On what date did George Washington resign his Continental Army commission in Annapolis?

George Washington resigned his Continental Army commission in Annapolis on December 23, 1783.

Washington presented his resignation to the Congress of the Confederation in the Old Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House. Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, led him into the chamber, where Washington formally surrendered his commission and delivered remarks to the assembled delegates.

The act came after the Treaty of Paris had been signed and after British troops had evacuated New York City. Washington’s decision to return military power to civilian authorities became a celebrated example of republican restraint. He then left Annapolis for Mount Vernon on December 24.

The date is often mixed up with October 19, 1781, the day of the British surrender at Yorktown, or November 25, 1783, Evacuation Day in New York. Those events marked military and wartime turning points, but Washington’s formal resignation occurred later, in Annapolis, on December 23, 1783.