American History Hit - Winter at Valley Forge: Washington's Darkest Hour?

Episode Date: October 4, 2026

After suffering defeat after defeat, George Washington’s battered army was forced to retreat into the forests of rural Pennsylvania, where they set up camp to wait out the winter. The encampment at Valley Forge would be their home for the next six months, during which thousands would endure freezing temperatures, hunger and disease...Our guest today is Prof. Rick Herrera, Senior Historian at the U.S. Army War College. He is the author of the award-winning 'Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778' and 'For Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775-1861.'Produced by Tomos Delargy. Edited by Aliza Dams. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. We're in rural Pennsylvania in December 1777. After more than two years of fighting, the Revolutionary War is at a crisis point for the Americans.

Earlier this fall, British forces occupied Philadelphia, forcing the Continental Congress there to flee. While to the north, there has been notable success at Saratoga. Here, George Washington's army has suffered a beating at Brandywine and then a depressing string of skirmishes gone wrong. And now, with winter again closing in, his son. soldiers must encamp on a desolate stretch of Pennsylvania countryside 20 miles west of Philadelphia. Valley Forge Over the next six months, thousands of people, men and women, will endure severe deprivations, freezing temperatures and disease, their crude huts, offering little in the way of protection

from the elements, while shortages of food, clothing, and supplies leave soldiers fighting a desperate battle simply to survive. At the center of it all, of course, is Washington himself, with his army exhausted and depleted, and his officers frustrated. Over the ensuing months, he will face perhaps the greatest test of his command, not to defeat the British, but to hold his army together long enough to fight another day. As the freeze sets in, the cause of American independence hangs in the balance. I'm Don Wildman, and you are listening to American History here, so glad you're here. There might be no more legendary phase of the American Revolution than the winter George Washington and the Continental Army spent at Valley Forge.

So to bring us back to its harsher reality, we are joined today by Dr. Ricardo Herrera. Dr. Herrera is Professor Emeritus at the U.S. Army War College and senior historian at the George Washington Leadership Institute. Long before he began teaching military leaders, he served on the ground as a U.S. Army armor and cavalry officer. His award-winning book, Feeding Washington's Army, surviving the Valley Forge winter of 1778, pulls the myth back of Valley Forge to reveal its more logical desperation of those days. Professor Herrera, Rick, welcome to American History Hill. Nice to have you here. It's great to be with you, Don. Thank you. Before we talk about what life was like at Valley Forge, let's discuss how the Patriots found themselves in this mess to begin with.

What's been happening prior to this? Give me some context on why these guys are in such dire straits. One of the constants for the Continental Army during the War for Independence was the, quite frankly, shambolic, staggering mess of a logistical system. The days that it worked well were few and far between, but quite often the system simply staggered under the restrictions put upon it by the Congress, but other things such as the worthlessness of continental currency, the unwillingness of some people to supply the army, and the, of course, the British going for the same supplies. At this point, the British, to take us back a few months, in August of 1777, the British Army landed at Head of Elk, Maryland. This was part of General Sir William Howe's larger plan to destroy

the Continental Army, to take the American capital at Philadelphia, and he hoped to bring about peace. This was part of a much larger strategy that involved a British column, moving southward from Canada that was intended to cut off New England and then launch raids into New England to devastate what the British frankly saw as the cancer of rebellion, the New Englanders. This in their minds was the place where it all started. And so if they can excise this problem that's emanating out of New England, it will cause the rest of the colonies to fall in line. And this is something of a fantasy. It's a repeat of what? what they had tried to do in 1776 and did not succeed in doing.

So the British land at Head of Elk, they've had a miserable voyage from New York, they've been hit by wretched storms, terrible weather, they've had to dump, I have no idea how many hundreds of horses overboard that have died during the voyage. Soldiers need to get their land legs back. They will land. and then as quickly as possible, how sets the army in motion? He's looking for a fight, an open field fight with George Washington and the Continental Army.

