Published in 1904 as part of the Harvard Historical Studies series, Hatch's book takes a close look at the events from 1775-when the "imperfectly organized and ill-trained troops" of the American colonies were being transformed into a victorious army in the war against the British-to the final days when that army disbanded in 1784.

This study covers only a small portion of the full story as the history ends in 1822. After this year, Boston's government changed from a town to a city. The early 1820's also mark the dividing line in the North between the intense concern with yellow fever that followed Philadelphia's epidemic of 1793 and the advent of Asiatic cholera in 1832. Moreover, in the 1830's and 1840's a new phase in the history of public health, the so-called sanitary reform...