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Part of the mythology of the American Revolution is that patriot farmers, "Minutemen," left their plows in the field and joined the cause to defeat the British. Something like that may have happened in 1775 and at the important Battle of Saratoga in 1777, but at other times the truth was less glamorous. General George Washington wrote to John Hancock, the president of the Continental Congress, in September 1776, and discussed the condition of the Continental Army. The "Militia" that Washington refers to were untrained forces raised by the states to serve for a sharply limited period.