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Popular Mobilization and Political Culture in Revolutionary Virginia: the Failure of the Minutemen and the Revolution from Below Author(S): Michael A

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Popular Mobilization and Political Culture in Revolutionary Virginia: the Failure of the Minutemen and the Revolution from Below Author(S): Michael A Popular Mobilization and Political Culture in Revolutionary Virginia: The Failure of the Minutemen and the Revolution from Below Author(s): Michael A. McDonnell Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Dec., 1998), pp. 946-981 Published by: Organization of American Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2567217 . Accessed: 23/11/2011 20:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Organization of American Historians is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of American History. http://www.jstor.org PopularMobilization and Political Culturein RevolutionaryVirginia: The Failureof the Minutemenand the Revolutionfrom Below MichaelA. McDonnell In the fallof 1775, GeorgeGilmer, friend and physicianto ThomasJefferson and himselfa memberof thegentry of Albemarle County, Virginia, wrote an addressto his neighborslamenting the lack of supportfor the new militaryestablishment cre- atedthat August by the colony's extralegal revolutionary government, the Third Vir- ginia Convention.The problem,Gilmer believed,was the decline in popular enthusiasmfor the cause manifested in thepoor rate of enlistment for the new "min- uteman"service: "I knownot fromwhat cause, but everydenomination of thepeo- ple seem backward;the Conventionhave alteredthe name Volunteersto thatof MinuteMen, and behold!what a wondrouseffect it has had. Out ofnear three hun- dredVolunteers there are how manyMinute Men? So fewthat I am afraidto name them."He notedthe striking contrast between the ardor of a fewmonths before and thepresent: "We wereonce all fire,now mostof us arebecome inanimate and indif- ferent."He pleadedwith his neighborsto "rouzewhat spirit resides in our constitu- tions"and "become. Minutemen, or we shallnot knowwho to call on in the momentof danger.""This is a matter,Gentlemen," Gilmer gravely concluded, "that requiresyour most serious attention, on yourown, as wellas yourCountrie's account." 1 MichaelA. McDonnell is a lecturerin Americanhistory at theDepartment of American Studies at theUniversity of Wales,Swansea. I would liketo thankPeter Thompson, Daniel W Howe, JackPole, Thad W Tate,Al Tillson,Ron Hoffman, BrentTarter, Peter Wood, Julian Gwyn, P. E. Kell,and colleaguesin Swanseafor their encouragement, comments, and adviceon earlierdrafts of thispaper, and particularlyWoody Holton forhis invaluableand generouscollabo- rationthroughout. More recently,Sylvia Frey, Steve Sarson, Edward Countryman, Michael Bellesiles,Don Hig- ginbotham,Robert Gross, Charles Royster, and especiallyDavid Nord have helpedsharpen my argumentand emboldenany insights gained. For financialassistance in researchingand writingthis piece, I would liketo thank BalliolCollege, Oxford, the Virginia Historical Society, the David Libraryof theAmerican Revolution, the Social Sciencesand HumanitiesResearch Council of Canada, and theDepartment of American Studies, Swansea. I GeorgeGilmer, "Address of GeorgeGilmer to theInhabitants of Albemarle," [fall 1775], in "Papers,Military and Political,1775-1778, of GeorgeGilmer, M.D., of 'Pen Park,'Albemarle County, Virginia," ed. R. A. Brock, VirginiaHistorical Society, Collections, new series,6 (1887), 122, 125. Gilmerwas activein politicsand servedas a stand-infor Thomas Jefferson in theVirginia conventions of 1774-1775 whilethe latter served in theConti- nentalCongress. We can safelydate theaddress cited here as laterthan September 11, probablya fewweeks later. On Gilmer'slife, see RobertL. Scribner,ed., RevolutionaryVirginia: The Road toIndependence, vol. III: TheBreak- ingStorm and theThird Convention (Charlottesville, 1977), 50. 946 TheJournal of American History December1998 Mobilizationand Political Culture in Virginia 947 Indeed,the minuteman service was designed to playa pivotalrole in Virginia's defenseamid escalating hostilities through the summer and fall of 1775. Established whenpopular enthusiasm for the war was high, it was supposed to be thetruly revo- lutionarybackbone of Virginians' defense of theirliberties. Replacing the royally controlledmilitia as theideological alternative toa standingarmy, the minute service wasdesigned to ready8,000 "citizen-soldiers" forservice at shortnotice-men "in whoseHands the Sword may be safelytrusted," as a creatorof theservice put it. Eventhe appellation "minuteman" was designed to evoke an imageof the mass pop- ularresistance toperceived British