Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/30

16 and when that body, moved to action by the conduct of the British troops in Boston, formed a Federal union under the name of the United Colonies, and authorized the raising of a Continental army, her George Washington was chosen its commander-in-chief and took command at Cambridge, Mass., on the 2d of July, 1775.

The Virginia people again met in convention on the 17th of July, 1775, and chose a committee of safety to take charge of the affairs of the colony, ordered the enlistment of troops, passed laws for the raising of money, the procuring of arms and military supplies, and for the conducting of elections by loyal voters. The story of the revolution need not be repeated. Virginia's Washington, after seven long years of arduous struggle and endurance, brought it to a successful termination, at her Yorktown, in 1781. But it is well to recall that it was Virginia, the most conservative of the colonies, which in the convention of 1776, on the 6th of May, instructed her delegates in Congress to propose "to declare the United Colonies free and independent States;" and that this resulted in a Declaration of Independence, on the 4th of July, 1776, which was drawn by her Thomas Jefferson.