Transcript

9.25.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and to
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day I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated September
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October twenty twenty five. As a reminder, Radio Eye is
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a reading service intended for people who are blind or
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have other disabilities that make it difficult to reprinted material.
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Please join me now for part one of the underappreciated
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true story of the brash Prussian military officer who whipped
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the Patriots into shape at Valley Forge. Most Americans think
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of George Washington's winter encampment as brutal and deadly, but
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Friedrich von Steuben, an out of work military veteran from Europe,
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turned it into a fruitful training ground. By Richard Bell,
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most American school children have heard the story of Valley
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Forge in broad outline. It goes like this. By the
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winter of seventeen seventy seven, the Revolutionary War was in
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its third year. That fall, the Continental Army had lost
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one battle after another, and the British seemed ascendant. On
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December nineteenth, thousands of bedraggled and undisciplined Patriot soldiers tramped
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deep in the Pennsylvania wilderness, tracking bloody footprints. A never
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ending blizzard of snow, ice and rain left these men
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starving and shivering in their tents. Then something miraculous happened.
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The straggling army, displaying grit and perseverance during the merciless winter,
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was whipped into shape drilled in the art of war.
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The soldiers who marched out of that crucible and June
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were transformed into a formidable fighting force. Within weeks of
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leaving Valley Forge. This model army would deploy its new
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found skills at the Battle of Monmouth, turning the course
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of the war. From that point forward, George Washington and
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the Continental Army would never look back. Much of this
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story turns out to be met, of course, the sort
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of irresistible comforting be thought that seems to stick to
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the American Revolution like glue. More surprising, perhaps, is that
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some of it turns out to be true, or something
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close to it. The war was indeed at a perilous
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point for the Patriots by the winter of seventeen seventy seven.
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After Redcoat victories at Brandywine on September eleventh and Paoli
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on September twentieth, Sir William Howe, the British Commander, had
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led his Grand Army to winter quarters in Philadelphia, the
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rebel capital. Their arrival forced the Continental Congress to flee
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the city and seek safety in the town of York,
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one hundred miles west. In October, Washington attacked the Red
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Coats at Germantown, trying to dislodge them from Philadelphia, but
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they defeated him decisively. Since then, the Continental Army had
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been bevoacking at White Marsh, north of the city. As
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Washington decided what to do next in camp for the
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winter or take the fight to the British. On November thirtieth,
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he made the call the Continental Army would find its
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own quarters for the winter. His men were in no
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state to mount an offensive. They needed time to rest
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and recover. Washington himself heeded time to secure reinforcements in resupply,
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and the American envoys in Europe needed more time to
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secure critical military alliances with the continent's great powers. Ten
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days later, Washington announced that the Army would encamp at
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Valley Forge, eighteen miles northwest of Philadelphia. It seemed the
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best option available, close enough to the city to keep
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the British bottled up, but far enough away to see
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the Red coats coming if they tried to attack. There
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was also decent road access to New York and New Jersey,
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and to the mountains of western Pennsylvania. If the army
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needed to beat a hasty retreat, the Schulkill River, which
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abutted the site, would provide fresh water, and there were
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thousands of acres of rich farmland within foraging distance. On
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the morning of December eleventh, seventeen seventy seven, the Continental
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Army marched out of White Marsh. It took these eleven
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thousand soldiers and several hundred women and other camp followers
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nearly nine days to cover the thirteen miles to Valley Forge.
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Their progress slowed by rutted roads choked with mud. The
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site they found was not what they expected. The two
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thousand acre triangle shaped parcel was far from being a
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provisioner's paradise. In fact, the whole area had already been
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stripped bare by British foraging parties that fall. Still, the
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men and women in Washington's column were used to deprivation.
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They had already endured long months of poor supplies. It
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is true that morale was low and desertions were rising,
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but the soldiers were tough and seasoned. After each defeat
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that fall, they had gathered themselves up and gone back
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from more. They did not want for courage. The only
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thing that they lacked, apart from regular rations and regular pay,
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was the discipline and skill that comes with practice. When
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the army arrived at Valley Forge, the soldiers set to
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work constructing earth floored log huts sturdy enough to keep
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out the weather. Washington wrote a memo detailing the dimensions
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and instructed them to lay out the huts in a
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grid pattern that resembled downtown Philadelphia. Soon the camp was
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humming with activity. Visiting Valley Forge that December, Thomas Payne
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said the soldiers appeared to me like a family of beavers,
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every one busy, some carrying logs, others mud, and the
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rest fastening them all together. Within six weeks, the men
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built two thousand log huts. According to Continental Major William Hull,
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in viewing it from the hills, it had the appearance
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of a little city. Indeed, measured by population, Valley Forge
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was now the fourth largest city in the Rebel colonies.
