American Revolution · December 1777–June 1778

What Happened at Valley Forge?

By the Aurelius editorial team · 3 min read · Updated 15 October 2026

Last time: Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga and France prepared to enter the war. But Washington's own army had just lost Philadelphia.

Two days before Christmas 1777, George Washington warned Congress that 2,898 of his men were unfit for duty “because they are bare foot and otherwise naked.” Unless something changed, he wrote, his army would have to “Starve—dissolve—or disperse.”

Winter quarters

While Gates was winning at Saratoga, Washington was losing. He was beaten at Brandywine in September 1777, the British occupied Philadelphia, and his counterattack at Germantown failed. On 19 December his army of about 12,000 marched into Valley Forge, some 18 miles north-west of the city: close enough to watch the British, far enough to avoid surprise.

The soldiers built their own town of more than 1,500 log huts. Washington's orders set the size, 14 feet by 16, for 12 men each, and offered twelve dollars to the squad in each regiment that finished first and best.

Hunger, not snow

The popular image is of soldiers freezing in deep snow. The winter was cold but not unusually severe; the real enemy was supply. The army's commissary system had broken down, the roads were mud, and many Pennsylvania farmers preferred to sell to the British, who paid in coin rather than in fast-falling Continental paper money.

Soldiers went days without meat or bread, and many lacked shoes, shirts and blankets. Disease did most of the killing: typhus, dysentery and pneumonia spread through the crowded huts. Between 1,700 and 2,000 men died that winter and spring without a battle being fought. Things improved after March 1778, when Nathanael Greene reluctantly became quartermaster general.

A Prussian drillmaster

In February 1778 a volunteer arrived who changed the army: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who had served on Frederick the Great's staff. His American sponsors had dressed up his record, presenting him as a Prussian general; in fact he had left the army as a captain, and his title of baron was shaky. But he knew how to train soldiers.

Each regiment drilled its own way, from British, French or Prussian manuals, or none at all. Steuben wrote a single, simplified drill in French, which aides, among them Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens, helped put into English. He trained a model company of about 100 men himself, swearing, his aides recalled, in several languages, then sent them to teach the rest.

Drill as survival

Steuben's lessons were practical. Men learned to march in compact columns, load and fire faster, and charge with the bayonet. He made officers drill their own men instead of leaving it to sergeants. In May Congress appointed him inspector general, and his “Blue Book” of regulations remained the army's manual for more than thirty years.

News of the French alliance reached camp in early May. On 6 May the army celebrated with a parade and a feu de joie, a rolling fire of muskets passed man by man down the lines. It was a display of the new discipline.

Tested at Monmouth

In June 1778 the British abandoned Philadelphia for New York. Washington's army left Valley Forge in pursuit and caught them at Monmouth Court House, New Jersey, on 28 June. After a muddled retreat by General Charles Lee, Continental regiments rallied and held against British regulars through a day of brutal heat. The battle was a draw, but it was fought by a different army from the one that had limped into Valley Forge.

The winter also secured Washington's position. Some officers and members of Congress had compared him unfavourably with Gates; by spring their grumbling, later called the Conway Cabal, had collapsed.

In their own words

“The army was now not only starved but naked; the greatest part were not only shirtless and barefoot, but destitute of all other clothing, especially blankets. I procured a small piece of raw cowhide and made myself a pair of moccasons, which kept my feet (while they lasted) from the frozen ground.”

Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier, 1830

Martin, a private from Connecticut, is describing the march into winter quarters in December 1777. He published his memoir anonymously more than fifty years later; the spelling “moccasons” is his.

Why it happened

• The loss of Philadelphia left the army needing winter quarters close enough to watch the British.
• The commissary system collapsed, and inflation made Continental money nearly worthless.
• Regiments trained by different manuals could not manoeuvre together.

What happened next

• A better drilled army held its own against British regulars at Monmouth in June 1778.
• Greene, toughened by the supply crisis, went on to command in the South, where Cornwallis's campaign began to unravel. Read the story →
• Washington's authority survived criticism and his army survived the winter intact. Read the story →

Why it still matters

Every September since 1958, New York's Steuben Parade has marched up Fifth Avenue, one of the largest German-American celebrations in the United States. It honours a drillmaster whose credentials were partly invented, a reminder that the army that won American independence was built with help from immigrants and foreign volunteers.

Connected stories

• Saratoga and the French Alliance: Gates's victory in New York came as Washington was losing Philadelphia, and it fed the criticism he faced that winter.
• The Trap at Yorktown: Steuben's drill and Greene's experience of supply both shaped the campaigns that ended at Yorktown.
• Marius, Sulla and the Army That Changed Rome: Marius turned Rome's citizen levies into a professional army loyal to its general; Steuben professionalised America's army while it stayed under Congress.

Sources

• Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier (1830)
• Wayne Bodle, The Valley Forge Winter: Civilians and Soldiers in War (2002)
• Paul Lockhart, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army (2008)
• Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (2010)

Images are credited under each picture. Paintings and photographs come from public collections via Wikimedia Commons; scenes with no surviving image are marked as illustrations.