timeline
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- Late in 1777, Congress declared a day of thanksgiving for the army's successes.
- By this time, Washington and his army were on their way to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to make camp for the winter. Joseph Martin described the army's “celebration”
- We had nothing to eat for two or three days previous . . . But we must now have what Congress said, a sumptuous
- Washington's troops were hungry because many farmers preferred to sell food to the British. The British paid them in gold
- Washington put Baron Friedrich von Steuben in charge of training. A military officer from Prussia, von Steuben arrived in December 1777 and set to work turning the Continental army into an organized fighting force. The Prussian's method, wrote Martin, was “continual drill.” It worked wonders. “The army grows stronger every day,” wrote one officer. “There is a spirit of discipline among the troops that is better than numbers.”
- Another foreign volunteer, the Marquis de Lafayette also helped raise the troops' spirits. Although he was one of the richest men in France, Lafayette chose to share the hardships of Valley Forge. He even used his own money to buy the men warm clothing. “The patient fortitude [courage] of the officers and soldiers,” Lafayette wrote, “was a continual miracle.”
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