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Up close, however, it was a ramshackle place. Most soldiers
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had not built wooden structures of this size before, and
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it showed. Archaeological evidence has revealed that hut placement often
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deviated from the grid plan, and a shortage of construction
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tools and materials frequently forced the builders to improvise. Some
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huts had wooden boards for roofs, others had tent cloths
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or turf. When the rain came, those roofs leaked. Though
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the weather was not nearly as bad as mythology has
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made out as winters in eastern Pennsylvania go. In fact,
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this one was quite mild. There were just two serious
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cold snaps in which the mercury fell below ten degrees fahrenheit,
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one at the end of December, the other in early March.
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There were rain showers in January, but only four days
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of snow over the course of the entire winter. Generally,
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temperatures were bearable, averaging around thirty two degrees first thing
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in the morning in December. By the end of January,
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bluebirds were chirping in the trees. Spring arrived in the
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second week of March. We know of no officer, soldier,
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or any one else who even came close to freezing
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to death. The real killer at Valley Forge was disease
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enlisted men were packed in bunks twelve to a hut
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and slept on straw mats infested with bugs and fleas.
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Ventilation was poor. Washington mounted a small pox inoculation campaign,
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but other diseases were harder to protect against. As the
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weather warmed, soldiers contracted dysentery and typhus. On January twenty fourth,
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Colonel Israel Angel of Rhode Island wrote in his diary,
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three more of my regiment died last night and this
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day were decently interred. It is a very alarming time
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amongst us, as the troops are very sickly and die fast.
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All told, nearly two thousand Continental Army soldiers succumbed to
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disease at Valley Forge, more than had died in any
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single battle of the war so far. Every other adversity
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paled in comparison, but those other miseries were no less real. Blankets, clothing,
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and shoes were in short supply. Contrary to mythology, no
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one literally went naked at Valley Forge, but British naval
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blockades held up delivery of uniforms ordered from France and
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the French Caribbean, and most soldiers went without the garments
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that would have kept them dry and warm. Some wandered
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the camp in little more than hunting frocks and underwear.
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Others cut up tents to refashion them into shirts, breeches,
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or foot wrappings. During cold spells, many men used tent
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canvasses as blankets. When it was their turn for guard duty,
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Soldiers would try to cobble together a full ensemble from
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whatever items their bunk mates could lend. Still, it was
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not always enough. When one century could not find a
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single pair of shoes in his hut, he stood on
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his hat during his shift to keep his bare feet
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off the cold ground. Food, too, was often dreadfully sparse.
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Army regulations entitled Continental soldiers to daily provisions of a
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pound of beef or fish, a pint of milk, and
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a quart of beer, along with regular rations of peas, beans, rice,
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and corn meal. In practice, however, the menu was meager.
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Not only had the hinterland been picked over, but local
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farmers also preferred to sell the food they produced at
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market in Philadelphia, where the British paid them handsomely, and
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requisitioning provisions by force would only make the armies relations
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with civilians worse. As food supplies at Valley Forge dwindled,
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malnutri spread. The men went for days, sometimes weeks, with
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nothing to sustain them except rations of firecake, a thin,
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tasteless patty of flour and water baked over the camp fire.
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By February and desperation, Washington called up supplies of salted
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meat from storehouses as far afield as Virginia, drawing down
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stockpiles intended to see the army through the summer fighting season.
