Georgia Militia Structure | Militia Districts | Commission Records | 1804-to-1812 Transition | Using This Book | References
This book documents the name, rank, unit, and commission date of almost ten thousand military officers whose commission certificates are recorded in the Adjutant General of Georgia’s Military Commission Books from 15 January 1798 to 13 March 1818. Over thirty-eight thousand men were commissioned as officers of the Georgia Militia from January 1798 to April 1860.
Beyond documenting military service, the names of local officers are the key to correctly interpreting many other historical documents. Prior to the to late-1840s, militia companies were most often described using the name of the officer in command, even following the institution of a unit numbering system in 1804. Using this book, historians and genealogists now have a convenient cross-reference of named officers to numbered units, which will aid in interpretation of early documents such as census enumerations, tax rolls, and land lottery registrations.
Georgia Militia Structure (top)
The Georgia Militia was a citizen force, instituted to protect the civilian population from a multitude of threats confronting the state in its pioneer days. At the top of the militia’s organizational structure were divisions, each commanded by a major general. There were five divisions by 1812, each covering a wide geographic area. Divisions contained two or three brigades, each commanded by a brigadier general. Generally, brigades encompassed an area of two counties.
Brigades contained two to four regiments, each commanded by a lieutenant colonel commandant, lieutenant colonel, or colonel. Officers at these ranks all performed the same duties; the title differences reflect changes in naming conventions over time. Populated counties contained one or two regiments; in sparsely populated areas a single regiment could cover multiple counties. Regiments usually contained two battalions, which were commanded by majors. There could be two to four battalions in a county. Each battalion contained two to four companies, which were commanded by a captain, lieutenant, and ensign. Each militia district encompassed one company of men.
In addition to companies organized by physical district, the militia also contained volunteer companies, many of which became famous for their roles in military campaigns. Rifle, specialized infantry, dragoon (mounted infantry), and cavalry companies were attached to battalions, while artillery companies were attached to regiments. Artillery companies were associated with battalions until just prior to the War of 1812, when their senior command was transferred to the regimental level.
In a brief experiment, the cavalry was put into its own organization separate from the regular militia from 1808 to 1818. Cavalry regiments were made up of squadrons (commanded by majors), which in turn contained companies. Commissioned officers in cavalry companies were the captain, first lieutenant, second lieutenant, and cornet.
Militia Districts (top)
The militia’s organization based on company-level districts was developed when Georgia was still a colony. The provincial governor was given the power to create company districts and to commission field officers, who in turn would define geographic boundaries for the districts and designate the men constituting a militia company located in the district. The captain of each company was responsible for enrolling every male between age sixteen and sixty, making each of them members of that company. Enlistment was compulsory. When Georgia became part of the United States, the state legislature left the system intact, with only two changes: the minimum eligible age was lowered to fifteen, and the members of each company would elect their officers.
Until the late 1840s, districts were almost always known by the name of the captain in command at the time. Each time a new captain was elected, the district’s name designation changed. This is important because historical records like tax lists, census enumerations, and land lottery registrations were organized by district and usually labeled with the captain’s name, rather than the district’s number. This means that—as was the case for Georgia resident Greenville Henderson—someone could be enumerated in the 1820 U.S. Federal Census in Leonard’s District in Morgan County and then participate in the 1827 Georgia Land Lottery as a resident of Sparkes’s District in the same county, without moving. The militia district was not different—only the identity of the captain.
Commission Records (top)
Officer commissions recorded in the Adjutant General’s Military Commission Books are now by the Georgia Department of Archives and History and available to the general public on microfilm. They are organized in date order and recorded in books containing two printed certificates on each page, similar to most county marriage records.
Commission certificates contain the name of the officer, his rank, the unit of his command, and the commission date. The names of Georgia’s governor, the governor’s secretary, and the recording clerk are also included in the stock language but only the information concerning the commissioned officer has been transcribed for this book. Each commission book contains its own index of persons receiving a commission. No consolidated name, geographic, or unit index exists for the Military Commission Books.
