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The Continental Army: Chapter VI

Professionalism: New Influences From Europe The winter encampment at Valley Forge was an extremely important period in the development of the Continental Army. Despite numerous problems, for the first time in the war the Army enjoyed a winter free from the need to recruit and reorganize most of the regiments. Congress and military leaders used…

The Continental Army, Chapter III

The Continental Regiments of 1776: Boston and Quebec In 1775 the four New England colonies had raised their own armies in the aftermath of Lexington, and New York followed suit with encouragement from the Continental Congress. Lack of centralized direction allowed each colony to base its regimental organization on its own particular experience in the…

Washington and His Comrades: Chapter XI

Yorktown The critical stroke of the war was near. In the South, after General Greene superseded Gates in the command, the tide of war began to turn. Cornwallis now had to fight a better general than Gates. Greene arrived at Charlotte, North Carolina, in December. He found an army badly equipped, wretchedly clothed, and confronted…

Washington and His Comrades: Chapter VI

The First Great British Disaster John Burgoyne, in a measure a soldier of fortune, was the younger son of an impoverished baronet, but he had married the daughter of the powerful Earl of Derby and was well known in London society as a man of fashion and also as a man of letters, whose plays…

Washington and his Comrades: Chapter I

The Commander in Chief Moving among the members of the second Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia in May, 1775, was one, and but one, military figure. George Washington alone attended the sittings in uniform. This colonel from Virginia, now in his forty-fourth year, was a great landholder, an owner of slaves, an Anglican churchman,…