What was the Continental Army?

The Continental Army was the unified land force of the United Colonies and then the United States during the Revolutionary War, raised by the Second Continental Congress to fight for independence from Britain between 1775 and 1783. Congress created the army on June 14, 1775, the date now celebrated as the birthday of the U.S. Army, by adopting the New England militias besieging Boston after Lexington and Concord and authorizing 10 companies of riflemen from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The next day, June 15, 1775, Congress unanimously appointed George Washington commander in chief, and he took command at Cambridge, Massachusetts on July 3, 1775.

The army was supplemented throughout the war by state militias that turned out for short campaigns and by allied French forces after 1778. Recruitment was always difficult. Initial enlistments were for one year and produced a constant churn that nearly destroyed the army at the end of 1776. Washington and Congress reformed the system in fall 1776 to allow three year or duration of war enlistments, with bounties of land and cash to attract recruits. The army eventually included roughly 230,000 soldiers over the course of the war, although Washington rarely commanded more than 17,000 at one time and often far fewer.

Soldiers were poorly paid, often unpaid, frequently underfed, and badly clothed. The winter at Valley Forge from December 1777 to June 1778 saw roughly 2,500 deaths from disease, exposure, and starvation. Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a Prussian volunteer arriving in February 1778, drilled the army into a more disciplined force using a new manual that became the U.S. Army's basic infantry doctrine.

The Continental Army included free Black soldiers from the start and, after Rhode Island authorized recruitment of enslaved men in 1778, segregated Black units fought as well. Roughly 5,000 Black men served in Continental and state forces over the course of the war.

Notable engagements included Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, the evacuation of Boston in March 1776, the disastrous New York campaign of 1776, the Christmas Eve crossing of the Delaware and victory at Trenton on December 26, 1776, the Battles of Saratoga in fall 1777, the Battles of Monmouth on June 28, 1778, the Carolinas campaign of 1780 and 1781 led by Nathanael Greene, and the siege of Yorktown ending October 19, 1781. The Continental Army was disbanded in November 1783 after the Treaty of Paris, leaving only a small garrison at West Point. Its veterans formed the Society of the Cincinnati in 1783 and many entered politics and civil service in the new republic.