An Army for the War: 1777 Most Continental enlistments expired on 31 December 1776. Congress and Washington hoped to avoid a recurrence of the problems of the previous winter by beginning their preparations for reorganizing the Continental Army during the early fall of 1776. Profiting from that earlier experience, they not only started sooner but…
All posts tagged September 16
The Continental Army, Chapter IV
An Army Truly Continental: Expanding Participation While the Continental Army in the north took shape in 1776, the colonies to the south also turned to military preparations. The process began, much as it had in New England, with the formation of forces by revolutionary governments to oppose British threats in the immediate vicinity of each…
Francis Marion, Introduction
A. S. Salley’s Introduction to the 1948 edition But for an accident General Francis Marion probably would not have been the hero of the Revolution that he became. In June, 1775, the Provincial Congress of South Carolina, the extra-legal body of the revolting people of the province, organized three regiments of regular troops in…
Plain Truth to Cornwallis
From Diary of the American Revolution, Vol II. Compiled by Frank Moore and published in 1859. September 16.—The rebels are evidently at their last gasp. Unable to vanquish the troops of Britain on equal ground, they have all taken to writing, and every rebel print is now sprouting rhymes and rhodomontades against the ablest and…
The Siege of Savannah
From Diary of the American Revolution, Vol II. Compiled by Frank Moore and published in 1859. [Paragraphs added for readability.] The chief-justice of Georgia, in a letter to his wife, dated November ninth, gives the following particular account of the siege of Savannah: Soon after my arrival, I made application to the barrack-master to be…