[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I haven't seen numbers in the thread, but from my pitifully few data points, I'd say this is quite generous.

George Washington formed the first US military police force, known as the "Merechaussee Corps", formalizing the process of taking soldiers from combat units into permanent units for the purpose, taking "of every Brigade Four Men". That would be roughly 0.2% of the combat forces. (Though unit sizes weren't very standardized then, and you could find "corps" smaller than other "regiments". I'm assuming an intended org chart of 4x 500-man regiments per brigade.)

I counted 86 MP companies in the active component of the modern US Army, which is around 2.5% of the active force. (There are more MPs in the National Guard, along with more combat troops; I didn't try to count them as well.)

Police numbers across the US range from about 1.8% to 2.5% of the population.

Like most civil wars the American Revolution was analogical to an election in it's dependence on public opinion. Even given that Washington was not inclined that way it was good policy.