Prior to 1812, the Register of Military Commissions was instituted, with commissions dating from 1808. The Register is a tabular list of commissions that includes the commissioned officer’s name, unit, county, rank, and date of commission, as well as the date of decommission or reference to his promotion. An unpublished name index is available for all commissions in the Register in the form of name files in the card catalog at the Georgia Archives. No geographic or unit index exists for this data.
The information contained in the Register of Military Commissions parallels entries in the Military Commission Books but is far from consistent. Most entries from 1808 to 1812 are not included and many later commissions are omitted. Only a small percentage of commissions for volunteer militia companies are included in the Register. For these reasons—and for the purpose of publishing a complete abstract of one record set—only commissions in the Military Commission Books have been transcribed here.
1804-to-1812 Transition (top)
Until 1804, the official naming convention for units was vague and inconsistent. Most commissions describe the associated unit in non-specific terms: “the Company in the Battalion of the Regiment of the Burke County militia.” This naming pattern omits any recognition of the existence of multiple unique companies, battalions, and regiments in a single county. The same phenomenon occurs in commissions at the battalion and regimental level.
In most counties, researchers working in the pre-1804 era will find multiple ensigns, lieutenants, and captains in command of what appears to be the same company all at the same time, even though this is not the case. Some separation can be determined by following patterns in the way commissions were recorded in the books. Commissions for a single company issued on the same day were recorded by the clerk in descending order of rank: captain, lieutenant, and then ensign. Using this pattern, it is possible to separate the officers of multiple companies even when the actual company designation cannot be determined. The original arrangement—in book and page order—has been maintained here in order to allow for the correct interpretation of the commissions based on recording order.
The militia in some counties, such as Wilkes County, was established enough to have a well-formed numerical designation system resulting in descriptions such as “the Sixth Company of the First Battalion of the Second Regiment of the Wilkes County militia.” While the use of numerals is helpful to a certain extent, the inconsistency in implementation complicates attempts to reconstruct the exact unit association of most commissions prior to the transition to a consistent statewide numbering system.
In 1804, the unit naming convention was changed from vague county-by-county designations to a statewide numbering system, in which all units of the same type were given a unique numeric label. The shift to a consistently implemented and accurate numbering system was not instantaneous, though. The records tell a story of administrative dysfunction, most likely caused by the difficulty of coordinating the communication of the new system’s details to all the officers at the local level, as well as the process of developing a reliable system for retrieving those details from the field as individual changes were made.
The first historical document defining a company of the Georgia militia using the new numbering system was a certificate recorded on 2 May 1804 for a retroactive commission dated 13 May 1803. From that date until 1842, the county reference on commission certificates was completely dropped from all but a few units.
On 9 January 1805, general orders were issued that required the sequential numbering of militia units: “The adjutant general will make known to the commanding officer of each regiment the number of his regiment and the number of the battalion and district companies attached to it, by whom the commanding officers of battalions and companies will be made acquainted with the same.” (The name of some volunteer companies includes the city or county where they are located, such as the “Savannah Fencibles” or the “Liberty County Light Infantry.”)
In late 1807, the Georgia General Assembly passed a law that was necessary to bring Georgia into compliance with recently passed United States militia laws. The militia law of 10 December 1807 states that “every division, brigade, regiment, battalion and company district, shall be numbered throughout the state, by order of the commander in chief, in such manner, that every corps of the same denomination shall bear a different number—by which numbers every district shall be designated in the commissions of officers commanding them.”
Approximately 20% of all commissions issued between the beginning of the numbering transition and 20 April 1812 are missing both a county designation and the numerical unit designation, making it impossible to determine the correct association without additional research.
Many commissions recorded early in the transition period were issued retroactively. Certificates during this time are dated at the time of issue and contain the language “to take rank” and the commission date. The first commission certificates specifying the new numbered units were issued 2 May 1804, all for retroactive commissions dated from 13 May 1803 to 22 April 1804. Two “numbered” commissions predate this first round of certificates, but are recorded later. James Alston received a commission for the rank of captain of District 51. His certificate is dated 27 June 1804 and his commission is dated 30 August 1802. This is the earliest dated commission that includes a numeric district designation. The second earliest of these commissions is for Marthew [sic] Scott Montgomery who was commissioned as the captain of District 256 on 22 April 1803 and his certificate is dated 6 December 1805.
