Reference Entry
WASHINGTON ACCEPTS COMMAND OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY
On this day, George Washington formally accepted the appointment that Congress had offered him to serve as commander in chief of the Continental Army. The colonies had already seen bloodshed at Lexington, Concord, and around Boston, but until this point there had been no single figure responsible for coordinating their military effort. Washington’s acceptance signaled that the rebellion would not be a loose collection of local uprisings but a united struggle with a common command.
Dated Historical Context
A RECORDED MOMENT IN HISTORY
Washington accepts command of the Continental Army
On this day, George Washington formally accepted the appointment that Congress had offered him to serve as commander in chief of the Continental Army. The colonies had already seen bloodshed at Lexington, Concord, and around Boston, but until this point there had been no single figure responsible for coordinating their military effort. Washington’s acceptance signaled that the rebellion would not be a loose collection of local uprisings but a united struggle with a common command. Wearing his Virginia colonel’s uniform, he pledged to serve without pay beyond his expenses, an important gesture in a war being fought against the idea of professional standing armies as tools of tyranny. His new role would take him north to Boston and then across the full sweep of the war, binding the disparate colonial forces into something closer to a national army.
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