"Cornwallis and the Winter Campaign..." Topic

… JANUARY TO APRIL 1781

"Leaving Colonel Francis Lord Rawdon to command in the field from Georgetown to Augusta, Lt. Gen. Charles Earl Cornwallis, the British General Officer Commanding in the South, marched from Winnsborough, South Carolina on January 8, 1781 at the start of his second campaign to conquer North Carolina.[1]

With him were 1,147 rank and file present and fit for duty, comprised of the Royal Artillery (40), the Royal Welch Fusiliers (286), the 33rd (328), the 2nd Battalion of the 71st (237), and the Royal North Carolina Regiment (256). If we allow for officers, NCOs, staff and drummers, the force under his immediate command totalled 1,350 men.

Detached to the west of Broad River was Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton with orders to press Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan, who commanded a mixed body of revolutionary Continentals and militia. Under Tarleton were 977 rank and file present and fit for duty, comprised of the British Legion (451), the 1st Battalion of the 71st (249), the light company of the 71st (69), the Royal Fusiliers (167), and the 3rd company of the 16th, which was attached to the guns (41). When allowance is made for officers, NCOs, etc, his detachment came to 1,150 men…"
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Amicalement
Armand

"Until recently there had been much uncertainty about the number of troops brought by Cornwallis to the battle, uncertainty which an essay of mine has done much to dispel. In it I provide compelling reasons for concluding that " etc etc

The author seems to have certain delusions of grandeur, In this article and others, he comes across as remarkably vain, inserting himself into his essays as he does.

He writes like Bernard Montgomery.

Glup!….

Amicalement
Armand

Ian Saberton's writing style can rub the wrong way. What I appreciate from reading a number of his articles is his grasp on how Cornwallis's army was being worn down by various causes during the period from May 1780 when Clinton departed to March 1781 at Guilford Courthouse.

What is missing from this article is the other side in January of 1781. Morgan had managed to assemble an army of upwards of 1,000 men, possibly over 1,500 men, for Cowpens. A large portion of that force was militia which started dispersing in the aftermath of the battle. While some of his militia helped deal with the POW problem and some stayed with him, Morgan was relying on a core of roughly 300 Maryland, Delaware and Virginia infantry and Washington's horse. To the east at Cheraw Greene had a regiment of Maryland Continentals and I believe he had two regiments of Virginia Continentals together with some militia. Lee's Legion was nearby with Marion and the Maryland Extra Regiment was in North Carolina. With those American forces in that scattered position Cornwallis could reasonably expect to be able to operate in the North Carolina backcountry with the field forces he had.

The problem for Cornwallis was that the strategic situation changed significantly between January and March. Greene was able to unite his forces and was heavily reinforced with additional Continentals and large numbers of Virginia and North Carolina militia with his field army. Greene was now too strong for Cornwallis to risk dividing his army. While this change was a foreseeable possibility, it wasn't a certainty when Cornwallis moved north in January.

Thanks for that interesting analysis, Bill.

You're right. As will be apparent, the writer's style certainly gets right up _my_ nose. It's also manifested in subsequent discussions he enters into when articles are posted.

Apart from the self-promotion and haughty second guessing, he punctuates his 'essays' with generalised observations on Cornwallis's motivation and character which seem to be presented with no obvious context.

It's a shame because that proprietorial attitude to the subject amtter distracts from what clearly has been extensive research. A little too close to his material, perhaps.

The British were fighting a hydra, for sure. The militia system kept throwing sand in the pacification gears. I think it is impressive how close the Brits did come to solving an essentially impossible problem.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

The militia 'system' was a broken reed. They would have been eventually cowed or defeated if there was not an army in the field built around veteran Continentals.

And the existence of the militia 'system' hindered Continental recruiting efforts which could not built the size of the Continental Army that Washington wanted.

And for the assistance that the militia contributed, was counterbalanced by the disasters they contributed to, such as Camden.

The militia's contributions are at least partly a myth, and the idea that was perpetrated after the Revolution that the militia won the war is also a myth.

Without the Continental Army, the US would have lost.

Hydra is an accurate description Doc. Before Morgan and Washington took the offensive the British already had their hands full: Huck defeated and killed, Innes defeated and wounded, Wemyss defeated and captured, Ferguson defeated and killed, and Tarleton had his nose bloodied by Sumter. By Cowpens the British post of Augusta was in danger of being cut off, and Marion aided by Lee had broken into the coastal city of Georgetown and captured the British commander Campbell. By the time Greene returned to South Carolina rebel militia under Sumter and Marion were in control of increasing portions of the state, with Marion's militia even operating close to Charleston. The British defeated rebel militia often enough, but the rebel militia kept bouncing back.

