WEBVTT NOTE 41. Winter at Valley Forge 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 Volume 4, Chapter 41, Winter at Valley Forge 2 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:19.000 Washington now sensibly prepared to take his battered and half-fed men into winter quarters rather than endure the rigors of another winter campaign as they had done the previous year. 3 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:25.000 He favored quarters at Wilmington, where supplies would be plentiful and the weather mild. 4 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:30.120 Furthermore, Delaware and Maryland could be guarded, and American boats could harass British 5 00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:32.080 shipping on the Delaware. 6 00:00:32.080 --> 00:00:38.440 The officers favored this plan, but in deference to Pennsylvania's howls against letting the 7 00:00:38.440 --> 00:00:45.320 British Army ravage the countryside, and at the suggestion of Wayne, Washington weekly 8 00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:51.920 and unfortunately decided to winter on the icy slopes of Valley Forge to the west of 9 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:53.560 Philadelphia. 10 00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:58.920 Few worse locations for obtaining supplies could have been selected than this ravaged 11 00:00:58.920 --> 00:01:00.600 area. 12 00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:06.320 Generals James Varnum and Baron DeKalb were particularly vehement at wintering in this 13 00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:08.120 desert. 14 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:15.040 On December 19, Washington's army, short of food and water, poorly sheltered and terribly 15 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:22.760 short of shoes and other clothing, staggered into the ill-conceived camp at Valley Forge. 16 00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:27.920 In these conditions, disease spread like wildfire through the camp. 17 00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:33.800 To obtain food, both the American and British forces sent foraging parties to confiscate 18 00:01:33.800 --> 00:01:37.920 cattle and other supplies from the hapless citizens. 19 00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:44.520 By the spring of 1778, massive desertions had reduced Washington's army to five or 20 00:01:44.520 --> 00:01:46.440 six thousand men. 21 00:01:46.440 --> 00:01:51.140 Greene was appointed quartermaster general in the emergency, and he was able to scrape 22 00:01:51.140 --> 00:02:04.380 During the campaigns of 1777, a suspicion began to well up among many Americans that 23 00:02:04.380 --> 00:02:10.780 Gates was an excellent general and Washington a miserable one, and that maybe something 24 00:02:10.780 --> 00:02:12.780 should be done about it. 25 00:02:12.780 --> 00:02:18.340 In Congress, forced to meet in the small town of York, Pennsylvania, it was the men of the 26 00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:25.420 The American Left that were restive, notably Joseph Lovell and Sam Adams of Massachusetts. 27 00:02:25.420 --> 00:02:31.300 Dr. Benjamin Rush, a leading Pennsylvania liberal and chief physician in Washington's 28 00:02:31.300 --> 00:02:40.500 Army, urged his replacement by a Gates, Lee or Conway, Thomas Conway being a capable Irish-born 29 00:02:40.500 --> 00:02:45.540 French general recently commissioned in the Continental Army. 30 00:02:45.540 --> 00:02:52.980 In November 1777, Congress advanced a step toward erecting a professional bureaucracy 31 00:02:52.980 --> 00:03:02.020 by creating a five-man Board of War, not composed of members of Congress, to supervise the Army. 32 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:08.500 As Chairman of the Board, Congress appointed the hero Gates, who was then too ill for field 33 00:03:08.500 --> 00:03:10.220 command. 