They begin opening skirmishes at Ironbound Hill. This is the only fight, by the way, that takes place in Delaware throughout the war. All three counties, it's only battle. And they will skirmish there, fall back on the 11th of September. September 1777, they will fight one of the largest land battles, not the largest, but one of the largest battles at Brandywine. Washington is defeated, but the amazing thing is that the Continental Army continues to hold together. And so these soldiers really see something in this cause. They see something in their leaders. And most of them stick with the fight. The army falls back.

There'll be a small non-engagement, if you will, at Paoli. Both sides line up, and then the heavens open up and soak their powder, and they stand staring at one another. Well, this isn't working out well, and they both fall back. Fast forward to December of 1777. The army is encamped at White Marsh, about 15 miles east of Valley Forge. Washington has had the army set up in a defensive position. Since October, he's been sending out letters to his generals and holding councils of war.

What do we do next? Do we wage a winter campaign or do we go into winter quarters to try and preserve the army? Washington uses these councils of war as a way not to practice war by democracy, but instead to test out ideas and to get the senior officers' ideas behind it and also to get a buy-in once his decision is finally made. He's rather a judicious leader. So early December set up on this ridge line running about, oh, three to four miles from southwest to northeast, the British Army decides, we're going to go out and meet Mr. Washington in battle.

It marches out. There's some skirmishing on the western side of the line, but not much else happens. Howe looks at the fortifications, and he uses his better judgment. He remembers what had happened at Bunker Hill. He had taken part in all three assaults against the American positions. Every officer who had accompanied him was either killed or wounded. This left an indelible mark on William Howe's mind. Moreover, it reinforced Howe's understanding that his most precious commodity was his soldier.

he could not afford to waste the lives of British redcoats. So Washington asks, what do we do now? Ultimately, it comes down to we should take winter quarters, preserve the army. Where do we go? And there are a variety of things that come up. Some officers advocate moving as far forward, if you will, to Philadelphia as a German town. So that's just within a few miles of the British Army. others advocate falling back into Pennsylvania's back country.

Ultimately, Washington decides on Valley Forge. About 17 miles north of Philadelphia, it sits on high ground, and it's an ideal place to establish a fortified encampment. Rick, why is Valley Forge chosen and when? I mean, my confusion, I think many people are confused. Why would you establish a winter encampment outside of a city that is occupied by your enemy. That seems like a deadly idea. Don, that is a great observation. Normally, 18th century armies like to go to winter quarters in towns, in cities if possible, something to provide shelter for the soldiers. You know, this wonderful, not contradiction, but something about the nature of

18th century armies, they're able to inflict and absorb incredible punishment, but they're also incredibly fragile. They're expensive to train. They're expensive to maintain. And so you've got to be careful with how you use them. Washington makes the decision of wintering at Valley Forge based on political and military strategy. It's close enough to Philadelphia to prevent the British Army from advancing deep into Pennsylvania. It's only 17 months. It's only 17 months. so it's about a day's March. It's far enough away that outposts that will be established can give warning and continental troops can fill in the fortifications.

They can man those fortifications. So it serves this purpose of denying the British their ability to reassert a crown power in Pennsylvania. It also allows Washington and the Continental Army to show the flag. It helps show that the Continental Congress through the Army is still around. It helps backstop Pennsylvania's very weak government. The Pennsylvania government, it sounded good on paper. In practice, it was really not all that good.

The governor had very little power. Well, the Quakers dropped out. That's the problem. Well, that and you had, it was incredibly radical for the age. And so you had the lower classes, if you will, lower economic classes exercising incredible political power. This is something the elites were not used to. And they didn't approve of it. When you go there today, you get still the feeling.

I mean, there's highways and everything around there, but you still feel how wide open this place is, right? That's the main sensibility. And that was certainly the case back then, wasn't it? Oh, exactly. And one thing that I would ask listeners to do is to think of that. Valley Forge as forward operating base Valley Forge. So people who paid attention to the news about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are probably familiar with the term forward operating base or FOB.

So think about this as FOB Valley Forge. It's a temporary fortified encampment from which to project military and political power, also to stockpile, when you can get them, supplies to take care of the army. When the army arrives there, Valley Forge is essentially this barren high ground, not a plateau, but this barren high ground with the Schuylkill River to the north and then flowing southward to ultimately feed into the Delaware. It's got Valley Creek on its western side, Mount Joy on the east side of Valley Creek, Mountain Misery on the west side.

