I'm going to unpack your question a bit because I think part of what you're touching on is the American myth of Washington which tends to deify a man who was extraordinary because he rose above his relative banality.

Washington was probably not, or there's little evidence anyway, an incredible tactical commander although he certainly had his moments of genius. Where he excelled beyond all others was his ability to lead. He was arguably personally responsible for touching off the Seven Years War, resulting in his defeat at Fort Necessity. For this he was hailed as a hero. He then participated in the Braddock Campaign, with equally poor results. In a harbinger of his later battlefield presence, he prevented the defeat from turning into an all-out massacre by rallying the battered troops and conducting a relatively orderly retreat. For this second disaster he was awarded command of a regiment. He spent most of the rest of the war fighting the Indians on the frontier with some success and high casualties.

His service in the Revolutionary War would be similarly lackluster from a win-loss perspective but he had a crucial trait, a command presence, that allowed him to do what almost no one else in the colonies could have done - unite a disparate group of ragtag colonial militias into a relatively unified fighting force that could survive (although not win) direct confrontations with the world's preeminent military power. His power had political consequences but his mere presence was often enough to prevent defeats from turning into disasters. His primary goal early in the war was the preservation of the army at all costs until it could be armed, equipped, and trained into an actual counter to the British regulars and their Hessian hirelings. He also seems to have won when it mattered most - Boston, when the nascent revolution would have been strangled in its cradle if he'd lost, Trenton and Princeton, when the army was on its heels and could have been destroyed under a lesser commander.

You mention drawing France into the war - it's worth noting that France wanted the war since their defeat in the Seven Years War, did everything in its power to provoke the war, was scouting the continent as tensions mounted before the war even broke out to ascertain the relative likelihood of success if a war were to erupt, and bankrolled the American war effort while setting up a massive smuggling operation to empty French and Spanish armories into the hands of the Americans on credit until they were able to openly enter the war. Their decision was influenced in no small part by the presence of Washington. While the colonial politicians were seen as fractious and unreliable, colonial generals were seen as vain and untrained, colonial troops were seen as peasant militias, Washington was viewed as almost an aristocrat whose word could be trusted and who would see the thing through if only given the means.

It's hard to overstate the full amount of means the French, Spanish, and Dutch supplied. The French realized they needed to modernize their army to confront the British, something they had every intention of doing. This meant they would have a lot of military surplus as they re-equipped modern formations with modern weapons. The French king and his cousin, the king of Spain, created a shell corporation run by the guy who invented Figaro, the Barber of Seville, and fronted him 2 million francs in secret. They then sold the antiquated contents of their armories on the open market, where it was promptly bought up by their shell company and shipped to America on credit. The first major shipments arrived just before the battle of Saratoga and equipped an American army in full retreat to the point where they turned around, confronted Burgoyne's army, and won. In John Trumbull's famous painting of the surrender, a French cannon is pictured prominently in the foreground. By the end of the war, the French would supply 90% of the gunpowder the American army used as well as similar quantities of tents, uniforms, muskets, ammunition, and other supplies. Perhaps more importantly, the French shell company found military experts from across Europe and recruited them to the American cause including names like Lafayette and von Steuben. French money paid their salaries and passage to the country, where they helped build forts, command artillery, and forge the American army into a fighting force that could confront the regular British Army.

Notably, when French forces openly entered the war they had their own plans about the best military strategy to be pursued. Their contribution was not insignificant - at Savannah there were more French troops than American. The French met with Washington to discuss strategy where Washington outlined his plans. Again, reflecting on his command presence, the French not only acquiesced to his strategy but placed their troops under his command. Edit: /u/pedro3131 raises a good point here - Washington wanted to attack New York while Rochambeau preferred to attack in the south. They agreed to consult Admiral de Grasse to get his input and he also preferred the southern plan (although Rochambeau let de Grasse know his preference). At least nominally the decision was Washington's but arguably if your ally with all the ships and half the troops wants to do something, that's what you do so perhaps it's more appropriate to say they nominally acquiesced to his strategy. Perhaps fortunately Washington had the humility not to press the point. Either way, I think it's a valid enough issue to add this note and credit to /u/pedro3131 for catching it. You're talking a French nobleman, a decorated veteran of the Seven Years War, a Lieutenant General in the most powerful military on the planet (up until the Seven Years War, which was still considered to be a possible anomaly), submitting command of his troops to a Virginia planter. He had an army as large as the American army and far more professional but was willing to let Washington take the lead. THAT is what made Washington great.

