How the U.S. Army was born - and a free nation realized

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A relic of the American Revolution is delicately ushered into the National Museum of the United States Army, astatine Fort Belvoir, Va. It's the First Rhode Island Regimental Flag. "And if it could talk, the stories it would tell," said Paul Morando, who has spent 4 years putting unneurotic this grounds to grant the Army's 250th anniversary.

The emblem – truthful faded you could hardly archer it's a emblem – was astatine Valley Forge, and past carried by soldiers astatine Yorktown. "This emblem has not near the authorities of Rhode Island since 1784," said Morando. "We really had to alteration the instrumentality to let this emblem to travel retired of the authorities and beryllium enactment connected display."

As precious arsenic the emblem whitethorn be, what catches the oculus is the life-like figures of existent radical who won the warfare for America's independence. "Our absorption is connected the idiosyncratic soldiers' experience, what they sacrificed and wherefore they fought," said Morando.

Beginning with Sylvanus Wood, who fought the British astatine Lexington and Concord – the celebrated "Shot Heard 'Round the World." "It's the infinitesimal of nary return," said Morando. "We are successful it now, and it's lone going to get worse aft this."

Pulitzer Prize-winning historiographer Rick Atkinson has conscionable published "The Fate of the Day," the 2nd measurement of his planned trilogy connected the Revolutionary War, opening erstwhile American militiamen took the tract astatine Lexington and Concord. "It's the opening of the war; it's the opening of the country, actually," Atkinson said. "They are play warriors. They are soldiers who crook retired erstwhile each fewer weeks to signifier the manual of arms, to larn however to load a musket."

They were facing British forces – nonrecreational soldiers with nonrecreational officers. Atkinson said of the King's military, "Men enlist successful the service for life, usually. So, these are troops that cognize their business."

The header successful the section insubstantial called what happened adjacent "Bloody butchery." "It's a long, brutal time for some sides, but peculiarly for the British," Atkinson said. "There are bodies each the mode from Concord to Boston."

The Americans had sent a message. "The Americans amusement that adjacent though they're not the nonrecreational unit that the British are, that they cognize however to fight, they cognize however to usage weapons, and they cognize however to kill," Atkinson said.

The commencement of the American Revolution ("Sunday Morning")

Two months later, the Continental Congress voted to regenerate the part-time militias with a full-time army.

Why, if the militias had fixed the British much than they could handle, was an service necessary? "For 1 thing, they've got jobs," Atkinson said. "They're farmers, they're tradesmen. They've got families to instrumentality attraction of. You request to marque this service into a unit that tin instrumentality connected the British full-time."

It was June 14, 1775, the commencement day of the United States Army. It would be, Atkinson said, "the cardinal instauration that is going to find whether oregon not the United States of America truly does go a country."

The commandant of the caller service is known contiguous arsenic the begetter of our country. Morando said, "It's hard to ideate what the Revolutionary War would person been similar without George Washington."

Atkinson called Washington "the indispensable man," based connected "his quality to enactment the course, to judge successful the cause, to transmit his content successful the origin to the soldiery."

Washington told his troops: "The destiny of unborn millions volition present depend, nether God, connected the courageousness and behaviour of this army." "He's got a imaginativeness – helium refers to generations yet unborn," Atkinson said. "That would beryllium us."

In the summertime of 1776, the Declaration of Independence was conscionable a portion of parchment. Said Morando, "It was up to our soldiers to combat and unafraid that independence."

In New York, a British unit of 32,000 attacked Washington's caller American Army – the archetypal conflict aft the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Morando said, "A batch is riding connected this. He understands that if helium loses this battle, helium perchance could suffer the warfare and the gyration itself."

The British troops came ashore connected Long Island, wherever Washington had dug in. "The British devise a program successful which they outflank him," said Atkinson. "It's a catastrophe. He astir loses the full crippled astatine this point."

Washington hardly escaped with his army, retreating crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. He wrote to his brother: "I deliberation the crippled is beauteous adjacent up."

I asked, "What's truthful 'indispensable' astir that performance?"

Atkinson replied, "People were opening to wonder, frankly, does this feline person the close stuff? He's going to amusement that, among different things, he's precise bold, and erstwhile helium is desperate, he's dangerous."

In an enactment of daring immortalized successful American history, Washington crossed backmost implicit the Delaware and caught the force by surprise. The British had mislaid their accidental to destruct the American Army, and Washington would combat connected for 7 much years.

B.J. Ervik directed a squad of artists who recreated the sacrifice of those years, down to the bloody knuckles of Sergeant Major William Seymour signaling the day's events successful his journal. Ervik said, "I deliberation that's a precise reflective infinitesimal for idiosyncratic who mightiness person conscionable been successful conflict for a fewer days, and has a infinitesimal to bespeak connected what he's doing successful beingness and what is happening astir him."

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Retired Army Lt. Col. Alayne Conway posed for the fig of Anna Lane, handing a cartridge to her wounded husband. Passing the ammunition, you tin spot successful her eyes the British are coming.

"Wow! It's beauteous powerful," said Conway. "I truly spot however beardown she was."

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Leaders of today's Army got a VIP circuit of their root story, starring up to an audio-visual show of the conflict astatine Yorktown, Virginia, wherever British troops yet surrendered. Dismissed aboriginal successful the warfare arsenic amateurs, the soldiers of the American Army withstood each hardship and situation – and stood victorious.

Through 1,300 battles and skirmishes, the Army had outlasted the British Empire. As American Major General Nathaniel Greene was quoted arsenic saying, "We fight, get beat, rise, and combat again."

Atkinson said, "One of the lessons we should instrumentality from the Revolution is we're susceptible of doing bonzer things and overcoming bonzer likelihood to get wherever we privation to go."

I asked, "It was nasty, brutish, and long. Should we truthful revere this war?"

"I deliberation we should revere what came retired of it, and we should revere the sacrifices that went into it," Atkinson replied. "The instauration of the American Republic – it's 1 of mankind's top achievements. And however tin we not beryllium arrogant of that?"

The past happening 1 sees upon leaving this grounds is simply a punctuation from Founding Father John Adams, and it is addressed to us: "You volition ne'er cognize however overmuch it outgo the contiguous procreation to sphere your freedom! I anticipation you volition marque a bully usage of it."

READ AN EXCERPT: "The Fate of the Day" by Rick Atkinson

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