You know, today you see built up areas, but you also see lots of trees. Get rid of all the trees in your vision. This was a village of iron forges, hence Valley Forge. And those trees that had not been cut down

to make iron, to smelt and all the other good things associated with iron foundries, those would be cut down by the Continental Army to put up huts when it arrives there around the 20th of December, 1777. So it is essentially this barren, cold, muddy landscape. It's anything but a joyous place. Washington knew that. He knew that this was not going to be a good hang, if you will. Many of our friends would be

exposed to all the miseries of the most insulting and wanton desperation, is his quote. I'm not sure when he said that, but I imagine he was early going. It was a good defensive position. as you said, gave the Americans a high ground advantage, unobstructed views, because there's nothing out there. They could see everything. And it was built in a place where they could get the means of an industrial base of sorts, right? Well, the forges had actually been destroyed by the British Army previously when it marched through. You know, it's iron forges.

These are obviously the materials of war. They're meant for the Americans. Destroy them. And they really did a good job on that. But its primary purpose, though, is to, show the flag and deny the British their ability to reassert control. Do they have any idea how bad it would get? Oh, boy, that's a difficult one to suss out.

The poor condition of the supply system was known. Early on when the Army marches in, there are a couple of accounts of captains breaking open barrels of preserved meat to feed the soldiers. When these captains open up the barrels and inspect the goods, they realize that the meat has rotted. It's unfit for human consumption. And you can only imagine how morale plummeted for some soldiers. One of the problems was the inability to get meat, fresh or preserved. In fact, Albujans Waldo, who's a surgeon with, I believe the second Connecticut Continentals,

records soldiers chanting, no meat, no meat, no meat, no soldier. And that's a form of protest. These guys were incredibly American. They would protest and assert what they believed as their rights. You know, today's army, that wouldn't go over too well. It's worth noting. I mean, it's exceptional, isn't it, for Washington to have chosen there to stay there, right? With his officers, you would have thought he would gone elsewhere.

I've always thought so. At some level, it makes sense. But Washington understood how vital it was to keep the army. close to the enemy. He understood that the army fulfilled a really important function and that its survival was paramount. So long as the Continental Army survived, so too did the struggle for independence. And I don't mean to romanticize it, but the army embodied the will of the revolutionary Americans through its presence. Its primary objective wasn't so much to win the war as to not lose it. So long as the army existed, so long as the army survived, so too did the revolution.

Well, those questions I ask are because I've always wondered this. You put an encampment 20 miles outside of Philly. Obviously, you're not going to be able to tap into Philly's resources because the British are there. But to the west of Valley Forger, a lot of farms. You know, this is a rural Pennsylvania with lots of agriculture out there. Of course, it's going into winter. That's going to restrict things right there. But you would have thought there would have been a lot more to eat than what they end up doing. And that's an interesting question to me. Let's take a short break. When we come back, we'll talk about what life was like for the inhabitants of Valley Forge during the bitter winter that is to come.

I'm back with Professor Ricardo Herrera, author of Feeding Washington's Army, surviving the Valley Forge winter of 1778. Rick, Washington's men have arrived and have started to set up shop at Valley Forge. What was it like in those days to set up such a camp? Did they know how many people they were going to have to accommodate there? Was there a design? And additionally, I will ask, they've been through tough winters before. They know how bad this can get.

Yeah. Washington sends out officers to lay out the campgrounds. And so one of the chief officers in helping design the fortifications was Brigitteur General Du Portailles. a French officer, and he brings his engineering skill to helping lay out the defenses. They've also got officers laying out the various division and brigade encampments. And so, for example, Pennsylvanians, you will occupy this ground. First brigade will take this area. Second brigade will take that area.

Set up your camps. You've got to have company streets. And so it's laid out, at least on paper, in a very regiment. style. It's called the art of castramatation. And this is something that most European armies would have understood. You're building a small city, right? They're building a city. They are. This is actually the fourth largest city in British North America. Something like 20,000 soldiers. So they are aware of the scale that they're on here, right? Absolutely. The army marches in. Their officers will lead them to where they're supposed to be encamped. Washington wants huts put up as quickly as possible.

