George Washington appointed commander of Continental Army

On June 15, 1775, the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia appointed George Washington of Virginia commander in chief of the Continental Army. John Adams supported Washington's selection in part because a Virginian at the head of New England troops would bind the southern colonies to the war already underway around Boston. Washington appeared in Congress in uniform, accepted the commission on June 16, and left for Cambridge to assume command of the forces besieging the British army.

The appointment answered a political problem as well as a military one, because Congress needed to convert separate provincial forces into a continental army subject to civilian direction. Choosing Washington linked Massachusetts resistance to a wider American cause and helped persuade delegates outside New England that the fighting at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill concerned the liberties of all the colonies. The decision also announced that Congress claimed authority to raise armies and direct war, a major constitutional step months before independence was declared.

Washington's commission led directly to the organization of the Continental Army, the Siege of Boston, and the campaigns that followed from New York to Yorktown. It also established the republican precedent of civilian appointment and civilian oversight that Washington later reinforced when he resigned his commission at Annapolis in December 1783.