The Second Amendment in Art!

This is Charles Henry Granger's Muster Day which is in the National Gallery in Washington, DC. There is another version of this at the located at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Many able-bodied citizen between the ages of eighteen and forty-five were a members of the militia under the militia act of 1792. The annual muster day accomplished actual enrollment of the members into their units.

Local companies of militia would gather annually for parade and inspection at their regiment's muster day which often involved a thousand or more men from half a dozen towns. Food and alcohol vendors, showmen, fiddlers, auctioneers, charlatans, gamblers, and several thousand spectators turned these gatherings into regional festivals in an era of few such diversions. Muster days were structured social events in a regimental towns in ways not duplicated since. By 1830, muster days were under attack from those who resented the required participation. They were joined by temperance advocates, who objected to the considerable public drunkenness attending each muster, and later by critics of the Mexican War, who claimed that the existence of a peace-time militia had in fact led to this conflict.

"Their general good conduct on the field was creditable to officers and soldiers – with the exception of a few, (such as never know how to leave off when they have done), who fired promiscuously about the plain a long time after they had been dismissed, a practice always disreputable to good soldiers and the officers to whom they belong. the occasion attracted an unusual assemblage of spectators, pedlers, rumsellers, rumdrinkers and gamblers; whose noise, ribaldry, intoxication, and violation of the laws in the face and eyes of the authorities, was disgraceful to the place, to the occasion, to those specially engaged in it, and to all who looked on and tolerated it. We leave it to the people to judge whether there be more good than evil derived from ‘making a muster.’" --Report of the Amherst Muster Day from The Farmers’ Cabinet, 1834

Exemptions to Militia service were:

Vice President, federal judicial and executive officers, congressmen and congressional officers, custom-house officers and clerks, post-officers and postal stage drivers, ferrymen on post roads, export inspectors, pilots, merchant mariners, and people exempted under the laws of their states"notwithstanding their being above the age of eighteen and under the age of forty-five years."

Or as the quote goes: "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
— George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788 (that should be quite a few public officials).

So, militia service was NOT universal. In fact, Men actively sought exemption from militia service. This was a reason for the carnival atmosphere at muster days. Again from Story:

And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.

To be quite honest, people had jobs and other things to do than militia service and sought exemption from that duty. The muster day had a carneval feeling because it made the obligation less painful. Still there was an obligation to perform militia service. Thie was compulsory military duty which required time away from your work.

Now, they demand the right without the obligation encumbent to that right.

Hessians

Someone pointed out that King George had Hessian soldiers in his employment in reaction to my pointing out that the United Colonies had French, Spanish, and Dutch support. The combined strength of the Americans and the French virtually guaranteed victory against Great Britain, not the citizen soldiers of the militia (BTW, there were also loyalist militia units). The Continental Army soldier Benjamin Thompson, who expressed the 'common sentiment' at the time which was that minutemen were notoriously poor marksmen with rifles:[1]

"Instead of being the best marksmen in the world and picking off every Regular that was to be seen...the continual firing which they kept up by the week and the month has had no other effect than to waste their ammunition and convince the King's troops that they are really not really so formidable."[2]

See also France in the American Revolutionary War and Loyalists during the American Revolution.

The amount of support given by france was rather staggering with the French troops outnumbering both British and American troops at the siege of Yorktown!

French: 11,800 regulars, 29 war ships
American: 5,700 regulars 3,100 militia

British: 9,000 soldiers

Hessians were a different thing.

Hessians comprised approximately one-quarter of the British forces in the Revolution. They were called Hessians, because 16,992 of the total 30,067 men came from Hesse-Kassel. Some were direct subjects of King George III, even though they were not British, since he ruled them as the Elector of Hanover. Other "Hessian" soldiers were sent by Count William of Hesse-Hanau; Duke Charles I of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel; Prince Frederick of Waldeck; Margrave Karl Alexander of Ansbach-Bayreuth; and Prince Frederick Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst.

About 18,000 Hessian troops arrived in the Thirteen Colonies in 1776, with more coming in later. They first landed at Staten Island on August 15, 1776, and their first engagement was in the Battle of Long Island. The Hessians fought in almost every battle, although after 1777 they were mainly used as garrison troops. An assortment of Hessians fought in the battles and campaigns in the southern states during 1778–80 (including Guilford Courthouse), and two regiments fought at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781.

The troops were not mercenaries in the modern sense of military professionals who voluntarily hire out their own services for money. As in most armies of the eighteenth century, the men were mainly conscripts, debtors, or the victims of impressment; some were also petty criminals. Pay was low; some soldiers apparently received nothing but their daily food. The officer corps usually consisted of career officers who had served in earlier European wars. The revenues realized from the men's service went back to the German royalty. Nevertheless, some Hessian units were respected for their discipline and excellent military skills.

The real rub comes since use of Hessian troops by the British further rankled American sentiment, and pushed some loyalists to be in favor of the revolution. Using foreign troops to put down the rebellion was seen as insulting, as it treated British subjects no differently than non-British subjects; Some pro-British Tories felt that the British nature of Americans should have entitled them to be above mercenary forces.

The problem was that many of the Loyalist Officers depended on local support to fill the ranks of the Loyalist units. So, I find it annoying that someone who claimed loyalty to the crown would not come forth and do their duty. Moreover it was their duty to serve in Loyalist units if they were insulted by the use of Hessians. This is one of the reasons for the reputation the loyalists had for being cowardly.

If you consider that the War for American Independence was a civil war to begin with, this would be roughly like the US Forces expecting some other power to come to their rescue.

Nevermind, that the forces of rebellion needed the help of the French to defeat the British.