An Army of Skeletons - Valley Forge

Eighteen year old Private David Clopton left the comfort of his New Kent County, Virginia home and soon found himself embroiled in a trial, not by fire, but by bitter cold and inadequate rations, for which he received 6 2/3 dollars a month for pay and subsistence.. The Continental Army commanded by General George Washington first arrived at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania on December 19, 1777. They stayed there until June 19 1778. Men from each colony were at Valley Forge, and there were regiments from 11 of the 13 colonies. There soldiers lost their lives fighting the elements rather than the enemy. Gouverneur Morris said of a visit to Valley Forge that "An Army of skeletons appeared before our eyes, naked, starved, sick, discouraged." Seldom, if ever, had or would the prospects for America gaining its independence seem darker.

The series of events that led to the American Army spending the Winter at Valley Forge began in August 1777 when British forces under Sir William Howe landed at the upper end of Chesapeake Bay. Howe's goal was to take Philadelphia, at that time the American capital. Philadelphia was taken after the Americans were defeated at Brandywine Creek and Germantown. General Washington chose Valley Forge, which was located 18 miles northwest of Philadelphia, because it was defensible and put his troops in position to protect Congress, which had fled to York, Pennsylvania. Many of his men died of cold and starvation. Never were more than half of them fit for active service.

Valley Forge was named for an iron furnace on Valley Creek and was easily defensible as a result of the barriers formed by Mount Joy, Mount Misery, and the Schuylkill River. Locating there also kept British raiding and forging parties out of central Pennsylvania. Within days of arriving at Valley Forge the snow was six inches deep. The men's first job was to build huts. The next was to build fortifications. The huts were 14 by 16 feet on a side and housed and average of 12 men. Approximately 2,000 men were felled by such diseases as typhus, typhoid, dysentery, and pneumonia. The encampment was designed by the Marquis de Lafayette. Another Frenchman present at Valley Forge was Baron deKalb.

In April General Washington said that "To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie upon, without shoes...without a house or hut to cover them until those could be built, and submitting without a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience which, in my opinion, can scarcely be paralleled."

The Marquis de Lafayette noted "The patient endurance of both soldiers and officers was a miracle which each moment served to renew."

In his diary, Surgeon Albigence Waldo wrote "With what cheerfulness he meets his foes and encounters every hardship -- if barefoot -- he labours through the mud and cold with a song in his mouth extolling war and Washington -- if his food be bad--he eats it notwithstanding with seeming content, blesses God for a good stomach, and whistles it into indigestion."

A Prussian drillmaster, Baron Friedrich von Steuben, tirelessly drilled the Americans, building the men's confidence in the process. Making life better for the men was the fact that some women came with their husbands, and they cooked, washed clothes, cleaned the huts, and nursed the sick. A few of the soldiers were black and Indians. They ranged in age from 11 to 60.

The troops at Valley Forge largely subsisted on dried meat, salted meat, apples, pears, beans, peas, and corn. They entertained themselves with games of bowls played with cannon balls, cricket, and the ancestor of baseball, which was called base.

Things looked up when more troops and an increased amount of supplies began arriving. Then in the Spring the men learned that France had decided to come to the American's aid. The Army paraded on May 6, 1778 to celebrate the alliance with France. The day's activities organized by von Steuben included booming cannons and a running fire of muskets that passed up and down the double ranks of infantrymen.

"It having pleased the Almighty Ruler of the universe to defend the course of the United States, and finally raise up a powerful friend among the princes of the earth, to establish our Liberty and Independence upon a lasting foundation, it becomes us to set apart a day for gratefully acknowledging the Divine goodness, and celebrating the important event which we owe to His Divine interposition. The several brigades are to assemble for this purpose at nine o'clock tomorrow morning, when their chaplains will communicate the information contained in the postscript of the Pennsylvania Gazette of the 2nd instant, and offer up a thanksgiving and deliver a discourse suitable to the event. At half past ten o'clock a cannon will be fired which is to be a signal for the men to be under arms. The Brigade Inspectors will then inspect their dress and arms, and form the battalions according to the instructions given them, and announce to the commanding officers of the brigade that the battalions are formed. The commanders of brigades will then appoint the field officers to the battalions, after which each battalion will be ordered to load and ground their arms. At half past seven o'clock a second cannon will be fired as a signal for the march; upon which the several brigades will begin their march by wheeling to the right by platoons, and proceed by the nearest way to the left of their ground by the new position. This will be pointed out by the Brigade Inspectors. A third signal will then be given, on which there will be a discharge of thirteen cannon; after which a running fire of the infantry will begin on the left of the second line and continue to the right. Upon a signal given, the whole army will huzza, 'Long Live the King of France.' The artillery then begins again and fires thirteen rounds; this will be succeeded by a second general discharge of musketry, in running fire, and a huzza, 'Long Live the Friendly European Powers.' The last discharge of thirteen pieces of artillery will be given, followed by a general running and huzza, 'The American States.'"

