The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [125]
Chapter Twenty-Two
MONMOUTH, 1778:
Captain Sylvanus Seely’s Militia Goes to War
“The whole of the New Jersey militia are cautioned to be ready to march at beat of drum with four or five day’s provisions and should the alarm be reasonably given. I think we could turn out men sufficient in the state before General Howe could half perform his route, to make him wish himself back [home] again.”
—M. Halstead to Captain Sylvanus Seely
The note was sent in late December 1777 to Seely, head of the five-hundred-man Morris County unit of the New Jersey state militia that protected the northeastern section of the state. It was one of the best organized militia units in the country and had been since the conflict began. Seely was its capable commander.
Seely and the Morris County men were a far cry from the ramshackle militias that sprang up in the early days of the war. The militia units established by the states that supplemented the Continental Army were vital to the success of the Revolution, but most had not performed well. The militia members were drafted by their states to serve short terms of three to eight months; regular Continental soldiers volunteered for terms of one to three years.
Washington needed the militia for several reasons. First and foremost, he wanted them to join the undermanned army whenever it traveled in spring and summer to fight against the British. The militia was responsible for protecting army supply and munitions warehouses throughout the country and guarding prisoners. Its members often found themselves in small skirmishes with British troops passing through their counties, particularly when British food foraging parties were sent to buy or steal cattle or corn for their vast army. Militiamen also served as guards at roadways and bridges near winter and summer camps and built and repaired wooden beacon towers that were set on fire to warn the army if a British force was on the march.
Regular army troops, generals, and the delegates to Congress often jeered the militias. Militia units from different states were highly criticized because at critical junctures in the Revolution they broke and ran in battles and frequently left the service, en masse, when their enlistments were up or simply deserted. Militia would even depart just before a battle, leaving the regular army weakened, because that morning was the last day of their enrollment. Over eight thousand militia participated in the battles in and around New York in 1776, but a week later only two thousand remained. In the early days of the war, the militia could not be relied upon to fight well and were poorly armed. The Americans had to retreat from White Plains when New England militia companies ran as the British approached.
They infuriated Washington. “To place any dependence upon militia is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff,” he complained to Congress, and believed that it was difficult to train men accustomed to “unbounded freedom.” He was harsher on militia leaders, whose amateurism startled him when he first met them during the siege of Boston. “Their officers are generally of the lowest class of people and, instead of setting a good example to their men, are leading them into every kind of mischief,” he said, and throughout the war charged that militia commanders were more interested in promotions than victories.1
However, they had also helped the army at key moments of the war. They provided several thousand extra troops for major engagements and often meant the difference between victory and defeat, such as at Bennington, Vermont, where militia led by General John Stark turned back part of Burgoyne’s army. It was Ethan Allen’s militia that captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1775.
The Morris County division of New Jersey’s state militia had already been together for several years when the war commenced and by the time Seely began keeping his wartime diary in May 1778, the Morris militia had shown themselves