¹ “ Reflections on Violence in the United States,” in Hofstadter, Richard and Wallace, Michael, eds., American Violence: A Documentary History (New York: Knopf, 1970), p. 7Google Scholar.

² Ibid., p. 13. McLatchy, Patrick Henry, “ The Development of the National Guard of Washington as an Instrument of Social Control, 1854–1916 ” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1973)Google Scholar, is one of the few studies that clearly recognises the fact that the main role of the militia was to serve as a force to maintain public order. As Washington was a territory until 1881 its history covers only part of the nineteenth century, but some of McLatchy's data and several of his conclusions have been used in this article. Higham, Robin, ed., Bayonets in the Streets: The Use of Troops in Civil Disturbances (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1969)Google Scholar, consists of several essays, but only two deal specifically with the militia, and one of these is confined to the twentieth century. Probably the most discerning study of ante-bellum violence is Schneider, John Charles, “ Mob Violence and Public Order in the American City, 1830–1865 ” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1971)Google Scholar Schneider points out that the militia were called out for 40% of the major urban riots between 1835 and 1865, yet he spends only one paragraph (p. 72) analysing the nature and structure of the militia; in contrast he devotes a chapter to the police. The best study of militia in the context of a particular period and region is Franklin, John Hope's, The Militant South 1860–1861 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), Ch. 9Google Scholar Franklin only incidentally covers the militia as a police force.

³ Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America 1775–1865 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968), p. 236Google Scholar The author wishes to thank Professor Cunliffe for use of his collection of American militia materials and his suggestions in preparing this study.

⁴ “ Uniform and Badges of Rank,” Eclaireur, 2 (09–10 1854), 9Google Scholar

⁵ Cooper, Jerry M., “ The Wisconsin National Guard in the Milwaukee Riots of 1886,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, 55 (Autumn 1971), 31–48Google Scholar; Gephart, Ronald M., “Politicians, Soldiers and Strikes: The Reorganization of the Nebraska Militia and the Omaha Strike of 1892,” Nebraska History, 46 (06 1965), 89–120Google Scholar; Cooper, Jerry Marvin, “ The Army and Civil Disorder: Federal Military Intervention in American Labor Disputes, 1877–1900 ” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1971)Google Scholar; Hacker, Barton C., “ The United States Army as a National Police Force: The Federal Policing of Labor Disputes 1877–1898,” Military Affairs, 33 (04 1969), 255–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar William Riker, historian of the National Guard, devotes one of five chapters to the militia 1877–1903, and while not neglecting the militia's peace-keeping role, particularly in industrial disputes, argues that it was a minor element in the institutional development of the militia — often against the weight of contemporary evidence. Soldiers of the States: The Role of the National Guard in American Democracy (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1957)Google Scholar

⁶ Quoted in Weighley, Russell F., History of the United States Army (London: B. T. Batsford, 1968), p. 16Google Scholar

⁷ “ Federalist No. 21,” The Federalist (New York: Random House, n.d.), p. 126Google Scholar; Hunt, Gaillard and Scott, James Brown, eds., The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Which Framed the Constitution of the United States of America, Reported by James Madison (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920), p. 453Google Scholar

⁸ Quoted in Cunliffe, , Soldiers and Citizens, p. 183Google Scholar

⁹ Kohn, Richard H., Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802 (New York: Free Press, 1975), p. 135Google Scholar

¹⁰ Coakley, Robert W., “ Federal Use of Militia and the National Guard in Civil Disturbances: The Whiskey Rebellion to Little Rock,” in Higham, , ed., Bayonets in the Streets, pp. 19–23, 26Google Scholar

¹¹ Quoted in Weighley, , History of the United States Army, p. 105Google Scholar

¹² Smith, Paul Tincher, “ Militia of the United States from 1846 to 1860,” Indiana Magazine of History, 15 (1919), 21–47Google Scholar and Riker, Soldiers of the States, Ch. 2, present excellent pictures of the disintegration of the militia after the War of 1812. See also McLatchy, Ch. 3, on the almost total failure to establish a militia in the frontier territory of Washington.

