The LuLac Edition #5, 709, July 11th, 2026

 

 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, 

THE GENERAL 

AND HIS SOLDIERS

 

After the Declaration of War was signed, the military strategy had to be put into place.  When the Revolutionary War began, the Second Continental Congress lacked a professional army or navy. However, each of the colonies had a long-established system of local militia, which were combat-tested in support of British regulars in the French and Indian War. The colonial state legislatures independently funded and controlled their local militias.

Militiamen were lightly armed, had little training, and usually did not have uniforms. Their units served for only a few weeks or months at a time and lacked the training and discipline of more experienced soldiers. Local county militias were reluctant to travel far from home and were unavailable for extended operations. To compensate for this, the Continental Congress established a regular force known as the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, which proved to be the origin of the modern United States Army, and appointed Washington as its commander-in-chief. However, it suffered significantly from the lack of an effective training program and from largely inexperienced officers. Each state legislature appointed officers for both county and state militias and their regimental Continental line officers; although Washington was required to accept Congressional appointments, he was permitted to choose and command his own generals, such as Greene; his chief of artillery, Knox; and Alexander Hamilton, the chief of staff.  One of Washington's most successful general officer recruits was Steuben, a veteran of the Prussian general staff who wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual. The development of the Continental Army was always a work in progress and Washington used both his regulars and state militias throughout the war; when properly employed, the combination allowed them to overwhelm smaller British forces, as they did in battles at Concord, Boston, Bennington, and Saratoga. Both sides used partisan warfare, but the state militias effectively suppressed Loyalist activity when British regulars were not in the area.

It might seem quaint today but back then Washington designed the overall military strategy in cooperation with Congress, established the principle of civilian supremacy in military affairs, personally recruited his senior officer corps, and kept the states focused on a common goal. Washington initially employed the inexperienced officers and untrained troops in Fabian strategies rather than risk frontal assaults against Britain's professional forces. Over the course of the war, Washington lost more battles than he won, but he never surrendered his troops and maintained a fighting force in the face of British field armies.

By prevailing European standards, the armies in America were relatively small, limited by lack of supplies and logistics. The British were constrained by the logistical difficulty of transporting troops across the Atlantic and their dependence on local supplies. Washington never directly commanded more than 17,000 men, and the combined Franco-American army in the decisive American victory at Yorktown was only about 19,000. At the beginning of 1776, Patriot forces consisted of 20,000 men, with two-thirds in the Continental Army and the other third in the state militias. About 250,000 American men served as regulars or as militia for the revolutionary cause during the war, but there were never more than 90,000 men under arms at any time.

On the whole, American officers never equaled their British opponents in tactics and maneuvers, and they lost most of the pitched battles. The great successes at Boston (1776), Saratoga (1777), and Yorktown (1781) were won by trapping the British far from base with a greater number of troops. After 1778, Washington's army was transformed into a more disciplined and effective force, mostly as a product of Baron von Steuben's military training. Immediately after the Continental Army emerged from Valley Forge in June 1778, it proved its ability to match the military capabilities of the British at the Battle of Monmouth, including a Black Rhode Island regiment fending off a British bayonet attack and then counter charging the British for the first time as part of Washington's army. After the Battle of Monmouth, Washington came to realize that saving entire towns was not necessary, but preserving his army and keeping the revolutionary spirit alive was more important. Washington informed Henry Laurens, then president of the Second Continental Congress,[ag] "that the possession of our towns, while we have an army in the field, will avail them little."

Although the Continental Congress was responsible for the war effort and provided supplies to the troops, Washington took it upon himself to pressure Congress and the state legislatures to provide the essentials of war; there was never nearly enough. Congress evolved in its committee oversight and established the Board of War, which included members of the military. Because the Board of War was also a committee ensnared with its own internal procedures, Congress also created the post of Secretary of War, appointing Major General Benjamin Lincoln to the position in February 1781. Washington worked closely with Lincoln to coordinate civilian and military authorities and took charge of training and supplying the army.

So as early as 1781, there was a Washington and Lincoln involved.