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Colonial American military history is the military record of the Thirteen Colonies from their founding to the American Revolution in 1775. George Washington in 1772 as colonel of the Virginia Regiment; painting by Charles Willson Peale.
From the beginning of European colonialization of North America, communities along the Atlantic seaboard required able body males to participate in the defense of their towns and colonies. These militia units served as the backbone of protection from Native American tribes on the frontier and foreign foes like the French.
The Continental Army was the national army of first the Thirteen Colonies, and then the independent United States, during the American Revolutionary War, established by a resolution of the Congress on June 14, 1775, three days before the Battle of Bunker Hill, where it saw its first action under that title.
Because there was no standing English Army before the English Civil War, and subsequently the English Army and later the British Army had few regulars garrisoning North America, colonial militia served a vital role in local conflicts, particularly in the French and Indian Wars.
As the Revolutionary War neared, the colonies had fully organized military units ready at the calling. For example, Governor Trumbull of Connecticut reported in 1774 that he had 26,260 men and that each town had its own units that drilled four times a year.
By the time of King Philip’s War (1675-76), the colonial militia system had begun to take on two distinct forms: local militia and provincial expeditionary forces. After damaging surprise attacks by Native American warriors in 1675, New England towns contributed more than 1,000 militia troops for a retaliatory provincial expedition.
The Continental Army consisted of soldiers from all 13 colonies and, after 1776, from all 13 states. At the start of the American Revolutionary War the colonial revolutionaries did not have an army.
The Continental Congress created its national army on 14 June 1775 when, in an action deliberately glossed over in its journals for security reasons, it transferred to its own control the four existing colony armies of New England and a similar force that was being created by New York.
The colonial period of US history was rife with military conflict between European immigrants and Native Americans/Indians, among rival European imperial powers, among groups of European settlers, and among groups of Indians.
A Bibliography of Materials from the Rockefeller Library. The resources listed below document the strategic and administrative decisions of the Revolutionary War: organizing the Continental Army from citizen militias; training men; supplying food, clothing, and weapons; and moving troops.