Throughout the year, we have federal, state, and unofficial holidays that are important dates to remember and to celebrate—from your child’s birthday to the Fourth of July. Every so often there are milestone years that deserve to be commemorated, and this year marks the 250th anniversary of the start of the American War for Independence and also the birth of the United States Army, which traces its creation to June 14, 1775, when the Second Continental Congress authorized the creation of the Continental Army, which is technically before the official creation of the United States of America.
On the morning of April 19, 1775, the minutemen company of the local patriot militia of about seventy men led by Captain John Parker assembled on the commons of Lexington, Massachusetts, to meet the British redcoats, who had come to seize or destroy the gunpowder and arms the rebels had amassed in the nearby town of Concord. After a brief exchange of fire. Parker’s minutemen quickly dispersed, and the British regulars had killed seven patriots and wounded more. The Redcoats continued onto Concord. The British arrived at 8AM to finish their search and destroy mission for illegal arms, and they were met with more local patriot militias at the Old North Bridge that resulted in the “shot heard around the world,” sparking the eight-year war for independence.
Militias have been a part of American military tradition since the seventeenth century and their effectiveness and success on the battlefields have been mythologized. Militias were seen as local organizations and not part of the national institution. However, the actions at Lexington and Concord pushed The Second Continental Congress to authorize the raising of ten companies of riflemen, and these units would become the first unified national army—The Continental Army. These solders were knowns as Continentals and their terms of enlistment would end after a year. Each colony (and later each state) would be responsible to raise and equip these units. Congress worried that this new organization would become regionalized and dominated by New England. So, many Congressional delegates were convinced that this new army needed to be led by a Virginian to make it truly a united colonial body. Subsequently, on June 15, 1775, Congress selected Virginian George Washington to lead this new Continental Army as its General and Commander in Chief.
General Washington assumed control over the rag-tag forces outside Boston in July 1775. The patriot forces were in rough shape, but Washington worked to shape and mold the new fighting force as he saw fit over the next few years. In the winter of 1777-1778, the Continental Army entered their winter quarters at Valley Forge outside of British occupied Philadelphia and received training from Washington and the Prussian Baron Friedrich von Steuben. The training emphasized drill and warfighting practices, and it molded it into a professional army. Many of these drill and lessons that Steuben installed remain part of the Army training today in the form of Drill and Ceremony regulations and the manuals of the Noncommissioned Officers.
After Valley Forge, the freshly trained Continental Army was eager to prove itself on the battlefield as a disciplined force. They did just that at the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778. Although the battle itself was a tactical draw, it proved that Continental Army could operate as a professional army against superior force. Over the course of the war, the Continental Army would have plenty of failures, but its successes ultimately sustained the nation and the American Revolution.
After the American and French victory at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, and later with the Peace of Paris in 1783, the American War for Independence concluded, and the majority of the Continental Army was disbanded in 1783 except for a small force at West Point. However, the new Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation (the first real national government of the United States of America), resolved to form a new United States Army on June 4, 1784, from the remaining regiment that was at West Point and other frontier outposts.
However, the army remained tiny compared to modern standards. In the 1790s, General Anthony Wayne created the Legion of the United States to combat Native Americans in the Old Northwest Territory. The Legion of the United States was the first combined arms organization of the army, but after their victory against the western Native Americans at Fallen Timbers in 1794, Congress reduced the standing army once again. Repeatedly the size of the American Army would ebb and flow over the next few decades as it would grow during the War of 1812 and then shrink after the conflict.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the Army would be one of the constant federal institutions as it remains today. Although size of the Army was drastically different compared to modern times however, the mission remained the same—national security. In 1849, after the Mexican American War, the Army established a string of forts through central Texas to defend settlers against Native American raids and one of those was Fort Gates (modern day Gatesville). Although Fort Gates was abandoned in 1852, it is one of the earliest Army presences in the region. Fort Gates along with other posts such as Fort Croghan (present day Burnet), Fort Martin Scott (Fredericksburg) were in the Hill Country. Many of these forts were abandoned as the frontier line moved westward and they created new posts.
The Civil War interrupted the United States Army’s presence in Central Texas, but after the war the Army returned in the late 1860s. As the threats from Native Americans declined, the Army was not a sizeable presence in Central Texas. However, in 1892, Camp Mabry (Austin) was created to train and house the Texas Volunteer Guard (now the Texas National Guard) units. During the First World War (1917-1919) Camp Mabry and Camp MacArthur (Waco) were training facilities for National Guard Units that were being mobilized for the war. Although Camp Mabry still exists today, Camp MacArthur was closed in 1919
.During the Second World War, the Army constructed Camp Hood in Killeen Texas, which would become one of the largest forts in the United States Army and become the home of the III Armored Corps and First Army Division West and the headquarters of several famous units such as the 1st Cavalry Division and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment by the twenty first century.
As the nation commemorates the semiquincentennial of American Revolution, let’s not forget the contributions of the Army and its soldiers who have sacrificed so much for this great nation over the past 250 years.