Militia

When the colonists set foot in South Carolina in 1670, they brought with them the traditional English concept of a militia, the idea that every citizen had a duty to assist in the defense of the community. This tradition, dating back to the Anglo-Saxon fyrd, was formalized by Henry II in the Assize of Arms of 1181 and refined by successive English kings. It established the militia as the primary land defense of England and, by extension, the main defense of her colonies. In 1671 the Grand Council of colonial South Carolina passed a militia ordinance requiring all men aged sixteen to sixty to serve in the militia and to provide their own weapons. The Revolutionary War, fought to a large degree by local Whig and Tory militiamen in South Carolina, ended the colony’s governance ties with the mother country but did not end the militia tradition.

During the Confederation government (1781–1789), the national army was minuscule and each state was responsible for its own defense. To bring some uniformity to the system, the Congress of the newly established United States passed what is usually called the Militia Act of 1792. This act required all able-bodied free white male citizens aged eighteen to forty-five to enroll in the militia company nearest their place of residence and to provide themselves, at their own expense, with arms and ammunition. In 1808 this requirement was eased somewhat when the federal government agreed to provide the states with some weapons from federal stocks.

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century the militias were the backbone of the country’s defense. There was, however, a problem for a country bent on expansion. A militia could not be required to serve outside its state. Thus, during the Second Seminole War (1835–1842), South Carolina had to depend on volunteers to serve in Florida when the federal government asked for assistance. The same was true in the Mexican War (1846–1848), which was fought primarily by volunteer units, including the Palmetto Regiment from South Carolina. Therefore, in South Carolina the militia served primarily as a source of manpower for slave patrols that kept order and enforced the restrictions on slave activity. Militia musters also served as focal points for social and political meetings on state and local affairs.

As sectional tensions grew in the 1850s, South Carolina began to improve its militia for possible action in a regional conflict. As a consequence of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, the state authorized $100,000 for military contingencies. A large portion of militia was called for duty at Charleston during the secession crisis. After the firing on Fort Sumter, militiamen, both individually and as units, joined state regiments that were taken into Confederate service. They were replaced in the militia by older men and men who were exempt from Confederate service. These militia units were called at various times to defend Charleston, guard the coast, and resist Sherman’s march through the state.

After the Civil War, the Reconstruction government replaced the antebellum militia with new, segregated companies. Despite occasional confrontations between black militiamen and former Confederate soldiers, the new militia units were never used to challenge the Ku Klux Klan or the Red Shirts, who were frequently better organized and better armed. Once Reconstruction ended, black companies were disbanded and most of the white units were merged into a new force that resurrected the prewar militia organization.

Since the Mexican War, most military thinkers had come to the conclusion that the militia system had to be “modernized” and that volunteer companies were to be preferred over what was by this time an unwilling militia. The Spanish-American War (1898) brought calls for modernization to a head. The National Guard, as the organized state militias were called by this time, proved woefully inadequate during that short war, and Secretary of War Elihu Root began to lobby for a National Reserve under the control of the federal government. The states reacted swiftly to this threat to their control over their own militias, and under intense political pressure from the states, Congress stopped short of establishing a National Reserve, deleting this provision from the Dick Act of 1902. However, the Dick Act did start the National Guard on the road to becoming a federal force by establishing standards that the states were required to meet in order to receive federal funding. The National Defense Act of 1916 completed the process, requiring all members of the National Guard to swear a dual oath, to both the state and the federal government.

Except as permitted by the federal government, the states were not allowed to establish any other military force, reinforcing federal control over the militias. With the entire National Guard federalized by 1917, there was a need for local defense, and the states were given the authority to establish local defense forces. South Carolina adjutant general William Moore issued General Order 162 on December 22, 1917, establishing the Reserve Militia, which consisted of one regiment and an additional battalion. The last unit of this force was disbanded in August 1920. Federal authorization for home defense units expired with the end of World War I.

The situation in early 1941 was strikingly similar to that in 1917. President Franklin D. Roosevelt began ordering National Guard units into federal service on September 16, 1940. Shortly thereafter, the National Defense Act of 1916 was amended to allow the establishment of state defense forces. The act establishing the South Carolina Defense Force was signed into law by Governor Burnet R. Maybank on March 21, 1941. The South Carolina Defense Force, renamed the South Carolina State Guard in 1944, numbered more than six thousand men in the spring of 1942. Members patrolled beaches, guarded sensitive facilities, and provided manpower for search and rescue and recovery from natural disasters until deactivated in August 1947.

With the end of World War II, authorization for state defense forces was again withdrawn. The cold war changed that policy, and in 1954 the federal government authorized state defense forces on a permanent basis, returning to the historic concept of the militia as the defender of the state. The South Carolina State Guard was reactivated by the General Assembly in 1981 and became one of the three components of the Military Department, along with the National Guard (the largest component) and the Emergency Preparedness Division. In 2001 the South Carolina State Guard numbered more than 1,050 men and women assigned to three brigades throughout the state, providing a force multiplier for the National Guard and a secondary defense force for the governor in times of emergency.

Callan, John F., comp. The Military Laws of the United States. Baltimore: John Murphy, 1858.

Flynn, Jean Martin. The Militia in Antebellum South Carolina Society. Spar- tanburg, S.C.: Reprint Company, 1991.

Mahon, John K. History of the Militia and the National Guard. New York: Macmillan, 1983.