African Art

George Washington in the American Revolution

George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). After serving as President of the United States (1789 to 1797), he briefly was in charge of a new army in 1798. Washington played a major role for the British Empire during the French and Indian War, which was the North American Theater of Operations of the European the Seven Years' War, fought from 1754 to 1763. His success increased the colonial territory of Great Britain on American soil. Disputes over frontier policy and paying for the war led to colonial discontent and to the American Revolution. On June 15, 1775, delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia unanimously appointed Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, which it created the day before. Washington commanded the American forces in the American Revolutionary War. The first battles of the war were the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. Congress appointed Washington as the first commander-in-chief of the new Continental Army on June 14, 1775. The task he took on was enormous, balancing regional demands, competition among his subordinates, morale among the rank and file, attempts by Congress to manage the army's affairs too closely, requests by state governors for support, and an endless need for resources with which to feed, clothe, equip, arm, and move the troops. He was not usually in command of the many state militia units. In the early years of the war, Washington was often in the middle of the action, first directing the year-long siege of Boston to its successful conclusion, but then losing New York City and almost losing New Jersey before winning surprising and decisive victories at Trenton and Princeton at the end of the 1776 campaign season. At the end of the year in both 1775 and 1776, he had to deal with expiring enlistments, since the Congress had only authorized the army's existence for a year at a time. With the 1777 establishment of a more permanent army structure and the introduction of three-year enlistments, Washington built a reliable cohort of experienced troops, although hard currency and supplies of all types were difficult to come by.

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See also

• ▸Evolutionary origin of religion
• ▸Erigenia
• ▸1978

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.