So soldiers were putting up all sorts of things. Some huts were dug slightly into the ground for insulation because this is what soldiers had understood from their home state. Others were more above ground. It really depends. Yeah. They're about 14 to 16 feet in area, 18 inches of clay for insulation, as you say. Something that's lost in the retelling of the story is that there were a sizable number of women, living at Valley Forge. This was a surprise, right? More than 400 women. Why were they there? What were

they doing? Women were integral to any early modern army. We often hear them referred to as camp followers. In my mind, that's a kind of a derogatory term. They're actually the women of the army. And some of them were actually carried on the rolls, which meant that they could receive half-rations. They were also subject, by the way, to military discipline because they were now entered on the rolls. But women performed a lot of the scut work. So nursing, cleaning, cooking, sewing, you name it, fetching water. Many of them were married either through convenience sake, some formally, to soldiers, and they traveled with the army. The British Army has the same thing going on. The French Army, you name it. This is really just the nature of 18th century

soldiering. And so what it forms is, quite frankly, a community, an army community. You've got men, women, and you also have children tagging along with the army. Officers' wives were present, including at times Martha Washington, right? Absolutely. And again, this is all very much in the tradition of early modern soldiering, early modern officership. Senior officers' wives often will come out in winter with their husbands. And while this makes it much nicer for the generals, it also gives the soldiers, I think, an idea that their senior officers and their wives are committed to this cause. Because unlike senior officers in European armies, where the generals might take off

and head to a city to enjoy the pleasures of winter there, the generals are in camp with their men or they're nearby. Their wives are accompanying them, and they are undergoing the winter along with them. That's interesting. That is not what I was raised to think of it as, and that's, you know, we think of this as a lonely, desolate place

with men leaning on, you know, their muskets and trying to get through the night. But in fact, there's a whole world beginning, not a nice one, not a luxurious one. But in fact, let me read a few, pieces from a few diaries and memoirs that have come down the ages. Private Joseph Plum Martin quotes, we engaged in making our huts. We looked more like an army of ghosts than out-of-door industrious, honest men. I had no shoes to my feet, and my clothes were completely

torn to rags. Bottom line, the troops were inadequately closed for these freezing conditions by far. Absolutely. If you go through Washington's letters, he writes to several states governors, send clothing for the soldiers of your continental line. Pennsylvania and the Continental Congress, both governments, vote him near dictatorial power to seize whatever goods were needed for the army. He never goes that far. Washington walks a tightrope. He understands, I hear I am speaking about him in the present tense. He understood the close connection between personal independence and property rights and how one of the goals of the army was to try and gain the affection of the people. And if you couldn't get them to love you,

try not to make them hate you. So try to keep them at best indifferent. Ideally, the people will love you. But the problem is if you seize their property, they're going to end up hating you or there's a good chance of it. So Washington walks this tightrope, and so does his army. There's a constant struggle to try and get supplies, to feed, to clothes, to shoe, to arm, you name it. Speaking of shoes, Baron Johann de Calb, a foreign volunteer officer in the Army, wrote in a letter home on Christmas Day 1777, quote, It is very certain that half the army is almost naked in a great measure barefooted. Boots, the magic element of a well-equipped army in those days for sure, never mind blankets.

How much was the British occupation of Philadelphia cutting off supply lines that would have been there had they not been so close? Yeah, Philadelphia, you know, okay, it was the political capital of the United States. And that holds some emotional significance. but you can pack up papers and send Congress away. Philadelphia's real importance, in my estimation, was the fact that it was a port city. And so it sits there on the Delaware River. It can ship out and receive goods.

And so that certainly contributes to the difficulties of the Continental Army. The bigger piece is really simply the failure of the purchasing system and the inability of purchasing agents to get the goods they need. compound with that is a breakdown in the transportation system. It's difficult to get common men, local men to serve as wagoners to bring goods in. The pay offered by Congress is poor, and they have lives to take care of. They have families to feed. They're not going to waste their time working for a pittance.

