ndered.
The percentage of Virginians who fought in the Continental Army and who
supported the stronger national government of the Federal Constitution
was high. These were men who experienced and remembered the
embarrassments and inadequacies of a weak national government during the
Revolution. They did not want to see the experience repeated.

Perhaps the best Virginia field general and the prototype of the
inventive, untrained American general was Daniel Morgan. A wagon master
from Frederick County, Morgan had fought in the French and Indian War. He
raised the first unit of Virginia Continentals, a company of Valley
riflemen, and took them to Boston in 1775. He and his men fought
brilliantly in the near victory of General Richard Montgomery at Quebec
on Christmas 1775. Captured along with the equally bold Benedict Arnold,
Morgan was exchanged. Developing effectively the Virginia riflemen into
mobile light infantry units and merging frontier tactics with formal
warfare, Morgan showed a real flare for commanding small units of men.
His greatest moments were at Saratoga in 1777 and later in his total
victory over Colonel Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens, South Carolina in
1781. The wagon master progressed steadily from captain to colonel, to
general, and became one of the genuine heroes of the Revolution.

The total number of Virginians who fought in the Continental Army is
difficult to determine. Records were poor, lengthy service infrequent,
and troop strength constantly overestimated. There were possibly 25,000
Virginians in the Continental Army at one time or another, although the
number in the field at any one time was much smaller. Another 30,000 to
35,000 might have joined the Virginia militia. In an era when European
armies went into winter quarters and did not fight at all, the unorthodox
Continental Army won some of its greatest victories in the dead of
winter, yet it too tended to suffer from winter desertions and
unauthorized leaves. Still the shriveled army always seemed to revive in
the spring as the men returned to the ranks.

Troops, even continental units, tended to serve near home. Northern
troops were rarely found in the deep southern colonies and vice versa.
Yet Virginians, because of their proximity to all fighting zones, fought
from Quebec to Charleston, contributing heavily to the units fighting to
hold the middle states in 1777 and 1778 and the Carolinas in 1780 and
1781.

The Indian Wars

The