Communications

To the Editor:

     It is most satisfying to see Robert H. Churchill's article on the New England militia records in the July 2003 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly ("Gun Ownership in Early America: A Survey of Manuscript Militia Returns," 615–642). These records have been overlooked for far too long, and Churchill does us all a service by taking his research beyond the initial level of my own explorations.

     However, it is not clear to me why Churchill seeks to pit his findings against those I offered in Arming America. ¹ For instance, many of the towns listed on his Table I ("Extant Returns and Petitions Reporting Militia Armament, 1775–1776") match some of those I reference, such as Westboro, Massachusetts, which had sufficient arms for 80 percent of its militia. But a key point is that all of the militia returns that Churchill lists on Table I come after Lexington (nine from 1775, eleven from 1776) and after the provincial governments had opened their armories to the militia and had made efforts to purchase guns abroad (those endeavors started in October 1774). As Churchill notes, individual towns also made these efforts; in February 1775, Westboro sent agents to Boston to purchase guns for its militia. Some provincial governments, such as Massachusetts and Virginia, were also purchasing private arms for use by the militia. Colonial agents were even purchasing guns in England at this time. Table II ("Gun Censuses and Regimental Returns of Militia, 1775–1784") and Table III ("Regional Breakdown of Virginia Militia Strength Returns, 1781–1784") both contain data from the period after French, Dutch, and British arms had begun to pour into the states and will prove useful to the larger issue of how those armaments affected local militia units. In my estimates of gun ownership in the late colonial era, I deliberately excluded data for the years after 1774 because I was hoping to get a sense of the situation during a time of peace. It appeared to me that one of the constants of American history before the Civil War is that governments scrambled to arm their troops at the start of every war, the Revolution included.

     Any sample set, including Churchill's and mine, leaves out a great deal of information. Take the example of Worcester, Massachusetts. There were twenty-one militia companies in the county during the Revolutionary War, four in the town of Worcester. Churchill offers three county units, one of which was from the town. These three units were those with the highest percentages of arms; the town unit's commander had just returned from acquiring state arms for his company. As Churchill notes, each militia unit has its history that needs to be examined over time in order to give an accurate picture of its readiness. Particularly instructive would be a comparison of militia returns from 1772 or 1773 with 1775 or 1776. Many of these records are in the Worcester Collection at the American Antiquarian Society; many more are in the Military Records at the National Guard Armory in Natick, Massachusetts. I agree with Churchill that there is still a great deal of work to be done in these records.

     The range of percentages in Churchill's findings indicates further this need for additional research. For instance, for New Hampshire Churchill offers Tamworth with its 17.5 percent ownership rate (which he rounds up to 18 percent), Moultonborough with 40.9 percent (Churchill rounds up these twenty-seven guns for sixty-six men to 50 percent), and Lebanon with 67 percent. I would hesitate to generalize from such a variation, especially as Robert V. Wells and Walter A. Backofen earlier compiled data from 150 New Hampshire town militia records. What is most striking in these records is the great variance, with some companies reporting only enough guns for one-sixth of their members and others reporting that two-thirds were armed. We have still not arrived at an explanation for such a wide divergence.