[Sailor Steve]

Those are some interesting and forceful points. They show what was observed at the time of the Revolution, and occured again during the American Civil war, when State-supplied regiments slowly developed into Federal regiments, at least in the North. On the other hand many State-supplied regiments did perform admirably, and win honors for themselves. In the South virtually all regiments carried the names of their States, and history records the commendable job they did, almost without fail. Of course this mostly happened over time, after they had become somewhat battle-hardened.

The document shows that most military commanders of the various times mentioned observed that the local and state-supplied units were mostly useless. General Washington's observations were colored by the his biggest complaint, which was the short enlistments. He had to convince the farmers and shopkeepers that they needed to fight the revolution, and had to convince them not to just go home when their enlistments were up. There was no draft, and there was no enforced continued enlistment. When your year was up, it was up, and there was no obligation on your part and no possible enforcement from the Generals or the Congress. The Continental Congress couldn't even keep the army fed and clothed, and part of the reason for the new Constitution in 1787 was that Congress had no power to enforce anything over the States at all. Of course Washington complained.

One point I would like to mention is that while the 1915 document makes very good points, neither General Washington nor the authors of the document even hint that the uselessness of the irregular militia is a reasong the citizenry should be disarmed. Washington supported the Constitution, including its Amendments, and there is no hint that the leaders of 1915 did otherwise.