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Updated: September 6, 2025
A drilled and disciplined army whether of regulars or of militia-men had no existence whatever. If the merchant vessels, which had been joined to the royal fleet, were thought by old naval commanders to be only good to make a show, the volunteers on land were likely to be even less effective than the marine militia, so much more accustomed than they to hard work.
How short-lived they were, and how completely I was the slave of a vicious habit, will be seen, when I confess that I landed in New York a good deal the worse for having treated some militia-men who were in the steamer, to nearly a dozen glasses of hot-stuff, in crossing the bay. I had plenty of money, and a sailor's disposition to get rid of it, carelessly, and what I thought generously.
The lieutenant- general complained bitterly that there was a most mischievous tendency among all the militia-men to escape from the Queen's colours, in order to enrol themselves as retainers to the great lords. This spirit was not favourable to efficient organization of a national army.
Indians and Chinese, ancient warriors and mediaeval heroes, militia-men and Punches, generals in top-boots and pigtails, doctors in gigantic wigs and small-clothes, Falstaffs and justices "with fair round belly with good capon lined," magnificent foolscaps, wooden swords with terrible inscriptions, gigantic chapeaus with plumes made of vegetables, in a word, every imaginable absurdity is to be seen.
That the commander of seven hundred French and Indians should resort to such elaborate devices to subdue a sergeant, seven militia-men, and a minister, for this was now the effective strength of the besieged, was no small compliment to the spirit of the defence. The firing was renewed in the morning, but there was no attempt to open trenches by daylight.
In that quarter, therefore, the battle was won; because the raw militia-men, who were stationed there as being the least assailable point, when once broken could not be rallied. But on their right the enemy still kept their ground with much resolution; nor was it till the arrival of the 4th regiment, and the advance of the British forces in firm array to the charge, that they began to waver.
President Lincoln, on the first of July, issued a proclamation, thanking the governors for their patriotism, and calling for three hundred thousand three-years volunteers, and three hundred thousand nine-months militia-men.
Gates to prevent the escape of Cornwallis, before he had run the British and American armies meet Gates and his militia-men leave De Kalb in the lurch his gallant behavior, and glorious death. When a poor fellow is going down hill, it is but too common, they say, for every body to give him a kick. "Let dogs delight to bark and bite, For heaven hath made them so."
He was one of Massachusetts' earliest militia-men, and had a leg shot off at Lexington. To the old man's dying day he used to grow red in the face whenever he told the story, and bring his fist down hard on the table, with "Damn the leg, sir!
Its weird fascination, clashing with the ache of parting, stamped every detail indelibly upon her memory; the vast, featureless plain, empty as a widow's heart; the lavish moonlight poured out upon it like water, flowing unhindered to the naked spurs of the frontier hills, whose huge shoulders, peaks, and escarpments blotted out the stars along the western horizon; the occasional appearance of wild-looking Waziri militia-men, from the chain of outposts along the foothills, who had been warned to keep up a sharp look-out along the road: no villages; no trees; no sound or movement anywhere, save the distorted shadows and rythmical grunting of her doolie-bearers, the soft shuffling of their feet, and the click of hoofs, as Desmond rode at a foot's pace beside his wife, or dismounting, walked and talked with her, his bridle slung over his arm.
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