34 00:03:10.220 --> 00:03:17.980 This apparent attempt to downgrade Washington and elevate Gates never got underway, in fact 35 00:03:17.980 --> 00:03:23.700 never reached the stature of an organized campaign. Indeed, no one in Congress ever 36 00:03:23.700 --> 00:03:30.220 proposed the replacement of Washington or even the curtailing of his powers. Two major 37 00:03:30.220 --> 00:03:35.780 factors contributed to the crushing of any murmurs of dissent against the Commander in 38 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:43.300 and Chief. One was Washington's ruthless use of an indiscretion, he discovered, a letter 39 00:03:43.300 --> 00:03:50.260 critical of him sent by Gates to Conway. Washington and his influential friends immediately conjured 40 00:03:50.260 --> 00:03:58.940 up a non-existent widespread plot, the mythical Conway cabal, supposedly designed to scuttle 41 00:03:58.940 --> 00:04:06.940 Both Roche and Conway were soon forced out of the army by the vindictive Washington. 42 00:04:06.940 --> 00:04:21.940 Conway's fall and subsequent emigration and Gates's decline were also spurred by a madcap plan Gates had for another expedition to invade Canada and possibly take Montreal. 43 00:04:21.940 --> 00:04:28.380 This proposed expedition was to be independent of Washington's command and was to be headed 44 00:04:28.380 --> 00:04:36.200 by the vain, young French Catholic volunteer, the Marquis de Lafayette, in a rather far-fetched 45 00:04:36.200 --> 00:04:40.380 scheme to appeal to the French-Canadian masses. 46 00:04:40.380 --> 00:04:47.100 But Lafayette, ever worshipful of his patron Washington, refused to be independent of his 47 00:04:47.100 --> 00:04:53.840 as Commander-in-Chief and bitterly denounced the supposed conspirator Conway as responsible 48 00:04:53.840 --> 00:04:56.820 for an intrigue against Washington. 49 00:04:56.820 --> 00:05:04.020 When the proposed expedition fell through in March 1778, the failure hastened the demise 50 00:05:04.020 --> 00:05:07.860 of all incipient opposition to Washington. 51 00:05:07.860 --> 00:05:14.820 The Board of War fell into a decline and Gates in virtual disgrace and subject to Washington's 52 00:05:14.820 --> 00:05:22.820 Arnold's continuing vengeance was assigned a tiny and innocuous command on the Hudson Highlands. 53 00:05:22.820 --> 00:05:36.820 Thus, history had dealt in high irony with the victors at Saratoga. Gates, after the winter of 1777-78, was relegated out of the action to a minor command. 54 00:05:36.820 --> 00:05:57.820 Arnold, seriously wounded and crippled at Bemis Heights, was never again to bear arms for the United States, and Schuler, who for all his faults had after all harried and delayed Burgoyne in his march from Skeensboro, was in disgrace, suspected, with some justice, of treason. 55 00:05:57.820 --> 00:06:08.820 He, too, was never again to serve in the army, though eventually acquitted at court-martial for his actions at Ticonderoga. He left the army shortly after. 56 00:06:08.820 --> 00:06:18.820 Of the main victors over Burgoyne, only Morgan was to continue in action, and even he was soon to be treated shabbily by George Washington. 57 00:06:18.820 --> 00:06:25.980 Washington. Meanwhile, Washington, the architect of defeat, surmounted a flurry of opposition 58 00:06:25.980 --> 00:06:32.540 and continued more firmly in command than ever. As if the ragged soldiers at Valley 59 00:06:32.540 --> 00:06:39.620 Forge did not have enough troubles, they were to be further plagued by the arrival in February 60 00:06:39.620 --> 00:06:47.580 of a mendacious Prussian braggart and soldier of fortune calling himself Baron von Stubben. 61 00:06:47.580 --> 00:06:53.580 Actually, Captain Steuben was neither a baron nor, as he claimed, a Prussian general. 