This July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th are the 250th anniversaries of momentous days in America’s formation, as the Colonials became militarily serious and marched toward nationhood.
While Patriot militia and Minute Men—already having engaged the British Redcoats at Lexington and Concord—were again set to trade bullets and bayonets, soon at the Battle of Bunker and Breed’s Hills, the Second Continental Congress was taking the serious, consequential, and likely defining step to break away from England.
The loose amalgam of colonial regiments besieging Boston in mid-June, 1775, were under no formal, congressional command. That changed on June 14th, when Congress took charge of the troops and created the Continental Army. An army deserves a general, and that same day delegate John Adams nominated George Washington—also a delegate, a man widely known as “Colonel Washington” and as widely admired for his impressive service in Virginia’s militia—to be the Continentals’ leader.
The formal action of designating leadership was delayed until the next day, preceded by the Congress adopting a resolution “that a general be appointed to command all the continental forces raised . . . for the defense of American liberty.” Then followed a motion (offered by Maryland’s Thomas Johnson), to nominate Washington for that post—it was approved unanimously. Come June 16th, it was declared by the Congress’s acting president, John Hancock, that Washington was indeed now “General and Commander in Chief of the army of the United Colonies.” Accepting the charge (declining any pay), the new commander told his fellow delegates that he would “exert every power I possess in their service and for the support of the glorious cause.”
And so to Boston—its British occupants under siege from the troops he was to lead—the Virginian departed, accompanied by General Charles Lee. They arrived at Cambridge on a stormy July 2nd, 1775, and after meeting with assembled officers, found quarters in the home of Harvard College’s president, Samuel Langdon. And so it began.
On July 3rd, Washington took direct command of the troops, and reviewed them on the parade grounds. Lieutenant Joseph Hodgkins, writing to his wife Sarah in Ipswich, described the coming day thus:
Monday morning about 8 o’clock … my cold is a Lettel Better, but my stumok is verry sore yet. But I have got some Drops to Take whitch I am in hopes will healp me soon. Geaneral Washington and Lees got into Cambridge yesterday, and to Day they are to take Vew of ye Armey, & that will be attended with a grate Deal of grandor. There is at this time one & twenty Drummers, & as meny feffers a Beting and Playing Round the Prayde.
The Commander in Chief issued his first serious General Orders on July 4th, 1775—the same day the Congress integrated the various colonial militias into the Continental Army. The Orders addressed matters of logistics and supplies ("The commanding Officer of each Regiment to make a return of the number of blankets wanted to compleat every Man with one at least”) and the placement of men (“The Guard for the security of the stores at Watertown, is to be increased to thirty men immediately”)—but in it Washington also struck the themes of liberty, unity, and discipline:
They are now the Troops of the United Provinces of North America; and it is hoped that all Distinctions of Colonies will be laid aside; so that one and the same spirit may animate the whole, and the only Contest be, who shall render, on this great and trying occasion, the most essential service to the great and common cause in which we are all engaged.
Rag-tag and cobbled-together may have been the reality of the Colonials, but the general, having served with British forces in his youth, expected more of this nascent Army’s troops, and their officers, and declared emphatically:
It is required and expected that exact discipline be observed, and due Subordination prevail thro’ the whole Army, as a Failure in these most essential points must necessarily produce extreme Hazard, Disorder and Confusion; and end in shameful disappointment and disgrace.
To him, comportment mattered too. So did probity. So did worship:
The General most earnestly requires, and expects, a due observance of those articles of war, established for the Government of the army, which forbid profane cursing, swearing & drunkeness; And in like manner requires & expects, of all Officers, and Soldiers, not engaged on actual duty, a punctual attendance on divine service, to implore the blessings of heaven upon the means used for our safety and defence.
Besides issuing Orders, as is the duty of a Commander in Chief, Washington also found the time on that less-famous, earlier July 4th to address the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s “Provincial Congress.” As was his style, in florid-but-august, even masculine, language, here was revealed the Virginian’s admiration for bravery in public affairs shown by the most prominent of New England’s governing bodies:
In exchanging the Enjoyments of domestic Life for the Duties of my present honourable, but arduous Station, I only emulate the Virtue & publick Spirit of the whole Province of Massachusetts Bay, which with a Firmness, & Patriotism without Example in modern History, has sacrificed all the Comforts of social & political Life, in Support of the Rights of Mankind, & the Welfare of our common Country. My highest Ambition is to be the happy Instrument of vindicating those Rights, & to see this devoted Province again restored to Peace, Liberty & Safety.
The brief address concluded with a consistent hallmark of Washington’s prose—a call to the good will and benevolence of God, Who was typically referred to by any name (respectful and fulsome) than that:
In Return for your affectionate Wishes to my-self permit me to say, that I earnestly implore that Divine Being in whose Hands are all human Events, to make you & your Constituents, as distinguished in private, & publick Happiness, as you have been by ministerial Oppression, by private & publick Distress.
And so ended the Fourth of July, 1775.
But while that one day may have concluded with the setting of the summer sun, it proved to be a solid part of the foundation of the burgeoning Republic, whose military affairs were in the hands of a man who cared as deeply as its emerging principals. Let us close on that note, relying on Washington’s General Orders of the following day, July 5, 1775, which showed (with his ever-powerful prose) his matched concern for those codependent things—martial affairs and justice:
The General most earnestly recommends, & requires of all the Officers, that they be exceeding diligent and strict in preventing all Invasions and Abuse of private property in their quarters, or elsewhere[.] he hopes, and indeed flatters himself, that every private soldier will detest, and abhor such practices, when he considers, that it is for the preservaton of his own Rights, Liberty and Property, and those of his Fellow Countrymen, that he is now called into service: that it is unmanly and sully’s the dignity of the great cause, in which we are all engaged, to violate that property, he is called to protect, and especially, that it is most cruel and inconsistant, thus to add to the Distresses of those of their Countrymen, who are suffering under the Iron hand of oppression.
There is more than one Semiquincentennial to celebrate! Happy Other Fourth!
