June 14, 1775: Raising Today’s Army

[Valin]

Command Posts

 

The Provincial Congress was worried. It was losing control of the army.

 

Joseph Warren had warned about this possibility when he first wrote to the Continental Congress urging them to take control of the armed forces and suggesting the possibility of a military government. In a private letter to Sam Adams he was more direct. He warned that unless some authority sufficient to restrain the irregularities of this army is established, we shall very soon find ourselves in greater difficulties than you can well imagine.

 

Rumors and character assassinations were becoming common in the army and swept through the ranks like a communicable disease. Worse, the soldiers were beginning to take liberties with the private property of those who lived near the camps. Warren explained to Adams how the troops had first turned out with nothing but the clothes on their backs, without a days provisions, and many without a farthing in their pockets. The Patriots gave willing assistance to the soldiers, and where assistance was not given by those of a Loyalist bent, it was taken. Prudence seemed to dictate, Warren wrote, that such liberties, born of necessity, should be winked at.

 

Unfortunately, the attitude that the troops could simply take what they needed was becoming widespread and ingrained, and fewer distinctions were made between the property of Patriot and Loyalist. Warren, eager to find justification for the behavior of his countrymen, pointed out, somewhat weakly, It is not easy for men, especially when interest and gratification of apatite are considered, to know how far they may continue to tread in the path where there are no land- marks to direct them.

 

(Snip)

 

On June 14 the Congress voted to raise six companies of expert riflemen from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to join the army near Boston the first time Congress had actually authorized men for the military and drafted an enlistment form that signified that those who signed were enlisting as a soldier, in the American continental army. That same day a committee consisting of George Washington, Philip Schuyler, who would serve as a major general, Silas Deane, Thomas Cushing, and Joseph Hewes was convened to bring in a drat of rules and regulations for the government of the army.