Some ten years ago or more, I spent time at the National Archives and was able to find, touch with my prettily gloved hands, and get copies of both my grandfathers' World War I draft cards. One draft card was not a surprise as I knew that grandpa was in the Army 11th Infantry and was wounded in the Battle of the Argonne in 1918.
On the other hand, here was the surprise. The draft card for my other grandpa said Navy? He had military service? And no one living today knew this?
Two of his grandchildren have tried to get information on the Navy service from NARA with no luck. The consensus was his records were destroyed in the 1973 fire which destroyed so many of nation's veterans military records. Dead end?
Maybe not.
Since the recent announcement that the NARA folks at the St Louis facility where the fire was have been trying to reconstruct some of the files, my interest resurfaced. I have even had word that two people I know did ask a second time and their grandfather's records were rescued, restored, marked with a "B" for burn file and delivered. Could I get this lucky?
I pulled up his draft card again just yesterday and realized that something was off. The draft card was signed in 1917 and indicates he had already served four years as a Seaman. So, he wasn't in World War I? He served before that time.
Read closer and now I see something else. Notice the branch. It says Navy Militia? What was that?
Militia groups formed by states in our nation's early days are not new. I just didn't realize that the practice was common in the early 1900s. Before and during the Spanish-American War, South Carolina reactivated the use of a Naval Militia in 1892 to guard its coast. Apparently, this group of volunteers stayed active as the last group was mustered in, May 1907.
What jumps off this page is the mention of Lieut. SB MCCLAREY. He was the older brother-in-law of my grandfather. Bingo. It makes sense.
Grandpa, a young impressionable late teen, was impressed with his more worldly brother-in-law, who had served in the Spanish-American War, probably jumped at the chance to join up with the Militia as one of the 172 elite men.
The Naval Militia was disbanded at the beginning of World War I as our nation started its own Naval Reserves. On a sidenote, the Militia was reestablished in 2003 and is now recognized at the Federal level.
Now, I just need to find the names of the enlisted volunteers to prove this. I suspect the records may be at the South Carolina Archives.
Ahh genealogy. Isn't it a grand day for a voyage!
Sources:
http://www.sixthfleet.com/newsletter/news10.htm
https://books.google.com/books?id=INblAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=2nd+Division+SC+Naval+Militia&source=bl&ots=4k6VrlYiVZ&sig=VhdGKXT5AI-BQF_Op04qKP0F8pk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfiKbfmbfXAhUJ7IMKHTdSAe8Q6AEIYjAL#v=onepage&q=2nd%20Division%20SC%20Naval%20Militia&f=false
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YTC-S1TF?i=3627&cc=1968530
©2017 AS Eldredge