If you are Cornwallis how do you beat that, other than by a large amount of hard fighting.

'Marion aided by Lee' was a combination of partisans and Continentals. Periodically, Maryland Continentals were added to the mix. And it should be remembered that Marion began as a regular South Carolina officer.

When did the militia defeat British regulars? Until the British regulars were worn down by the Continentals under Greene and their commanders, the war would never be over.

And it should also be remembered, that the militia fighting between US and Loyalist was also used to settle old scores, whether or not it contributed to the overall mission of defeating the British.

'On active service, the militia (or 'Long Faces' as the Continentals called them) often were more of a hindrance than a help. Washington described them as 'badly officered and under no government. They come in you cannot tell how, go, you cannot tell when, and act you cannot tell where, consume your provisions, exhaust your stores, and leave you at last in a critical moment.' Major General Nathanael Greene compared them to the 'locusts of Egypt' because they wasted the countryside without performing any useful duty. In battle, they usually broke and ran as soon as things got dangerous.'-John Elting, American Army Life, 25.

'The militia had to be used in large numbers, however, because of the weakness of the Continental Army. In states like New Jersey that were fought over repeatedly, militiamen acquired appreciable military skills and were very effective in harrying British foraging parties and detachments. They were also useful in suppressing Tory activities, and militiamen formed the guerilla bands of Francis Marion and other partisan leaders in the Carolinas. In the end, the militia was very certain that only its own skill and courage had won the war.'-Elting, 25.

From the Encyclopedia of the American Revolution, 706-707:

'Being part-time soldiers, subject only to state authority, militia troops generally were unreliable.'

'Just before the second battle of Saratoga [Bemis Heights], the turning point of the Revolution, Stark's militia joined Gates in the morning and left before noon because their term of service had expired. 'Few events in the war so proved the utter failure of the militia system.''

Regarding the militia, Sir John Fortescue remarked in the 3d Volume, page 306, of the History of the British Army: 'there was always that incalculable factor, the American militia, a factor which could never be counted on by its friends, but equally could never be ignored by its enemies.'

I hate to spend my time arguing this again. The militia were often ineffective, or minimally effective, on the battlefield. But they could and largely did control the population from which the patriots drew men for the Continental army, supplies, and political legitimacy. Neither the British nor the Continentals could be everywhere, nor even most of everywhere; the militia could and was.

Kevin's last sentence in the above post, the Fortescue remark, is a good one. It was the COMBINATION of ubiquitous militia with an often defeated Continental army that the British could not defeat. This is similar to the US dilemna facing the Viet Cong guerillas hiding amongst the population AND the NVA operating in battalion and regimental strength under the canopy. Controlling the civilian population requires dispersal; defeating the enemy main force requires concentration. But dispersing and concentrating simultaneously requires a huge army, more than we had in 1968, more than Cornwallis had in 1781. Without the militia the British would have defeated the Continental Army and the revolution would have been ended.

And Burgoyne drowned in an ocean of militia.

Against the time-to-go-home episode, one should place Oriskany, which halted St Leger's thrust.

"I hate to spend my time arguing this again." Then why do it? Share what you want and then move on.

And Burgoyne drowned in an ocean of militia.

This overlooks one thing-the troops that fought at Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights were overwhelmingly Continentals.

See The Battles of Saratoga by John Elting:

'Freeman's Farm-the 'First Battle of Saratoga'-was a standup fight between regular troops. The American formations may have been a little looser, but there was little difference between the two armies. The Connecticut militia fought ranked, like Continentals, and stoutly too. If the Americans had more riflemen, the British had artillery. English officers would reflect that only the self-sacrificing courage of their gun crews had saved the British Line. A few believed the Americans were 'in general drunk,' but to many more '…it was a dear bought victory if I can give it that name' and 'The courage and obstinacy with which the Americans fought were the astonishment of everyone…'

There were two regiments of Connecticut militia in Enoch Poor's brigade which also consisted of five Continental regiments-two from New Hampshire and three from New York.

