Quote: Be realistic Min, I didn't come close to say that people would come running unorganized,
That's exactly what you did. If you wish to re-phrase go ahead.
We spend a shitload of money every year training a military. We even spend a shitload of money militarizing the police to keep gangs of random gun nuts in line.
The militia companies in the colonies were set up in different ways but there was a chain of command. In some cases men had to buy their own weapons - and the Brown Bess musket and bayonet always figured prominently as the need to simplify ammunition supply was always critical. Some units were supplied by the wealthy men who raised the company and had themselves appointed officers by the governor. Some militia companies were still using left-overs from the French and Indian War. While individual towns would form militia companies there would be an artillery battery (or section ) in larger towns/cities.
In any case, the Dick Act of 1903 effectively dissolved the state militia system, which had demonstrated numerous failures during the Spanish American War , and replaced it with the National Guard system. And here we sit, 112 years later.
