Valley Forge: The Turning Point
by Diana Loski
(Library of Congress)
The Pennsylvania winter of early 2026 has been one of the coldest in the record books. It is reminiscent of another wretched winter, 248 years ago, at a place called Valley Forge. For many months, from mid-December 1777 through March of 1778, there was perpetual snow, frost, and bitter cold that fell upon the hapless soldiers of George Washington’s Continental Army. What made those infamous months of suffering so unconscionable was the lack of provisions, clothing, and care for those who left their families and comfort for the acute conditions of the American winter camp. Such an appalling lack of care for humanity defied all logic.
The deplorable conditions and seemingly apathetic indifference of the Continental Congress and surrounding civilians made Valley Forge a frigid hell on earth. The fact that General Washington and his army not only survived but emerged more determined and united than ever before writes one of the more miraculous pages of American history.
General Washington chose Valley Forge for his winter camp, because the location was the most logical choice. After his army’s loss at Brandywine in the fall of 1777, the British forces swept into Philadelphia and occupied that city for the remainder of the year and well into the next. Washington and his troops gained a tactical advantage at the Battle of Germantown in October, but with their lack of manpower were forced to withdraw. Vastly outnumbered, Washington and his army needed to insert themselves between Philadelphia and York – as the Continental Congress had recently fled to the central Pennsylvania town. The Continental Army needed to protect their government, weak and inefficient though it was.1
Valley Forge was located on reasonably high ground, making any movement from the British in Philadelphia toward them easily visible. The Schuylkill River, too, ambled nearby as a source of water. The men, however, were in a terrible, broken condition. Washington wrote to one of his commanders, “There are now in the army…four thousand men wanting blankets, near two thousand of them of which had never had one.” To another the general wrote, “To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes…and almost as often without provisions…marching through frost and snow…[they are] submitting to it without a murmur.”2
The lack of provisions exacerbated the already miserable state of the men. Farmers and businessmen in the area, who had food and supplies in abundance in many cases, chose to sell their wares to the British in Philadelphia. The British had money, the Continental Army did not. Soldiers were fighting the war without pay, as the Congress had none to pay them. One discouraged soldier wrote in February 1778, “Our case is almost desperate. America is in a deplorable condition…men engaged in service in these parts are naked, bare-footed, and destitute of money…there is two thirds of our Reg’t barefooted and bare backed, not a second shirt to put on nor breeches to cover their nakedness, and really dear Friend, this is the case with the greatest part of our Army…and this is not all, our wives, our Children and all that is dear to us at home, is a suffering…how can we stay here…when our families are in such a suffering condition?”3
And yet they did stay.
General Washington, agitated and disgusted with the lack of help to keep his men fed and clothed, ordered two of his trusted subordinates, General Anthony Wayne and Captain Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee, to ride out and commandeer food and provisions. The men returned with some success and beef was added to the ration of ash cakes (flour, water and ash) for the starving men.4
As the snow and freezing temperatures continued through March of 1778, the Schuylkill River froze solid. In late March, a thaw resulted in great morasses of mud, but the river, too, began to bubble and run again. An enormous influx of shad soon filled the river, which were so numerous that soldiers could easily capture them; it brought much of the starvation danger to an end.
Disease, more than starvation and cold, hastened many of the occupants of Valley Forge to Death’s door. Malnourished, in great clusters with one another, and with little to clothe them, the soldiers fell prey to smallpox, influenza, dysentery, and typhoid fever.
“There is now in our reg’t 104 that have not had the small pox,” one soldier wrote to his father. “I hear so many groans and [seem to] be so ill provided to relieve the distressed.” General Washington, having fallen ill with smallpox as a young man, was immune to the disease. Martha Washington, who came to Valley Forge in February 1778, had been inoculated at her husband’s insistence. Her presence in the camp soon ameliorated the dismal conditions. She nursed the sick, knitted socks and sewed shirts, visited the men with small tokens of food, and encouraged the wives of other commanders to join her. The influx of women soon lifted the spirits of the camp. One described Mrs. Washington as “a sociable, pretty kind of Woman”, another described her as “very agreeable” and “lively.” Martha worked to make the dreary camp more homelike for the homesick, ailing soldiers. Her duty to the men, young enough to be her sons, won her a place in their hearts for the rest of their lives. One grateful young officer recalled, “The other day I had as great an Honour confer’d upon me – I had the Honour to take a glass of wine with Gen. Washington and his Lady.”5
“I never in my life knew a woman so busy from early morning to late at night as was Lady Washington, providing comforts for the sick soldiers,” one eyewitness recalled. “Every fair day she might be seen, with a basket in hand…going among the huts seeking the keenest and most needy sufferer, and giving them all the comforts to them in her power.”6
It was a dreadful day early in the year 1778, when an American soldier managed to escape the British prison camp in Philadelphia, and reached Valley Forge. Young Jonathan Todd wrote to his father, “the man that made his escape…Informed that he died. He was so hungry as to Eat off the Ends of his fingers and began to knaw [sic] at his shoulders…will the World believe that Briton[s] are so abandoned to all humanity!”7