Yeah, and in Philadelphia, I mean, part of the reasons the British were so happy there was it was a loyalist capital. You know, a lot of those Quakers and others in Philadelphia were siding with the British. Well, Philly was a really fascinating mix. You had Quakers, some of whom were loyal, some of whom just wanted to be left alone. They were referred to by both sides as the disaffected. There was a great difficulty by either side understanding how people could not choose sides. And so they were collectively lumped under the term the disaffected.

So you've got them. You've also got, though, an incredibly radical element that pushes, for example, Pennsylvania's unicameral legislature gives more power to the legislature, very little to the president of the state. So Philadelphia is a mix of really some of the most extreme elements within the American States. Interesting. One-sixth of Washington's men, roughly 2,000 people would perish during this six-month-long encampment from starvation, lack of hygiene, diseases like smallpox and scurvy. You can't overstate how miserable it really, really was.

I'm glad you brought up the numbers. The Continental Army suffered more casualties in this encampment than in any battle of the war. And you rightly point out disease. That's the major killer of soldiers in the 18th century. I'd read many years ago that the ratio was something like 8 to 1. So for every soldier who dies directly in battle or of wounds suffered in battle, another 8 would die from disease. There's no understanding of the germ theory of disease. Doctors were doing their best, but by our standards, it's incredibly primitive. Hygiene also was incredibly poor. If you were to approach Valley Forge, if the wind was just right, you would smell the camp. One of the constant problems for officers in the 18th century, and I'm talking really about

the Continental Army and the later United States Army up until the American Civil War was getting soldiers, particularly the volunteers, getting them to use the latrines. And soldiers would vacate their bowels in the trenches, fronting the fortifications. So these were giant toilets, and you wouldn't want to fall in one. So you can smell these things. There aren't many horses, thankfully, because they too would add to it. Yes, but lest we romanticized war in those days, oh, my Lord, does it stink? It's misery.

It's terrible. As Americans, we grow up. with this myth of constant snow. It's not really so much snow. You know, if you go to the winters in New Jersey, they're far harsher. The snow covers up doorways of soldiers' huts. What they're encountering at Valley Forge are the violent changes in weather brought about by the little ice age.

This is a period of global cooling. Climate change is real kids. It happens. And so the soldiers experience. this. And you read officers and soldiers' accounts. One day, the weather is fine. It's a good day for marching. It's not bad at all. The next day, the heavens open up, and it's pouring torrents. The streams overflow. Roads are flooded. What happens next? You get a freeze cycle. That causes the mud in those roads to spike up. That plays hell with soldiers' ankles, but also the suspension

systems of wagons, you sometimes get enough snow that in Philadelphia on at least two occasions, the British were able to run sleighs in the streets of Philadelphia. So you really have no idea what the weather is going to be like. I want to talk about George Washington. I mean, this is a man who deeply cares about his troops. He's beloved for that reason. To see this around him and understand what he's brought them into, it's got to be torture. You're right. He cares very much about the welfare of his soldiers, and he does everything in his power to take care of them. He implores the state's governments to send more clothing. Get the wagoners to bring in food. And as you pointed out earlier, these guys were surrounded by farmsteads. The great ugly irony

is that soldiers were starving amidst a land of plenty. There are some people. There are some cases where you have got several hundred barrels of flour, one or two days ride away from camp, but they're unaware of it. There is so little local knowledge, even from men who are from the area, it's staggering. It's bewildering. Washington makes himself very visible on purpose, you know, for morale reasons. He is out there amongst his people riding around or walking around, I suppose. How unusual is this for the highest ranking officer, let alone the commander in chief, to be doing that among his troops? Washington rides the lines every day. He inspects them. He knows that one of the elements of leadership is presence. And so he shows himself to his soldiers.

