#commander-in-chief

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 13, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jun 14, 2025

Two hundred and fifty years ago, on June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress resolved “That six companies of expert riflemen, be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia; that each company consist of a captain, three lieutenants, four serjeants, four corporals, a drummer or trumpeter, and sixty-eight privates…[and that] each company, as soon as completed, shall march and join the army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry, under the command of the chief Officer in that army.”

And thus Congress established the Continental Army.

The First Continental Congress, which met in 1774, refused to establish a standing army, afraid that a bad government could use an army against its people. The Congress met in response to the British Parliament’s closing of the port of Boston and imposition of martial law there, but its members hoped they could repair their relationship with King George III and simply sent entreaties to the king to end what were known as the “Intolerable Acts.”

In 1775 the Battles of Lexington and Concord changed the equation. On April 19, British soldiers opened fire on colonists just as Patriot leaders feared they might. In the aftermath of that deadly day, about 15,000 untrained Massachusetts militiamen converged on Boston and laid siege to the town, where they bottled up about 6,500 British Regulars.

The Battles of Lexington and Concord made it clear the British government endangered American liberties. The Second Continental Congress met in what is now called Independence Hall in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, to address the crisis in Boston. The delegates overcame their suspicions of a standing army to conclude they must bring the various state militias into a continental organization to stand against King George III.

With the establishment of the Continental Army, a British officer, General Charles Lee, resigned his commission in the British Army and published a public letter explaining that the king’s overreach had turned him away from service in His Majesty’s army and toward the Patriots:

“[W]henever it shall please his Majesty to call me forth to any honourable service against the natural hereditary enemies of our country, or in defence of his just rights and dignity, no man will obey the righteous summons with more zeal and alacrity than myself,” he wrote, “but the present measures seem to me so absolutely subversive of the rights and liberties of every individual subject, so destructive to the whole empire at large, and ultimately so ruinous to his Majesty's own person, dignity and family, that I think myself obliged in conscience as a Citizen, Englishman, and Soldier of a free state, to exert my utmost to defeat them.”

After they established a Continental Army, the next thing Congress members did was to name a French and Indian War veteran, Virginia planter George Washington, commander-in-chief. To Washington fell the challenge of establishing an army to defend the nation without creating a military a tyrant could use to repress the people.

It was not an easy project. The Continental Army was made up of volunteers who were loyal primarily to the officers they had chosen, and because Congress still feared a standing army, their enlistments initially were short. Different units trained with different field manuals, making it hard to turn them into a unified fighting force. Women came to the camps with their men, often bringing their children. The women worked for the half-rations the government provided, washing, cooking, hauling water, and tending the wounded.

After an initial bout of enthusiasm at the start of the war, men stopped enlisting, and in 1777 Congress increased the times of enlistment to three years or “for the duration” of the conflict. That meant that the men in the army were more often poor than wealthy, enlisting for the bounties offered, and Congress found it easy to overlook those 12,000 people encamped about 18 miles to the northwest of Philadelphia in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for six months in the hard winter of 1777–1778. The Congress had no way to compel the states to provide money, food, or supplies for the army, and the army almost fell apart for lack of support.

Supply chains broke as the British captured food or it spoiled in transit to the soldiers, and wartime inflation meant Congress did not appropriate enough money for food. Hunger and disease stalked the camp, but even worse was the lack of clothing. More than 1,000 soldiers died, and about eight or ten deserted every day. Washington warned the president of the Continental Congress that the men were close to mutiny, even as a group of army officers were working with congressmen to replace Washington, complaining about how he was prosecuting the war.

By February 1778 a delegation from the Continental Congress had visited Valley Forge and, understanding that the lack of supplies made the army, and thus the country, truly vulnerable, set out to reform the supply department. Then a newly arrived Prussian officer, Baron Friedrich von Steuben, drilled the soldiers into unity and better morale. And then, in May, the soldiers learned that France had signed a treaty with the American states in February, lending money, matériel, and men to the cause of American independence. The army survived.

By the end of 1778, the main theater of the war had shifted to the South, where British officers hoped to recruit Loyalists to their side. Instead, guerrilla bands helped General Nathanael Greene bait the British into a war of endurance that finally ended on October 19, 1781, at the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, where British general Charles Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington and French commander Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau.

The Continental Army had defeated the army of the king and established a nation based on the principle that all men were created equal and had a right to have a say in the government under which they lived.

