348 The Winning of the West 



clanger. By themselves they were as little likely to 

 assail him in force in the open as Andreas Hofer's 

 Tyrolese with whom they had many points in com- 

 mon were to threaten Napoleon on the Danubian 

 plains. Had they been Continental troops, the Brit- 

 ish would have had to deal with a permanent army. 

 But they were only militia 72 after all, however for- 

 midable from their patriotic purpose and personal 

 prowess. The backwoods armies were not unlike 

 the armies of the Scotch Highlanders; tumultuous 

 gatherings of hardy and warlike men, greatly to 

 be dreaded under certain circumstances, but incapa- 

 ble of a long campaign, and almost as much demora- 

 lized by a victory as by a defeat. Individually or 

 in small groups they were perhaps even more for- 

 midable than the Highlanders ; but in one important 

 respect they were inferior, for they totally lacked 

 the regimental organization which the clan system 

 gave the Scotch Celts. 



72 The striking nature of the victory and its important con- 

 sequences must not blind us to the manifold shortcomings of 

 the Revolutionary militia. The mountaineers did well in 

 spite of being militia ; but they would have done far better 

 under another system. The numerous failures of the militia 

 as a whole must be balanced against the few successes of a 

 portion of them. If the States had possessed wisdom enough 

 to back Washington with Continentals, or with volunteers 

 such as those who fought in the Civil War, the Revolutionary 

 contest would have been over in three years. The trust in 

 militia was a perfect curse. Many of the backwoods leaders 

 knew this. The old Indian fighter, Andrew Lewis, about 

 this time wrote to Gates (see Gates MSS., Sept. 30, 1780), 

 speaking of "the dastardly conduct of the militia," calling 

 them "a set of poltroons," and longing for Continentals. 