The men and women of the Continental Army were ordinary men and women – like many of us, but these everyday men and women were thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Valley Forge National Historical Park commemorates more than the collective sacrifices and dedication of the Revolutionary War generation, it pays homage to the ability of everyday Americans to pull together and overcome adversity during extraordinary times.

Of all the places associated with the American War for Independence, perhaps none has come to symbolize perseverance and sacrifice more than Valley Forge. The hardships of the encampment claimed the lives of one in ten, nearly all from disease. Despite the privations suffered by the army at Valley Forge, Washington and his generals built a unified professional military organization that ultimately enabled the Continental Army to triumph over the British.

Perhaps one of Washington’s soldiers said it best when he described his reasons for not abandoning the field despite the harsh conditions: "We had engaged in the defense of our wounded country and . . . we were determined to persevere." Private Joseph Plumb Martin, 8th Connecticut regiment, December 1777.

The name of Valley Forge has come to stand, and rightly so, as a patriotic symbol of suffering, courage, and perseverance. The hard core of 6,000 Continentals who stayed with Washington during that bitter winter of 1777-78 indeed suffered much. Some men had no shoes, no pants, no blankets. Weeks passed when there was no meat and men were reduced to boiling their shoes and eating them. The wintry winds penetrated the tattered tents that were at first the only shelter.

The symbolism of Valley Forge should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the suffering was largely unnecessary. While the soldiers shivered and went hungry, food rotted and clothing lay unused in depots throughout the country. True, access to Valley Forge was difficult, but little determined effort was made to get supplies into the area. The supply and transport system broke down. In mid-1777, both the Quartermaster and Commissary Generals resigned along with numerous subordinate officials in both departments, mostly merchants who found private trade more lucrative. Congress, in refuge at York, Pennsylvania, and split into factions, found it difficult to find replacements. If there was not, as most historians now believe, an organized cabal seeking to replace Washington with Gates, there were many, both in and out of the Army, who were dissatisfied with the Commander in Chief, and much intrigue went on. Gates was made president of the new Board of War set up in 1777, and at least two of its members were enemies of Washington. In the administrative chaos at the height of the Valley Forge crisis, there was no functioning Quartermaster General at all.

Washington weathered the storm and the Continental Army was to emerge from Valley Forge a more effective force than before. With his advice, Congress instituted reforms in the Quartermaster and Commissary Departments that temporarily restored the effectiveness of both agencies. Washington's ablest subordinate, General Greene, reluctantly accepted the post of Quartermaster General. The Continental Army itself gained a new professional competence from the training given by the Prussian, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben.

Steuben appeared at Valley Forge in February 1778 arrayed in such martial splendor that one private thought he had seen Mars, the god of war, himself. He represented himself as a baron, a title he had acquired in the service of a small German state, and as a former lieutenant general on the staff of Frederick the Great though in reality he had been only a captain. The fraud was harmless, for Steuben had a broad knowledge of military affairs and his remarkable sense of the dramatic was combined with the common touch a true Prussian baron might well have lacked.

Washington had long sensed the need for uniform training and organization, and after a short trial he secured the appointment of Steuben as Inspector General in charge of a training program. Steuben carried out the program during the late winter and early spring of 1778, teaching the Continental Army a simplified but effective version of the drill formations and movements of European armies, proper care of equipment, and the use of the bayonet, a weapon in which British superiority had previously been marked. He attempted to consolidate the understrength regiments and companies and organized light infantry companies as the elite force of the Army. He constantly sought to impress upon the officers their responsibility for taking care of the men. Steuben never lost sight of the difference between the American citizen soldier and the European professional. He early noted that American soldiers had to be told why they did things before they would do them well, and he applied this philosophy in his training program. His trenchant good humor and vigorous profanity, almost the only English he knew, delighted the Continental soldiers and made the rigorous drill more palatable. After Valley Forge, Continentals would fight on equal terms with British Regulars in the open field.

A good summation of the situation at Valley Forge. There was certainly a marked lack of performance by those handling the supply and logistics for the Continental Army at that time. Locally there was certainly no shortage of provisions as the British were able to buy what they needed while they wintered in Philadelphia. Not only did the Continental Army's logistical system fail but Washington also lacked ready money that might have been used to produre supplies locally.

Von Steüben has been largely neglected by serious scholars of the American War of Independence. The last serious biography of any worth was Palmer's which was published almost 70 years ago. He was certainly instrumental in developing both better discipline and a uniform manual exercise (drill) which was essential to the linear tactics of the period. He fared less well as a commander in Virginia when he found himself opposed by both Arnold and Phillips. However, Steüben's command at that time was almost entirely composed of militia so it was probably not a fair test of his skills as a field commander.

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