Decoding Connecticut Militia 1739-1783

In May 1665, the separate colonies of New Haven and Connecticut joined to form the colony that later became the State of Connecticut. Each colony had laws requiring military training.[1] The oldest book of Connecticut laws I have been able to view is that of 1715, a reprint of the 1702 Acts and Laws.[2] These laws as amended were still in effect in 1774 and remained in force until 1782. In 1702, all men between sixteen and sixty, except magistrates, justices of the peace, the secretary, church officers, allowed physicians, surgeons, school-masters, representatives or deputies, one miller for each grist mill, constant herdsmen, mariners, sheriffs, constables, constant ferrymen, lame persons, Indians, and negroes were required to participate in regular training exercises and to bear arms.[3] Connecticut, due to its location south of Massachusetts, was one of the few colonies that did not have a border on the frontier with the Indians. The populous perceived danger as low and the militia became a social institution. By 1774, the age range for mandatory militia participation had narrowed to sixteen through forty-five.^[4]

Local militiamen organized as trainbands (companies). The size of companies varied. Twenty-four men was the smallest number that could constitute a company and entitled the trainband to two sergeants as leaders; with thirty-two men, the trainband rated a lieutenant, ensign, and two sergeants. A captain, lieutenant, ensign, and four sergeants led companies of sixty-four or more men.[5] There was no upper bound specified on how many men could be in a company, but the area of the towns and distance necessary to travel to train caused companies split to minimize distance travelled. Each company or trainband drew its membership from a designated area of the town. These areas were often the same as those of an ecclesiastical society. As state population grew, new towns formed and within existing towns, societies split. Thus as population increased, so did the number of companies or trainbands. This article maps the towns from which each regiment drew its companies. The maps use a modern depiction (ca. 2000) of town boundaries as a base. Since there are many more towns today than during the Revolution, town histories were used to work back in time to approximate the boundaries of the period towns. The towns named on my maps agree with period documents, but boundaries are only an approximation.

In 1739, to cope with the increasing numbers of companies and to raise the quality of the militia, the Assembly created regimental staffs responsible for the companies within a multi-town area. Each regiment had a single company of horse.[6] The original thirteen regimental areas are shown on Map 1. The area marked with a * is the parish of Southington, and that marked by # is the parish of Kensington. When population growth warranted, a group wanting to form a new company would petition the Assembly to create a distinct company. As part of the approval by the Assembly, new boundaries were set within the town, and the new company elected officers. The Assembly approved the names of newly elected officers before commissions were issued.

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Between October 1739 and October 1767 the thirteen regiments continued with only minor changes of a company here or there switching regiments, or new companies being added. Connecticut annexed the four border towns of Enfield, Suffield, Somers, and Woodstock from Massachusetts in 1749.[7] The first two towns were added to the 1st Regiment; Somers to the 5th Regiment; and Woodstock to the 11th Regiment. In 1762, the colony reported 20,264 men in the militia.[8] Between 1767 and 1771, the Assembly formed three new regiments: the 14th, 15th, and 16th Regiments.[9] The resolution forming the 15th Regiment says Town of Farmington, and since Southington and Kensington (as part of Berlin) later broke off as separate towns from Farmington, I have put them in the 15th Regiment in Map 2. Redding incorporated as a separate town in 1767 and it is not mentioned in the order creating the 16th Regiment, so I have shown it remaining in the 4th Regiment.

In May 1774, the Assembly formed the 17th and 18th Regiments.[10] The census of 1774 showed a population of 191,392 whites (men, women and children)[11] of which 26,260 were in the militia.[12]

Table 1 – Connecticut Militia Regiments and their Colonels – May 1774[13]

At the October 1774 Assembly the 19th through 22nd Regiments were created.[16] Map 3 portrays the organization of the Connecticut militia just before the American Revolution started. The asterisk in the 21st Regiment signifies the south company of Killingly.

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Connecticut recruited its first regiments for service at Boston from the militia, in the spring of 1775, which the Continental Congress later adopted into the Continental Army. These first Continental regiments were only in service until early December 1775. In the spring of 1776, eight new Continental regiments were recruited. Many of the regimental officers for both sets of regiments came out of the militia, causing much turmoil in the militia leadership. In May 1775, the Assembly added the 23rd and 24th Regiments.[17] The 24th constituted the Town of Westmoreland located in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania where Connecticut had established a settlement; this is not shown on the maps.

