Although it was the House of Burgesses that offered the most strenuous opposition at all periods to the improvement of the military organization, a large measure of blame must be placed upon that wealthy clique of men represented by the Council. The commissioned officers were invariably selected from the wealthiest and most influential planters, and it was they alone that could keep alive the military spirit, that could drill the companies, that could enforce the discipline that was so essential to efficiency. It is true that the Council usually favored the measures proposed by various governors for bettering the militia and for giving aid to neighboring colonies, but this was due more to a desire to keep in harmony with the executive than to military ardour. And it is significant that when troops were enlisted for distant expeditions, the wealthy planters were conspicuous by their absence. We see not the slightest inclination on their part to rush into the conflict for the love of fighting and adventure that was so typical of the aristocrat of the Middle Ages. They were more than content to stay at home to attend to the business of the plantation and to leave to humbler hands the task of defending helpless families of the frontiers. But the economic and political conditions in the colony were destined to work a change in this as in other things in the Virginia planter. The gradual loss of the mercantile instinct, the habit of command acquired by the control of servants and slaves, and the long use of political power, the growth of patriotism, eventually instilled into him a chivalric love of warfare not unlike that of the knights of old. It is impossible to say when this instinct first began to show itself. Perhaps the earliest evidence that the warlike spirit was stirring in the breasts of the planters is given in 1756, when two hundred gentlemen, moved by the pitiful condition of the defenseless families of the Shenandoah Valley, formed a volunteer company, and marched against the Indians. It is probable that the expedition did not succeed in encountering the enemy, but it was of much value in animating the lower class of people with greater courage.[79] In the Revolutionary War the change had become quite apparent. It is to the Old Dominion that the colonies turn for the commander-in-chief of their armies. The Lees, Morgan and other Virginia aristocrats were among the most gallant leaders of the American army. But the development was even then far from its climax. Not until the Civil War do we note that dash, that gallantry, and bravery that made the Virginia gentleman famous as a warrior. Then it was that the chivalrous Stuart and the reckless Mosby rivaled the deeds of Bayard and of Rupert. Then it was that each plantation gave forth its willing sacrifice of men for the defense of the South, and thousands of the flower of Virginia aristocracy shed their blood upon the battle field. And Virginia produced for this great struggle a