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More than a decade before George Washington became the country’s first president, he led the campaign that came to be known as the Siege of Boston—an early command that, according to historians and historians at historic sites, helped define his military and political trajectory. The standoff intensified after militia forces pinned down the British in Boston in April 1775, and Washington was chosen to lead the Continental Army when the Continental Congress moved to create a more organized force. The siege culminated in the British leaving the city by boat in March 1776, as the Revolution’s momentum shifted.
On the 250th anniversary of the Siege of Boston, Washington was described as nearing the end of an almost yearlong siege that bottled up as many as 11,000 British troops and hundreds more loyalists. The British occupied Boston during the period, and the stated objective of the siege was to force them out. The campaign began in the wake of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, when the militias’ pressure on the British set the stage for the Congress’s decision to consolidate leadership under Washington.
A key decision highlighted in the anniversary coverage involved Washington sending Henry Knox, a young bookseller, to Fort Ticonderoga in New York to retrieve dozens of cannons. The cannons were transported hundreds of miles in the dead of winter, and they were eventually used to fire on British positions, a development that was linked to the British leadership’s choice to abandon Boston. The British evacuation is described as occurring on March 17, 1776.
Historians cited in the report said the British departure—celebrated in Boston as Evacuation Day—helped the patriot cause at a moment when the outcome could have tilted in the British favor. The arguments presented included that the departure rid the city of loyalists at a critical time, denied the British access to an important port, and delivered a morale boost to the revolutionaries.
Chris Beagan, the site manager at Longfellow House in Cambridge—where the site served as Washington’s headquarters during the American Revolution—said, “The success of the Siege of Boston gave new life and momentum to the Revolution.” Beagan added, “Had it failed, royal control of New England would have continued, and the Continental Army likely would have dissolved,” tying the siege’s outcome to both the broader revolution and Washington’s standing as its military leader.
The siege also functioned as a test of Washington’s readiness after a long gap away from military command. The anniversary coverage described Washington as having been out of the military for nearly 20 years after commanding troops for the British during the French and Indian War. After the campaign, Doug Bradburn, president of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, described the effort as part of building a geographically diverse army—from Massachusetts militiamen to Virginia—by the end of the war, including a force with significant Black and Native American representation. Bradburn said the army’s integration was the most integrated until President Harry S. Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948.
The report also addressed Washington’s changing approach to enlistment during the siege period. It said Washington, a slave owner who relied on enslaved people at Mount Vernon, was initially opposed to admitting formerly enslaved and free Black soldiers into the army. But Bradburn said Washington came to accept that need, with the report quoting Bradburn saying, “there are free Blacks who want to enlist and he needs them to keep the British from breaking out.”
With Boston cleared of British forces, the coverage portrayed Washington as becoming one of the country’s most popular political figures. Bradburn said, “He comes to embody the cause in a time before you have a nation, before you have a Declaration of Independence, before you’re really sure what is the goal of this struggle,” and he added that Washington “becomes the face of the revolutionary movement.” Pulitzer Prize-winning military historian Rick Atkinson said commanding the military for more than eight years prepared Washington for the presidency and gave him “a sense that Americans could and should be a single people, rather than denizens of thirteen different entities.”
The anniversary remembrance also comes with renewed attention to myths surrounding Washington—stories that persist despite historical corrections. The report said one enduring legend is the cherry tree myth, which was created by one of Washington’s first biographers after Washington’s death. It also addressed the wooden teeth myth, saying it has been rumored that Washington had wooden dentures and that scholars were quoted as claiming the false teeth were made from wood, but that the report said it was not true and that Washington did not wear wooden dentures, instead using teeth associated with ivory, gold, and even human teeth.
Beyond military leadership, the coverage described Washington’s other pursuits, including farming and land acquisition for Western expansion, and it said he returned to Mount Vernon and built a whiskey distillery that became one of the largest in the country. It also described his connection to slavery as complicated: Washington advocated for ending slavery, and his will called for freeing the slaves he owned after the death of Martha Washington, while the report said he did not own all enslaved people at Mount Vernon and therefore could not legally free all of them.
With Presidents Day falling on Feb. 22, the anniversary is being marked as part of a broader holiday built around Washington’s birthday and associated festivities. The report described events including a wreath-laying ceremony at Washington’s tomb at Mount Vernon and a Continental Army encampment, plus a parade honoring Washington in Alexandria, Virginia, and a monthlong celebration in Laredo, Texas, featuring a carnival, pageants, an air show and a jalapeno festival.