Veterans Day! 250 Anniversary Veterans Appreciation Issue!

The United States had an army before it had a Declaration of Independence. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress established the Continental Army, turning the struggle against British rule into a shared military undertaking. The force that began with colonial troops would become the foundation of a national institution.

A military born in rebellion
Before the Revolution, the colonies relied heavily on local militias: part-time citizen soldiers called out when danger threatened. Fighting at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 exposed the need for a force that could operate beyond individual communities. Congress’s answer was a continental army under George Washington.

Washington faced a basic problem: militia members often expected to return home once an immediate threat had passed. Longer enlistments and more thorough training gave him a steadier core of soldiers, distinct from the militias that continued to support the war effort. Organization and staying power became as important as battlefield courage.

The Revolution also produced the beginnings of other services. Congress authorized the Continental Navy on October 13, 1775, and the Continental Marines on November 10. Together, these forces extended the independence struggle from land to sea. American forces, aided by France, ultimately secured independence, which Britain recognized in the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

A young republic weighs military power
Victory did not bring agreement over the size of a peacetime military. Distrust of standing armies led Congress to reduce the Continental Army to a tiny force guarding military stores. Frontier conflict soon prompted renewed expansion. The Constitution placed the president in command of the armed forces while giving Congress the authority to declare war—a framework that kept military power under civilian government.

New institutions developed as the country’s needs changed. The Coast Guard traces its origins to the revenue cutter service established in 1790; the modern Coast Guard emerged from a merger in 1915. The armed forces were not created all at once, but assembled over generations as distinct missions took shape.

Expansion and the industrial battlefield
During the nineteenth century, American troops fought Britain again in the War of 1812, fought Mexico, and conducted wars against Native American nations as the United States expanded across the continent. The Civil War of 1861–1865 then turned military power inward, pitting the Union against the Confederacy in a struggle over the nation’s survival and the slaveholding South’s bid for independence.

The Civil War also demonstrated that armies depended on transportation networks as well as weapons. Railroads moved troops and supplies faster and in greater quantities than animal-drawn wagons. Control of rail lines became a central military objective, and the Union organized the United States Military Railroad to support its operations.

At sea, modernization brought another transformation. The Navy’s older sailing fleet gave way to a rebuilding effort beginning in the 1880s. That expansion helped lay the foundations for the much larger fleet that would fight in the world wars.

World wars reshape the armed forces
World War I and World War II pushed the United States into conflicts far beyond its own borders. By the end of the second war, the country had emerged as a global superpower. Growing reliance on air power and the arrival of nuclear weapons also changed the demands of military readiness: increasingly complex equipment required specialized training, while sudden attack could leave little time to raise a force from scratch.

The postwar structure reflected those changes. The National Security Act of 1947 created an independent Air Force and a secretary of defense to coordinate the military departments. Amendments in 1949 converted the National Military Establishment into the Department of Defense, strengthening unified civilian direction while preserving separate services.
Change reached the ranks, too. President Harry Truman’s Executive Order 9981 in 1948 required equality of treatment and opportunity regardless of race, color, religion or national origin. Integration encountered resistance and took time, but by the end of the Korean conflict, almost all of the military was integrated.

From the draft to a specialized force
The Cold War, including the wars in Korea and Vietnam, sustained the need for a trained military ready to respond quickly. In 1973, the United States ended conscription and adopted an all-volunteer force. Recruitment, pay, retention and longer-term professional training became central to maintaining its strength.

Later conflicts, including the Gulf War and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, added new chapters to American military history. Institutional development continued as well: the Space Force was established on December 20, 2019, within the Department of the Air Force. Its creation joined another specialized service to institutions whose oldest roots reach back to the Revolution.

Viewed across that history, the military’s development has meant more than adding soldiers or building better weapons. It has involved deciding how to organize national defense, who should serve, and how armed power should answer to civilian authority. From colonial militias to specialized services, those questions connect the military’s beginnings with its later transformations.

This issue is dedicated to all those that served, serve, or will serve our country protecting our nation’s liberties and freedoms as enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Jackson County Thanks you!