The rest of the command consisted of Morgan's Rifle Corps and Dearborn's Light Infantry; Learned's brigade of three Massachusetts Continental infantry regiments and the small 1st Canadian Regiment; Glover's brigade of four Massachusetts Continental regiments and three New York militia regiments; Nixon's brigade of four Massachusetts Continental regiments; Patterson's brigade of four Massachusetts Continental regiments; one troop of the 2d Continental Light Dragoons (Seymour's); the 2d Regiment of Connecticut Light Horse; the Independent Battalion of Continental Artillery (400 men and 22 guns) and a detachment of artificers (140).

The Continental infantry available for Freeman's Farm totaled 6,043 for duty. Adding in those on furlough, present sick, absent sick and 'on command' the total rises to 8,300 Added to that would be 250 cavalry, 400 artillerymen and 140 artificers for a grand total of 9,090. Deducting those not fit for duty, the total is 6,833.

The five militia regiments assigned to the Continental Brigades probably had around 1,500, but that is a guess. So the total for the army available for duty is 8,333.

After Freeman's Farm, militia contributed a 'steady flow' to the army raising its strength to 11,000 by 7 October. However, 'the size, organization, date of arrival, and length of service of most of these units remains uncertain…'

Where is the 'ocean of militia?'

Without the Continentals, Burgoyne would have won, or at the very least been able to withdraw back to Ticonderoga or even Canada.

This is similar to the US dilemna facing the Viet Cong guerillas hiding amongst the population AND the NVA operating in battalion and regimental strength under the canopy. Controlling the civilian population requires dispersal; defeating the enemy main force requires concentration. But dispersing and concentrating simultaneously requires a huge army, more than we had in 1968, more than Cornwallis had in 1781. Without the militia the British would have defeated the Continental Army and the revolution would have been ended.

This is not similar to Vietnam at all and is the result of inaccurate research and illogical analogies from the 1970s.

And it should be noted that (1) the VC as a military and poltical organization was destroyed in TET 68, and (2) the North Vietnamese were forced to the peace table in 1971 by military force and by the peace treaty, the goal of independence for South Vietnam was guaranteed. That's called a win.

Without the militia, or a large portion of it, the Continental Army would have been larger and able to fight the British in near-equal numbers in the field and win. The idea that the militia was a war-winner is ludicrous and is not substantiated by the historic record.

The Continentals, despite the handicap of the militia, proved themselves the equal of the British and German professionals from 1777 on, and the fighting abilities of them demonstrated to the French that an alliance was viable.

Without the Continentals"

Whoever said anything about winning without the regular army? But without the miliita the Continentals would NOT have been larger, since the militia was often the mechanism through which Continentals were raised. And provided local security, essential in a revolutionary conflict. It was the COMBINATION of regulars and militia that the British could not solve -- without organizing aloyalist militia of their own, which partisan leaders like Marin and Sumter prevented.

Please lift your eyes up from the battlefield and consider the whole war effort.

I do agree thta the US defeated the VC at Tet and also had the NVA on the ropes. The war was lost in the US press.

We will have to agree to disagree.

Probably. But try this: How large would the Continental Army have needed to be if there were no militia? Virginia is the state I know best, and was of course the largest and most populated. Virginia had both a western and an eastern frontier: Indians raided the first, and British privateers the second. If one researches patterns of militia service as I did for my dissertation, one finds that the western counties rotated men for SHORT periods in and out of the numerous forts (blockhouses, usually, very small); a tour was generally a month, but men served more often than safer counties where a three month tour was more the rule. In the east, lookout posts had to be maintained at the entrance to every navigable river; they couldn't stop privateers from coming up the river to the fall line, but a warning could allow either a local opposition to be organized (by the militia, usually in company strength) or else for people to flee or hide their livestock and slaves (a favorite form of loot). The state government understood that militia for field duty were almost unavailable from the roughly 30% of the state that lay on one of the two frontiers.

The Virginia government understood that militia in the immediate vicinity of a British force would not turn out. If the redcoats are five miles away a man would stay home with his family, not march off to fight them. The two frontiers were always subject to raids, and so men were reluctant to leave home.

It is hard to imagine the Continental Army doing these tasks. First, Congress would not have WANTED to. But it would have required thousands of men.

I have already mentioned that the militia system was the mechanism through which drafts were conducted for the Continentals. And calling out militia for field duty was understood to delay the draft, which was to be avoided if possible. And the draft was not always a peaceful affair; sometimes men opposed it, and the militia officers, and/or reliable militia from adjacent counties, had to enforce an unpopular law. I don't see how these necessary activities could be done other than by states through local officers.

