Jolly were the boys one fine morning, the fore part of May, 1830, before the break of day, when a volley by the members of the Rifle Company of Spring, Pa., was fired through the door of the old block house of Captain Phineas Sargent, as an eye-opener for the young Lieutenant, Alfred Sargent, to get up and don his uniform for the wars. It was the custom in those days for members of each company to salute their officers with a volley before daylight, to prepare for Training Day.
The Beaver Rangers was the name of the company which was made up in Spring and Beaver Townships, connected to the Powerstown (now Conneautville) Light Infantry, the Sadsbury Rifles, Greenwood and Shenango Rifles which formed the Western Crawford County Volunteer Battalion. The first place they met for battalion or general training was at Billy Campbell's, west of Conneaut Lake, and subsequently at different places in the County at Brightstown, Evansburg, Powerstown, and Isaac Hunds' place -- Spring. In this battalion every man had to appear in full uniform and well equipped with rifle, cartridge box, tomahawk, belt and powder horn. Clubs and sticks, with cow horns on the end, used by the militia, were not allowed, and every member was held subject to a fine of $2.00 for being absent on training days without he had a reasonable excuse, and the fine must be paid or the delinquent member go to jail. This law not only applied to the military, but to civil debt. One Potter would not pay his fine, whereupon a warrant was issued by Captain Sargent and served by Constable E.R. Hall. But Potter came down with the $2 rather than go to jail.
Cases of this kind were few; the mass of the people in those days were chivalrous, patriotic and true; the blood of their revolutionary sires coursed flush in their veins, and it required no eloquent and patriotic speeches to arouse them to a sense of duty.
The officers of the battalion were (in part): John C. Thayre, Shenango, lieutenant colonel; Alfred Sargent, Spring, first major; William Rankin, Sorrel Hill, second major; John McLean, Shenango, adjutant; James McDowell, Summer Hill, quartermaster.
Among the captains were: John B. Rice, Brightstown; William Pratt, Stephen Eighmy and John Nicholas, Spring; Theo. Powers, Powerstown. Lieutenants: Hiram Hammond and Wm. Crozier, Powerstown; E.R. Hall, Spring.
The law required the volunteers to meet three times yearly and the militia twice yearly for training. On general training days a big time was had. the inspiring music by the band and the tramp and step to the fife and drum, and when brought to a halt the exercises of the manual of arms were gone through with in a very creditable manner, with zeal and animation.
The Legislature repealed the militia law in 1840.
The sires of this pioneer soldiery would relate their experience at Lexington, Bunker Hill, Trenton and Valley Forge, when destitution, bare feet and rigid economy, played a great part in the fortunes of war in holding them back in the ranks. Ammunition was scarce, and General Putnam said, "Don't fire until you see the white of their eyes; then fire low -- take aim at their waistbands."
A soldiery which had to resort to hurling stones and use the butt of their guns at the enemy, and then come out victorious, will maintain freedom of their country and protect their families and live down all oppression. This we have seen manifested down to the War of 1812 on more than one occasion. While our country was still new, poor and unprepared for war, the same sturdy, independent, patriotic spirit prevailed, courting no smiles, asking no favors, heeding no frowns or thrust, nor threats from the enemy, as Johnny bull became aware in his American tilt of 1812-13 on Lake Champlain, Lake Erie and elsewhere.
An incident comes fresh to my mind in Ashtabula Harbor, showing the strategy displayed by the few militia men, about one hundred in number.
A British man-of-war stood a short distance out and they wanted to capture a couple hundred barrels of beef which they knew to be stored in a warehouse near the mouth of the river. The few militia men there, with few guns and many more pitchforks and clubs, marched through and around the lake Side House on the point, making the enemy below think that there was ten times as large a force there as there actually was. The British fired a few shots, the cannon ball cutting off some limbs of the trees and some bricks of the chimney, and sailed away.
From the days of the Revolution down to 1840 one-half never wore uniform nor were properly armed. But such ancestral heroes as Generals Putnam and Allen had shown them that without the best equipments they could do effective fighting.
Who gave Britain a worthy foe
In war, that she might know
That she could not monkey with our raw recruits,
No more than with her game lion brutes.
Then let us not be unmindful of the heroic deeds of the Pioneer militia and volunteer soldier of America, who, on several times, when their country was in peril, rescued her from the invading foe. And when the joyous notes of peace were sounded through the land he quietly returned to the plow, the counter of commerce, or to the jurist, legislative or congressional halls. Then behold our grand, vast America again teeming forth her busy millions, plodding again all the avenues of commercial life, and thus with the smallest defensive force or standing army o'er its vast domain of any other nation on the globe.
Then let us revere the Pioneer soldier of America, who never flinched
in time of emergency and whose acts and examples shine forth in the starry
firmament to guide the living and unborn generations to similar deeds of
humanity and freedom, the heritage of the Pioneer soldier of America.
From Pioneer Sketches: Scenes and Incidents of Former
Days by M.P. Sargent
Published by Herald Printing & Publishing Co., Ltd., Erie, PA 1891