George Washington was a general.
Continental Army . General George Washington was the commander-in-chief of the army throughout the war . George Washington . He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War , and later presided over the 1787 convention that drafted the United States Constitution . His strategy enabled Continental forces to capture two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781 . The Siege of Yorktown , also known as the Battle of Yorktown , the Surrender at Yorktown , German Battle or the Siege of Little York , ending on October 19 , 1781 , at Yorktown , Virginia , was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by British peer and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis .