The discipline, the reliability, and the training were simply not there. Even the Southern militias, when up against a professional army, were wholly inadequate. “Virginia’s militia … had disgraced itself by bolting before firing a single shot in the critical battle of Camden, South Carolina.” It was obvious, whether North or South, that no militia was going to stop a foreign invasion. The war proved that beyond a reasonable doubt.127 What the militia could do rather well, however, as George Mason noted, was keep slave owners safe.