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He also dispatched large scale foraging teams ever deeper into
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the Pennsylvania countryside. Those teams succeeded in intercepting British forage
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parties and stealing their loot. They also relieved many farmers
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of the provisions they were hauling toward Philadelphia. Sometimes they
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shot those they caught dealing with the enemy, leaving their
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bodies by the side of the road as a warning
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to others. The inhabitants cry out and beset me from
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all quarters, wrote Continental Major General Nathaniel Greene, after another
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brutalizing expedition, But like Pharaoh, I hardened my heart and
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foraged the country very bare. On February twenty third, seventeen
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seventy eight, in the depths of that winter of discontent,
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a stranger rode into camp. His name was Friedrich Wilhelm
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Lodolph Gerhart Augustine von Steuben, and he had come a
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very long way. The Baron, as he would come to
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be known in America, had been born and raised in Prussia,
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one of the German states. Prussia was not huge, but
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it was mighty, and it was home to the finest
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military in Europe. Its Royal Prussian Army recruited its officers
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from the lesser nobility of the kingdom's ruling class, one
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of whom was Sdeuben. He joined the officer Corps as
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a teenager and rose steadily over the next seventeen years,
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reaching the rank of captain. It was a formidable edition.
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Steuben learned soldiering from the best fighters in the world.
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During the Seven Years War, he led an infantry company
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into combat at Prague and at Kunersdorf, and was wounded
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twice in the line of duty. He also trained new recruits,
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drilling them to fire and reload every eleven seconds, faster
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than any other army in Europe, and teaching them how
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to deliver a thunder of musket fire before charging forward.
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In battle. Young Friedrich von Steuben was popular with his
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fellow officers and with the enlisted men under his command.
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He was also notably refined and cosmopolitan. He preferred the
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theater to brothels, and he read voraciously, devouring military science texts,
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classical literature, and everything in between. His favorite book, he said,
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was Don Quixote. While still a teenager, he had mastered French,
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the language of the Prussian court. To all all appearances, gifted, industrious,
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and ambitious, young Steuben seemed on his way to a
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glittering career at the right hand of Prussia's warrior King
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Friedrich the Great. It must have been agony, then, when
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he was forced out of the Prussian army unexpectedly at
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age thirty three. Historians are divided as to why it happened.
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Some say it was a personal matter, others that it
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was simply downsizing and Steuben never talked about it. But
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the ejection left him desperate. Despite his lineage, he had
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no money and no land to fall back on. He
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left Prussia embittered and drifted around Europe for a while,
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trying to offer his services as a military consultant. Steuben
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eventually found work as a mid level courtier for another
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German prince, who bestowed upon him the honorific of Freheir
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Baron as a gift. Still, he longed to return to
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military duty, and in seventeen seventy five he resigned his
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post at court, only to be turned away by both
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the French Army and the British East India Company Army.
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But in seventeen seventy seven, while staying in Strasbourg, his
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luck finally turned when he struck up a conversation with
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the Man and the Pay of the Patriots. Apparently, the
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rebels in America were looking to hire as many war
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tested European officers as they could find. Stouben raced to
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Paris to meet Benjamin Franklin and his fellow American envoy
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Silas Dean. The pair had indeed put out a call
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for talented European officers to join the Continental Army, but
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they had been inundated with more job seekers than they expected.
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I am well nigh harassed to death with applications of
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officers to go out to America, Dean told Congress a
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few months earlier. Some of their new hires were turning
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out to be valuable assets. Among them the Marquis de Lafayette,
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Johann DeKalb, Casimir Pulaski, Tatius Kishushko, and Louis du Portailles.
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Yet the pair found it hard to separate the wheat
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from the chaff, and many candidates turned out to be
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flops or frauds. By the time Franklin and Dean met
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Steuben in Franklin's rooms in June seventeen seventy seven, they
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were leery of making another bad hiring decision. No wonder
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then that Steuben's interview did not go well. Dean asked
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the questions and seemed interested, even impressed, but Franklin sat
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and passive, looking bored. He cut the meeting short and
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sent Shouben on his way, telling him they had no
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job for him. Rejected by the Patriots, Shuben rushed off
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to another small German state, where a friend had found
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a position for him in the military leadership. But the
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vacancy soon evaporated. The casualty of a rumor that Steuben
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had taken familiarities with young boys during his service as
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a courier, As John macauley Palmer wrote in a nineteen
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thirty seven book about the Baron Shouben's Modern biographers doubt
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the rumor's veracity and have suggested that it may have
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been part of a political smear campaign. Still, it was
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a damaging allegation. Homosexuality was not an absolute taboo in
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eighteenth century Europe, even in the ranks of its army.