In May 1776, the Assembly created the 25th Regiment,[18] and at the same time, the troops of horse were stripped from the foot regiments to create five regiments of light horse.[19]

Table 2 – The Five Militia Light Horse Regiments

By the summer of 1776, Connecticut had twenty-five militia regiments of foot and five militia regiments of light horse. In December 1776 the Assembly formed the regiments into six militia brigades, each commanded by a brigadier general.[20] This allowed the Council of Safety to deal with six men instead of thirty. The Assembly formed all males between sixteen and sixty years of age not included in the trainband or exempted from common or ordinary training into a new part of the militia called the alarm list. These men were to provide themselves with arms and accouterments and serve during an alarm. Those over fifty were not to be compelled to march out of the state, and the selectmen of any town could exempt ferrymen and millers from being marched out of their town. The alarm list could be formed into companies which were part of the local militia regiment.[21]

Table 3 – General Officers of the Connecticut Militia[22]

Three more foot regiments were formed between 1776 and 1780. The 26th Regiment was formed in May 1778[28] and the 27th and 28th Regiments were formed in January 1780.[29]

Henry P. Johnston interpreted the organization of the militia in Connecticut in a series of tables published in Connecticut Men in the Revolution, one for each of the twenty-eight regiments, based on some lists preserved among the Trumbull Papers.[30] His information is correct for a particular period of time, but gives the impression that the organization with twenty-eight regiments was static from 1775 thru 1783, which was not the case. Only between January 1780 and May 1780 does Johnston’s set of tables paint an accurate picture of how the militia was organized.

Table 4 – Leaders of Connecticut Militia Foot Regiments during the War, 1775 – 1783

In May 1780 the Assembly revoked the Act forming the 27th Regiment until the rising of the Assembly in October citing difficulties in filling up “the continental Army by draft or detachment therefrom or to draw forth the militia agreeable to acts and resolves of this Assembly.”[33] At the October 1780 session, the Assembly voted to repeal and make void the Act forming the 27th Regiment.[34]

In May 1782 the Assembly passed an Act for forming, regulating and conducting the Military Forces of this State.[35] This Act was designed to correct inadequacies in the militia laws and replaced all former Acts which were repealed by this Act. Men sixteen to forty-five years of age were mandated to serve unless excepted (and a long list of exceptions were part of the Act). One new exception was that those who had enlisted (or would still enlist) into the Connecticut Line of the Army for the term of the present war would be exempt from training after their term was served. The alarm list was dissolved, but those men under fifty-five had to report on days appointed to view arms. As part of the Act the towns that constituted regiments, and the regiments that constituted brigades, were restated. The 28th Regiment was renumbered the 27th, and in Table 3 above, the 27th Regiment was removed from the 3rd Brigade and the designation of the 28th in the 2nd Brigade was changed to the 27th. Regiments of Light Dragoons continued as shown in Table 2, but the 26th Regiment and new 27th were not mentioned. Officers and NCO’s authorized changed:

The militia is best regarded as a pool of manpower from which men were drawn, either by enlistment or draft, to serve the needs and obligations of the colony/state. The Continental regiments were recruited from the militia as were the ad-hoc “militia” regiments requested by the Continental Congress, General Washington, Major Generals Schuyler and Gates for Ticonderoga, and Major Generals Spencer and Sullivan for Rhode Island. When an enlistment expired the men went back into the militia pool. Connecticut had state regiments raised for the defense of the state and an almost constant force defending its seacoast from British incursions. The colonels outlined above, and their staffs, managed the training of their men and the recruitment of men to serve in the Continental, ad-hoc, and state regiments.

[1] The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut. 15 volumes. The first three were edited by J. Hammond Trumbull and fourth through fifteenth by Charles J. Hoadly. Printer varied by volume. The first volume appeared in 1850 and the fifteenth in 1890. The series continues as The Public Records of the State of Connecticut, 21 volumes. The first five, which cover the period of interest, were edited by Charles J. Hoadly (volumes 1-3) and Leonard Woods Labaree (volumes 4-5). These appeared starting in 1894 and completed in 1943); (hereafter Colony Records and State Records).

