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Loretta,
The statement means that the grandson thought he fought on the Rebel side during the Revolutionary War. The Gen. Washington was of course Gen. George Washington. The grandson did not have any idea who your man's more immediate commanding officers were.
There were three tiers of military service:
--County Militia, formed for defense within the County; all free white able-bodied males aged roughly 16-60 (varies by time and place) were obligated to be available for militia duty; at a minimum, turning out for regular drills and nose-counting. Most militiamen did not see active duty, which could includ patrolling, guarding prisoners, or helping to escort supplies bound elsewhere. Very few militia units had active duty service outside the County.
Militia records do not survive for all times and places. transcripts of some have been published in books over the decades.
--State Troops, formed for defense within a State-to-be (e.g., province or colony). Quite a few State Regiments were drafted for service with Continental Army campaigns.
--Continental Army, formed for offense and defense anywhere, most Regiments recruited within a given colony.
Surviving rosters for Continental Troops and many State Regiments plus some militia units are available on microfilm within National Archives Micropublication 246, "Revolutionary War Rolls".
Here is a web site listing most of what units' rosters are within that microfilm group:
http://www.revwar75.com/ob/m246.htm
Individual microfilm rolls can be borrowed from the National Archives via your local library's inter-library loan service.
There is no really reliable every-name index, but footnote.com has indexed a series of index cards created by War Office Staff, extracts from these rolls, as "Compiled Service Records". If you find a name it will give what unit the person was in and you can then find the actual rosters in the #246 series. There are many transcribing errors plus name-spelling variants.
Ancestry.com also has images from #246; there is a sort of index showing what microfilm roll a person is listed in, but this index does not state what Regiment / Company the person was in. As you will see from the above linked list, many microfilm rolls have items from multiple Regiments or units on them.
Because of fires in State Libraries and in Washington, DC, many records from the Rev. War period do not survive.
Here is a site to find some somewhat outdated links to other internet sites organized by area:
http://www.militaryindexes.com/index.html
footnote.com and proQuest have Rev. War Service and Widows' pension files available. Indexes of pensioners have been published, and the books can be borrowed by inter-library loan; the published 1835 index (not including most widows- pensioners) is also on ancestry.com. Some local USGenWeb sites have posted transcripts from this publication.
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