So if we recap your question - Washington wasn't great at winning but he was great ensuring that losing the battle didn't lead to losing the war. He certainly had moments of tactical brilliance and his field command prevented defeats from turning into disaster. Strategically, he had a very clear grasp of what needed to be done and when, as well as an almost ruthless willingness to make it happen. He knew that winning battles was important but not losing the army was far more important. He knew that surviving was what needed to happen until his militia could be molded into an army. He had the foresight and humility to let other people take credit when it was necessary to the cause. He could inspire the confidence of peasant farmers shivering in the misery of Valley Forge and induce a French nobleman of the ancien regime to not only follow his strategy but give him command of the army he'd brought to aid the American cause. I would say Washington was quite possibly the only American who could have won the war, even though he barely won any battles. Does that make him a great general? I can't think of a single measure of a general that would be more dispositive than their ability to win the war, so I think the answer would be "yes".

Washington is a fascinating case study for 18th century warfare because, superficially, he wasn't all that impressive in the typical way we measure these things, which tends to hyperfocus on individual battles or particular innovations. Those are certainly important, but war is about 90% everything else and 10% battle success. You wouldn't usually get that sense from most popular history, though.

Before I go on, I'll say that personally I believe that Washington was an exceptional general, who was able to capitalize on the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses of a diverse and rather chaotic colonial military establishment (or lack thereof), employ talented brigadiers and subalterns, create a talented staff and intelligence system, keep the army supplied and unified even in the face of indifference or outright hostility from local populations as well as the Continental Congress, all that to say nothing of opposition by experienced British generals, well-ordered enemy troops, highly motivated loyalist militias, and the most powerful navy in the world. It is incredible that the rebellion was successful, and a great deal of its success rests on Washington's soldiers.

It's also worth pointing out that these qualities were by no means known at the time, his selection as the commander in chief of the army was by and large a political one, which I've written about here.

After the war, Washington remained a central figure in American politics and his leadership rested on building consensus and exhausting diplomatic options before resorting to force - such as during the Whiskey Rebellion.

I've also written about the moment I think best demonstrates Washington's leadership abilities, and the awe with which his men nearly universally held him. To summarize: after the end of the war's major hostilities, Washington faced a mutiny led by many of his officers as a result of lack of promised pay and poor treatment of the army in general by congress and an indifferent colonial people. His response was to demonstrate that he had shared all of these hardships and "had not only gone gray, but nearly blind" in the same service of his men.

And these grown men, hardened by years of war and jaded by lack of support from leaders and civilians alike, broke into tears, and the mutiny was more or less defanged. It's one of the clearest examples of an individual's influence on major events as exists in history, in my opinion. Other men in the Continental Army had more impressive victories, more experience, even more popularity or political influence, but Washington commanded a respect that even his political opponents recognized.

It's difficult to imagine anyone else achieving what Washington was able to, but of course we can't know. Other "great" military leaders were similarly constrained by economic, logistical, political, and popular contexts and worked within or around them; comparing Washington's achievement even to a contemporary like Napoleon is limited to their records only, which can't get any deeper than surface-level, as it pretty much immediately veers sharply into counterfactual speculation.

So again, yes. Washington has examples of tactical sophistication and well-conceived and executed set-piece battles - his withdrawal from Long Island, the Siege of Boston, the Battle of Trenton, the Battle of Princeton, the Siege of Yorktown - that demonstrated his leadership and organizational abilities. If they seem on a smaller scale than Napoleonic battles, it's because the war as a whole was fought on a much smaller scale than European battles, even in the same period. So yes, he had tactical acumen necessary, but I would again emphatically suggest that his qualities lay in his charisma and ability to keep together a fairly ragtag and sometimes unreliable military structure alive and dangerous during a very difficult war that proves his reputation.

