Happy 250th Birthday: The Birth of the Army on June 14, 1775 Was Critical to the Creation of the United States

Fred Borch is a lawyer and historian. He served 25 years in the Army as a uniformed attorney. After retiring from active duty, Fred took a job in the U.S. Government as the only career historian whose focus was exclusively on military legal history. He was Professor of Legal History and Leadership for 18 years at The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School located at the University of Virginia. In addition to earning seven degrees, including an M.A. in history from the University of Virginia, he is also an expert on the legal proceedings during the Lincoln assassination trial.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, on June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress established the Continental Army—the forerunner of today’s U.S. Army. This is an important event in American history because, without this Army—and George Washington leading it—the rebellious 13 colonies could not have won their freedom from Great Britain, much less write the Constitution that created the United States.

The Continental Congress authorized the raising of ten companies of riflemen (about 70 men each) from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland. Congress then assumed command of the New England militia, which was already deployed around Boston. The next day, this same Congress unanimously selected George Washington as the commander-in-chief of the newly formed army. The following day, Washington accepted the appointment.

About two million men, women, and children lived in the American colonies in 1775. The most populous colony was Virginia, which was certainly a factor in the Continental Congress’s decision to give George Washington (who had been born in Virginia in 1732) the command of the newly created Continental Army. But Washington’s previous combat experience against the French and Indian forces in the 1750s was also a key reason he was selected.

Washington faced the daunting task of building an army while also leading it in military operations. He had to recruit, equip, train, sustain, and take into combat the Continental Army against a professional British force—yet it had no body of experience, nor did it have any officers or noncommissioned officers. But Washington had tremendous willpower, and this strength of character, combined with his personal courage and charismatic leadership, meant he was the right person to create and then lead the Continental Army. The fact that Washington was 6’2” tall and weighed 225 pounds also gave him a powerful physical presence in a time when the average man was only 5’6” and weighed 140 pounds.

Ultimately, Washington never commanded more than 26,000 men at any one time; most of the time, he had fewer than 10,000 troops. A number of difficulties plagued Washington—the chief one being the problem of recruiting replacements due to losses from desertion and expired enlistments. The army was also constantly short of supplies. Yet Washington ultimately succeeded in carrying out the Continental Congress’s vision of a nation independent of Europe and dominant in North America. After Washington and the Continental Army (with critical French help) defeated the British decisively at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the British government decided to accept the independence of the American colonies.

Had there been no Continental Army, the 13 American colonies could not have achieved their freedom from Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War that had begun with the “shots heard round the world” at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Without this freedom, there could have been no U.S. Constitution and no United States.

Perhaps more importantly, with Washington in charge, the Army was never a threat to the peace that followed. Washington played a central part in defining the role that the Army would play in during peacetime in the newly established United States, for he insisted that the U.S. Constitution provided for civilian control of the military—with the president as commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces.

Today, the men and women serving in the U.S. Army continue to support and defend the Constitution, and for this reason, we should all wish them—and the Army—a Happy 250th Birthday.