In short, service with the main army was the LEAST important role of the militia (and also the least effective, often, as you have pointed out repeatedly and as everyone acknowledges). Population control is what produced the Patriot victory, and the militia is how the population was mobilized and organized and controlled.

The exceptions to poor performance by militia in battle are not insignificant -- Oriskany, Kings Mountain, the Virginia militia at Guilford, the campaigns of Marion and Sumter are examples -- and are worthy of study. But OF COURSE amateurs generally perform poorly when up against professionals.

How large would the Continental Army have needed to be if there were no militia?

How about just the authorized strength of the Continental Army? That would be good for starters.

I have already mentioned that the militia system was the mechanism through which drafts were conducted for the Continentals.

Do you have a reference for that?

John McBride, "The Virginia War Effort: Manpower Policies and Practices", dissertation, U. Va., 1977. I'd have to find my copy of Henings' Statutes to tell you the relevant law. Jefferson's correspondence as governor is full of letters to and from county lieutenants about implementing it.

No doubt other states varied. But Va tried to raise 2000 recruits during 1780 (by creating "divisions" of 20 militiamen, each of which had to procure one recruit). This was deeply unpopular, and a number of riots and even an insurrection or two swept the state in late 1780 and early 1781. These were suppressed, with difficulty, by the militia officers. It is doubtful that anywhere near 2000 were raised, but at least some were. The main penalty levied when a draft riot was suppressed was military service, which did bring in some men, ironically.

The genius (as well as the flaw) of the militia system was that it was LOCAL. The county court martial (which was a permanent organization, composed of all captains and field grade officers) operated under general statutes passed by the legislature, but they frequently interpreted or administered those with deference and attention to local circumstances. The court martial was rather like a draft board in the post-WWII US; they knew who could reasonably be spared to serve and who was truly needed at home, and would grant exemptions as needed. Keeping an army in the field for year after year was extraordinarily difficult, and not just financially. Balancing general needs with local realities was the militia's role. Thjere are many ways to lose a war, and a collapse of public support is high among them -- as we have mentioned in reference to VietNam.

You didn't answer the question that was put to you regarding militia drafts to the Continentals.

Kevin: In Virginia as doc indicates it was used to levy troops in 1779 and 1780/1781. I am not familiar with doc's reference on this, but another one would be 'Picking Up the Pieces: Virginia's "Eighteen-Months Men" of 1780–81' by Michael Cecere. I recall reading New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut did something similar but don't have the cites for these. There is an article by John Rees on this.

Uh, I thought I did answer the question. Va tried to raise 2000 recruits during 1780 (by creating "divisions" of 20 militiamen, each of which had to procure one recruit). This produced great unrest, which the militia system (officers and reliable men brought in from adjacent counties) dealt with. As Bill points out, that is only one example.

The reference quoted was my PhD dissertation. You'd have to go to Alderman Library to read it, or order a xerox.

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This masters thesis draws from my dissertation and is worth a read.

Referencing your own material without listing the references used for that material does not add to the discussion.

And referencing material that used your own material is somewhat self-serving, don't you think?

Try again. You haven't proven your point regarding recruiting for the Continental Army.

Charles Royster's A Revolutionary People at War is a much better and well-sourced reference for the Continental Army and he covers recruiting quite well.

Referencing a PhD dissertation at a first-rate university? A dissertation is original research in primary sources. And you are demanding SECONDARY works? Do you even know how scholarship works? I'm done with you.

If you want your material read, then post it. If not the point is moot.

My word, a new bottom line.

A dissertation is original research in primary sources.

Only primary sources are used in a dissertation? I haven't found that to be an accurate statement based on the dissertations and theses that I have seen.

Usually, both primary and credible secondary source material is used.

Referencing your own dissertation is in itself a secondary work.

One thing I have found helpful in recent years is that we are seeing more masters and doctoral theses and dissertations being put on the internet, providing them with greater circulation. Even if you don't accept the writers' positions they provide potential new sources of data to be mined.

The initial reaction to someone referencing his own work may be akin to the Hogwarts students listening to Professor Lockhart quoting his published works. However if you've already constructed a position you shouldn't have to go back and reconstruct it again and again each time it is relevant.

I don't know which act Doc is referring to. One such act would be The Act for Speedily Recruiting… passed by Virginia in 1777 which was intended to fill out the Virginia Continental ranks for 1778.

