Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army during The War of the Revolution April, 1977, to December, 1783; With Addenda by Robert H. Kelby, 1932

Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Published Co., Inc, 1973. Reprint of the New, Revised, and Enlarged Edition of 1914, Second printing (after 1967 initial reprinting). Hardcover. Good. 698, [5] pages. Minor soiling noted. Most of the material is presented in a two column format. The author lived between 1838 and 1926 and was noted for the reference works he produced. Robert Hendre Kelby (1847-1927) served as librarian to the New-York Historical Society from 1899 to 1920. The Continental Army was the army of the Thirteen Colonies and the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was established by a resolution of Congress on June 14, 1775. The Continental Army was created to coordinate military efforts of the Colonies in their war for independence against the British, who sought to keep their American lands under control. General George Washington was the commander-in-chief of the army throughout the war. The Continental Army was supplemented by local militias and volunteer troops that were either loyal to individual states or otherwise independent. Most of the Continental Army was disbanded in 1783, after the Treaty of Paris formally ended the fighting. The 1st and 2nd Regiments of the Army went on to form what was to become the Legion of the United States in 1792. This became the foundation of what is now the United States Army. The officers of both the Continental Army and the state militias were typically yeoman farmers with a sense of honor and status and an ideological commitment to oppose the policies of the British Crown. The enlisted men were very different. They mainly came from the working class or minority groups (Irish, German, African American). This is the standard reference work on the officers of the Revolutionary War, containing an alphabetically arranged list, with service records, of 14,000 officers of the Continental Army, including many officers of the Militia and State Troops who served during the Revolution. The information given includes the soldier's rank, dates of service, when and where wounded, taken prisoner, exchanged, or killed, etc., with the name of the state in which service was rendered and a designation of company and command. Much of the data not being available from official records, other reliable sources of information were consulted and data were added therefrom in order to complete the service record of each officer. Some 6,000 names not recorded in the earlier edition of 1893 were added and a great many records revised and completed for the last published edition of 1914. Also includes a list of French officers who served in the U.S. Army, as well as alphabetical and chronological lists of battles and skirmishes. ". . . This is the best and basic source for identification of Revolutionary War officers."--The Virginia Genealogist (Jan.-March 1974).