Valley Forge

by Bob Drury

  Since succeeding the sickly John Hancock as the president of Congress, the elder Laurens had thrown himself into the job with the same zealous enterprise and industriousness that had carried his Huguenot forebears from France to the shores of the New World. And as his power became concentrated, so did his revolutionary fervor. Once a member of the moderate class who as late as 1775 had counseled caution about breaking away from England, he was now as insurrectionary as any fire-eating Bostonian. Though bedridden by a nearly crippling attack of gout, upon receiving Washington’s stark warning he roused himself to coax his fellow congressmen into supporting what he called the general’s “proper and sensible” case. He also argued that now that the question of the Continental Army’s winter encampment had been settled in the field, the logistics of a supply pipeline could and should be more easy.

  Laurens was a persuasive and powerful personage. Within days of his lobbying campaign, Thomas Wharton, the president of Pennsylvania’s supreme executive council in Lancaster—a position analogous to governorI—was besieged by communiqués from delegates in York calling the army’s situation “distressed beyond description.” One of Wharton’s fellow Pennsylvanians, Daniel Roberdeau of the Continental Congress, warned him that unless “flour and fat Cattle” were quickly gathered and shipped to Valley Forge, “the army will be reduced to the necessity of abandoning their post.” Roberdeau sagely neglected to mention Washington’s belittling of the state politicians, safely ensconced “in a comfortable room by a good fire side” while his troops slept under canopies of frost and snow.

  After the usual haggling over the formation of a task force dedicated to streamlining the military’s supply chain—three separate panels were established; each would rapidly dissolve amid regional acrimony and finger-pointing—the delegates finally enlisted the Board of War as a sort of cudgel to work in conjunction with the civil authorities.II One of the board’s first edicts was to direct the state legislators at Lancaster to immediately begin procuring the goods Washington required or face the official withdrawal of the Continental Army from the Philadelphia area. It was one thing for Wharton and his assembly to receive veiled threats from the military commander in the field. It was quite another to officially hear this from the body appointed by the Continental Congress to oversee the war effort. The board also warned Wharton that if his commissary officers could not rise to the challenge via bureaucratic channels already in place, their task should be accomplished even if it meant “giving umbrage” to the civilian population. This was a pointed reminder that forcible seizures of provisions would not be ruled out.

  Governor Wharton rightly considered both ultimatums a form of blackmail. He also recognized that he was left with little choice if the citizens of his state wanted troops to protect them. He therefore informed Congress that it would take at least several weeks to get a new procurement process and its delivery system up and running. There was food and clothing to be collected, wagons to be located, drivers to be hired. The question arose—would there be an army left to provision by the time this was all accomplished?

  Congress next drafted a letter to all Continental officers at Valley Forge requesting that they temporarily forgo the extra rations to which their rank entitled them in order to conserve the limited amount of food already on hand. In exchange for this forbearance, each officer would be issued cash payments commensurate with his sacrifice. The delegates also passed legislation to award every noncommissioned officer and enlisted man an immediate bonus of one month’s pay. Given the depleted national treasury, the fact that Congress was powerless to levy personal taxes, and the loosely confederated states’ intrinsic antipathy to nearly all forms of taxation, no one in York seriously expected this bill to be enacted. But, for now, it was hoped that the mere idea of an infusion of scrip into Valley Forge might dampen any mutinous inclinations. The delegates then took up Washington’s petition for a personal audience. As they palavered, a messenger from Valley Forge arrived on New Year’s Day.III

  This time the tone of Washington’s dispatch was disconcertingly conciliatory. He reported on the capture of the British brig by Gen. Smallwood’s Wilmington forces as well as unconfirmed rumors of another British vessel run aground and taken by New Jersey militiamen. Regarding the quartermaster general’s post vacated by Thomas Mifflin, he casually suggested that he had received warm reports about a Scottish-born colonel named Udney Hay, currently serving as the deputy quartermaster at Fort Ticonderoga. “I thought it my duty to endeavor to find out a Gentleman who I could venture to recommend,” he wrote in a matter-of-fact tone. “Either from my own particular knowledge or from that of others.”IV In a similarly modulated voice he very nearly apologized for not having the time to apply the same due diligence to researching officers capable of filling the empty position of adjutant general. The delegates were befuddled by this insouciance. What did it indicate?

