The vortex of small fortunes: The Continental Army at Valley Forge, 1777-1778

Valley Forge, the site of the Continental Army\u27s 1777-1778 winter encampment, acquired in the nineteenth century a symbolic significance as an emblem of the patriotic endurance and sacrifice of American revolutionary soldiers. That symbolism has shaped and distorted interpretations of the episode by modern historians. In December of 1777 George Washington represented to the Continental Congress an army threatened by mutiny or even dissolution because of its ragged and undersupplied situation. Those representations shocked political leaders and spurred sustained, if recriminatory, cooperation between them and military officials to reform the army\u27s logistical systems and overall organization. Historians have drawn from them, and from similar evidence, a portrait of the army as a virtuous but disintegrating rabble, one transformed on the forge of adversity into an effective military instrument by mid-1778. By these accounts Valley Forge was literally the turning point of the Revolution. This study based on extensive unpublished documentation assembled by the National Park Service, presents a more complex portrait of this episode. The army fought effectively during the 1777 campaign. Indeed, its disruption by logistical problems itself shows the degree to which it had already evolved from a hardy collection of irregular units into a sophisticated but vulnerable army. Washington\u27s celebrated starve, dissolve, or disperse letters shocked Congress into recognizing this reality, and giving it the maintenance needed to operate reliably. Soldiers would not have willingly starved, and there is no evidence that the army came close to dissolving. Dispersal was contemplated, and would have involved quartering troops in interior Pennsylvania population centers. Congress\u27s cooperation with Washington avoided this politically undesirable alternative, and kept the army at Valley Forge, where its members suffered real privations. Friedrich Steuben\u27s legendary training of the regiments had important effects, but Valley Forge was neither the site not the story of the providential deliverance of a mob, and/or the creation of an army. Broad organizational reforms were more significant than the adoption of uniform European drilling techniques. Few if any problems were resolved at Valley Forge that would not need to be confronted again, in other guises, later in the Revolution