tyranny already immortalized inNew England in thefirst skirmishes ofthe war-an imagestill strong in thepantheon of American historicalmyths.2 Virginia,too, was supposed to have its minuteman heroes. But the minute service in Virginiafailed miserably and was quicklyforgotten. Gilmer's complaints about poorrecruiting for the minutemen inhis county were paralleled throughout the col- ony,and theminute service never came close to attractinga full complement of men.Consequently, it entirely failed in providingfor the colony's defense, pushing thegentry into relying wholeheartedly on the kind of paid, professional regular army vilifiedby revolutionary rhetoric. But the minute- service was not simply the victim ofan earlydeath in Virginia of the continental rage militaire that gripped the rest of thecolonies until at leastthe end of the following year; indeed, as Gilmer'scom- mentsimply, the minute service was responsible forthe demise of popular enthusiasm forthe cause in Virginia.Before the minutemen were established, "Volunteers pre- sentedthemselves from every direction" and "Every rank and denomination ofpeo- ple [were]full of marshal notions." After the minuteman plan was introduced, itwas reportedthat "Virginia is in thegreatest confusion," and thatthe "Continental Spirit"had been "retarded by internal Divisions" caused by the new military estab- lishment.The failureof the minute service, then, played a keyrole in Virginia's war- timemobilization and its revolutionary movement.3 Moreimportant, the reasons why the minuteman plan failed illustrate a more enduringconflict than the one againstBritain: the one betweenthe governors and thegoverned, between the gentry and the "lower" and "middling sorts." That con- flicthas been masked in itsscale and detail by an elitebias in theavailable sources. Smallfarmers in Virginiain theeighteenth century left very few written records of 2George Mason to GeorgeWashington, Oct. 14, 1775, in ThePapers of George Mason, 1725-1792, ed. Rob- ertA. Rutland(3 vols.,Chapel Hill, 1970), I, 255-56. See RobertA. Gross,The Minutemen and TheirWorld (New York,1976), 59. 3Nov. 19-20, 1775, entriesin PhilipVickers Fithian: Journal, 1775-1776...., ed. RobertGreenhalgh Albion and LeonidasDodson (Princeton,1934), 133-34; W W Abbotet al., eds.,The Papers of George Washington: Revolu- tionaryWar Series (7 vols.,Charlottesville, 1985 - ), I, 24; GeorgeGilmer to Thomas Jefferson, [July 26 or 27, 1775], in ThePapers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. JulianP. Boyd et al. (27 vols.,Princeton, 1950- ), I, 238; FieldingLewis to GeorgeWashington, Nov. 14, 1775, in PennsylvaniaMagazine of History and Biography,53 (Jan.1929), 93; June6, 1775, entryin PhilipVickers Fithian: Journal, 1775-1776, ed. Albionand Dodson, 24. For thecontinental experi- ence,see CharlesRoyster, A RevolutionaryPeople at War:The ContinentalArmy andAmerican Character, 1775-1783 (New York,1979), 25. The prevailingopinion in thehistoriography is that the minuteman establishment was a suc- cessand thatit was replacedbecause of theneed for more regular troops. See JohnSelby, The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783 (Williamsburg,1988), 77-78, 129; and E. M. Sanchez-Saavedra,"'All Fine Fellows and Well-Armed': The CulpeperMinute Battalion, 1775-1776," VirginiaCavalcade, 24 (no. 1, 1974), 4-12. 948 TheJournal of American History December1998 theirthoughts and experiences.Most Virginians, particularly nongentry Virginians, livedin an oral-auralworld-perhaps as manyas 75 percentof adults in thecolony couldnot even sign their names. So we areleft with the writings of the very few, pre- dominantlygentry, Virginians who left"traditional" accounts and sourcesand who werereluctant to "washtheir dirty linen in public,"as one scholarhas noted.4 Yetthe reasons for the failure of the minute service, particularly from the point of viewof ordinary Virginians, though elusive, are not impossible to reconstruct.There is at leastone paththat will bring us closerto themind-set of smallfarmers in Vir- ginia,and to a fullerpicture of the Revolution in Virginia.By applying the method- ologyused by Rhys Isaac beyondthe gentry world that was hismain concern, we can findthe alternativeand oftenconflicting meanings of the Revolutionfor ordinary Virginiansby placing their actions within the context of events. In thiscase, though it is difficultto reconstructwhat ordinary Virginians thought about the war, we can determinewhen theydid or did not fight.By comparingwhen men would fight withthe moments when they refused, we can assesswhy men actedas theydid. By examiningthe experience of militaryservice, then, we can beginto piecetogether the meaningof servicefor the different participants.
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