From Hatch’s 1903 first chapter, showing a young militia in chaos – CHAPTER I. FORMATION OF THE ARMY. When the Second Continental Congress met, May 10, 1775, the British army was shut up in Boston by bodies of imperfectly organized and ill-trained troops from the four New England colonies. This mass of armed men which constituted the besieging force scarcely deserved the name of army, and the units of which it was composed could hardly be called soldiers. The Americans, indeed, were brave, accustomed to long and difficult journeys, and familiar with the use of firearms; but they knew little of military training or military subordination. To be sure, nearly every able-bodied man served in the militia; but under a popular or a semi-popular government, and with little immediate danger of invasion, people are ordinarily too busy sowing and reaping, buying and selling, to give much attention to drills and reviews. These conditions had brought about the usual results, and the musters had degenerated into little more than farces. . . .
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