62 00:06:53.580 --> 00:06:59.580 But he managed quickly to be elevated to the post of Inspector General of the Continental Army. 63 00:06:59.580 --> 00:07:03.580 Steuben set about to Prussianize the American Army. 64 00:07:03.580 --> 00:07:12.580 And so now the hapless soldieries suffered the infliction of the whole structure of petty and meaningless routine, 65 00:07:12.580 --> 00:07:21.860 designed to stamp out individuality and transform the free and responsible soldier into an automaton 66 00:07:21.860 --> 00:07:29.100 subject to the will of his rulers. Ever since he had embarked on the Philadelphia campaign, 67 00:07:29.100 --> 00:07:34.460 Washington had grown ever further away from the guerrilla tactics that had won him victory 68 00:07:34.460 --> 00:07:42.180 at Trenton and had defeated Burgoyne. Washington had no desire to become a guerrilla chieftain 69 00:07:42.180 --> 00:07:48.480 To his aristocratic temper, the only path to glory was through open frontal combat as 70 00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:54.780 practiced by the great states of Europe. Washington had tried this formula and lost dismally at 71 00:07:54.780 --> 00:08:02.700 Brandywine and at Germantown, but this experience taught him no real lessons. He was delighted 72 00:08:02.700 --> 00:08:08.920 to have Steuben continue the process he himself had begun the first year of the war of imposing 73 00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:17.920 and petty enslavement upon a body of free men. Until recently, historians have rapsodized 74 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:23.720 uncritically over the benefits of Steuben's training, of the enormous difference in the 75 00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:31.120 army's performance. But Washington's and his army's performance was equally undistinguished 76 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:37.720 before and after Steuben. Any differences were scarcely visible. 77 00:08:37.720 --> 00:08:43.000 In the midst of this Prussianizing of the American Army, Charles Lee was released in 78 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:48.240 a prisoner exchange in early April. While Washington and Steuben were taking the Army 79 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:54.720 in an ever more European direction, Lee, in captivity, was moving the other way, pursuing 80 00:08:54.720 --> 00:09:02.400 his insights into a full-fledged and elaborated proposal for guerrilla warfare. He presented 81 00:09:02.400 --> 00:09:08.640 and his plan to Congress as a plan for the formation of the American Army. 82 00:09:08.640 --> 00:09:15.200 Bitterly attacking Steuben's training of the Army according to the European plan, Lee charged 83 00:09:15.200 --> 00:09:23.720 that fighting British regulars on their own terms was madness and court had crushing defeat. 84 00:09:23.720 --> 00:09:30.840 If the Americans are servilely kept to the European plan, they will be laughed at as 85 00:09:30.840 --> 00:09:37.840 As a bad army by their enemy and defeated in every encounter, the idea that a decisive 86 00:09:38.460 --> 00:09:45.460 action in fair ground may be risked is talking nonsense. Instead, he declared that a plan 87 00:09:45.500 --> 00:09:52.500 of defense, harassing and impeding, can alone succeed, particularly if based on the rough 88 00:09:52.660 --> 00:09:58.700 terrain west of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. He also urged the use of cavalry 89 00:09:58.700 --> 00:10:05.700 and of Light Infantry in the manner of Dan Morgan, both forces highly mobile and eminently 90 00:10:05.700 --> 00:10:11.540 suitable for the guerrilla strategy. This strategic plan was ignored both by Congress 91 00:10:11.540 --> 00:10:17.300 and by Washington, all eagerly attuned to the new fashion of Prussianizing and to the 92 00:10:17.300 --> 00:10:24.540 attractions of a real army. Lee made himself further disliked by expressing yearnings for 93 00:10:24.540 --> 00:10:31.540 for a Negotiated Peace with Full Autonomy for America within the British Empire. 94 00:10:31.540 --> 00:10:38.540 During his year in captivity, it seems he had partially reverted to the position of the English Whigs. 95 00:10:38.540 --> 00:10:44.540 He did not realize that the United States was now totally committed to independence, 96 00:10:44.540 --> 00:10:51.540 and that peace terms that would have been satisfactory three years earlier would no longer do. 97 00:10:51.540 --> 00:10:57.260 Too much should not be made of this, however, General Sullivan in his earlier term of captivity 98 00:10:57.260 --> 00:11:02.000 had also been temporarily persuaded of similar views. 