[2] A catalog entry from the New York State Library at Albany says that pages 1 to 119 are a reprint of Acts and Laws, 1702, followed by a reprint of laws passed at subsequent sessions (pages 120-210).

[3] Acts and Laws of His Majesty’s Colony of Connecticut in New England (New-London: Timothy Green, 1715), 78, para. 1. Early American Imprints. First Series; no. 1738 (hereafter Acts and Laws, 1715).

[4] Answers to the Board of Trade, October 1774, Question XV, Appendix to Colony Records 14:499.

[5] Acts and Laws, 1715, 82, para. 21.

[6] Colony Records 8:277-279.

[7] Colony Records 9:301, 339, 431, 481, 547.

[8] Answers to the Board of Trade, 7 September 1762, Question 11, Appendix to Colony Records 11:630.

[9] Colony Records 12:607-608; 13:238; 13:512.

[10] Colony Records 14:261.

[11] An Account of the Number of Inhabitants in the Colony of Connecticut, January 1, 1774 (Hartford: Ebenezer Watson, 1774). Early American Imprints. First Series; no. 13206.

[12] Answers to the Board of Trade, October 1774, Question XV, Appendix to Colony Records 14:499.

[13] Answers to the Board of Trade, October 1774 cited in note 12, also contains a list of the field officers for the eighteen regiments. These names can also be derived from Colony Records volumes 8 through 14. In each session’s record there is a section with officer appointments: field officers followed by company grade officers. More information is available than presented here. It should be possible to a list the company officers in each regiment. I have not presented that information here as it is inconsistent and incomplete. Some company officers are associated with a town or ecclesiastical society and some are associated with a company number, making it is difficult to provide a list of companies and their captains, and it is impossible to provide a list of companies in each town. For my purposes, I would have liked to have presented a list the companies in each town and their respective captains.

[14] Colony Records volumes 13 and 14. Officers are appointed in the troops of horse for all regiments except the 17th and 18th regiments which were formed at the May 1774 session. The 17th first appointed officers in May 1775.

[15] Colony Records volumes 13 and 14. Info derived from officer appointments before May 1774. The 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 15th, and 16th regiments listed company numbers and I noted the highest company used; the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 8th, 9th, 13th, and 14th regiments used town names or directional labels (north, south, middle) and my numbers are less exact than those for the first group. Read the symbol “~” as approximately.

[16] Colony Records 14:328.

[17] Colony Records 15:12.

[18] Colony Records 15:287.

[19] Colony Records 15:284-285.

[20] State Records 1:91.

[21] State Records 1:92.

[22] Colony Records 14:422-423. In April 1775, the Assembly appointed a major general (David Wooster) and two brigadier generals (Joseph Spencer and Israel Spencer). These appointments seem to be related to the troops going to Boston, and not the Militia.

[23] State Records volumes 1 to 5, 1:34; 1:

[24] State Records 1:91.

[25] State Records 2:483. The 28th formed in January 1780 was redesignated the 27th Regiment by an Act of Assembly in May 1782.

[26] Ibid. The 27th formed in January 1780 was eliminated in May 1782 by the Assembly and thus was no longer part of the 3rd Brigade.

[27] State Records 2:13.

[28] Ibid.

[29] State Records 2:483.

[30] Henry P. Johnston, ed., The Record of Connecticut Men in the Military and Naval Service during the War of the Revolution, 1775-1783 (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company, 1889), 432-448. Johnston does not identify the source in the Trumbull Papers for his information, nor does he indicate whether these papers were in Connecticut or those deposited in the Massachusetts Historical Society. I have looked through the Trumbull Papers published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society and did not find the document there.

[31] Colony Records volumes 8 through 15; State Records volumes 1-5.

[32] State Records volumes 4 and 5. Info derived from officer appointments for 1782 thru 1784.

[33] State Records 3:44.

[34] State Records 3:172-173.

[35] State Records 4:138-153.