The Commander-in-Chief's Guard, also called Washington's Life Guard, was a Continental Army unit of 180-250 men that was assigned to protect General George Washington from 1776 to 1783 amid the American Revolutionary War. The Life Guard was authorized on 11 March 1776, and its purpose was to guard the commander-in-chief as wel as the money and official papers of the Continental Army. The unit's strength was typically 180 men, although its numbers temporarily increased to 250 during the Morristown encampment of 1779-1780. In 1776, sergeant Thomas Hickey and eight other members of the guard were involved in a pro-British plot to assassinate Washington, but Hickey was executed.