They can see that the boss is there suffering with them. Now, granted, he's living in the Potshouse, which is much nicer than their huts. But I think they understand that as a general, he needs to have something sturdier because he's got all the staff work going on, all the paperwork that he and his aides to camp and secretaries were generating. But he also importantly has his marquee,

basically his command tent, set up on the parade ground, on the eastern face of Mount Joy. And the soldiers can see him there, often working in it. And so he's a very visible presence. And he really understands how this affects the troops and how it's also his responsibility to them. Here's a letter that Washington sends to his state governors December 29th, 1777, in which he stated that without more men in supplies, the troops will never be in a situation to answer the public expectation and perform

the duties required of them. No pains, no efforts on the part of the state can be too great for this purpose. It is not easy to give you a just and accurate idea of the sufferings of the Army at large of the loss of the men on this account. I mean, this goes hand in ham with the famous depiction, however, apocryphal, of Washington kneeling and praying in the snow for the safety of his army at Valley Forge. It really is a reflection of how bad the conditions really were. How close to the line he got himself in questioning whether this was going to work. He implores Congress to act on its behalf. There's a congressional. delegation that arrives in camp to examine the condition of the army. There had been a previous one at White Marsh. One of the members, Elbridge Gary of Massachusetts, wrote to his friend John Adams that he was going to get this army in motion. And then he had a chance to see the poor condition of the army, that it was in no condition to take the field.

As a result, desertion is a huge challenge. I mean, people are just taking off, right? Dersersion was the bane of every 18th century army. It's something that officers and good NCOs were always keeping an eye out on, but it's one of the great problems. And something compounding it was the nature of enlistments of the Continental Army. It had taken Washington a couple of years for Congress to vote for three-year enlistments or enlistments for the duration of the war. he convinced the Continental Congress that, you know, patriotism only goes so far. You can't fill a man's belly with good feelings. A soldier cannot take care of his family with rah-rah silliness. They need to be paid. How do we take care of them? And so bounties are offered, enlistment bounties. If you stay for the duration of the war, large land warrants to take care of you and your family, if you survive, once the war is over. The ideals of the revolution have not been lost in this.

I mean, there is a, I don't want to paint a picture of complete hopelessness, but it is the environmental factors and the lack of food, never mind being freezing to the bone, is working against them. But after the break, Rick and I are going to take a look at what happens when the snow finally melts and spring arrives. We're back. Rick, let's talk about when Valley Forge finally gets a little. a little easier. You know, those South Jersey, southern Pennsylvania winters finally end,

and this misery begins to thaw. What is the condition of the Army by the end of winter? During the winter, the Army gets one of its foreign volunteers, the Baron de Stoibn. And I use because the Baron used that rather than the Thorn, the V-O-N. So out of respect to him, I will use his preference. So Stoibin arrives. He's looking for a job. He's looking for something in life. Washington takes a shine to him. Destroybin helps standardized drill in the army. He simplifies it.

And this is of monumental import. He brings in small groups of soldiers, trains them, sends them out. They in turn can train their own parent regiments, their parent brigades. At first, the soldiers look at him as scamps. Here he is, this fellow purported to be a Prussian lieutenant general. He had been a general in another German court, but that's another story. Stuyben shows up. He's got limited English.

In fact, for a good deal of the time, his English is limited to goddamn. And when he runs out of curses, he'll have an aide-de-camp swear for him. And the soldiers were incredibly amused by this, but they took him. seriously, because they could sniff out BS. These are soldiers who've been around a little bit. And so they take a shine to him. He's able to regularize drill. He introduces something called the property book, which is still beloved by soldiers and Marines today. So you've got to account for everything in writing and sign for it. When they get news of the French Alliance, in May, the army parades. And this is where Stoibin gets to strike.

his stuff. He gets to show the boss, look, General Washington, here's what I have helped create for you and for this struggle. The army parades. It fires a rolling volley of food-de-joa, a fire of joy, forgive my mangling French. The artillery fires off 13 rounds. They cheer his most Catholic majesty, Louis XVIth. The army parades. Washington is pleased. The The army then has to move across the river to Pauling's farm because Valley Forge is frankly polluted. It will then in May and finally march out completely in June in pursuit of the British Army as it evacuates Philadelphia.

