On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the creation of the Continental Army, unifying the ragtag militias then besieging British forces in Boston into a single fighting force under national command. The vote came two months after Lexington and Concord and set the stage for George Washington's appointment as commander-in-chief the following day, a decision that would shape the entire trajectory of the Revolutionary War.
Boston had been under siege by colonial militiamen since April, a loose and disorganized collection of New England farmers and tradesmen with muskets, answering to no single command. By June, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia recognized the need for something more permanent: a unified, national army that could fight the war beyond New England's borders.
On June 14, 1775, delegates voted to raise ten companies of riflemen from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to join the New England forces already outside Boston, formally establishing the Continental Army. This act nationalized what had been a regional uprising, transforming scattered colonial resistance into a coordinated military institution.
The very next day, June 15, Congress selected George Washington, a Virginia planter and veteran of the French and Indian War, as commander-in-chief—a choice partly political, meant to bind the southern colonies to what had been a New England fight. Washington would hold that army together through defeats, desertions, and a brutal winter at Valley Forge, ultimately leading it to victory at Yorktown in 1781. The army founded that June day became the ancestor of today's United States Army, making June 14 its official birthday.