In September 1783, negotiators concluded the Treaty of Paris that formally ended the war, and Congress discharged most of the troops still in service. In his November 2 farewell address to his men, Washington noted that their victory against such a formidable power was “little short of a standing Miracle.” “[W]ho has before seen a disciplined Army formed at once from such raw materials?” Washington wrote. “Who that was not a witness could imagine, that the most violent local prejudices would cease so soon, and that Men who came from the different parts of the Continent, strongly disposed by the habits of education, to despise and quarrel with each other, would instantly become but one patriotic band of Brothers?”

With the army disbanded, General Washington himself stepped away from military leadership. On December 23, Washington addressed Congress, saying: “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action, and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.”

In 1817, given the choice of subjects to paint for the Rotunda in the U.S. Capitol, being rebuilt after the British had burned it during the War of 1812, fine artist John Trumbull picked the moment of Washington’s resignation from the army. As he discussed the project with President James Madison, Trumbull told the president: “I have thought that one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world, was that presented by the conduct of the commander-in-chief, in resigning his power and commission as he did, when the army, perhaps, would have been unanimously with him, and few of the people disposed to resist his retaining the power which he had used with such happy success, and such irreproachable moderation.”

Madison agreed, and the painting of a man voluntarily walking away from the leadership of a powerful army rather than becoming a dictator hangs today in the Capitol Rotunda.

It is the story of this Army, 250 years old tomorrow, that President Donald J. Trump says he is honoring with a military parade in Washington, D.C., although it also happens to be his 79th birthday.

But the celebration of ordinary people who fought against tyranny will be happening not just in the nation’s capital but all across the country, as Americans participating in at least 2,000 planned No Kings protests recall the principles American patriots championed 250 years ago.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

The White House IS a military installation.

It is the home and workplace of the Commander-in-Chief of United States military forces, so that alone makes it an important command and control headquarters. The various branches of the military have an active role in the everyday logistics of running the White House campus and supporting the Executive Office of the President. The White House's complex and extensive communications agency is staffed by members of each individual branch of the military. The U.S. Navy is responsible for the White House Mess and providing food services to the President, the First Family, any potential guests, and the President's staff. The White House Medical Unit is staffed by military doctors who have a round-the-clock presence in the White House and the official Physician to the President is usually an active-duty military officer.

While the Secret Service -- which includes the traditional plainclothes agents and the more visible uniformed division -- is responsible for protecting the President, his family, and the White House itself, the military also has a protective footprint in and around the White House complex. It's believed that amongst the White House's protective measures -- most of which are highly classified -- are anti-aircraft defenses, which are almost certainly manned by the military rather than the Secret Service. Marine Corps guards also are stationed at the White House (often seen opening and closing doors while manning the entry and exit points around the West Wing) as sentries and sometimes act as military valets during events hosted by the President in the White House. The role of the Marine sentries is purely ceremonial as opposed to protective.

And one of the most important White House responsibilities of the military is transportation. The White House Transportation Agency is responsible for all aspects of the President's travel, and the military works in tandem with the Secret Service on planning and carrying out the immense logistical challenges of transporting the President anywhere in the world -- a challenge magnified by the sheer size of Presidential traveling parties. A Presidential motorcade consists of, on average, 50-60 vehicles. And the majority of those vehicles actually have to be transported from the United States to wherever the President is traveling -- even if it is to several different foreign countries or continents. The Air Force is, obviously, responsible for the President's plane, along with any other aircraft making the trip which are usually carrying White House staff, members of the press, or cargo. For short distances that can be made by helicopter, the Marine Corps takes the lead. And any ground travel by motor vehicles is handled by the Army.

#OTD in 1921 – Michael Collins paid a visit to Armagh.

Michael Collins paid a visit to Armagh on 4 September 1921, in what the ‘Irish News’ described as “his first official visit to the city.” The implication may well be that he had been in Armagh on IRA business in the past few years, but he was now a leading figure in the Dáil Éireann Cabinet. In fact, apart from appearances in the Dáil, this was the first time he had appeared in public since his…

"General McClellan had little or no conception of the greatness of Abraham Lincoln As time went on, he began to show his contempt of the President, frequently allowing him to wait in the anteroom of his house while he transacted business with others. On one occasion McClellan went up stairs to bed, leaving the President and an attendant waiting below.—W. W. [Source: "Abe ","Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Edited by col Alex.. K McClure page 241]

An Imperfect Union #Amazon http://goo.gl/xxZdDe #Nook http://goo.gl/vIw8GO #Kobo https://goo.gl/CKDSxE #iBooks https://goo.gl/k5nrsM #Google: https://goo.gl/cMS0y2 #Smashwords: https://goo.gl/DZxBvF