Category: Pennsylvania Militia, American Revolution

Categories: Militia, American Revolution | Pennsylvania, American Revolution

This category is managed by the 1776 Project in association with the Categorization Project. For assistance with this or related categories ask in G2G making sure to tag your question with both categorization and 1776.

This is a mid-level category. Profiles should be added to the narrowest category possible, but may be placed here when further information is not known. See How to Categorize.

This category is a roll up of units that were part of the Pennsylvania Militia during the American Revolution. Individual profiles should be placed in one of these unit categories, and only placed here if the unit is unknown.

At the beginning of 1775, Pennsylvania, founded under Quaker auspices, differed from other American colonies in being totally devoid of military organization. Early in that year, as tension mounted, there appeared spontaneously in certain localities volunteer companies of Associators patterned essentially upon groups which had existed briefly in 1747-1748 and again after Braddock's defeat in 1755. These volunteer companies made up the Military Association, a civilian reserve designed to repel invasion. In June 30, 1775, the Provincial Assembly gave official recognition to the Associators and grouped their companies into battalions. Organization was territorial, so that normally a company consisted of men from a single township, while a battalion included all the Associators of several neighboring townships. Ages ranged from sixteen to sixty years. Provision was made for recruiting from the ranks of Associators in each county a small corps of Minute Men, on call for special duty at short notice, but no evidence of the existence of such a corps in Pennsylvania survives. he Pennsylvania Militia was organized under an act of March 7, 1777, which provided for compulsory enrollment by the constables of all able-bodied male whites between the ages of eighteen and fifty-three. Exemptions were extremely limited, and an estimated 60,000 men were enrolled. For purposes of administration and drill, Companies and Battalions of militia were set up on a geographical basis similar to the arrangement already familiar with the Associators.

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Pennsylvania Historical & Musuem Commission

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