The American colonies were organized into military defense districts, for no regular army existed to protect settlers from marauders or from rebellion within. On alarm, colonists formed militia companies from their own ranks to go to the scene of action. When the emergency ended, these trained bands retired. Records of these companies exist, but those of the South are widely scattered. After a thorough investigation of a wide variety of source materials, Mrs. Clark has organized them into a logical and convenient form.
The records are chiefly muster rolls and pay rolls of the militias of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, and they identify about 55,000 soldiers by name, rank, date, militia company, and district. Other records provide data on age, height, country of birth, occupation, and date and place of enlistment. Also, there are the Scotch Highlanders in Oglethorpe's Georgia regiment, recruits who served under Washington's ensign in Virginia, and the ordinary settlers and frontiersmen who did their duty. This source book is a milestone in colonial genealogy and history.
The original source info: Clark, Murtie J., Colonial Soldiers of the South, 1732-1774. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999, which may be available elsewhere.
