His close coordination with governors and state militias, his cooperative relations with Congress, and his professional attention to supplies, logistics, and training all contributed to the success of the Continental Army. A trained, experienced leader during the French and Indian War , Washington was the logical choice to lead the Continental Army. The Army was formed by the Continental Congress in after the outbreak of the American Revolution. Washington served as Commander-in-Chief of the army throughout the War.
When Washington assumed command, the Continental Army truly was not even an army. Rather, it was a loosely and poorly coordinated band of militias and citizen-soldiers under control of the individual states. There were no established protocols for exercising coordinated authority, for supplying and feeding the troops, for transportation, or any other of the myriad tasks necessary for a field army. Because eighteenth century communication was very poor and maddeningly slow, gaining the Continental Congress' required approval for anything took long periods of time.
Under these conditions fighting the powerful British army was a gargantuan task. Despite these impediments, Washington organized this seemingly motley amalgamation into three divisions, six brigades, and thirty-eight regiments.
He initially employed one state's militia - Major General Philip Schuyler's ten regiments in New York - in an unsuccessful attempt to invade Canada. When it became clear that the Crown wanted to crush independence, Congress lengthened enlistment terms and ordered States to contribute regiments in proportion to their population. Washington managed to force the British out of Boston in , but his next tests under fire were defeats. In fact, both the Congress and the people it represented were divided on the question of independence even after a year of open warfare against Great Britain.
Early in , a number of factors began to strengthen the call for separation. At the same time, many Americans came to realize that their military might not be capable of defeating the British Empire on its own. Meanwhile, the war itself evoked hostility toward Britain among the citizenry, paving the way for independence.
In the spring of , the provisional colonial governments began to send new instructions to their congressional delegates, obliquely or directly allowing them to vote for independence. The provisional government of Virginia went further: It instructed its delegation to submit a proposal for independence before Congress. Congress postponed a final vote on the proposal until July 1, but appointed a committee to draft a provisional declaration of independence for use should the proposal pass.
The committee consisted of five men, including John Adams and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. But the declaration was primarily the work of one man, Thomas Jefferson, who penned an eloquent defense of the natural rights of all people, of which, he charged, Parliament and the king had tried to deprive the American nation. The Declaration of Independence allowed Congress to seek alliances with foreign countries, and the fledgling U.
Lacking a pre-existing infrastructure, Congress struggled throughout the war to provide the Continental Army with adequate supplies and provisions. Exacerbating the problem, Congress had no mechanism to collect taxes to pay for the war; instead, it relied on contributions from the states, which generally directed whatever revenue they raised toward their own needs.
As a result, the paper money issued by Congress quickly came to be regarded as worthless. Drafted and adopted by the Congress in but not ratified until , it effectively established the U. Under the Articles, congressional decisions were made based on a state-by-state vote, and the Congress had little ability to enforce its decisions.
The Articles of Confederation would prove incapable of governing the new nation in a time of peace, but they did not seriously undermine the war effort, both because the war was effectively winding down before the Articles took effect, and because Congress ceded many executive war powers to General Washington. The Revolutionary War was over and Congress had helped to see the country through. However, the Articles of Confederation proved an imperfect instrument for a nation at peace with the world.
Rations were determined by Congress. Each man received 1. Each hunk they received included not only the meat, but bone, fat, and gristle. They also received one pound of bread per day, which was baked daily inside the camp, or 1.
Firecakes were like pancakes. Soldiers heated a flat rock, then mixed the flour with water, meat, gristle, and poured the mixture on the heated rock, then would flip it over to cook the other side. Soldiers also received two ounces of spirits a day to be added to the water in their canteens to kill vermin or bacteria although at the time that term was not used that could be found floating in the water. Often joining men in the camps or on the march were women and children known as camp followers.
The women were mostly the wives of the enlisted men, and George Washington prohibited women of questionable nature to accompany his army. Women and children were also doled out rations. Women received half of what a soldier got and children were give quarter rations. Depending upon the jobs women did while accompanying the army, they could receive more rations. When on the march, the typical soldier in the Continental Army carried forty-five pounds of gear. This included, when he was properly supplied, his weapon, haversack, knapsack, and other accoutrements including a bayonet, tin cup, bowl, spoon, cartridge box, canteen, and if lucky an extra blanket, shirt, or writing paper and a pen.
Men did keep in communication with family from home and would write letters if they could steal a moment to sit down and write to a loved one.
With a peaceful resolution increasingly unlikely in , Congress began to explore other diplomatic channels and dispatched congressional delegate Silas Deane to France in April of Deane succeeded in securing informal French support by May.
By then, Congress was increasingly conducting international diplomacy and had drafted the Model Treaty with which it hoped to seek alliances with Spain and France.
In September, Congress adopted the Model Treaty, and then sent commissioners to France to negotiate a formal alliance. They entered into a a formal alliance with France in Congress eventually sent diplomats to other European powers to encourage support for the American cause and to secure loans for the money-strapped war effort.
Congress and the British government made further attempts to reconcile, but negotiations failed when Congress refused to revoke the Declaration of Independence, both in a meeting on September 11, , with British Admiral Richard Howe , and when a peace delegation from Parliament arrived in Philadelphia in Instead, Congress spelled out terms for peace on August 14, , which demanded British withdrawal, American independence, and navigation rights on the Mississippi River.
The next month Congress appointed John Adams to negotiate such terms with England, but British officials were evasive. Formal peace negotiations would have to wait until after the Confederation Congress took over the reins of government on March 1, , following American victories at Yorktown that resulted in British willingness to end the war.
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