¹³ Eclaireur, 2 (03–04 1855), 116Google Scholar

¹⁴ “ The Militia of the United States,” New York Military Magazine, 1 (17 07 1841), 91–92Google Scholar See also ibid. (9 Oct. 1841), 257 (23 Oct. 1841), 313; “ Militia of the United States,” Army and Navy Chronicle, 2 (25 01 1838), 252–54Google Scholar

¹⁵ Roberts, Oliver Ager, History of the Military Company of Massachusetts, Now Called the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company of Massachusetts 1637–1888, 4 Vols. (Boston: A. Mudge & Sons, 1895–1901), Vols. 3–4Google Scholar

¹⁶ A description of the founders of the three companies which comprised the 53rd Maryland Regiment. Hiss, Hanson, “ The Maryland National Guard,” Outing, 20 (05 1892), 153Google Scholar Among other exclusive ante-bellum volunteer units were the New England Guards (Boston), 7 Regt. of New York National Guards, 1st Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, Light Infantry Blues (Richmond), Washington Artillery (New Orleans), and the Mobile (Alabama) Rifle Company.

¹⁷ The Military Magazine and Record of the Volunteers of the City and County of Philadelphia (2 vols., Philadelphia, no pub.) I, unpaginated

¹⁸ There is only one scholarly study of an ethnic military unit: O'Flaherty, Patrick Daniel, “ The History of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment of the New York State Militia 1852–1961 ” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham University, 1964)Google Scholar Passing references to antebellum ethnic companies can be found in Potter, George W., To the Golden Door: The Story of the Irish in Ireland and America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960), pp. 312–13, 557–58Google Scholar; Cunliffe, , Soldiers and Civilians, pp. 223–30Google Scholar; Reinders, Robert C., “Militia in New Orleans, 1853–1861,” Louisiana History, 3 (Winter 1972), 36Google Scholar; Handlin, Oscar, Boston's Immigrants: A Story in Acculturation (rev. edn., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). p. 157Google Scholar

¹⁹ Brown, R. M., “ Historical Patterns of Violence in America,” in Graham, Hugh Davis and Gurr, Ted Robert, eds., Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Bantam Books, 1969), p. 54Google Scholar According to John Charles Schneider there were 80 riots in cities of over 20,000 people for the period 1830 to 1860: Schneider, “ Mob Violence and Public Order in the American City,” pp. 7–8. On the incidence of rioting and deaths from rioting (at least 1,000 in ante-bellum America) see Grimsted, David, “ Rioting in its Jacksonian Setting,” American Historical Review, 77 (04 1972), 362, 364CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ Schneider, “ Mob Violence and Public Order in the American City,” pp. 163–66 By communal violence I mean the actions of relatively conscious, relatively homogeneous groups in conflict with groups having a similar structure but different characteristics: Irish versus black, whites versus blacks, native Americans versus immigrants, Protestants versus Catholics. Mid-nineteenth-century cities lacked community-wide institutions, but compensated for this by forming sub-communities and voluntary bodies (lodge, burial society, fire company, militia company) which commanded their basic loyalties. Because of this informal communal identification group violence may have been common, but as Elwin H. Powell has shown in his studies of Buffalo, individual crime and anomic behavior was limited: Powell, E. H., The Design of Discord: Studies of Anomie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), Ch. 6Google Scholar

²¹ Grimsted, p. 386 Grimsted ignores the fact that rioters involved in Irish attacks on blacks and nativist attacks on immigrants were usually workers and sometimes criminals. On the growth of the spectre of the “ dangerous classes” see Silver, Allan, “ The Demand for Order in Civil Society: A Review of Some Theories in the History of Urban Crime, Police, and Riot,” in Bordua, David J., ed., The Police: Six Ideological Essays (New York: lohn Wiley, 1967), pp. 3–4Google Scholar

²² Brown contends that modern city police forces were a response to the rioting of the antebellum period. Certainly by the 1850s police were increasingly and effectively used to quell mobs and riots. However there is no evidence that this led to any decline in calls for the militia: Brown, R. M., “Historical Patterns of Violence in America,” in Graham, and Gurr, , eds., Violence in America, p. 54Google Scholar; see also Roger Lane, “ Urbanization and Criminal Violence in the Nineteenth Century: Massachusetts as a Test Case,” ibid., p. 476; and Schneider, “ Mob Violence and Public Order in the American City,” Ch. 2

