Last month while I was travelling for work, I wound up with a few hours to kill before I needed to be at the Philadelphia airport, and I realized that Valley Forge was just off my route from Point A to Point B. It was an irresistible chance to walk on ground imbued with history. I’m not a serious history buff, but it’s a subject I enjoy delving into, and being able to see part of the crucible that melted and forged the army that fought so valiantly for my freedom was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Readers of my fiction and non-fiction alike most likely realize that I am proud to be an American, and that pride is in no small part because of the unprecedented individual liberties my citizenship entails me with.
The park that memorializes the encampment is not in the valley, but stretches along a low, long ridge above the valley, which makes much more sense for a fortification than putting it down where sightlines are shorter. The modern view is of a huge casino and the city around it, but the park is, at least on a February afternoon, a peaceful expanse of grass with scattered trees, monuments, cannons, and replicas of the cabins.
The small dwelling places represent where the men would have huddled for warmth through cold nights. On my visit it was positively balmy, perhaps fifty, with a brisk breeze.
Clearing the encampment would have built the cabins from logs, and provided firewood… for a time. After that?
Some of the cabins held artifacts behind glass, to bring the life back into this historic place. We might think of it in terms from our childhood history texts, the noble General Washington bundled against the cold astride his horse… but the men cooked, cleaned, chopped wood, and endured the cold unpictured.
Much of the gear was probably made by the men themselves. These were not wealthy men, by any means, and whatever they did own, they had forfeit by their rebellion.
It’s hard to get a sense of just how large the encampment was, but I can tell you that the ‘driving tour’ which I didn’t completely follow, was ten miles long.
One of several cannon in a restored earthen fort, now overlooking the valley itself. In the center, a bunker looked like a mound of dirt with a small door on the side, meant to be a safe space from incoming artillery fire.
The darkest hour of the American Revolution played out along this stretch of ground. Now, it’s a place to remember the brave men who gave everything up in an attempt to win freedoms unthinkable to the rest of the world. Freedoms that are still alien to much of our modern nations. If you ever get the chance, take the time to visit the Valley and shiver in the wind, remembering the patriots who bled for your ability to live like you do. Without those freezing, pitiful soldiers, our country would be a very different place.
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22 responses to “Valley Forge”
I believe that’s the location of the first mass inoculation for smallpox. They weren’t using a killed version; it actually gave the inoculated person a weaker form of smallpox.
One of the German-language texts I used while taking the class through the University of Maryland European Division was a story about von Steuben. It said he essentially bluffed and blustered his way into higher command at Valley Forge. It also said one of his main tasks was to persuade the men to stop using their bayonets as spits to cook food, and to train them in proper use.
See, this is why I said I’m not a serious history buff. So many fascinating details! I can, however, delve into the smallpox vaccine – the first was developed by Jenner, and was live cowpox, which is a less virulent relative of the virus that causes smallpox.
While cowpox was used by Edward Jenner, he did not publish his seminal work till after his own test of using it in 1796. Up till that time, what was used, primarily in the Ottoman Empire, was “variolation” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation It was used for centuries by the Ottomans having been picked up by them after they conquered Circassian portions of today’s Turkey, in the 15th century.
This was using the smallpox pus itself, with live virii present, but weakened by one of several means, including raising the temperature substantially, just before injection. Thus, it seems highly likely that what was used at Valley Forge was some form of variolation, rather than vaccination.
We may have had ancestors at Valley Forge. A Fales ancestor and a Vanderburg ancestor were both officers in the Revolutionary Army — I believe they both ended up as majors.
Those cabins are much better constructed than the actual ones, even if they do ‘follow’ the plans of the originals. They were built with green wood, and chinked with anything they could find!
My family lived outside of Valley Forge in Norristown, PA in the early 60s. We took many day trips there with relatives. I, for one, was awed at the history.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. Sometimes with a historical site there’s nothing, but the feeling as I walked around at Valley Forge was certainly awe. So much was learned there, and in many ways our nation was forged there in cold endurance.
I went a couple years ago with my sons (I grew up a few miles from the park). They built (visitor center is larger, more cabins, etc.) a lot since I left the area in the early 90s.
When I was younger, it was really just a large park with that arch and a couple cabins.
“If you ever get the chance, take the time to visit the Valley and shiver in the wind, remembering the patriots who bled for your ability to live like you do. Without those freezing, pitiful soldiers, our country would be a very different place.”
Outstanding observation. Thanks.
I live near the park. It is a wonderful gem. They have a party for Washington’s birthday, Fourth of July, and all kinds of kids activities. We are so lucky.
I saw a number of families that seemed to just be there walking. You are lucky!
“No spot on earth–not the plains of Marathon, nor the passes of Sempach, nor the place of the Bastile, nor the dykes of Holland, nor the moors of England–is so sacred in the history of the struggle for human liberty as Valley Forge.”
