June 15 · This Day in America
There are men with muskets ringing Boston, but there is no nation, no treasury, barely a plan. On this day the Second Continental Congress votes unanimously to adopt those New England forces as a Continental Army — and to put one man in charge of all of it. They choose George Washington, the tall Virginian who has worn his old military uniform to every session, saying nothing, letting the coat argue for him. He does not celebrate. The next day he rises and tells Congress he fears "my abilities and military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important trust," and refuses a salary, asking only that his expenses be covered. Then he rides north toward an enemy that has just beaten the world. The republic has no army worth the name. It has, instead, the one general who will not quit until it does.
Source: www.nps.gov
Also on this day · 1864
The Civil War's dead are overwhelming the capital. On this day Secretary of War Edwin Stanton approves making the grounds of the Custis-Lee estate — Robert E. Lee's own front yard, seized by the government — a national military cemetery. Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs orders graves placed close to the mansion, deliberately, so the family could never return to it. Today more than 400,000 lie there. The hardest ground became the most sacred.
Source: www.arlingtoncemetery.mil
“I feel great distress from a consciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important trust.”George Washington, addressing the Continental Congress, 1775