Talk:Virginia militia
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Order of presentation
editIf there is any active organization that could be called the Virginia Militia, I recommend that modern issues description come first in the article.
--Wikidity (talk) 22:44, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Other paramilitary groups?
editAre there any other militia / paramilitary groups in/near Virginia? Thanks, EVCM (talk) 22:29, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Since then?
editWhat is the history of the militia from 1779 to the Civil War? 2601:183:4103:8370:30F2:3444:A3B4:EC3B (talk) 04:01, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Virginia militia vs Virginia Regiment
editMost of the information in the caption on the infobox illustration is incorrect, because it conflates the 1st Virginia Regiment with the Virginia militia. The Virginia Regiment wasn't a militia, it was a provincial corps, which is to say it was a body of professional military troops raised and paid wages by the Virginia provincial government and intended to fight campaigns both inside and outside Virginia's borders. Most of the thirteen colonies had such establishments during the eighteenth century, and they occupied a space on the military ladder in between the amateur, mass-conscription status of the militia and the professionally-paid, professionally-drilled, permanently-established redcoat regiments of the British regular army. (Our article on Provincial troops in the French and Indian Wars has an accurate chart.) My favorite history of the French and Indian War is Crucible of War by Fred Anderson, which frequently mentions provincial forces in terms that make clear they aren't militia, but as far as the Virginia Regiment specifically goes, I would point to His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis, which has an extensive section dedicated to the organization and history of the regiment (pp. 24-35 in the hardcover edition) making it very clear that it wasn't a militia but rather "an elite unit of, at times, over a thousand men which combined the spit-and-polish discipline of British regulars with the tactical agility and proficiency of Indian warriors." (p. 24) Ellis describes the colonel of the Virginia Regiment as "commander-in-chief of Virginia's army" (pg. 24) and points out that its troops were paid when he speaks of Washington's efforts to raise that pay to equality with British regulars (pg. 26) and that they were recruited when he says their recruitment records show that most of them were either recent immigrants from the British Isles or second-generation backwoodsmen (pg. 27). The bluecoat uniform that Washington wears in the image and that was adopted by the Continental Army didn't come from the Virginia militia and wasn't worn by the militia during the French and Indian War; it was worn by the Virginia Regiment, having been designed for them by Washington (Ellis pg. 25). It may well be that the Virginia National Guard claims an organizational descent from the 1st Virginia Regiment, and if so it would be appropriate to note that, but the caption should be deleted as untrue and the image should probably go too as irrelevant to the subject of the article. Binabik80 (talk) 16:33, 27 July 2022 (UTC)