Winter at Valley Forge
Having lost Philadelphia to the British, the Continental Army endured hunger and disease at Valley Forge through the winter and emerged, drilled by the Prussian veteran Steuben, as a tougher army.
John Ward Dunsmore · Public domain · Source
Beaten at Brandywine in September 1777, the Continental Army gave up the capital, Philadelphia, to the British. On 19 December some 12,000 men marched into Valley Forge northwest of the city, built log huts and settled in for the winter. Clothing, shoes and food ran short, and nearly 2,000 died of diseases such as dysentery and typhus.
In February 1778 the former Prussian officer Steuben arrived and taught the troops a single drill for marching and the bayonet, and Lafayette stood at Washington’s side. When the British left Philadelphia for New York in June, the army that marched out of Valley Forge was changed enough to stand up to the regulars at Monmouth.
