Colin Ross, "Unser Amerika", Chapter 24

 24.

Valley Forge . . . the Valley of Resurrection

It is extremely instructive to repeat the marches from campaigns of earlier times with a modern means of transportation. Nothing better illustrates the almost inconceivable changes that technology has brought to warfare. From Philadelphia to Valley Forge today is an afternoon's drive in a car. One hundred and fifty years ago there were so many marching days between the two places that the British Army could take up winter quarters in one, the American in the other, without taking any notice of each other.

The roles were quite unequal, the British enjoying all the comforts in Philadelphia, which was then the capital of the United States. They had warm quarters, excellent food and, moreover, every entertainment. One ball chased the other. It seemed as if the whole town was made up of loyal people, and the farmers in the vicinity and the farmers in the area had no hesitation in supplying the British army with everything it needed in exchange for the pure British gold.

In contrast, the Americans at Valley Forge suffered from a shortage of literally everything. Valley Forge is merely a name, a landscape. Even today there is no place there, no shelter of any kind. It is a broad valley, fringed by wooded heights. When Washington retreated there, his troops found nothing for shelter against the winter blight that was soon to come but the leafy canopy of tall trees and the underbrush that provided warming bivouac fires. It took weeks to erect enough huts to house the entire army, and in the meantime numerous soldiers had frozen their feet and hands to death.

It was a miserable bunch, half frozen and starving, that Steuben found at Valley Forge. Many soldiers did not own boots. Bloodstains in the snow had marked their march to winter camp. Torn rags in place of undergarments, no blankets, no hats, no shirts, no tent, no supplies, lack of everything. Desertion and disease had brought Washington's army, originally seventeen thousand strong, down to the paltry number of five thousand. Even of these, barely half were fit for field duty. Washington wrote to Congress on December 23 that he had in camp two thousand eight hundred and ninety-one men "unfit for duty, being barefoot or otherwise unclothed." In Philadelphia, however, General Howe was in quarters with a strong army that lacked for nothing.

This was almost immediately after the glorious victory at Saratoga, after Burgoyne's entire army had surrendered, after the conclusion of the alliance with France, after the war was thought to be over in the thirteen colonies. But that was precisely the reason for the sudden setback. After Saratoga, the militia had simply marched home, most of them having signed up for only a few months anyway. That was the cancer of the American Army in the first place, that there was no tight organization. Company, regiment, division were empty words. They might number a few thousand, a few hundred, or not even a dozen men. Those who wanted to go home moved away, taking their weapons and baggage with them. In addition, Congress was not keeping up with the war supplies. Moreover, unprecedented corruption had broken out. A web of graft and jealousy was spun. Even Washington was implicated. It was a hopeless and desperate situation. After the northern campaign had gone so brilliantly through the heroism of the German peasants at Oriskany, everything had gone wrong in the south. General Howe, who should have sailed up the Hudson to support Burgoyne, had deserted him. This made him complicit in the disaster at Saratoga, but in return he held the Union capital. Washington had tried in vain to protect Philadelphia. He had been defeated first at Brandywine, then at Germantown by Howe, and had retreated with the rest of his army to Valley Forge. Why the British general did not pursue him and destroy him there is utterly incomprehensible to a soldier of today. But at that time the principle "in bad weather the battle takes place in the hall" still applied. Even in the murderous encounter at Oriskany, the opponents separated for a while when a torrential rain began, and sought shelter from the storm under the trees. As soon as snow and ice covered the fields, they moved into winter quarters, that was the standing rule. 

Of course, Howe may have had another reason. He wanted to wait for the reinforcements that were on their way from Europe. The British government had recruited, or rather bought up, new strong contingents in Hesse and Brunswick. According to old English custom, the English general preferred to send the foreign mercenaries into the fire rather than his own country's children. The German auxiliaries should have been there long ago, and they would have been had Frederick II not forbidden their passage through Prussia. Thus the great king helped the Americans, albeit indirectly, to survive one of the most critical phases of the campaign.

Howe, who was waiting for the Hessians, would also like to believe that the frostbitten and starving mob at Valley Forge would disband of its own accord anyway, under the influence of the winter inclemencies, and desert without a remnant, so that he could spare himself all bloodshed. Perhaps it would have turned out that way had not General von Steuben arrived at Washington's winter camp on February 23, 1778.

It was an exceedingly difficult, almost superhuman task that the Prussian general took upon himself. The people he found were not only physically in the worst condition imaginable, but they were also most unwilling to submit to any discipline. In itself, it was not the worst material that had endured so long in the winter camp, it was the frontiersmen, the sharpshooters from the forest battles. They naturally felt superior to the foreign officer on their own turf. They were a similar force to the Boers, each one an excellent marksman and fighter, but incapable of fighting in large formations, and so in the long run hopelessly inferior to a disciplined opponent.

It took unusual tact not to alienate the old soldiers from the start. Steuben proceeded as deftly as he did swiftly. He dropped the usual tedious and tiresome drill of the single man and began at once with marching drills and movements. Both of these were especially important; for the American militia generally knew only one marching formation, that in single file, one behind the other, which they had adopted from the Indians.

Then Steuben proceeded to instruct them in the use of the bayonet. The farmers and backwoodsmen knew how to handle their rifles, but the bayonet seemed to them to be good at best for frying a piece of meat on it. Steuben was not afraid to pick up the gun himself and demonstrate all the grips to his men. This was something unheard of at that time, because recruit drill and drills were considered unworthy of an officer; at best a sergeant was good enough for that. A large part of the officers had the opinion that he only had the duty to stand at the head of his men in battle, but did not have to worry about anything else. It was therefore a real sensation that the Inspector General, to whom Steuben had been appointed, personally took care of the smallest details, that he checked the presence of every man and, in the case of deployments, checked the equipment piece by piece.

But Steuben had no choice but to do every little thing himself at the beginning. He had to train his training officers first. He began by taking on a hundred and twenty selected people, who formed the basis of a kind of private military school. He personally drilled them day after day, morning and afternoon. Within a fortnight, he had them performing all the exercises and movements flawlessly. Those trained in this way served as instructors from then on. Steuben had to act quickly; he did not have much time. In less than a month he could present the commander-in-chief with a full division that he had disciplined and drilled in the new forms.

Americans of today like to call Steuben, with a slight disdain, the drillmaster of the revolutionary army. That is what he was, and that was certainly the task that cost the general, who had fought the entire Seven Years' War and served on the staff of the great king, the most. But that he held the greatness not to think himself too good for it, to demonstrate every movement himself, that later led the American regiments to victory. An ordinary drill master would never have been able to do that. But Steuben was more than a drillmaster. He was a soldier of genius. Had he been only the former, he would have failed as well as his predecessors who had attempted the same task. General Steuben knew from the start how to adapt himself to American conditions. He knew at once in which cases he could apply the European regulations and in which others. Both the soldier material and the terrain required new forms. Thus he was not afraid to learn from militia and Indian practices. He became the creator of the light infantry, which fought in broken order, in contrast to the linear tactics previously used in European armies. This form of combat was later adopted by Europe from America, and even Frederick the Great introduced it into his army.

Steuben quickly gained the trust of his subordinates. His tireless zeal for work, which made him get up at three o'clock in the morning every day, infected the entire army. From early morning until late at night they drilled, not unwillingly, but with enthusiasm, because the last man was convinced of the expediency and necessity of the exercises.

Valley Forge, which a short time ago seemed to become a valley of despair, became the valley of resurrection for the American Army.

The fruits were not long in coming. In the first battles after the winter encampment was lifted, the regiments drilled by Steuben showed what they had learned.