  Congress aimed to find out. Within 10 days it had convened yet another fact-finding commission whose three members—Francis Dana of Massachusetts, John Reed of Pennsylvania, and Nathaniel Folsom of New Hampshire—were to accompany the members of the Board of War to Valley Forge under the vague aegis of adopting “such other measures as they shall judge necessary for introducing economy and promoting discipline and good morals in the army.” When Gates, Mifflin, and their compatriots again declined to travel, two more committee members were added—Virginia’s John Harvie and Gouverneur Morris of New York.

  Judging from their copious letters, none of these delegates appeared quite certain as to the point of their mission. Were they to be investigators? Advisers? An amalgamation of the two? How far did their executive powers extend? How wary should they be of injecting politics into the minutiae of day-to-day military comportment? None of these questions had an immediate answer. Common sense dictated that it would have been folly for the civil authorities to issue recommendations for any sort of military reorganization prior to an on-site inspection of the camp. Yet historians can be pardoned for wondering exactly what these committeemen hoped to accomplish with their enigmatic intent of “reducing battalions,” “reforming regiments,” and even restructuring the allocation of army chaplains.

  More confusingly, the delegates preparing to journey to Valley Forge were tethered to a political body in exile that at times put forward diametrically opposite opinions regarding their assignment. The New Jersey delegate John Witherspoon perceived the army’s “chief obstacle to success” as the bickering and “insubordination” among its officers. Yet Henry Laurens praised those same officers for their “humble Representation” and “valuable meritoriousness.” Either way one viewed the impasse, the much-needed reformation and reconstruction of the Continental Army were off to a confounding start.

  Meanwhile, the ensuing fortnight at Valley Forge was a harbinger of the harsh conditions to follow. Anthony Wayne, the blunt general from Chester, complained to his governor, Thomas Wharton, that a third of the army were without “Shoes, Stocking, or Shirts.” He received no response. Yet though the supplies pledged by the state of Pennsylvania had yet to appear, by mid-January the junior officers whom Washington had dispatched to New England were trickling back with a modicum of food, clothing, and all-important blankets. Connecticut’s contribution to the haul even roused the irascible Gen. Jedediah Huntington to write a congratulatory note to his father, a fellow Connecticut general and an active member of the Sons of Liberty—although the younger Huntington could not help appending his usual dose of gloom. “We live from Hand to Mouth,” he lamented, “and are like to do so, for all anything I see.” Huntington may have been a morose soul, but he was an acute observer. If anything, his prophecy did not do justice to the calamities that had befallen the camp.

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  By mid-January the frenetic early pace of cabin construction had ebbed—most of the eventual 2,000 or so huts had been raised—and an arctic front had settled over Valley Forge. With it the malaise that had incited the mood of the officers began
to spread into a more serious disquiet among the enlisted men. By this point there was even less make-work for Washington and his officers to assign. The construction of the bridge spanning the Schuylkill, under Gen. Sullivan’s management, had been halted, owing to both a lack of proper tools and a spreading silent protest against the camp’s living conditions that took the form of intermittent work stoppages. What other building tasks still remained were consigned to small work gangs under the direction of French engineers expanding the nearly three miles of slit trenches and excavating the five ravelin-like dirt-and-log redoubts placed at strategic points along the plateau. Even for these men, the freezing temperatures made the work slow, dangerous, and cheerless.