If you’re ever in the Maryland-DC-Virginia area, visit Gettysburg or Antietam, Both are large, beautifully preserved areas, locked in time at 1860. Of the two, Gettysburg is more beautiful and impressive. It’s definitely worth the beautiful 1 hour drive up US-15.
One of the best pieces of (basically accurate) historical fiction I’ve ever read is Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels, about the three days of battle at Gettysburg. A deeply moving book that I guarantee you’ll never forget.
An ancestor of mine, Isaac Potts, owned the house at Valley Forge that became Washington’s headquarters. The Potts family were a family of iron masters who owned numerous forges in the area, of which one was the Valley Forge. The Pottses were Quakers, but supported the Revolution wholeheartedly by making weapons for the army, as well as giving over Valley Forge to Washington and his troops.
“. . . to see part of the crucible that melted and forged the army that fought so valiantly for my freedom was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Readers of my fiction and non-fiction alike most likely realize that I am proud to be an American, and that pride is in no small part because of the unprecedented individual liberties my citizenship entails me with.”
“. . . remembering the patriots who bled for your ability to live like you do. Without those freezing, pitiful soldiers, our country would be a very different place.”
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You don’t think this is a bit over-egged? The American Revolution was colonists breaking away from Britain, not the Ottoman Empire, not Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire, not Ivan The Terrible’s Russia. Citizens of your next-door neighbour Canada seem to live liberated lives and the people of the antipodean nations, New Zealand and Australia, enjoy all the freedoms, probably more, that Americans enjoy.
Good thing the colonists won though . . . otherwise you’d all be speaking English today.
Not an American, I see. Welcome to my blog. I am an unabashed American, who revels in the history of my country. I also love the English language with all it’s convolutions and ‘borrowed’ words. For that matter, I have long been fascinated with the route that history took to the American Revolution, from the Magna Carta to Blackstone’s law books, and beyond. I’m also aware that while yes, Canada and other former British colonies do enjoy some freedoms, I’ve stood in Hyde Park and seen the pretences made for speakers to avoid breaking the laws of the land so they could have something approaching the freedom of speech Americans can enjoy while standing flat-foot on the earth at any place in our nation. No. I do not think my words were over-egged.
You are correct. I am not an American. I am a New Zealander, living in probably the most liberal and liberated nation you could name. And “Canada and other former British colonies do enjoy some freedoms” is a piece of condescension breathtaking in its arrogance. “Some” freedoms? Some? The most free people on the planet are those who live in constitutional monarchies. And how exactly would the US be a “very different place” without those freezing, pitiable soldiers? Would cricket be the summer pastime? You’d be on the metric system? Heads on spikes would decorate the walls of your cities? It would be legal for Americans to play online poker? I’m curious. Also, last night I watched a television programme called Ruby Ridge, about a guy called Randall Weaver and his family in Idaho in the early 1990s. One thing I learned from that — never, ever get on the wrong side of the FBI. That can be fatal. And those are the guys protecting your freedoms, apparently.
Don’t get on the wrong side of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
The US Constitution has its Bill of Rights, which the Canadians lack. We’re finding out how the various ‘positive rights’ in state constitutions are leading to misery and even death. (Read about the recent Florida school shooting. The FL constitution’s requirement that the shooter be placed in the nearest and least restrictive school near him prevented authorities from putting him in the reform school that might have taught him to live in society.)
“No spot on earth–not the plains of Marathon, nor the passes of Sempach, nor the place of the Bastile, nor the dykes of Holland, nor the moors of England–is so sacred in the history of the struggle for human liberty as Valley Forge.”
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Who wrote this nonsense? The revolutionaries weren’t slaves breaking the chains of bondage; they weren’t peasants quaking under the rule of cruel barons; they weren’t a defeated nation groaning under the heel of despotic overlords. The revolutionaries were free men, as free as any existing at that period of history. They were, in the main, Englishmen who were annoyed with their king and his government and wanted to run their own affairs. And they settled it in the manner of the times by going to war. And it took another century, and another war, to bring freedom (in name only, truth be told) to all inhabitants of the new country.
Valley Forge? Without even trying, I could name twenty places, starting with the skies over Britain in 1940, that had a higher place in the “history of the struggle for human liberty” than Valley Forge holds. On close analysis, I doubt it would make the top one hundred.
My mother’s 6x-great-grandfather was at Valley Forge at age 15.
My 15 yr old son has a heart attack when we take away his phone as punishment.
The world has changed, hasn’t it? In one of my criminal justice classes a year or so back, we were comparing what the constitutional right to not have your papers searched meant at the time of the Revolution – trunks full of documents, perhaps, or a locked desk, or an office in a house. Now? We all carry that same information on a phone, and it ought to be subject to the same privilege, but it’s not…
Valley Forge, Custer’s ranks, San Juan Hill and Patton’s tanks …