²³ State laws varied. Normally the power to call out the militia rested with a governor. Mayors usually requested permission of the governor; if granted, the Riot Act would be read or posted by a representative of local authority (police or sheriff) and the militia would be free to act. A governor could declare martial law and he had the power to withdraw militia. Some states gave a wider latitude to local authorities. Ohio allowed the militia to be called up by the governor, a sheriff, mayor or state or federal judge “ whenever … there is tumult, riot, mob, or any body of men acting together with intent to commit a felony, or to do or offer violence to person or property, or by force and violence to break or resist the laws of the State, or there is a reasonable apprehension thereof….” Peckham, Charles A., “ The Ohio National Guard in Its Police Duties, 1894,” Ohio History, 83 (Winter 1974), 51Google Scholar

²⁴ “ The New York State Militia,” United States Service Magazine, 1 (12 1864), 519–20Google Scholar

²⁵ “ Valedictory,” Eclaireur, 2 (03–04 1855), 209–10Google Scholar

²⁶ The two most popular manuals were Forbes, Hugh, Manual for the Patriotic Volunteer on Active Service in Regular and Irregular War, 2 edn., 2 vols. (New York, no. pub., 1855)Google Scholar; Cairns, John T., The Recruit: Movements of Infantry, Light Infantry, and Riflemen, According to the Latest Improvements (New York: E. Walker, 1845)Google Scholar The Sept.-Oct. 1854 issue of Eclaireur, a New York militia journal, is devoted almost entirely to “Street Fighting and the Suppression of Riots.”

²⁷ Most of these examples are drawn from Hofstadter and Wallace, eds., American Violence. See also Geffer, Elizabeth M., “ Violence in Philadelphia in the 1840s and 1850s,” Pennsylvania History, 36 (10 1969), 381–410Google Scholar; Schneider, “Mob Violence and Public Order,” Chs. 3–6

²⁸ Quoted in Cunliffe, , Soldiers and Civilians, p. 236Google Scholar

²⁹ New York Tribune, 2 May 1846, in Commons, John R., et al. , eds., Documentary History of American Industrial Society 10 vols. (New York: Russell and Russell, 1958), 8, 226Google Scholar

³⁰ Potter, , To the Golden Door, p. 335Google Scholar

³¹ “Remarks on Street Fighting and the Suppression of Riots,” Eclaireur, 2 (09–10 1854), 64Google Scholar

³² Bristed, Charles Astor, “ The Probable Influence of the New Military Element in our Social and National Character,” United States Service Magazine, 1 (06 1864), 600Google Scholar

³³ Bower, W. H. C., “ The Militia and National Guard of Ohio,” Outing 21 (02 1893), 472Google Scholar

³⁴ Quoted in Riker, , Soldiers of the States, p. 44Google Scholar

³⁵ Quoted in Cooper, “ The Army and Civil Disorder,” p. 13

³⁶ Riker, , Soldiers of the States, p. 46Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid. Riker ignores the pre-1877 role of the militia as an urban police force.

³⁸ Quoted in Eggert, Gerald G., Railroad Labor Disputes: The Beginning of Federal Strike Policy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967), p. 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁹ Quoted in Foner, Philip, History of the Labor Movement in the United States from Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor (New York: International Publishers, 1947), p. 469Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Riker, , Soldiers of the States, p. 47Google Scholar, states that 45,000 militia in eleven states were involved, but related disturbances were spread over more than eleven states. On the railroad strikes see Bruce, Robert V., 1877: Year of Violence (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1970), Chs. 5–9Google Scholar On the St. Louis general strike see Burbank, David T., Reign of the Rabble: The St. Louis General Strike of 1877 (New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1966)Google Scholar

⁴¹ Chicago Times, 25 July 1877, quoted in Cooper, “ The Army and Civil Disorder,” p. 133

⁴² New York Times, 26 July 1877

⁴³ Quoted in Burbank, , Reign of the Rabble p. 129Google Scholar

⁴⁴ New York Times, 25 July 1877 According to Donald Cooper, “Much of the press, many State political leaders and businessmen … favored the Army over the National Guard in labor disorders because the former never displayed sympathy for strikers.” “The Army and Civil Disorder,” p. 104

⁴⁵ McClellan, George B., “ The Military and the Army,” Harper's Monthly, 72 (01 1886), 294Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Hacker, , “ The United States Army as a National Police Force,” Military Affairs, 33, 257Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Wallace, William, “ The Army and the Civil Power,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, 17 (09 1895), 263Google Scholar Hereafter referred to as JMSI.