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Frederick the Great himself was widely rumored to be gay,
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but the insinuation of pedophilia was explosive, and it left
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Shouben jobless and heartsick. Here was another setback in what
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was rapidly becoming a failed career. Now past forty, he
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was broke, unemployed, and seemingly unemployable. He could be forgiven
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for suspecting that it was the set up to a
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cruel joke. Then, when Franklin and Dean suddenly summoned him
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back to Paris. Unbeknownst to Steuben, he had come to
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the attention of senior figures in the French War Office,
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among them the French Foreign Minister, the Comte de Fergang.
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They persuaded the Patriot envoys to change their minds and
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had come up with the plan to send Steuben to
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America as an unpaid volunteer. Franklin and Dean would not
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hire him themselves. Instead, they would write him effusive letters
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of recommendation that members of the Continental Congress could consider
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as they decided whether to offer him a paid position.
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If things went as they hoped, Steuben would get work,
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the Continental Army would get the benefit of his expertise,
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and the Continental Congress would have proof that they had
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sympathetic senior French government officials working behind the scenes to
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edge France closer to declaring a formal military alliance. For
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this odd arrangement to work, however, those letters of recommend
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would have to be superlative. Steuben was smart and ambitious,
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but on paper he was a nobody, an out of
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work officer for hire whose highest rank had been captain.
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For that reason, his patrons in the French War Office
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conspired with Franklin and Dean to inflate the baron's credentials.
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There three letters to Congress all said that Steuben was
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a lieutenant general in the Prussian Army with more than
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twenty years service under the King of Prussia. They said
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that he was battle hardened, having served in every single
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one of Frederic the Great's campaigns. They said that he
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had also taken on responsibility as quartermaster general for the
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entire Prussian Army, and had served as aide de camp
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to Frederic himself. They said that Steuben was in high
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demand across Europe and had recently turned down a very
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important and lucrative post in one of the German courts.
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All of these points were falsified, exaggerated, or misrepresented. Yet
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when Sjouben arrived in York, Pennsylvania, six months later to
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interview with delegates to the Continental Congress, those letters did
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their work. It helped, of course, that the military man
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looked every inch the part. He was a little overweight,
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perhaps with droopy cheeks and a double chin, but Steuben
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had dressed for the job he wanted. He wore a
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smart new uniform bought just three days earlier, and he
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had pinned a huge star shaped metal to his chest,
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lending to his air of Prussian military nobility. The congressmen
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were dazzled. They quickly agreed that Jouben would proceed to
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Valley Forge to join the Continental Army as its newest
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volunteer officer, and they promised that Congress would pay all
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his expenses when the war was won. Shouben thanked them politely,
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careful not to seem too eager. Four days later, he
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and the small all entourage of men he had hired
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in Paris to serve as his personal staff, arrived at
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Valley Forge, bearing fresh letters of introduction from Congress. Strouben's
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presence electrified the camp. He turned out each day astride
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his horse in full dress uniform, his retinue at his side,
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and Azor, his Italian greyhound patting behind him. To some
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to day such posturing might seem pompous more ridiculous. To
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the soldiers, he was a wonder, and they came out
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of their huts each morning to watch him pass. Never
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before or since have I had such an impression of
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the ancient fabled god of war as when I looked
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upon the Baron, wrote a young private named Ashbell Green.
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General Washington took Steuben into his circle, immediately inviting him
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to dinner ten times in the first two weeks. He
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encouraged the newcomer to roam the enormous encampment and report back.
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Stuben did just that. He took stock of the site's
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security and the soldier's skills and battle readiness, and he
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wrote up his findings in memo after memo, filled with
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blunt criticism and constructive advice. Having sized him up, Washington
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now saw the opportunity to make a transformative new hire.
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In March, he appointed Steuben acting Inspector General of the
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Continental Army. The job made the baron personally responsible for
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all matters relating to training and discipline, and Washington expected
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quick results. It was a weighty charge, yet Steuben was
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remarkably optimistic that the malnourished malcontents scattered before him would
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rise to the occasion. He seems to understand what our
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soldiers are capable of, wrote Washington's aide de camp, John Lorens,
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in a letter to his father. Steuben's days in the
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Royal Prussian Army had taught him that drilling was the
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key to military discipline. Drilling was highly repetitive and often mindless,
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which was precisely the point. Orders could only be implemented
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if soldiers did as they were told, moving quickly into
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position along the line of battle and delivering consistent firepower. Constant,
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regimented practice dramatically improved a unit's ability to execute these tasks.