There was another draft law in 1780, which took effect late in that year. The 77 act was fairly successful, the 1780 one much less so, as war weariness was widespread. The local officials (the county lieutenant, who was NOT a militia officer but who commanded the miliita as the governor's representative -- an office carried over from England where the Lord Lieutenant represented the king) and the court martial had to enforce an unpopular law, and there was resistance, sometimes armed, in a number of counties.

My dissertation was done in 1977, way before the internet. The old method of obtaining one was the academic publishing service that would sell you a xerox. I imagine now that dissertations are routinely digitalized. All I had to worry about was getting mine typed nicely.

The masters thesis I linked to covers the Va War office, which had to deal with the problem of workers in the saddle works and gunpowder laboratory etc -- essential war work -- being pulled away for militia duty, until Colonel William Davies, an excellent administrator, managed to arrange for the workers to be exempted from militia service in lieu of being paid.

Since you asked nicely, Kevin: one uses secondary sources in areas peripheral to one's topic, which has to be something no one has done before. The original and new stuff comes from, HAS to come from, primary sources. I read all sorts of documents, some published (like Henings' STATUTES which is Va's laws) and many in mss. One chapter is almost entirely based on the Augusta County Court Martial Record Book (the only such surviving, as court houses tend to burn down ebventually) which is in the State Library in Richmond. I was blessed that Jefferson was governor during three important years, as his papers are in print (indeed, done at UVa under the editorship of Bill Abbot, who directed my dissertation.) Basically, when one does a dissertation for a PhD, one is expected to read and know EVERYTHING relevant to a topic that no one else has ever done before . (Others have likely looked at the documents before; the "newness" lies in what QUESTIONS are being asked.) The state librarian told me, for example, that I was the first ever to actually READ the court martial record book, although it was a very widely used source for geneological research! When one completes a dissertation one is, at least for a little while, the world's leading (and only) expert on one's topic. Then with each passing year one falls further and further behind the newest knowledge; I didn't know some of what is in that ma thesis I linked to, though I had read the same documents; the author was asking different questions.

And Biill, yes, stealing other scholars' footnotes is widely practiced, if only semi-reputable. LOL

I think the 1780 act was discussed in the article I previously referenced.

While an interesting diversion I am not sure the mechanisms for raising Continentals in Virginia and certain other colonies is that relevant to the question of whether Cornwallis should have moved north in January of 1781. If we look only at Continentals then it should have been a cake walk. Even in the aftermath of Guilford Courthouse Cornwallis had more troops in his field army than Greene had Continentals. If we also take into consideration what the militia was doing in January 1781 in Georgia and South Carolina and the potential militia forces that could be raised in North Carolina and Virginia then the wisdom of the move is less clear.

And Biill, yes, stealing other scholars' footnotes is widely practiced, if only semi-reputable. LOL

In your field it may only be semi-reputable. In mine its mandatory.

Hah! What's your field?

I think in history we mostly do it to be sure we haven't overlooked some source we will be expected to know about.

Bill, the question of how Cornwallis might have fared had Washington not come south (not to mention Rochembeau!) is interesting. Steuban had a small force. Virginia had adopted a new system I have described, of putting former Continental;s (now militiamen like everyone else) into semi-permanent battalions, with supernumerary Continental officers seconded by the militia officers. If memory serves three such battalions of "militia grenadiers" served in the Yorktown campaign. But Steubenm would have been hard pressed to deal with Cornwallis.

The larger question would be what Cornwallis' OBJECTIVE is. Virginia has no real urban center. I expect Virginia could have managed something comparable to what Marion and Sumter were doing in SC. I think the British would have made a big mess of the state, but could never have effectively conquered it. There were very few Loyalists left to recruit, for one thing.

I have mentioned this on other old TMP threads, but it may be relevant here. One of the options a Virginia county had was to mount all the young planters as a troop of light horse. I believe a few actually served in the Yorktown campaign. The county hated to do this as it meant risking the young gentry, but it WAS a thing. The horsemen were typically well mounted (and often accompanied by a body servant on the SECOND best horse in the stable) but poorly discilplned and trained. But Va is horse country (all thta old tobacco land turned into pasture) and any guerilla opposition to Cornwallis would have included a mounted element. And the ones who didn't get killed early on would eventually become dangerous to an occupying army.

From the wings; part observation, part question: wasn't Cornwallis' purpose in moving to Virginia at least in part one of interdiction? That is to say. attacking the source of and cutting off movement of supplies and reinforcements moving south from Virginia into the Carolinas? At any rate, that is what his correspondence after GCH suggests, as I recall.

