The Americans relied on a professional volunteer army
One of the prevailing myths of the American Revolution is that of the liberty loving farmer leaving his fields to grab his musket and fight for the cause of freedom, to return to the plow following the battle. While militia companies did lead the response at Lexington and Concord, and later formed the nucleus of the Continental Army at Cambridge, both the British adversaries and the American leadership despised and distrusted the American militia. George Washington and his generals sought from the beginning to build a professional army.
Washington was well aware that the quality and efficacy of militia varied wildly, wholly dependent on the quality and efficacy of local leadership. Many militia units were officered by men elected by their troops, with little or no merit other than popularity. Others were officered by men who could afford to uniform and sometimes even arm their men, but who had no experience leading them. Many militia had no qualms about abandoning their positions, even in the face of the enemy.
Throughout the war Washington importuned Congress to strengthen the Continental Army by lengthening the terms of enlistment. Congress, fearful of a powerful standing army, resisted these efforts, continuing to place a reliance on the militia of the individual states. As the realities of the war revealed themselves, Congress gave more power to the Continental Army and its commanders, helped by French money to pay the troops.
Enlistment terms for the Army varied throughout the war, usually from one to three years. Soldiers were paid based on rank and service time, although actual pay was scarce. As the war went on uniforms evolved, the official uniform of the Continental Army was brown, but official uniforms were even scarcer than pay. By the mid-point of the war, training camps were established in several states where newly recruited units were drilled in the manual at arms developed by Baron von Steuben for use of American infantry.
The militia continued to be mustered with the army as necessary, but Washington placed less and less reliance on the temporary volunteers and more and more on his professional soldiers as the war went on. By 1780 engagements between Continentals and British regulars revealed that the American troops were the equal of, if not superior to, their enemies. That George Washington was able to build a professional army while under fire, equal to what was then perceived as the world’s best, may well have been his greatest contribution to the success of the Revolutionary War.