  The consequence was a raft of desertions, which multiplied daily up and down the line from Trenton to Wilmington. A year earlier, before the victories at Trenton and Princeton, a lack of both rations and pay had combined with the generally foul conditions to prompt as many as a quarter of Washington’s troops to slip away. Now the number of men simply vanishing from Valley Forge reached such proportions that Washington was forced to issue a series of General Orders requiring his regimental commanders to convene multiple daily roll calls—the best way to ensure that men abandoning the army could not get too far.

  Many of the Continental runaways set out for Philadelphia in hopes of securing food and clothing as prisoners of war. This was in and of itself almost incredible, considering the tales told by American escapees who had made their way back to Valley Forge. These men related shudder-inducing stories of trapping and roasting the rats infesting their cells, pulling up grass in the prison yard in order to eat the roots, and even plucking and swallowing the lice on their bodies. Some captives held on decrepit troopships set fire to the vessels to end their collective misery. And a few, driven mad by the dearth of food, had gnawed their own fingers to the knuckle.V

  As for clothes, those who agreed to fight for the Crown were indeed issued uniforms at first. But so many deserted back to the Continental side once they received shoes, stockings, pants, and shirts that Gen. Howe had taken to distributing the clothing only on board British ships. The Americans were then impressed to serve in theaters ranging from the Caribbean to the East Indies. Continental officers who deserted were also treated to a rude awakening. Considered by the enemy as men of bad character—in contrast to the sheeplike rabble who composed the rank and file—most had been thrown, as ballast, into the filthy holds of ships returning to England. They were now languishing in British dungeons.

  Despite the terrible tales, still the soldiers left. The absentees were not limited to the rank and file going over to the enemy. Upon his return to Valley Forge from Radnor, Lord Stirling found that one of his key brigade commanders, having been denied leave, had simply packed up his kit and disappeared with all of his unit’s scant supply of salt. Washington found this type of delinquency among his officer corps particularly nettlesome, and nearly each of his daily General Orders throughout January addressed the issue. “Notwithstanding the orders repeatedly given for calling the absent officers to camp,” began a typical example, “the Commander in Chief is informed, that many are still scattered about the Country, misspending their time, to the prejudice of the service, and injury of those officers who remain and attend their duty in Camp—He therefore directs, that the Brigadiers and officers commanding brigades forthwith make a strict enquiry, concerning all the officers absent from their brigades; and such as are absent without leave from proper authority, or having had such leave remain unnecessarily absent, are to be immediately notified to return to camp without delay on pain of being suspended or cashiered.”

  For those who persevered, stacked like cordwood in their rustic huts, life remained wretched. Much of the firewood was still so green that when the stove-lengths did manage to catch flame the cabins were inundated with black, choking smoke that left the camp in a permanent twilight. And though slit latrines known as “vaults” had been dug haphazardly about the living quarters, exhausted and hungry men were unlikely to be meticulous about their sanitary habits. Filth rapidly accumulated in and around the cabins, and disease spread unabated. Adding to the dread miasma, when a workhorse died—as close to 500 such horses would before the winter was over—it was quickly butchered for its meat while the carcass was left to rot where it lay.

  In the absence of horse meat, the troops subsisted for the most part on a crude mixture of flour and water they dubbed firecakes. Either these were baked in kettles or, more commonly, the moist globs were simply lumped onto a rock placed in the center of a campfire. Since there was no yeast or other leavening available, the resultant biscuit-like concoctions were dense; they were also tasteless, and inevitably enveloped in a layer of black ash. In the absence of beef, pork, and mutton, the dead weevils and maggots that had found their way into the flour barrels and thence into the firecakes were often a soldier’s only source of protein. On the rare occasions when meat was procured, the large amount of salt needed to preserve even the flesh of dead horses produced something that had to be soaked repeatedly in order to become remotely edible. Moreover, since animal fat is less prone to spoilage than muscle, most of the “meat” dispensed tasted more like chunks of salty lard.

  The ubiquitous Albigence Waldo describes weeping to the heartrending strains of a lonely violin being played in a nearby tent as he forced down yet another serving of firecakes and cold water. Once, when a scrawny cow became available, he reported himself and his unit feasting on “a bowl of beef soup—full of burnt leaves and dirt.”