Forcing enemy forces to concentrate so he could engage and destroy them would have been a welcome corollary. Whether he expected Washington to come south to confront him, I am not sure.

Interdiction, yes, I think so. And in 1781 Virginia was very near to a collapse of morale, and general war weariness. Could another wave of devastation from Cornwallis have pushed them over a line? Maybe. But I think there was a hard core -- maybe 10%? -- of Virginians committed to carry on no matter what. Did the Brits have any sort of plan for ENDING, much less WINNING, the war? I don't think so. AND (as Washington illustrated!) if Cornwallis wanted to invade Va to stop it from sendingn troops to Greene, well, he'd simply be having to fight a Lafayete or Steuban who kept getting reenforced from Md and Pa. He was fighting na hydra, which would have included Va equivalents to the Swamp Fox.
.

Dissertations and these can be useful. Some I've found are basically worthless or too simplified for credible use as source material.

The best one I've found was on the Gribeauval field artillery system, and that one is invaluable.

Interestingly, the author used both primary and credible secondary source material.

Some secondary material contains primary material, and the better secondary titles have excellent bibliographies, such as Royster, Cress, and Wright. Some of the primary material in them is from archival research.

The thesis I completed, which was on the Continental Army, used both primary and useful secondary source material. And the first class in the program was on historiography and how useful excellent secondary material could be.

We could not use either Wikipedia or Ospreys as source material, even though some of the Ospreys, especially those by Rene Chartrand, are excellent and scholarly.

Since you asked nicely…

Since you appear to highly value this 'quality' I am curious to ask why you have not been on two different threads?

Your comments on 'narrowness' where I went to school and other personal comments really don't sit well.

If one of your goals is to be treated nicely, then please try and remember that when you don't agree with someone else.

Do you judge performance merely based on Virginia's experience? The other twelve states undoubtedly have different experiences, especially on how they recruited for the Continental Army.

The states in their recruiting procedures were not monoliths, and, again, where is your source(s) that they recruited from the militia?

Royster covers recruiting, including Virginia's problems in that area, and your postings on the subject seem to be inaccurate.

My opinion doc is that Virginia's ability to continue devoting resources to the military struggle outside the colony had been extremely degraded by 1781. I don't see a wavering though of support for the idea of independence. So called Tory uprisings were quite often little more than concerted opposition to the draft or other war measures.

In I believe it was a January 1781 letter to Lord Germaine the British Royal Governor of Georgia said essentially the British were barely holding on in South Carolina and Georgia, and he feared that if Cornwallis moved north that the rebel army would swing around him and invade. It took a couple of months before Greene did this, and when he finally did the British hold on South Carolina and Georgia had been weakened even further due to the partisan/militia actions.

How forces were raised varied not only from one colony to the next, but also from one year to the next. There were also differences between what the law in theory authorized and what was happening in practice. A law might authorize drafts from militia to fill out Continental ranks, but if there were an adequate number of volunteers the mechanism might not be used. Massachusetts began using a draft in 1776. New Hampshire in early 1777 and a number of colonies resorted to it later that year in an effort to fill out Washington's army for 1778.

As one author commented "Revolutionary conscription has not received a single study of its own, an incredible deficiency in historical scholarship. Many general accounts of the Revolution omit any mention of drafts at all…." The most likely way a historian is likely to come into contact with draft rules is when researching some related issue, such as the history of a specific unit or the condition of a colony at some point during the AWI. It is not surprising that knowledge of drafts would be focused on one colony or one particular draft.

Jeffrey Hummel wrote in general terms:

Revolutionary conscription remained decentralized, varying from state to state. Some states used conventional militia drafts; others impressed vagrants and transients. In general, only single males were drafted for short terms, and they could avoid service through the traditional mechanisms of paying a fine or finding a substitute. Nevertheless, at least in some locations, the draft's compass was wide. A local study of Concord, Massachusetts, found that half the males under fifty received at least one draft notice during the war

That he uses the word "conventional" when referring to troops being drafted from the militia suggests at least he thought it was a common practice. He uses Higginbotham as a source who I know you are not a fan of Kevin, so take that for what it is worth. He does reference a number of state specific older works if you want to track them down.

Here is the cite for Hummel's article link

I have had first person 'contact' with Higginbotham, and his contempt both for the Continental Army and the US Army was evident in his classes. He was both rude and inaccurate.