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While state, congressional, and War Department efforts to improve the militia were marginally successful, they did little more than repeat the calls for an improvement of the militia that had been sounded by every president since George Washington. Interestingly, prior to the 1887 increase in appropriation, President Jefferson's call that "(I)t is, therefore,

incumbent on us, at every meeting, to revise the condition of the militia," had been the last to receive a significantly positive response. During his annual message, Jefferson noted that factory output had nearly doubled as the "annual sums appropriated by the latter act, have been directed to the encouragement of private factories of arms."84 Without meaningful support, the militia would show itself to be ill prepared for mobilization in response to a national emergency. That lack of preparation would become a plank in the NRA campaign to become the nation's advocate for rifle marksmanship.

At the close of the nineteenth century, the nation approached its first overseas conflict, the Spanish American War. Once war was declared, the War Department began to experience difficulty in mobilizing state troops to complement the 28,000 regular army, highlighting the lack of resources and the absence of a needed national consistency. The absence of a national affiliation for state militia units, the dearth of resources and the lack of national uniformity did

84 _{Yale Law School, The Avalon Project, Thomas Jefferson, Eighth Annual Message to Congress, November 8, 1808,}

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jeffmes8.asp (accessed February 10, 2013). Jefferson was referring to Congressional actions of March 11 and April 23, 1808 that had increased funding for domestic manufacturing.

not necessarily mean that there were no militiamen available to serve. In fact, in 1895, the National Guard reported a combined force of 114,000, of which 100,000 were infantry and the remainder cavalry, artillery and small support units.85 New York alone was able to field a larger contingent then the regular Army as pointed out in an 1892 article for The Century Magazine. "The centennial celebration of New York of Washington's first inauguration revealed to more than a million astonished spectators a force of over 30,000 soldiers, well armed, equipped, and drilled of whom not more than 2,000 were in the service of the United States."86

As mentioned earlier, Federalism scholar Martha Derthick has noted the appeal of manliness that was attached to military service and the growing sense of patriotic national pride that played a part in the growth of militia ranks. Thirty years after Derthick published her work on the National Guard, Gail Bederman wrote about G. Stanley Hall in Manliness and

Civilization. Hall, a nineteenth century advocate of what Theodore Roosevelt would call the

"strenuous life" and one of the country's early students of psychology, espoused that parents should teach our "men and boys to fight," and to recognize the necessity for manliness and aggressive behavior for the good health of young men.87 Hall's ideal was echoed by descriptions of the Civil War veteran as the "epitome of honor and the model of manly character."88

85 _{Mahon, History of the Militia, 125.}

86 _{Francis V. Greene, "The New National Guard," The Century Magazine, February 1892, 483.} 87

Gail Bederman, Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 78-79. G. Stanley Hall was America's first PhD in psychology who studied under William James, followed by service as a professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins from 1882 until 1889.

88

Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 24. See also Cooper, Rise of the National Guard, 80 for a discussion of Victorian manliness as a component of the Guard's revival.

In Fighting for American Manhood, a study of the intersection of gender, politics and foreign policy leading up to and during the Spanish American War, Kristin Hoganson found that post-Civil War politics had a decidedly military cast and that this style of politics "promoted the idea that the state rested ultimately on soldier-citizens."89 Hoganson's primary argument was that America went to war with Spain to satisfy concern that "modern young men, lacking their own epic challenges, would not be able to live up to their forefathers" who had sacrificed so much to build America.90 Her argument provides evidence that among the reasons for militia attraction was the issue of manliness and the opportunities afforded by military service. Those qualities would be emphasized in campaigns for NRA affiliation and rifle club membership.

Whether "jingoes embraced the prospect of war" as a measure of American manhood, or patriots embraced war as a civic duty as suggested by Rudyard Kipling in his famous poem, "The White Man's Burden," young men were being recruited for service as a confirmation of citizenship, just as their ancestors had been called to serve towns and shires for over one thousand years.91 Whether solicited for regular Army or local militia service, young men were equally susceptible to a patriotic petition. Herein lays one additional element that would be drawn on by the NRA as it attempted to craft its nineteenth century image in support of patriotic service.

89 _{Hoganson, 25. Interestingly, Hoganson uses soldier-citizen rather than the classical republican citizen-soldier,}

which would suggest a reversal of primary roles. This may result from the veteran who is being honored rather than the citizen. Furthermore, Hoganson finds the nation resting on the manhood of the veteran rather than the republican service of the citizen-militiaman's English heritage.

90

Hoganson, 201.

91

Ibid., 201. Kipling wrote the poem "The White Man's Burden" as justification for the conquest of uncivilized countries for the purpose of bringing them civilization and modernity in 1898. Part of the "burden" was "to send forth the best ye breed," thus sacrificing young men in battle for modernity. Kipling was a resident of Vermont at the time.