Edward Lengel's General George Washington: A Military Life is still one of the better works on the topic of Washington's military career.

Richard Kohn, Eagle and Sword speaks a great deal about Washington's post-war career.

Lastly, Charles Royster’s excellent A Revolutionary People At War talks a great deal about the emotional stakes of the War for Independence.

Ok on a strategic and organization level, Washington was an excellent general and plenty of the responses above explain why. He was a good chooser of men, he was able to keep his army provisioned. All of this was probably more important given the war Washington was fighting than his tactical ability. I will also add that Washington generally, although not always avoided inopportune battles. He very well could of tried to assault New York in 1779 or Boston in 1775, but he generally was good at figuring out when to fight and when to not fight.

Now was Washington an exceptional battlefield leader, no.

His Trenton campaign was truly exceptional, but when you examine the rest of the career what you find is this.

Washington was competent and knew the basics of how you should line up your force, how to conduct a siege, but often made poor decisions and lacked the creativity to see what the enemy was doing.

What Washington had a good knack for was picking ground. In Long Island, Harlem Heights, White Plains, Assunpink Creek, Brandywine, Monmouth, and Yorktown he was able to get the British to fight in a situation in which all things being equal Washington's troops held the better position. He also was a competent besieger. Washington picked out the right chokepoints and strategic positions that would be useful to control and did not give into the temptation of blowing it all on an assault, although he was often wanted to. His siege of Yorktown was also very well conducted, with parallel trench lines, preparatory bombardments, and a competently led surprise assault on the redoubts with good OPSEC and diversion.

Washington has a mixed record on responding to crisis and maintaining battlefield control. At Monmouth we see him reacting to the bad news about Lee's failed attack, quickly and decisively, throwing together a good defensive position and fighting the British to a draw. In other cases though he let communication between the various wings of his army break down (notably at Germantown and Long Island), and there was a loss of central control on the battlefield. This admittedly was hard to do, but Washington wasn't exceptional at it.

What Washington struggled with was anticipating vulnerabilities in his positions and being far too keen to divide up his army into detachments that couldn't support each other.

When the British did more or less what he expected they would do as in White Plains, Assunpink Creek and to a lesser extent at Trenton and Princeton, Washington's sound plans and dispositions did well. But Washington had a bad tendency to not scout the Battlefield very well and leave his flanks open. In Long Island, Washington let his whole line roll-up, because he didn't guard Jamaica Pass which I would go as far as to say was incompetent. At Brandywine, while a little more excusable he failed to anticipate that Howe might divide his force and cross the creek somewhere else, and therefore didn't properly monitor or guard the fords farther afield.

His worst quality by far was his poor decision to divide his army at very inopportune time. At New York he divided his force between Brooklyn and Manhattan against a numerically superior enemy, and allowed the British to quite easily cut of his lines of retreat had they pressed this advantage. He did the same in dooming Fort Washington. While holding Fort Washington was probably a bad idea to begin with, if he was going to place 3,000 men there, he needed to adequately support them. When he decided upon hearing Howe was moving on the fort to divide his army into three unsupporting detachments, to block any of Howe's objectives, when none of these detachments had a shot in hell of stopping Howe's main force, and he now had diluted his forces to such a degree that he could not challenge any thrust towards Fort Washington, this was pure folly. He also liked sending detachments on risky raids near the British main force that rarely panned out. Washington should have known better than to allow Arnold's attempt to march through the mostly roadless New York Wilderness starting in the fall to take Quebec. The raid on Staten Island, Wayne's attempt to attack the British baggage train the ended with the disaster of Paoli, and Washington's bizarre decision to have just Lee's division harass the retreating British at Monmouth all stand out in this regard.

None of this is to say he was a bad general. He managed to keep the army together, fed, trained, competently staffed with very little resources. He also was a good enough battlefield general that he came out with a fair few victories, but he was not an exceptional one.

From a previous thread

Thank you all for the detailed answers and messages. Will help a lot :).