It is important to keep in mind the territorial organization of the militia companies and regiments; a county and a regiment, a forted village and a company, were usually coextensive.] These little communities were extremely independent in feeling, not only of the Federal Government, but of their parent States, and even of one another.

They had won their positions by their own courage and hardihood; very few State troops and hardly a Continental soldier had appeared west of the Alleghanies.

They had heartily sympathized with their several mother colonies when they became the United States, and had manfully played their part in the Revolutionary war.

Moreover they were united among themselves by ties of good-will and of services mutually rendered.

Kentucky, for instance, had been succored more than once by troops raised among the Watauga Carolinians or the Holston Virginians, and in her turn she had sent needed supplies to the Cumberland.