Most 18th-century nations were based on a single religion, ethnicity, race, or cultural tradition. Their governments were secured with military force or inheritance, and often backed by claims of divine blessing. None of those conditions existed in the colonies. In 1774, when the First Continental Congress gathered in Carpenters’ Hall, in Philadelphia, more delegates had visited London than the city that would become our nation’s first seat of government. Each colony had spent decades building economic, intellectual, and emotional ties with Great Britain, not with one another. Culturally, the colonists saw themselves as Britons. As late as the mid-1760s, many called themselves King George III’s most loyal subjects, demonstrated through enthusiastic purchasing of teapots and art prints depicting royal marriages, births, and anniversaries.
If anything, the colonies viewed one another as competitors and battled over rights to waterways, their westernmost lands, and defensive support from the mother country. Washington himself shared these provincial loyalties and had a low opinion of many of his fellow colonists. The morning after arriving in camp, in July 1775, he conducted a review of the Continental Army units and the defensive positions on the hills surrounding Boston Harbor. He concluded, he later wrote, that the troops were “exceeding dirty & nasty people” led by indifferent officers with an “unaccountable kind of stupidity.”
But the war would change Washington’s view of these soldiers, and he came to respect the sacrifice and valor of his troops from all 13 states. The war changed the soldiers themselves. In the peace that followed, veterans became central to America’s nation-building project.
Before the war, colonists had celebrated the King’s birthday. During the war, those celebrations were replaced by festivities honoring Washington’s birthday. In 1779, the Virginia Gazette reported on “a very elegant entertainment” held at “the Raleigh tavern by the inhabitants of this city, to celebrate the anniversary of that day which gave birth to General George Washington, Commander in Chief of the armies of the United States, the saviour of his country.” On February 11, 1781, the French allied forces joined in the fun. “Yesterday was the Anniversary of your Excellency’s birth day,” the commander of the French forces wrote to Washington. “We will celebrate it with the sole regret that your Excellency be not a Witness of the effusion and gladness of our hearts.” The King had served as a unifying figure around whom Britons could rally, and his birthday celebrations had been an important social tool used to reinforce British identity. Washington was a useful substitute.