⁴⁸ Quoted in Cooper, “The Army and Civil Disorder,” p. 142

⁴⁹ Quoted in McLatchy, “ The Development of the National Guard of Washington,” p. 194 See also Taylor, Daniel Morgan, “ The Massachusetts Volunteer Militia,” Outing 18 (08 1891), 408Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Alexander, Winthrop, “ Ten Years of Riot Duty,” JMSI, 19 (07 1896), 62Google Scholar

⁵¹ Quoted in ibid., p. 37. In 1891 the Ohio National Guard had twelve Gatling guns, ten 3-inch rifles and six smooth bore cannon. Peckham, , “ The Ohio National Guard and Its Police Duties, 1894,” Ohio History 83, 53Google Scholar See also Greene, Francis V., “ The New National Guard,” Century, n.s. 21 (02 1892), 490Google Scholar

⁵² Quoted in Riker, , Soldiers of the States p. 56Google Scholar Alexander offered extensive advice in dealing with a mob, “molesting large manufacturing establishments, or any other contingencies liable to occur in a community with a mixed or turbulent population.” “ Ten Years of Riot Duty,” JMSI 19, 27ffGoogle Scholar Sec also Cantor, Louis, “The Creation of the Modern National Guard: The Dick Militia Act of 1903 ” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1963), p. 51Google Scholar

⁵³ It was estimated in 1896 that state appropriations were 14 times greater than those from the national government. Sherer, Louis C., “ Limitations of the National Guard,” JMSI 18 (03 1896), 274–275Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Quoted in Ekrich, Arthur A. Jr “ The American Liberal Tradition and Military Affairs,” in Higham, , ed., Bayonets in the Streets, p. 146Google Scholar Cyrus McCormack in 1877 paid for the equipment of the 2nd Regt. Illinois National Guard which, he said, “ won great credit for its action during … disturbances and can be equally relied on in the future.” The Citizens Association of Chicago asked McCormack to contribute to a secret fund to purchase a battery for the 6th Regiment, reminding the manufacturer that it was of “vital importance for our preservation.” Quoted in Rezneck, Samuel, “ Distress, Relief, and Discontent in the United States during the Depression of 1873–78,” Journal of Political Economy, 58 (12 1950), 511CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁵ Description of Vicksburg militia, in Hofstadter, and Wallace, , American Violence, p. 227Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Leslie's Weekly Illustrated 1898, quoted in Ranson, E., “ American Military Policy and Civil-Military Relations 1865–1904 ” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Manchester, 1963), p. 95Google Scholar See also a contemporary description of a Spokane cavalry company in McLatchy, “ The Development of the National Guard of Washington,” p. 272.

⁵⁷ Hamilton, W. R., “ Merits and Defects of the National Guard,” Outing, 15 (12 1889), 180Google Scholar

⁵⁸ W. R. Hamilton, “ The National Guard of California,” ibid., 19 (Nov. 1891), 135.

⁵⁹ Cooper, “ The Army and Civil Disorder,” p. 20 In the 1890s the Washington National Guard consisted mostly of business men, farmers and white-collar workers. An 1891 survey in Ohio showed that the State Guard was young, and 98% native born. Nearly half were farmers, labourers (very few miners) and mechanics, and over half were teachers, clerks, accountants, and business and professional men. The occupational breakdown of the New Jersey National Guard in 1896 was: manufacturing and mechanical industries, 41%; clerks, bookkeepers, etc., 26%; merchants or independent businessmen, 13%; salesmen 9%; engineers and railway employees, 8%; agriculturists, 3%. There is no indication that those listed under “ manufacturing and mechanical industries ” were wholly or partly labourers. McLatchy, “ The Development of the National Guard of Washington,” p. 273; Peckham, , “The Ohio National Guard and Its Police Duties, 1894,” Ohio History, 83, 63Google Scholar; Derthick, Martha, The National Guard in Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁰ “The National Guard and the Necessity for Its Adoption by the General Government,” United Service, 12 (01 1885), 22Google Scholar

⁶¹ Taft, Philip and Ross, Philip, “ American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character, and Outcome,” in Graham, and Gurr, , eds., Violence in America, pp. 297, 317Google Scholar. It was generally agreed that the Army and the National Guard were superior forces to maintain order in industrial disputes to Pinkertons and other quasi-public armies.