Washington's looking for a fight, the new commander-in-chief of the British Army who's been told, you're about to lose upwards of 50% of your men because France has entered the war. and this colonial rebellion is now a proper European war, Clinton's looking for a fight before he heads back to New York. The tide has changed, not as dramatically as we'd like to believe. I mean, this is a very gradual thing. But the irony of Valley Forge being the darkness before the dawn is that just before that you had Saratoga, when the events happened that encouraged the French to follow Ben Franklin's lead over there in Paris and say, okay, why not? And let's do this thing.

And so that's what sort of changes this whole thing. And actually probably expands it over to Europe more than we think of it as becoming the global war it later develops into. But here, the morale shift that is, you know, the spring of 1778 is palpable. And so much of what happened in the latter part of Valley Forge had to do with that. Finally getting some discipline and Baran de Vestoybin, which is my first time I've ever said that in my life, shaping things up. There's a funny little note here. When he arrived in February 1778, Stuyven was unimpressed with the American soldiers, needless to say,

compared to their European counterparts. And his quote is, you say to a European soldier, do this and he doeth it. But I am obliged to say to an American, this is the reason why you ought to do that. And then he does it. That American mentality, that independence is a problem when you build an army, isn't it? You know, it's not a problem.

When I went through ROTC at UCLA over 40 years ago, one of the things that I learned, and I still recall it coming from Sergeant First Class Harry Zilkin, one of the things that you need to do as a lieutenant is tell your soldiers what you're going to do. You don't have to explain everything in great detail, but they will do all the better if they understand why they're doing it and what they're doing it for. So they're more knowledgeable, but you're also getting a buy-in from your troops. That makes for a much more powerful fighting instrument. And that was what he was encountering when he saw that trait is a sense of, I need to understand this in order to fully buy in. Absolutely. And often people confuse authority,

the ability to compel with leadership. Leadership is inspiring people. And so what Stoibin's learning about is that by explaining in some fashion, not everything, but in some fashion why he expects soldiers to do something, he's leading them. He's getting their willing desire to do it. I'm curious having written this book on the subject. Do you see Valley Forge more in the negative or in the podcast? positive. Where does it stand in the pantheon of the great revolution moments?

I think that Valley Forge demonstrates George Washington's burgeoning strategic acumen. Even though there are no battles that take place there, it demonstrates his grasp of strategy. You know, I consider him to be an average, a mediocre tactician on the best of days, I might give him a B. He's got maybe 10, perhaps 11 good days on the battlefield. As a strategist, somebody who understands the big picture, how to win a war, how not to lose a war. I give him an A. His British opponents, you know, General Howe, General Clinton, superb tactical commanders, neither one of them really understood strategy or how best to win this war. Washington got it and he demonstrated it and he grew as he spent time in his position

as commander-in-chief of the Continentals. And was the bonding that he shows or we like to think he showed in this time of Valley Forge beneficial in the long run? Did that pay off any differently than he'd already won his troops before that? This furthers the bonds of affection of loyalty. that the soldiers had to him, but to the army and to this airplane that they're building in flight called the United States. You know, it's an imperfect thing, and it's going to take a long while to build it. Fast forward to 1860, what does the United States do? It tears itself apart in a civil war. So I think untied states is perhaps a little more accurate.

I've never thought about this. What's the day when it's over? Do they pack up and say, okay, that was bad? Let's get out of here. How does this end? They will march out in May and last elements in June, trailing the British Army, and they leave behind the entrenchments, the fortifications, the open latrines, and leave a mess. The farmers will reoccupy their fields and return these to farming, a portion of

Valley Forge later on becomes a quarry in the 19th century. Hmm. And those fields are all fertilized in the wrong way, the worst possible way. It kind of happens again, doesn't it? The following winter, we get another one bad time. You know, this goes on. It's never easy in the cold weather months. Never, never at all.

And you get just the opposite in the Southern theater. Think about the heat, the humidity, the mosquitoes, the disease regime in the South. Well, that we will handle another day. Our guest today has been Dr. Ricardo Herrera. He is a professor of meritus of military history at the U.S. Army War College and author of the book we talked about, feeding Washington's Army, surviving the Valley Forge winter of 1778. Thank you so much, Rick. Great to have you on. An honor to meet you.

Hey, thanks so much, Don. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. From mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries,

don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, please share with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman.

So grateful for your support. Thanks so much.