Alan J. Pitts
Allow me...
Sat Feb 24 15:49:22 2001


First, volunteer militia and state militia units were different. According to state law, every free white man between the ages of seventeen and forty-five belonged to the state militia. The state militia provided the governor with immediate military force for to use in emergency situations, such as the Indian uprising of 1837.

State law provided exemptions for state and county officers, licensed ministers, justices of the peace, ferrymen, postmasters, post riders and millers. In 1836 exemptions were expanded to include road and revenue commissioners, officers and employees of the state bank and officers, students and employees of the University of Alabama. Citizens could supply substitutes if the state called them into actual military service. Militia exemptions were quite similar to exemptions later granted by Confederate military law.

Alabama law divided every county into militia beats. There were expected to be enough men liable for military service in every beat to organize a militia company. For instance in 1860 fifteen beats existed in Barbour County, each supporting a company of a captain, a lieutenant, an ensign, four sergeants, four corporals, two musicians and at least forty privates. Voters elected company officers, the man awarded the highest number of votes receiving a captain's commission as well as authority to appoint non-commissioned officers. Militia officers served "during good behavior" and couldnt resign before serving for two years. They could be called before a court martial for neglect of duty or "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

After 1828 the law required biannual company musters. Notice had to be posted at least five days prior to company drill, which began by noon on the appointed day and lasted no more than five hours. If you look in wartime and antebellum newspapers, you'll see these notices. Fines for missing muster ranged from one dollar for privates to fifty dollars for captains. Enlisted men could appear at drill in civilian clothing, but you were expected to bear arms at musters if you owned a firearm.

Militia companies performed daily police duties within their beats. Every year justices of the peace published a calendar of beat patrol assignments from company rosters, scheduling groups of three to five men for nightly patrol duty. The law required militiamen to visit all negro quarters, all places suspected of entertaining unlawful assemblies of slaves or other disorderly persons unlawfully assembled; and, upon finding such disorderly person or persons, to take him . . . before the nearest justice of the peace. Patrol members punished prisoners according to the law, which meant that slaves caught without a pass could be given as many as fifteen lashes. The bell now found in the cemetery at Clayton may have once been rung to summon citizens for patrol duty.

Every militia company belonged to a battalion composed of two to six companies. Two battalions -- one led by a lieutenant colonel and another by a major -- formed a regiment. In Barbour County, annual battalion musters for the 49th Alabama Militia Regiment were held in Clayton and those for the 85th Alabama Militia in Eufaula. Both regiments belonged to the 11th Brigade of the 5th Division of Alabama state militia.

Designed to foster military discipline and efficiency, militia musters usually became a source of light-hearted social events and popular amusement. Drunkenness, fighting and revelry were common among spectators and participants alike, and most considered militia exercises a waste of time. In his annual address to the legislature on November 16, 1859, Gov. A. B. Moore lamented "the want of a proper military spirit, and the absence of any general organization throughout the state." By his estimate, the condition of the militia in Alabama was a matter of ridicule, unworthy of the name of an organization."

Keep in mind that all state militia officers were exempt from service according to the Conscript Act. I don't have f

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