⁶² Quoted in Hofstadter, and Wallace, , American Violence, p. 134Google Scholar

⁶³ Quoted in Cooper, “ The Army and Civil Disorder,” p. 19 According to a Chicago military journal (1894): “ The general feeling of unrest in the labor and socialistic circles throughout the entire country … is only another reason why the National Guard should be given support by both the National and State governments.” Quoted in Flower, B. O., “Plutocracy's Bastilles,” Journal of the Knights of Labor, 11 10 1894Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Rice, James M., “ The Defence of Our Frontiers,” JMSI, 18 (03 1896), 304Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Cooper, “The Army and Civil Disorder,” p. 32 n. 34; Alexander, , “ Ten Years of Riot Duty,” JMSI, 19, 26Google Scholar Alexander's figure is based largely on reports from State Adjutant Generals, and it is admittedly “inadequate.” A Congressional report, accepted by Riker (who consistently underplays the importance of the militia in civil disturbances) stated that the militia were used 112 times between 1877 and 1892. About one-third of these incidents were connected with strike duty. Every state but four used the National Guard for some local disturbances. Soldiers of the States, p. 52

⁶⁶ Alexander, , “ Ten Years of Riot Duty,” JMSI, 19, 2–24Google Scholar See also McLatchy, “The Development of the National Guard of Washington,” Chs. 8–9

⁶⁷ Quoted in Lindsey, Almont, The Pullman Strike: The Story of a Unique Experiment and of a Great Labor Upheaval (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), pp. 180–181, 200Google Scholar

⁶⁸ “ Labor Unions and the Militia,” Literary Digest, 23 (20 07 1901), 65Google Scholar For similar views see John Swinton's Paper, 17 May, 6 September, 1885; Railway Times, 15 September, 10 November, 1894

⁶⁹ “Civis,” Journal of the Knights of Labor, 16 08 1894Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Quoted in Cooper, “ The Army and Civil Disorder,” p. 23 There were a few labor leaders, including Eugene V. Debs, who favored forming a workers' militia, and others who favored boring from within the National Guard. Railway Times, 1 January 1896 The United States version of the Lehr und Wehr Verein was confined to a few German anarchists in Chicago, but conservatives were evidently concerned about the “ delicate question ” of trade unionists in the militia and one Guard officer favored vetting union recruits as to their “opinions and intentions.” Alexander, , “ Ten Years of Riot Duty,” JMSI, 19, 34Google Scholar

⁷¹ Topeka Advocate, 31 Oct. 1894, quoted in Pollack, Norman, The Populist Response to Industrial America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 42, 59–60Google Scholar

⁷² Railway Times, 15 August 1895 This account was printed originally in a Populist paper, then in a Boston labor journal before appearing in Railway Times.

⁷³ After 1894 western army posts were closed down and the Army was moved to larger encampments near major cities. Here army officers were in close proximity to Guard officers with whom they shared common middle-class outlooks. Cooper, “ The Army and Civil Disorder,” pp. 259–260, 263

⁷⁴ Anderson, Thomas W., “ Nationalization of the State Guards,” Forum, 30 (02 1901), 657Google Scholar; Coudert, F. R. Jr, “ The Proposed Reorganization of the National Guard.” JMSI, 21 (03 1899), 245Google Scholar Anderson and Coudert were regular Army Officers. See also Cantor, “ The Creation of the Modern National Guard,” pp. 88–100, 103–108

⁷⁵ The National Guard members were affected by the martial spirit engendered by the Spanish American War. In 1898 there was no United States law which allowed the President to order the National Guard into federal service. The President could ask for volunteers and Governors could designate Guard units to meet the volunteer quota for the State. The Spanish American War led both the Guard officers and the War Department to favour more direct federal control over the militia. McLatchy, “ The Development of the National Guard of Washington,” p. 328

⁷⁶ Parker, James, “ The Militia Act of 1903,” North American Review, 176 (08 1903), 278–287Google Scholar; Cantor, “ The Creation of the Modern National Guard,” Ch. 7 The power of the President to federalize the National Guard was extended by the National Defence Act of 1916.

⁷⁷ Couder, , JMSI, 21, 241Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Oscar and Mary Handlin contend that the earliest state police forces were formed in the 1880s “ in response to the demand for an instrument of power not locally or popularily controlled,” but that the major impetus for a state constabulary came during World War I when the National Guard was federalized. Oscar, and Handlin, Mary, The Dimensions of Liberty (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1961), p. 40Google Scholar