  One suspects that Waldo, with his eye for graphic detail, would have made a fine photographer had the camera been invented but a few decades earlier. History is left instead with his plaintive journal entries. “There comes a Soldier, his bare feet are seen thro’ his worn out Shoes,” begins one. “His legs nearly naked from the tatter’d remains of an only pair of stockings, his Breeches not sufficient to cover his nakedness, his Shirt hanging in Strings, his hair dischevell’d, his face meagre; his whole appearance pictures a person forsaken and discouraged. He comes, and cries with an air of wretchedness & despair, I am Sick, my feet lame, my legs are sore, my body cover’d with this tormenting itch—my Cloaths are worn out, my Constitution is broken, my former Activity is exhausted by fatigue, hunger and &Cold. I fail fast I shall soon be no more!”

  Concludes the account: “I don’t know of any thing that vexes a man’s Soul more than hot smoke continually blowing into his Eyes, & when he attempts to avoid it, it is met by a cold piercing Wind.”

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  The tormenting itch Waldo describes refers to smallpox, the scourge of armies from Hannibal to Cortés. Washington himself was by now immune to the disease, having contracted and survived a mild case at the age of 19 when he accompanied his tubercular brother Lawrence to Barbados.VI Though the experience had left him with barely visible pocks on his body and face, he knew well how smallpox could not only devastate a standing army, but frighten away prospective recruits. At one point, Enoch Poor informed New Hampshire’s governor that close to half his brigade was down with the pox. And such was the fear of contagion that the pickets and guards posted about the camp’s perimeter were instructed to examine anyone entering for telltale signs of the “dimpled death.” As the virus can be transmitted by air, this precaution was for the most part in vain. Nonetheless, at the first sign of smallpox or any other communicable disease, ailing soldiers were evacuated and carried off in open carts through pelting rain, sleet, and snow to the area’s crude, filthy hospitals. If they survived the journey, they were deposited on the doorsteps of what the contrarian doctor Benjamin Rush aptly labeled “the sinks of human life in the army.”

  Even these soiled sinks were soon overflowing. The Continental Army had barely settled into Valley Forge before all existing medical centers on either side of the Schuylkill and as far away as New Jersey were overwhelmed. This, despite vociferous local protests, necessitated the seizure of village meetinghouses, church
es, barns, schoolhouses, and even some private residences in the predominantly religious communities to the west and south of the winter camp. The exact number of these unofficial infirmaries has never been recorded, although it surely ran into the scores if not the hundreds. In any case, they were not so much hospitals as abattoirs. Ostensibly supplied with sugar, milk, barley, mutton broth, and perhaps even a meager measure of medicinal port or Madeira, in reality they provided at best a warm bath and a scanty ration of rice while nurses, usually camp followers paid two dollars a month, watched and waited for the patients to die, as some 1,700 men did in these facilities over the winter of 1777–1778. The few who did recover often reported back to duty wrapped in blankets or even naked, as the doxies had stolen their clothes. Washington attempted to tighten security by stationing a field officer in each facility to act as a ward master. This did not have much effect on the pilfering; nor did the commander in chief’s numerous personal visits to raise the spirits of the ailing and dying men.

  By mid-January, Washington had seen enough. Horrified and exasperated by the filthy, overcrowded conditions of the general hospitals—it was not unusual for 20 patients to be packed into a room meant for a half dozen—he ordered the brigade commanders at Valley Forge to construct a series of what he termed “flying hospitals” to tend the less seriously ill. These structures, generally 15 feet by 25 feet, were erected at a distance of no less than 100 yards from each brigade’s headquarters, and were essentially a larger version of the hut lodgings—with two exceptions. No sod or dirt was to be used as chink, as Washington believed such chinking caused unhealthful dampness; and there were to be windows on two walls for aesthetic purposes. But no porthole view, no matter how glorious, could offset the eighteenth century’s primitive medical mores.