Continental Army in AP US History

June 1775: Congress builds an army for all the colonies

After the fighting at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, New England militiamen surrounded British troops in Boston. In June, the Second Continental Congress adopted those forces as a Continental Army and named Washington, a Virginian, as commander. Choosing a southerner to lead a mostly New England army was a deliberate move to make the war a shared colonial cause.

That makes the army a political fact as well as a military one. A year before the Declaration of Independence, Congress was already acting like a national government by raising and directing troops. Mentioning this works well as contextualization in an essay about how colonial resistance turned into a war for independence.

Valley Forge and the "despite" argument for Patriot victory

Topic 3.5, The American Revolution, in Unit 3 (1754-1800) asks you to explain how various factors produced an American win even though Britain looked far stronger. The Continental Army is named directly as one of those factors, alongside the militias, Washington's leadership, the colonists' ideological commitment and resilience, and European allies.

A strong answer doesn't stop at naming the army. It shows how the army mattered. Washington rarely had the numbers to defeat the British in open battle, so his strategy was to keep the army alive. As long as it existed, the rebellion existed. His surprise attack at Trenton in December 1776 restored morale after a string of losses around New York.

The winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge is the standard example. Soldiers lacked food, clothing, and pay, and many died of disease, yet the army held together. Baron von Steuben, a Prussian officer, drilled the troops there, and they came out more disciplined. A Valley Forge stimulus on a multiple-choice or short-answer question could support an explanation of the army's resilience and its continued ability to fight. In a full argument, you'd pair that with other factors in the Patriot victory, like the militias, Washington's leadership, and French aid.

Linking the army to France: Saratoga to Yorktown

The best essays connect factors instead of listing them. The American victory at Saratoga in 1777 convinced France to formally ally with the United States in 1778. At Yorktown in 1781, Washington's Continental troops and French soldiers under Rochambeau trapped Cornwallis while a French fleet under de Grasse blocked help from the sea. Cornwallis surrendered, and Britain soon moved toward peace.

This chain lets you argue causation in one move: the army survived long enough, and won enough, to bring in an ally whose navy Britain couldn't ignore. Early in the war, British goals centered on defeating the Continental Army. After 1778, Britain also had to worry about the French navy and a wider war, which made the conflict much harder for Britain to sustain.

What the army changed after 1781

The army also reaches into Topic 3.6, The Influence of Revolutionary Ideals, and the continuity-and-change review at the end of Unit 3. Pieces you can use:

• Thousands of Black men served, including in the 1st Rhode Island Regiment. Their service highlighted the conflict between slavery and Revolutionary ideals. Those ideals also helped inspire northern abolition efforts, including Pennsylvania's gradual abolition law of 1780.
• Congress under the Articles of Confederation couldn't tax, so soldiers often went unpaid. Daniel Shays, leader of Shays' Rebellion in 1786-1787, was a Continental Army veteran, and that uprising helped convince leaders to replace the Articles.
• Washington resigned his commission to Congress in 1783 instead of using the army to take power, which set a precedent of civilian control over the military.

These points fit the Long essay and Document-based question (which covers 1754-1980) when the prompt asks how the Revolution changed American society or government.

Lexington was militia, Yorktown was Continental

Lexington and Concord was fought by militia, including Minutemen, before the Continental Army existed. Militias were part-time, locally organized, and usually served short terms near home. The Continental Army was the long-term national force. Saratoga and Yorktown involved Continental troops, with militia and, at Yorktown, French support.

The course credits both groups for the win, so treat them as separate pieces of evidence. On a Short-answer question asking for two reasons the Patriots won, "the militias" and "the Continental Army's survival under Washington" can count as distinct reasons if you explain each one specifically.