During the summer of 1787, 55 men assembled in the Pennsylvania State House (Philadelphia's Independence Hall) to hammer out a new form of government for the United States of America. On the morning of 15 June 1775, as he had for the past month, George Washington entered Independence Hall & took his seat with the rest of the Virginia delegation to the Continental Congress. He was an imposing presence. At 43, he stood six feet four inches, weighed over 225 pounds & was renowned for his military bearing. The quiet planter was respected as a judicious Patriot with a natural dignity & an intense sense of personal honor. He was also known for an iron will that kept a passionate nature firmly in control.
Congress had already agreed to accept responsibility for the improvised army that had set siege to General Thomas Gages' British regulars in Boston in the aftermath of the fighting at Lexington & Concord. New Englanders had responded to that 1st revolutionary bloodshed by taking up arms, but, unaided, they could not hope to withstand the full might of the British. When Congress convened in mid-May, the New England delegates, supported by New Yorkers worried about an invasion from Canada down the Hudson River-Lake Champlain corridor, pleaded for united military action. Colonel Washington's military experience (he had commanded Virginia's troops in the French & Indian War) led his fellow delegates to listen to his views. Acting on his advice, Congress adopted all existing forces as "the American continental army."
On the 15th the delegates turned to selecting a general who could be trusted to lead these men. They needed an individual with military experience, but also one who shared their fundamental political values & therefore posed no threat to the Patriot cause. Washington, the highest-ranking native-born American veteran, appeared the ideal choice. He had served in Virginia's House of Burgesses & in both Continental Congresses, where he had impressed his peers as a man who could be trusted with authority. The fact that he came from Virginia would help convince London that Americans from all sections were united in resistance. His habit of wearing a uniform to the sessions indicated his interest in the assignment. His election as commander of "all the continental forces raised, or to be raised, for the defense of American liberty" was unanimous.
The need to defend the relatively poor & sparsely settled colonies against both Native American tribes & European powers led to a new military arrangement in America. Defense had played a major role in colonial life. No colony could afford to maintain enough troops to meet all contingencies, so all relied on the concept of the citizen-soldier to defend the community. Within 2 years of its founding in 1607, for example, Jamestown had organized itself into a virtual regimental garrison complete with companies & squads. Plymouth, on the advice of Miles Standish, formed 4 companies of militia within a comparable period. The Massachusetts Bay Colony by 1629, had a militia company, equipped with the latest weapons, at Salem; by 1636, it had formed 3 permanent regiments throughout the colony.
The colonies expanded the trained-band concept to encompass all settlers. Only Pennsylvania remained an exception to the general pattern. Settled by Quakers, it did not pass a law establishing a mandatory militia until 1777. In the early fighting between settlers & Native Americans, citizen-soldiers actually fought in defense of their homes. Later, when more elaborate retaliatory offensive operations were launched against the tribes, the colonists tried to minimize the economic dislocation by using detachments temporarily organized for a specific occasion. Although the immediate military danger subsided as the frontier & the displaced Native Americans moved westward, the colonial standing militia remained as the means to train young men in the rudiments of war, as a law-enforcement agency, & as a source of recruits or draftees for short-lived military assignments on the frontier.
Eventually, hired military volunteers began to range the wilderness throughout colonial America, patrolling outposts & giving early warning of an attack by Native Americans. Other volunteers combined with friendly Native Americans for offensive operations deep in the wilderness, where European tactics were ineffective. This volunteer concept matured during the colonial wars. Regiments completely separated from the militia were raised for specific campaigns. These units, called Provincials, were patterned after regiments in the regular British Army & were recruited from the militia, often during normal drill assemblies. In 1754, Royal Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia raised a Provincial regiment to secure the colony's claims to the Ohio Valley against French encroachment. Major George Washington led the vanguard of this regiment toward the forks of the Allegheny & Monongahela rivers (now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) with instructions to force a French withdrawal. After some initial success, he eventually surrendered to superior numbers, thus setting off the French & Indian War, the last & greatest of the colonial wars between France & England.
See: Soldier-Statesmen of the Constitution by Robert K. Wright, Jr. and Morris J. MacGregor, Jr. Center of Military History, United States Army. Washington, D.C., 1987
