower before closing to melee a dispirited and shaken foe. In the hands of Spain’s competent commanders and excellent troops, this was a dangerous formation. Spain’s armies reeled off a string of military successes and acquired a measure of military hegemony in Europe during the 16th century.¹⁸

The Elizabethan Militia

Henry VIII began reviving the English militia and transitioning it from a feudal manpower reservoir to an early modern military. But it was Elizabeth I (1533-1603) who established the militia as England’s primary defense force. She also gave them their namesake, the Elizabethan Militia. Elizabeth I was a monarch with impressive vision. Early on she foresaw the inevitability of confrontation with Spain.

Upon assuming the purple, Elizabeth I made military revitalization a high priority. Her first priority was the navy as she intended the inevitable conflict with Spain to be a naval war; she also saw the need for a strong English land defense. Lacking the finances to support both she focused on creating a capable but economical army. She placed a heavy emphasis on an effective national militia. Elizabeth was a ‘hands on’ monarch. Crown mandated national musters were held every three years from 1558 on. As the conflict with Spain loomed, they were held every year. Statutes were issued in 1511 and 1588 codifying the militia. All able-bodied men 16-60 were enrolled. Weapon requirements varied and were tied to individual wealth. Militia companies, organized by hundred and shire, were commanded by landed gentry, prominent citizens, and minor nobles. Soldiers were divided into several classes: trained and armed, untrained, and unarmed. After national musters, the Crown received detailed reports on the training, number, and condition of each company’s men and equipment. These often stimulated Crown enquiries or admonishments for units lagging in training, numbers, or weapons and equipment. County musters were held twice a year initially, and later thrice. Company musters were frequent. Considerable care was taken to hold all musters outside of the sowing and harvest. Considerable time, resources, and energy were invested to equip, man, and train the Elizabethan militia. More to the point, most of these costs were not borne by the Crown.¹⁹

In 1573 a major shift occurred. The Privy Council directed counties to identify the best trained and equipped companies. These were then designated as Train Bands. The Crown ordered officials to focus on getting the Train Bands combat ready. Unsuitable and unarmed men were replaced in them. The Crown strove to ensure Train Band recruits were drawn from the middle class instead of society’s lower classes. Elizabeth clearly did not trust arming the lowest classes. The Elizabethan militia differed greatly from later recruits of Wellington’s day who comprised of the mere scum of the earth. The rest of the militia lagged in readiness. They became a support force and resource pool of partly trained and armed men for the Train Bands. During the twenty year run up to Spain’s 1588 invasion, quotas for trained pikemen, armor sets, and trained and armed musketeers steadily increased. As England armed, the transition from medieval to early modern weaponry continued apace. From 1573 to 1587, the number of trained archers plummeted. The number of musketeers skyrocketed. When Spain and England finally came to blows, many county musters showed a ratio of one musketeer per pikeman. Archers, as a class of soldiers, had disappeared.²⁰

Spain maintained a large, well trained army under General Parma across the Channel in Holland. This army was the obvious choice for an invasion force. Battle hardened in Holland’s religious wars, Parma’s army presented a daunting challenge. Raw, untrained militia stood little chance against these seasoned soldiers. To address this, the Crown hired a cadre of ‘muster masters.’ These were professional soldiers, either native or hired mercenaries. Muster masters were assigned to Train Bands and shire musters. They trained, inspected, and evaluated Train Bands and companies and answered to the Crown. Many were assigned as Lord Lieutenants (commanders) of Train Bands and shire militia companies. Muster masters were the key to transforming England’s raw levies into trained soldiers.²¹

England’s defense preparations were not limited to the militia. In southern coastal areas, forts were built or restored. The English developed an elaborate early warning system to quickly warn of landings. They drew up detailed plans to rapidly concentrate militia against a landing. When the Armada sailed, the English boasted they could assemble 20,000 TrainBandsmen within two hours to oppose a landing anywhere on the coast.²²

When the Spanish Armada entered the English Channel, England mobilized 80,000 Train Bandsmen and militia. The English Navy’s defeat of the Armada precluded a land clash. It is uncertain how well the Elizabethan militia would have performed. Man for man they were not as good as Spanish troops. But during the 1590s there were several invasion scares and coastal raids. Large numbers of Train Bands mobilized quickly and reacted well to these incursions. Several skirmishes occurred with the honors fairly even. Trainbandsmen had achieved enough proficiency to become effective against the Spanish if not precisely their equal. Viewed from this perspective, had they reached England, it is not at all certain Parma’s considerably less than 30,000 Spaniards could have prevailed against 80,000 Trainbandsmen and large numbers of supporting militia.²³

The Anglo-Spanish War lasted from 1585 to 1604; after 1600 the threat of invasion declined. As the peril receded, militia readiness declined, and declined precipitously. In 1612, an alarmed Crown took measures to stem the decline. This uncovers a key dynamic of militia armies. Professional armies can maintain a certain constancy of readiness. The Elizabethan militia were amateurs, with conflicting demands placed on the soldiers’ time. In the absence of a credible threat, farm demands took precedence, the demands of the drill field remained unmet. Elizabeth’s militia could maintain peak readiness only during high threat periods. This weakness time and again plagues militias. It defines the difference between professionals and amateurs.²⁴

Elizabeth’s militia was the institutional parent to America’s militias. The English settlers at Jamestown and Plymouth were, by