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George Washington's roles Main article: George Washington in the American Revolution General Washington assumed five main roles during the war.[600]

First, he designed the overall strategy of the war, in cooperation with Congress. The goal was always independence. When France entered the war, he worked closely with the soldiers it sent – they were decisive in the great victory at Yorktown in 1781.[601]

Second, he provided leadership of troops against the main British forces in 1775–77 and again in 1781. George Washington’s leadership roles emerge during the Battle of Newburgh in 1783 in his speech to his men when he acknowledges their strengths and sacrifices, argues with Congress in defense of his men, and by never underestimating his soldiers when they felt betrayed. He lost many of his battles, but he never surrendered his army during the war, and he continued to fight the British relentlessly until the war's end. Washington worked hard to develop a successful espionage system to detect British locations and plans. In 1778, he formed the Culper Ring to spy on enemy movements in New York City. In 1780 it discovered Benedict Arnold was a traitor.[602] The British put a low value on intelligence, and its operations were of poor quality until 1780, when it finally inserted some spies with Congress and with Washington's command. Even then, however, British commanders ignored or downplayed threats that were revealed. The most serious intelligence failure came in 1781 when top commanders were unaware that The American and French armies at both left the Northeast and marched down to Yorktown, where they outnumbered Cornwallis by more than 2 to 1.[603]

Third, he was charged selecting and guiding the generals. In June 1776, Congress made its first attempt at running the war effort with the committee known as "Board of War and Ordnance", succeeded by the Board of War in July 1777, a committee which eventually included members of the military.[604][605] The command structure of the armed forces was a hodgepodge of Congressional appointees (and Congress sometimes made those appointments without Washington's input) with state-appointments filling the lower ranks. The results of his general staff were mixed, as some of his favorites never mastered the art of command, such as John Sullivan. Eventually, he found capable officers such as Nathanael Greene, Daniel Morgan, Henry Knox (chief of artillery), and Alexander Hamilton (chief of staff). The American officers never equaled their opponents in tactics and maneuver, and they lost most of the pitched battles. The great successes at Boston (1776), Saratoga (1777), and Yorktown (1781) came from trapping the British far from base with much larger numbers of troops.[606]

Fourth he took charge of training the army and providing supplies, from food to gunpowder to tents. In the Battle of Trenton, when many of the soldiers were ready to leave because their enlistments were up, Washington urgently appealed to them to step forward and stay with him in this noble cause. Hesitantly at first, but then almost completely, the soldiers stepped forward because of their trust in and regard for Washington. He recruited regulars and assigned Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a veteran of the Prussian general staff, to train them. He transformed Washington's army into a disciplined and effective force.[607] The war effort and getting supplies to the troops were under the purview of Congress, but Washington pressured the Congress to provide the essentials. There was never nearly enough.[608]

Washington's fifth and most important role in the war effort was the embodiment of armed resistance to the Crown, serving as the representative man of the Revolution. His long-term strategy was to maintain an army in the field at all times, and eventually this strategy worked. His enormous personal and political stature and his political skills kept Congress, the army, the French, the militias, and the states all pointed toward a common goal. Furthermore, he permanently established the principle of civilian supremacy in military affairs by voluntarily resigning his commission and disbanding his army when the war was won, rather than declaring himself monarch. He also helped to overcome the distrust of a standing army by his constant reiteration that well-disciplined professional soldiers counted for twice as much as poorly trained and led militias.[609]