HISTORY

Militia Officers

In February 1812, with war looming, congress told the states to be ready to activate 100,000 militia for at least three months service. Strangely they also stated that they could keep their own officers. Congress agreed that this would cause problems, because militia officers had no experience, but they did it anyway, but it turns out they had a good reason.

The early republic was so afraid of a standing army that they kept their numbers deliberately small and that included company officers; lieutenants and captains. Based on data there were about 40 line officers per regiment. That would put the number of US Army officers in these ranks at about 275 in early 1812.

Assuming you need at least one officer per 120 man company, you would need 833 officers for the Militia . . . three times more that the US Army had!

To make matters worse, most militia companies were organized in groups of 65 men, which would have required over 1,600 officers or 27% of the strength of the entire US army.