Whether young men accepted or rejected calls for service based on manly appeal or patriotic petition, both efforts ignored the obligatory mandate of the extant 1792 Militia Act that was yet to be substantially modified. As a consequence, the historians who have recognized that the militia reached its nadir following the Civil War were in fact reflecting an appreciation for the fact that years of exemplary volunteer service had been labeled as militia service.92 The militia had always been compulsory, not a volunteer organization, but its

members frequently declined to serve when called. Those that did serve left the militia to serve in volunteer units, not obligated to remain in their home towns and counties.93

Though frequent refusal to serve was ideologically based, remaining at home offered opportunities to participate in major drill competitions which offered good money for prizes. For example, the Houston Light Guard received special attention by repeated success as the best competitive drill team in the country, winning $30,000 during the 1880s. 94 The Houston unit was so successful that they were barred from competition in 1886 after having "defeated in one drill or another all of the crack companies of the United States."95 When called to serve in the Spanish American War of 1898, the Houston Guardsmen rejected the call "on the

grounds that they were a militia sworn to defend their city, county and state."96By the late nineteenth century Spanish American War little attention was paid to the militia as a potential

92

Hill, The Militiaman in Peace and War made a strong argument for the viability of the militia during the nineteenth century, 26-31.

93

See Sentiford, "The Meaning of a Name" for a discussion of departure from the militia for volunteer service.

94

"The Houston Light Guard Carry off the First Prize," The Galveston Daily News (Houston, TX), May 10, 1885. The Galveston paper carried additional articles on July 1, 4 and 7, 1885 as did the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on July 13, 1885.

95

"Brief History of the Houston Light Guard," The Galveston Daily News, July 21, 1897.

96 _{Cooper, Rise of the National Guard, 80. For more on the performance of the Guard see Russell Frank Weigley,} Towards an American Army: Military Thought from Washington to Marshall (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 147-148.

complement to the Army. The ultimate example of this was former National Guardsman Teddy Roosevelt's service as a Roughrider in an all-volunteer regiment.97

Many guardsmen chose to exercise their republican right as citizens to refuse to

volunteer for the Spanish American War; others failed the physical and most had an "appalling lack of camp sanitation."98 Of those that did report, as many as forty percent of the militia volunteers had no drill experience and "a surprising number had never fired a gun."99 Others had no experience in field hygiene, lacked basic military skills, failed physical examinations, and did not appear with required arms and equipment. Complicating matters further, there was no standard organization, and officers of the militia units who had been elected by their troops or appointed by their respective governors often wanted for requisite leadership skills. One example was Major General William Shafter, appointed by the governor of Michigan, who, when deployed to Cuba, was unable to command because he was sick with gout. Shafter weighed over 300 pounds when he reported to Tampa for deployment. Post-war investigations by newspaper reporters revealed a general lack of proper "planning and outright competence" while a "presidential commission...found that most of the problems were due to poor

97 _{Prior to selection for federal service as the Civil Service Commissioner, Roosevelt served as a member of the New}

York National Guard.

98

Cooper, 104-106.

99 _{Mahon, 128. Cooper and Riker, Soldiers of the States, provide extensive examples of the shortcomings of the}

militia and state guard troops that responded to President McKinley's call for volunteers. Cooper does, however, suggest that mobilization for the Spanish American War "proceeded more effectively than had been the earlier case in the century." Some of this success must be attributed to improved communication and the fact that many of the mobilized forces were from urban areas and did not have to "get the crop in." Conversely, Hill in The Minute Man in Peace and War, revealing his bias as a general officer in the Guard and without substantiation, asserts that "the war is also significant for its brilliant success in bringing into Federal service, fully-constituted and with competence fully equal to the professional competence of the Regulars of their day, such an imposing Army of effective citizen-soldiers," 171.

leadership.100 The failures were not all attributed to the men in arms, as it was not until the beginning of the war that states were permitted to exchange old rifles for the new Army rifles. Riker pointed out "how important rifle practice was for the life of the guard in this era" and that Army support was an instrumental component in the conversion of state soldiery to a federal National Guard.101

To this day, the National Guard Bureau acknowledges that the "the Spanish-American war of 1898 [which] demonstrated weaknesses in the militia."102 Fifteen years later, the secretary of the National Rifle Association would write that the "activities of the National Rifle Association of America had their origin in the awful experience of the Spanish-American War, where so many of the volunteers lacked the first rudiments and requirements of a soldier, the ability to shoot straight."103 That origin was in fact a rebirth necessary because during the last decade of the nineteenth century, the NRA came under withering attacks, spawned both inside and outside of the Association.

100

Doubler, I Am the Guard, 136.

101

Riker, Soldiers of the States, 60-61.

102 _{Quoted from the National Guard Bureau (NGB), www.nationalguard.com (accessed May 12, 2012). The NGB is}

the current Department of Defense agency responsible for the National Guard. See also T. Harry Williams, Americans at War: The Development of the American Military System (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1960), 96. Contrary to the position of most historians, Michael Doubler suggests that the "catalyst for reform" did not come from the states or the federal government but from the Spanish American War. However, he depends heavily on secondary sources and writes that "the Spanish American War put citizen-soldiers in high standing with the American people," citing Hill’s Minute Man in Peace and War for this position. Doubler, I Am the Guard, 123, 142.

103