Six Facts You Didn’t Know About Valley Forge
By | January 2, 2023
George Washington meets with Marquis Lafayette at Valley Forge, where the Continental army suffered through the cold winter during the American Revolution. (Alonzo Chappel/Getty Images)
Our history books and fourth-grade history lessons tell us that George Washington and the Continental Army nearly perished during the winter of 1777-1778 while they were at their winter encampment at Valley Forge. Thankfully, they rallied to defeat the British, win the Revolutionary War, and establish the new United States of America. It’s an inspiring story that makes us feel a sense of national pride for a group of soldiers who were so committed to the American dream that they bravely endured terrible hardships to get the job done. However, much of what we learned in grade school has been embellished or simplified. Here are six facts you probably didn’t know about General George Washington and the Continental Army’s winter at Valley Forge.
It Was a HUGE Camp
Valley Forge, located in Pennsylvania less than 20 miles outside Philadelphia, housed so many people over the winter of 1777-1778 that it temporarily turned the sleepy little rural community into one of the most populous American cities. Roughly 12,000 soldiers camped there, along with hundreds of additional people, including more than 400 women. Most of the married officers, including George Washington, brought their wives with them to Valley Forge. Other women in the encampment worked as nurses or did the cooking and laundry. To accommodate all these people, about 2,000 huts were built. Each one was 14 feet by 16 feet and insulated with clay.
Log cabins, photographed in 1950, in the snow at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the winter headquarters of George Washington's Army from 1777 to 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images)
It Was Racially Integrated
About 20 percent of the population of colonial America was black, and nearly 99 percent of them were enslaved. Although the idea of arming slaves and asking them to fight on the side of the people who enslaved them was a controversial one, George Washington persuaded the Continental Congress to allow free men into the army. There were more than 750 black soldiers serving in the Continental Army and they, like their white counterparts, wintered at Valley Forge. The integrated encampment also included Native Americans including members of the Oneida and Tuscarora tribes. Washington used the Native Americans as scouts to spy on the British around Philadelphia. They also brought supplies – food and blankets – to Valley Forge.
Reports of Frigid Cold Were Exaggerated
Winter in Pennsylvania can be brutal, but the soldiers at Valley Forge got lucky. The winter of 1777-1778 was unusually mild. Our history books tend to paint a picture of the soldiers shivering in below-zero temperatures as a blizzard raged around them. In reality, temperatures only dipped below 15 degrees twice and for short periods of time. The rest of the time, the temperatures vacillated around the freezing point, which is cold, but not the type of cold that is typical of the area. George Washington noted that he would have preferred consistently colder temperatures to the cycle of freezing and thawing the men at the camp had to contend with. The ground was a slushy, muddy mess. Worse yet, when the temperatures warmed above freezing, the stench from the hundreds of dead horses that had been tossed into a shallow pit overwhelmed the camp.
America Revolution 1777 Congress and General George Washington review cold, hungry soldiers at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (Photo by Sipley/ClassicStock/Getty Images)
Unsanitary Conditions Led to Diseases
Although some of the soldiers at Valley Forge died from exposure to the elements, the real killer was the unsanitary living conditions at the camp, which were made worse by the roller coaster temperatures and that big pile of dead horses we just mentioned. The water supply to the camp was limited and easily contaminated. The rotting horses also contaminated the water and the air, and of course, there was no indoor plumbing. The outhouses were filthy, and the human waste also caused health problems. The people at Valley Forge faced a litany of diseases. The contaminated water led to outbreaks of typhoid and dysentery, and flu and pneumonia swept through the camp. Scabies and lice were also an issue.
Beginning in 1775, George Washington ordered all soldiers in the Continental Army to be inoculated against smallpox, however, there was a smallpox outbreak at Valley Forge. An investigation into the outbreak showed that some 3,000 men had not had their smallpox inoculation as required. Washington ordered another round of inoculations at Valley Forge.
More people died of disease at Valley Forge than from the cold, starvation, or injury. An estimated 1,700 people succumbed to illness at the camp.
Count Friedrich von Steuben of Prussia was the drillmaster at Valley Forge. (amrevpodcast.com)
Desertion Was at an All-Time High
The highest desertion rate during the Revolutionary War was the winter of 1777-1778 during the Continental Army’s winter encampment at Valley Forge. Dozens of soldiers per day slipped out of camp. Things got so bad that General Washington ordered his junior officers to do roll calls multiple times per day – and threatened his officers with dismissal if they failed to comply – so that missing men could be quickly tracked down and returned to camp before they had a chance to get too far away. Repeat deserters were even publicly hanged at Valley Forge, but that wasn’t enough to deter others. Of the roughly 12,000 soldiers who first entered Valley Forge in December 1777, only about 8,000 remained in the spring. George Washington wrote to the Continental Congress that the number of soldiers was greatly reduced due to “death and self-granted furloughs”.
Valley Forge Was Where the Continental Army Really Learned to Fight
Again, some of our history textbooks romanticize the idea of the Continental Army as rogue, free-wheeling minutemen. The American soldiers may have gotten the upper hand against the British in a few surprise attacks, especially early on in the war, but by the time the army was settling into Valley Forge, it was clear that their undisciplined ways and total disregard for conventional military tactics were the Continental Army’s greatest weakness. General Washington opted to use the time at Valley Forge to whip the troops into a well-oiled army. To do so, he relied on a volunteer soldier from Prussia, Count Friedrich von Steuben.
Von Steuben, with the support of Washington, conducted lengthy, daily drills and training with the Continental Army. He taught them how to march in linear formations to form battle lines. He worked with the men to reinforce the idea of every man holding their position until they were ordered to move. Prior to this, the Continental soldiers didn’t march. They walked in untidy groups or in a single-file line. They also had a habit of running for cover, scattering in all directions, in the face of a British onslaught. Under von Steuben’s tutelage, and with the assistance from other foreign-born men with previous European military training, including the Marquis de Lafayette, General Louis de Portail, Count Casimir Pulasky, and General Johann de Kalb, the Continental Army emerged from Valley Forge better prepared to defeat the British.
