The Militia Muster
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The Militia Muster

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Transcription contributed by Arne H Trelvik on 12 June, 2003

Sources:

The History of Warren County Ohio
Part III. History of Warren County
Chapter VII. Military History
(Chicago, IL: W. H. Beers Co, 1882; reprint, Mt. Vernon, IN: Windmill Publications, 1992)


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The Militia Muster

Various laws have been passed in Ohio for the purpose of organizing and drilling the militia, and all of them have proved ineffective. The first law proclaimed in the territory northwest of the Ohio was “An act for regulating and establishing the militia.” Up to the year 1833, twenty-two acts for this purpose had been enacted by the Territorial and State Legislatures, and all of them repealed, amended or superseded. These laws provided for dividing the State into military districts, for officering the militia, and that all persons subject to military duty should furnish themselves with arms and accouterments, and meet at specified times to be drilled in the art of war. There were to be company musters, regimental musters, battalion musters and brigade musters. Failure to attend the muster or to be properly armed subjected the offender to a fine. An old document in possession of the writer gives the proceedings of ”A Regimental Court of Inquiry of the First Regiment, Second Brigade, First Division of the Ohio Militia, held on Monday, the 20th day of September, 1819, at the house of Gen. David Sutton, in Deerfield, for the assessment of fines in said regiment.” Lieut. Col. William McLean was President, and thirteen Captains were members of the court. Over three hundred members of the regiment were fined in sums varying from 50 cents to $2.50.

The whole system of militia training soon fell into general contempt. The general muster brought out a vast concourse of people; the day was a holiday for the lower classes, and the occasion of much intoxication and many brutal fights. For the purpose of a military drill it was worse than useless, and in 1844, the Legislature wisely abandoned the attempt of enforcing the performance of military duty in time of peace. Nothing was left of the old muster but a long list of high-sounding military titles – Generals, Colonels, Majors and Captains.

Volunteer and independent military companies have been organized at various times, but they have generally been of short life. They often started out with an energy and spirit which carried their members for a time through the whole routine of drilling but a few months produced a loss of interest and laxity of discipline. The independent volunteer militia companies have been of considerable expense to the State and municipal governments, but their history in the past shows that no reliance can be placed upon them as permanent organizations of the militia.

The ridiculous features of the old general muster were described in the famous speech of Thomas Corwin, in reply to Gen. Crary, of Michigan, delivered in the House of Representatives of Congress in 1840. The materials for this description were derived from what Corwin had seen at home, and there is a tradition that the orator, before the delivery of this speech in Congress, which gave him a national reputation as a wit, had employed the same weapons of satire, had used the same images and given the same description, in the court of a Justice of the Peace at his own home, while ridiculing a prosecuting witness who happened to be a pompous militia officer.

Gen. Crary had undertaken to criticize the military record of Gen. Harrison. His own military title was obtained in the militia service. After ridiculing,

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in his inimitable manner, the military knowledge of Gen. Crary, derived from his law books, Corwin turned to examine his knowledge derived from militia duty in the field:

We all in fancy now see the gentleman from Michigan in that most dangerous and glorious
event in the life of a Militia General on the peace establishment – a parade day. The
day for which all the other days of his life seem to have been made. We can see the troops
in motion, umbrellas, hoe and ax handles and other like deadly implements of war, when
lo! the leader of the hose approaches.

“Far off his coming shines;”

his plume, white, after the fashion of the great Bourbon, is of ample length, and reads its
doleful history in the bereaved necks and bosoms of forty neighboring hen-roosts. Like
the great Suwaroff, he seems somewhat careless in the forms and points of dress; hence his
epaulets may be on his shoulders, back or side, but still gleaming, gloriously gleaming, in
the sun. Mounted he is, too, let it not be forgotten. Need I describe to the Colonels and
Generals of this honorable House the steed which heroes bestride on such an occasion? No;
I see the memory of other days is with you. You see before you the gentleman from Michigan,
mounted on his crop-eared, bushy-tailed mare, the singular obliquities of whose hinder
limbs is described by that most expressive phrase, “Sickle-hams” – her height just fourteen
hands, all told. Yes, sir; there you see his steed, that laughs at “the shaking of the spear;”
that is hi “war-horse, whose neck is clothed with thunder.”

Mr. Speaker: We have glowing descriptions in history of Alexander the Great and his
war-horse, Bucephalus, at the head of the invincible Macedonian phalanx; but, sir, such
are the improvements of modern times that every one must see that our Militia General,
with his crop-eared mare, with bushy tail and sickle-ham, would literally frighten off a battle-
field a hundred Alexanders. But, sir, to the history of the parade day. The general,
thus mounted and equipped, is in the field and ready for action. on the eve of some desperate
enterprise, such as giving an order to shoulder arms, it may be there occurs a crisis,
one of the accidents of war.

A cloud rises and passes over the sun! Here an occasion occurs for the display of that
greatest of all traits in the character of a commander; that tact which enables him to seize
and turn to good account events unlooked for as they arise.

Now for the caution wherewith the Roman Fabius foiled the skill and courage of
Hannibal. A retreat is ordered, and troops and General in a twinkling are found safely
bivouacked in a neighboring grocery.

But even here the General still has room for the exhibition of heroic deeds. Hot from
the field, and chafed with the untoward events of the day, your General unsheathes his
trenchant blade, eighteen inches in length, as you will well remember, and with an energy
and remorseless fury he slices the watermelons the lie in heaps around him, and shares
them with his surviving friends!

Others of the sinews of war are not wanting here. Whisky, Mr. Speaker, that great
leveler of modern times is here alas, and the shells of watermelons are filled to the brim.

Here, again, Mr. Speaker, is shown how the extremes of barbarism and civilization
meet. As the Scandinavian heroes of old, after the fatigues of war, drank wine from the
skulls of their slaughtered enemies in Odin’s Halls, so now our Militia General and his forces,
from the skulls of melons thus vanquished, in copious draughts of whisky, assuage the heroic
fire of their souls after the bloody scenes of a parade day. But, alas, for this short-lived
race of ours, all things will have an end, and so even is it with the glorious achievements
of our General. Time is on the wing, and will not stay his flight; the sun, as if
frightened at the mighty events of the day, rides down the sky, and at the close of the day,
when “the hamlet is still,” the curtain of night drops upon the scene;

“And glory, like the phoenix in its fires,
Exhales its odors, blazes, and expires.”


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This page created 12 June 2003 and last updated 6 November, 2005
© 2003-2005 Arne H Trelvik  All rights reserve