1776

by David McCullough

AT THE START of the siege there had been no American army. Even now it had no flag or uniforms. Though in some official documents it had been referred to as the Continental Army, there was no clear agreement on what it should be called in actual practice. At first it was referred to as the New England army, or the army at Boston. The Continental Congress had appointed George Washington to lead “the army of the United Colonies,” but in correspondence with the general, the President of Congress, John Hancock, referred to it only as “the troops under your command.” Washington, in his formal orders, called them the “Troops of the United Provinces of North America.” Privately he described them as the “raw materials” for an army. To the British and those Loyalists who had taken refuge in Boston, they were simply “the rebels,” or “the country people,” undeserving the words “American” or “army.” General John Burgoyne disdainfully dubbed them “a preposterous parade,” a “rabble in arms.”