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It bred obedience and broke down individuality. Turning men into
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the component parts of a military machine. The soldiers at
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Valley Forge had all drilled before, but there was no
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uniform system of drilling among the different colonial companies. Some
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had been trained using British drill manuals, others followed German
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or French patterns. Almost everything had been left up to
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the company commanders. Steuben considered that a recipe for disaster
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on the battlefield, very antithesis of the Prussian system. It
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had been twenty years since Jeuben had led a drill,
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but he threw himself into it, knowing that Washington's eyes
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were upon him. On March nineteenth, he lined up one
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hundred soldiers in a field he dubbed the Grand Parade
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and set to work. He pulled out a sheaf of
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notes and began to bark instructions. Because he barked in French, however,
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none of the enlisted men understood a word. Lieutenant Colonels
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Alexander Hamilton and John Lawns, along with the multi lingual
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members of the Baron's staff, had to step in to
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translate for him. Stouben began with the basics, using a
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twenty man platoon to demonstrate each maneuver. First, he taught
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them the posture of attention, which in the Prussian army
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meant putting feet slightly apart, toes spread, and pressing shoulders
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back and chests forward. Then he went down the line
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to check the men's poses, correcting them kicking ankles closer together,
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and tipping chins up or down, as if he were
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arranging scenery on a stage, as his modern biographer Paul
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Lockhart wrote. Next, Shtouben taught them the Prussian marching step.
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He made them do it over and over until they
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moved in unison, each man's heel touching the ground at
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the same time, twenty eight inches ahead of where it
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had been before. They marched at seventy five paces a minute,
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much quicker than the British marching pace that some of
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them had learned. One man said he was marching so
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fast that it felt like he was dancing. Next, Stoeuben
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taught them to turn as one, first to the right,
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then to the left. Then he showed them how to
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face about, so that every one turned clockwise and reversed
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course at once. They paused for a break at midday.
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In the afternoon, the drilling resumed. He divided the men
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into squads to practice wheeling, forming them into lines that
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could arc around a single pivot like a gate swinging open.
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It was hard work, and each error brought down the
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Baron's wrath. He sputtered and swore at the more egregious mistakes,
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usually in French or German, though sometimes in broken English.
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Gout them, gout dam. That left the Americans trying to
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stifle their smiles. That was just day one. For the
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rest of the week, the baron made the soldiers review
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and practice the old lessons before they went on to
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the new. Every day he barked more commands and stomped
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and cursed in different European tongues. When words failed stoiben completely,
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he would summon Captain Pierre du Ponceaux, his seventeen year
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old primary translator. My dear du Ponceau, he would growl
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in French, come and swear for me in English. These
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fellows won't do what I bid them. Each evening, the
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Maestro would sit in his quarters scribbling the next day's
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lesson plan. He was making most of it up as
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he went along, but he kept that secret to himself. Meanwhile,
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his drills began to draw attention. Crowds from across the
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regiments turned out every morning to watch from the sidelines.
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After five days, Washington sent the model soldiers back to
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their companies to train their comrades. Stoiben supervised it all,
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riding from one brigade to the next to shout instructions, feedback,
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and curses, until the entire infantry force had been schooled
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in the basics of his system. It was a continual drill.
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Recalled Private Joseph plum Martin, the baron worked at a
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breakneck pace, aware that a new campaign could begin any day.
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Three weeks in the program was starting to bear fruit.
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Entire regiments now drilled together, forming columns that could wheel
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into battle lines on command. Strouben was swearing less and
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smiling more. My enterprise succeeded better than I had dared
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to expect, he noted in a letter to Congress later
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in the year. And I had the satisfaction in a
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month's time to see not only a regular step introduced
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in the army, but I also made maneuvers with ten
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and twelve battalions with as much precision as the evolution
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of a single company. By now, morale in the ranks
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was rising fast. Drilling together had started to breed pride, cohesion,
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and common cause. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian Magazine
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for to day. Your has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you
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for listening, and have a great day.