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To: gusty

“militia system was so discredited that the military leadership trained and organized our forces on European lines.”

This was already the case. But the military was tiny and hardly financed. The problem did remain that too many “Jeffersonian” Democratic-Republican attitudes prevailed which remained scared to death of a standing army in addition. Washington had dispensed with that idea long since (it’s a myth that the AmRevWar was really a militia victory; mostly they were failures) and influenced many that the permanent army was necessary, which was largely the Federalist stance - as well as the fact that they preferred the Constitution as a stronger basis for government than the old Articles.


51 posted on 08/30/2014 12:08:33 PM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs.)
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To: the OlLine Rebel
“militia system was so discredited that the military leadership trained and organized our forces on European lines.”

New Hampshire and Massachusetts militiamen defeated the detachment of Burgoyne’s army (and their reinforcements) at the Battle of Bennington. The battle was a decisive victory; it reduced Burgoyne's army in size by almost 1,000 men, led his Indian support to largely abandon him, and deprived him of needed supplies such as cavalry and draft horses and food, all factors that contributed to Burgoyne's eventual surrender at Saratoga.

The militia was a decisive element during the battle of Saratoga (read what Riedesel, the wife of the German general who was captured there had to say.) A militia man shot General Simon Fraser which stopped the British charge. American riflemen shot British soldiers from getting water from the river. The militiaman, armed with a rifle, would (could) not stand up to a bayonet charge, as proved at the Battle of Bladensburg. Once this limitation was recognized, they were very effective. Under Morgan and Nathanael Greene (both former militia leaders), they played a decisive roll at the Battle of Cowpens and defeated a British army led by Banastre Tarleton. You might also like to read what Col. George Hanger, 4th Baron Coleraine, commander of its light dragoons under Tarleton, had to say about the American rifleman in his book (Advice To All Sportsmen, Farmers And Gamekeepers.)

In the War of 1812, two teenage riflemen were credited with killing General Robert Ross and thus delaying the British advance on Baltimore long enough to give the Americans time to entrench.

During the Civil War, the Virginia militia was the bases for the Southern cavalry that played Hell with the Northern troops in the Shenandoah Valley.
57 posted on 08/31/2014 6:27:52 AM PDT by Hiddigeigei ("Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish," said Dionysus - Euripides)
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