99 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:09.480 On reaching camp in late May, Lee soon embittered Washington by scorning Washington's abilities 100 00:11:09.480 --> 00:11:14.820 and praising Gates's in a letter to his friend Benjamin Rush. 101 00:11:14.820 --> 00:11:19.660 He did succeed, however, in having Steuben's powers curtailed. 102 00:11:19.660 --> 00:11:26.740 He also increased his unpopularity by objecting to, though reluctantly taking, a loyalty oath 103 00:11:26.740 --> 00:11:33.500 of allegiance to the U.S. and repudiating Great Britain, an oath forced upon every officer 104 00:11:33.500 --> 00:11:34.940 in the Army. 105 00:11:34.940 --> 00:11:42.220 The old scourge of the Tories, the coercer of loyalty oaths, seemed to be growing soft. 106 00:11:42.220 --> 00:11:50.020 During the winter of 1777-78, Howe lost his last opportunity to crush Washington's army. 107 00:11:50.020 --> 00:11:56.300 Only 20 miles away, and drilling for open combat, it would have been easy prey. 108 00:11:56.300 --> 00:12:00.420 But Howe and his troops remained in Philadelphia. 109 00:12:00.420 --> 00:12:07.420 While the Americans froze, starved and drilled, they reveled and partied, luxuriously enjoying 110 00:12:07.420 --> 00:12:11.040 the fiddles, wine and women of Philadelphia. 111 00:12:11.040 --> 00:12:19.640 On May 18, Washington, chafing at the inactivity, sent out a force of 2,200 men, one-third of 112 00:12:19.640 --> 00:12:26.080 his army, for a reconnaissance in force against the British. He placed in command of this 113 00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:32.120 pointless foray, the Marquis de Lafayette, who was apparently being rewarded for his 114 00:12:32.120 --> 00:12:38.200 assiduous flattery of the commander-in-chief. Now he could have his own command and end 115 00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:44.960 and his pouting, but twenty-two hundred men seems an extravagant price for soothing Washington's 116 00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:51.720 protege. Lafayette advanced to Barron Hill, only two miles north of the British lines, 117 00:12:51.720 --> 00:12:57.600 and settled down to wait. He did not have to wait long. Howe, about to be replaced by 118 00:12:57.600 --> 00:13:04.560 Clinton as commander-in-chief, was determined to end his term on a triumphal note by capturing 119 00:13:04.560 --> 00:13:10.960 and the Young Frenchman. But Lafayette, nearly surrounded, managed to elude the enemy with 120 00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:17.360 his troops and to speed back home without fighting a major battle. 121 00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:24.560 Upon the collapse of Burgoyne, General Howe, joined by his brother, submitted his resignation. 122 00:13:24.560 --> 00:13:30.060 After furious objections by Howe's well-placed friends and relatives, Germain replaced him 123 00:13:30.060 --> 00:13:34.420 with General Clinton, who assumed command in mid-May. 124 00:13:34.420 --> 00:13:39.960 With the end of Howe's term, the last chance for a quick crushing of the American forces 125 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:45.460 had gone, for France was entering the war on the American side. 126 00:13:45.460 --> 00:13:51.080 For Britain, the character of the war had now unpleasantly changed. 127 00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:58.820 From trying to teach a lesson to revolutionaries, Britain now faced an international, transatlantic, 128 00:13:58.820 --> 00:14:05.820 even a worldwide conflict. The first thing to do was end the occupation of Philadelphia, 129 00:14:06.100 --> 00:14:11.500 which at best had been a waste of time. Howe had thought of Philadelphia as equivalent 130 00:14:11.500 --> 00:14:17.860 to a European capital, the hub and nerve center of administrative, commercial, political and 131 00:14:17.860 --> 00:14:24.860 military life. But in a decentralized people's war, such as the Americans were waging, there 132 00:14:24.860 --> 00:14:32.860 There was no fixed nerve center. Indeed, there was scarcely any central government at all. 133 00:14:32.860 --> 00:14:45.860 All this gave the Americans a flexibility and an ability to absorb invading armies in a manner highly stratified Europe could not understand.