The U.S. Army was founded on June 14, 1775 – more than a year before the Declaration of Independence – when the Continental Congress authorized the enlistment of expert riflemen to serve the Colonies for one year.
Prior to that day, colonies had their own militias with no unified chain of command from place to place.
The new forces were comprised of 22,000 militiamen who had already gathered outside of Boston, plus 5,000 more in New York.
On June 15, 1775, the Continental Congress named George Washington of Virginia as commander-in-chief and voted to raise 10 more companies of riflemen from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.
Washington officially took command at Boston on July 3, 1775. The original Congressional appropriation to fund the new Army was $2 million. It took another year – July 4, 1776, to be exact – for the Continental Army and the militia to become known collectively as the Army of the United States, instead of the Army of the United Colonies.
Today’s Army has a uniformed force of about 1 million with as many as 180,000 soldiers deployed in more than 140 countries at any given time.
Interesting Army facts:
- During World War II, supporting one soldier on the battlefield took one gallon of fuel per day. Today, the Army uses more than 22 gallons per day, per soldier.
- The Army has 158 installations worldwide; more than 132,000 miles of infrastructure for electric, gas, sewer, and water; and over one billion square feet of office space.
- The Army owns more than 15 million acres of land across the United States or about 24,000 square miles which, if the Army was a state, would be the 42nd largest.
- Twenty-four U.S Presidents served in the United States Army
- The U.S Army is the second largest employer in the U.S.
Quoted from: Leada Gore | lgore@al.com
https://www.al.com/news/2021/06/us-army-birthday-2021-military-branch-celebrates-246th-birthday.html