Using This Book (top)
In order to locate the district number for a captain’s district in a tax roll or other record using the data in this book, simply look up that captain in the index to find his record, which (in the majority of cases) will provide his district number. Check to see that his commission date is prior to the date of the record.
Using the district name from the captain’s record, search that district in the “County and Militia District Index” at the end of this book. Review the commission entries for that district on page numbers following the first captain. This will lead to a record of the subsequent captain, from which you can determine whether they took command before or after the creation of the historical record in question. This same technique can also be used to determine the county where a battalion or regiment was located, especially when the only known information is the name of the major or lieutenant colonel in command.
For officers with unique names, an index search usually leads directly to the correct commission. For those with common names, further investigation may be required, but the information contained in this book will dramatically reduce the number of historical possibilities.
This book will be particularly useful to researchers working with the 1807 and 1820 Georgia land lotteries, the 1820 U. S. Federal Census of Georgia, and county tax records from the period 1805 to 1820. Because of the problems associated with the 1804 to 1812 transition as discussed earlier, finding a unit number for captains named in the 1807 Georgia Land Lottery registration process will be difficult if the answer is not immediately clear. Many officers in command at the time of the lottery registration received their commission prior to May 1804 and many commissions received after the transition omitted the unit number, making it impossible to make a match to a specific district.
The 1820 Georgia land lottery registration occurred shortly after the last commission included in this book. However, because officers held their command on average three to five years, many of the commissions for officers in command during the registration period were issued prior to March 1818. Similarly, many captains whose names are used in the 1820 U. S. census received their commissions more than two years prior to the enumeration period.
Note that the district name recorded in land lottery registrations is the name as it was during the registration period, not the lottery draw period. The registration period for each lottery was established by each lottery law and could be a few months to two years in advance of the date of the lottery drawing. In addition to the initial registration period, the Georgia General Assembly continually extended the registration period, creating the possibility that two individuals living in the same district could be registered under the names of two different captains. See my book Georgia Land Lottery Research (published by the Georgia Genealogical Society) for the registration and draw dates for each lottery.
Microfilm References (top)
Commission records can be accessed on microfilm at the Georgia Archives (GA) and the Family History Library (FHL). See the following:
Commissions Book 1798–1800
GA Film Drawer 60, Box 24
FHL Film 158,997
Commissions Book 1800–1806
GA Film Drawer 39, Box 73
FHL Film 158,997
Commissions Book 1806–1809
GA Film Drawer 174, Box 29
FHL Film 158,998
Commissions Book 1809–1812
GA Film Drawer 174, Box 33
FHL Film 158,999
Commissions Book 1812–1815
GA Film Drawer 174, Box 31
FHL Film 159,000
Commissions Book 1815–1818
GA Film Drawer 174, Box 34
FHL Film 159,001
Works Consulted
Cadle, Farris W. Georgia Land Surveying History and Law. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1991.
Clayton, Augustin S. A compilation of the laws of the state of Georgia passed by the legislature since the political year 1800, to the year 1810, inclusive…. Augusta, Ga.: Adams & Duyckinck, 1813.
Dawson, William C. A compilation of the laws of the state of Georgia, passed by the General assembly, since the year 1819 to the year 1829, inclusive…. Milledgeville, Ga.: Grantland and Orme, 1831.
Hitz, Alex M. “Georgia Militia Districts.” Georgia Law Journal, vol. 18, no. 3 (February 1956).
Lamar, Lucius O. C. A compilation of the laws of the State of Georgia, passed by the Legislature since the year 1810 to the year 1819, inclusive…. Augusta, Ga.: T. S. Hannon, 1821.
Smith, Gordon Burns. Campaigns and Generals. Vol. 1 of History of the Georgia Militia, 1783-1861. Milledgeville, Ga.: Boyd Publishing, 2000.