General Thomas Gage, the British commander in charge of American POWs, left the prisoners in ships on the Delaware River, in conditions that were so overcrowded the men could not sit or lie down. Very little food or water were given to them, and prisoner exchanges were rejected. “American did not possess a significant number of prisoners to relieve all their citizens,” John Marshall, the future Chief Justice and a soldier at Valley Forge, later wrote. Both civilian and military prisoners were crammed into the same unsanitary conditions. The prisoners were promised their freedom if they would switch their allegiance to Great Britain. To their credit, not a single soldier in those deplorable conditions took the offer. Marshall, for years afterward, remembered “these unfortunate men” and “the severity of their treatment.”8
In addition to the starvation, want, disease, and low morale, another threat from those General Washington had trusted was made known in the camp. Shortly after the Continental Army went into their winter camp, General Washington learned of “The Conway Cabal” – an attempt by some who intended to remove Washington from his command. The attempt to unseat the general was fomented by Thomas Conway, an Irish soldier who claimed to have fought with Frederick the Great in Prussia. He insisted on being given a high command, but Washington and his men found Conway insulting and unbearable – and the army had enough issues without adding him to the equation. The vengeful young officer then spread rumors that Horatio Gates, who had won the Battle of Saratoga, should replace Washington, and that the army no longer trusted their commander. To make matters even worse than General Gates going along, whom Washington had trusted, Thomas Mifflin, the Quartermaster General for the Army, also was in on the plot. It appears that he deliberately failed to procure the necessary provisions at Valley Forge to provoke a mutiny of the troops against their general.9
“Our enemies have already heard of and exult at this appearance of division,” a soldier wrote to Robert Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Congressional delegate. “Officers of the army…are exasperated to the highest degree at the thought of displacing him.” He added, “It hurts him more because he cannot take notice of it without publishing to the world that the spirit of faction begins to work among us.”10
Once the news broke throughout the camp, the men, publicly and in unison, voiced their support for General Washington. What Conway, Mifflin, and Gates had hoped to achieve behind the scenes was finally glaringly obvious. The Continental Congress quickly assured the general that he was the only one capable to lead the Continental Army. The insidious ones, now brought into the light, quickly backtracked. The danger of losing General Washington was forever quashed, and any mutinous spirit that may have pervaded the camp evaporated.11
During the war, many Europeans seeking adventure and hoping to aid the American cause came to General Washington, asking to join the fight. Among them was the young Marquis de Lafayette, whom Washington quickly considered the son he never had. Lafayette was in Albany, New York for much of the winter at Valley Forge, working diplomatically to get the French on the side of the American Revolution. He and Benjamin Franklin, who was in Paris at that time as an ambassador, worked to achieve this alliance – and succeeded in the early spring of 1778. Another great help was Baron von Steuben, a Prussian aristocrat, who showed up at Valley Forge in February, and soon taught military drills to the soldiers. By March of 1778, the soldiers began to learn the art of warfare. The baron was an essential addition, so that the ragged farmers and laborers of the former Colonies could face a top-notch European army.12
As the end of March 1778 approached, Valley Forge had indeed become a forge of human will and spirit. The men eagerly worked their formations, they shared clothes for those who had to report for guard duty, and they showed gratitude for their survival and for their general. “Joy seems to be seen in every countenance since the reverse of fortune,” one denizen wrote. When the Marquis de Lafayette returned to Valley Forge, it was with good news. France had agreed to ally themselves with the Americans. On April 30, 1778 the news was official, and was met with merriment and renewed hope.13
General Washington and his Continental soldiers remained at Valley Forge until June 1778. The six months of deprivation, hardship, and disease had molded the survivors and unified them in a way that could never be undone. The end of the war was still years away, but Valley Forge was the true turning point. Surviving the winter of 1777-1778 in a camp in eastern Pennsylvania provided a strengthening that no one could have anticipated.
Washington's Headquarters, Valley Forge
(Author photo)
Sources: Boyle, Joseph Lee. Writings from the Valley Forge Encampment of the Continental Army, Dec. 19, 1777-June 19, 1778. Vol. 1. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, Inc. 2000. Brady, Patricia. Martha Washington: An American Life. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. Flexner, James Thomas. George Washington: The Indispensable Man. New York: Signet Books, A Division of Penguin Books, 1984 (reprint, first published in 1969). Jackson, John W. Valley Forge: A Pinnacle of Courage. Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications, 1992. Marshall, John. The Life of George Washington. Special Edition for Schools. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000 (Originally published in 1838). Parry, Jay A. and Andrew M. Allison. The Real George Washington. Vol. 1. Washington, D.C.: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1991.
End Notes:
1. Parry, pp. 266-267. Brady, p. 118.
2. Parry, p. 269.
3. Boyle, p. 39.
4. Marshall, pp. 137-138. Jackson, p. 89. Henry Lee was the father of Robert E. Lee.
5. Boyle, pp. 31, 55. Flexner, p. 134. Brady, pp. 124, 215.
6. Parry, p. 272.
7. Boyle, p. 31.
8. Marshall, p. 143.
9. Flexner, pp. 113-116. Brady, pp. 116-17. Thomas Mifflin, who never mended his breach with General Washington, was otherwise in good standing. His part in the cabal was not widely known. He was the first governor of the State of Pennsylvania. Mifflin County is named for him.
10. Boyle, pp. 41-42.
11. Flexner, p. 116. Brady, p. 117.
12. Marshall, pp. 139-140. Flexner, pp. 118-119.
13. Parry, pp. 280-281. Boyle, p. 55.
