Celebrating the Continental Army

As the war progressed, sermons, plays, newspapers, and pamphlets increasingly told Americans from north to south that the fate of the continent was linked to that of the Continental Army. ‘Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America,’ wrote Thomas Paine in the first ‘ American Crisis ’, but not until it had won its independence. Until then ‘wars, without ceasing, will break out’, but ‘the continent must in the end be the conqueror’. However, in these ‘times that try men's souls’, Paine reassured the Americans that they need not fear, for ‘our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast’. The day after the ‘American Crisis’ was received and read to Continental soldiers in New Jersey, they counter-attacked and defeated the enemy first at Trenton, then at Princeton. Reports of victories at Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown, and defeats at Quebec, New York, and Charleston filled newspaper columns in Williamsburg, Philadelphia, and Boston. The newspaper coverage encouraged readers to imagine that episodic battles fought by local militias and professional soldiers were part of a war that was vast in scope, representing a great geographical adventure, a war that had ‘come upon the people from One End of the Continent to the other’. Newspapers also published regular reports of the celebrations and commemorations that occurred throughout the thirteen colonies. Readers, whether they had participated in these festivities or not, were encouraged to consider themselves as part of a single community engaged in a continental conflict. Historians have long emphasised the role of the press in creating a climate of common opposition in the years preceding the Revolutionary War. Certainly, contemporaries thought this was an important factor in the escalation of imperial tensions. ‘The Americans are in possession of the Press,’ commented a bitter British diplomat as war loomed, ‘and Government silent, which makes the world in general often suppose things worse than they really are.’ As tensions turned to violence, revolutionary leaders recognised that maintaining popular support for the war, and for the army that would do the fighting, would be crucial to ensure enlistment and procurement, as well as political legitimacy. The surest way to ensure support for the Continental Army, according to most contemporaries, was to ensure that it was the winning side.

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