The Mishawaka Rangers: a name in the militia returns

The antebellum militia · attested in Pratt's survey of the old militia records

The attestation: The first military organization the record names for this place is the Mishawaka Rangers. William D. Pratt's History of the National Guard of Indiana (1901) — the history the state itself commissioned, compiled from the adjutant general's records — surveys the named companies of the old militia system and sorts them by the regiments the records assign them to. At the end of that survey Pratt prints a second list, and it is the list that carries Mishawaka: "Organizations which are mentioned but not assigned to a regiment in the existing records were the Independent Blues, Portland Guards, Bloomington Light Infantry, Independent Rangers, Logansport Greys, Noble Rangers, Highland Rangers, Grand Prairie Guard, Crooked Creek Rifles, Kosciusko Guards, Washington Blues, Ladoga Light Horse company, Marion Pioneers, Carroll Horse Guards, Franklin Volunteers, Goshen Guards, Washington Greys, Wayne County Blues, Cass Guards, Randolph Guards, Independent Riflemen of Lake County, Lafayette Hussars, Mishawaka Rangers, American Light Infantry, Lake County Rangers," and some two dozen more. That is the whole of the record. Pratt gives the Rangers no date, no captain, no strength, no regiment and no service — the company is mentioned in the existing records, in his phrase, and the mention is all that reaches print.

The limits of the muster record: The surrounding chapters of Pratt's book treat the militia as it stood in the 1830s and 1840s — the returns so imperfectly kept, he writes of those years, that the governor and adjutant general were "compelled to report 12,000 as the estimated number of those not reported." The town itself was platted in 1833, so a company bearing the town's name belongs to the militia of the years after the founding, within the antebellum system Pratt is surveying; how long after, the record reached does not say. Neither of the county's own histories carries the company further: Timothy E. Howard's History of St. Joseph County (1907) and the Chapman history of 1880 were both read for this section, and neither names a Mishawaka militia company, in the militia chapters or anywhere else. The Rangers are therefore printed at the size of their one attestation — a named company of the old militia, of mounted-ranger naming in the fashion of the day, unassigned in the returns that survive. They are not the Indiana Rangers of the territorial years, the mounted force of the War of 1812 era whose ground was the southern counties; the shared word is the period's vocabulary, not a lineage. The settling sources for anything more — a date, an officer, a muster — are the militia returns and commission books of the 1830s–1850s in the Indiana State Archives, from which Pratt worked; until those are read for this name, the Rangers stand as the returns leave them: a name, in a list, and nothing behind it that print can carry.

The Mexican War conform: No Mishawaka company was raised for the war with Mexico. Howard's county history names thirteen men of St. Joseph County who served in that war; they went as individuals scattered through other commands, not as a company from this town. That settlement stands in the Wars record of this history and is conformed here: between the Rangers' mention and the Civil War, the militia record of Mishawaka is empty — no second named company, no township muster, no officer's commission for a Mishawaka organization appears in any record reached. The county's militia alarms of the Black Hawk years likewise belong to the county frame, before the town existed, and are carried in South Bend's record.

Sources:

1. William D. Pratt, A History of the National Guard of Indiana, from the Beginning of the Militia System in 1787 to the Present Time (1901), the militia chapters — the list of organizations "mentioned but not assigned to a regiment in the existing records," naming the Mishawaka Rangers; read first-hand in the full text at the Internet Archive.
2. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), read whole for this section — no Mishawaka militia company named; the thirteen county men of the Mexican War.
3. History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (Chapman, 1880), read for this section — no Mishawaka militia company named.
4. Wars record of this history — the Mexican War settlement and the Black Hawk county frame.