The six-month encampment of General George Washington’s Continental Army at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-1778 was a major turning point in the American Revolutionary War. While conditions were notoriously cold and harsh and provisions were in short supply, it was at the winter camp where George Washington proved his mettle and, with the help of former Prussian military officer Friedrich Wilhelm Baron von Steuben, transformed a battered Continental Army into a unified, world-class fighting force capable of beating the British.
General George Washington and his weary troops arrived at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania six days before Christmas in 1777. The men were hungry and tired after a string of losing battles that had resulted in the British capture of the patriot capital, Philadelphia, earlier in the fall. The defeats had led some members of the Continental Congress to want to replace Washington, believing he was incompetent.
The Valley Forge winter camp site was approximately 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia—about a day’s march from the British-occupied American capital. Most of the land had previously been cleared for agriculture, leaving an open, rolling landscape.
Washington picked the spot because it was close enough to keep an eye on British troops sheltering in Philadelphia, yet far enough away to prevent a surprise attack on his own Continental Army. Washington and his men would remain at the camp for approximately six months, from December 1777 until June 1778.
Valley Forge: Building the Winter Camp
Within days of arriving at Valley Forge, troops constructed 1,500 to 2,000 log huts in parallel lines that would house 12,000 soldiers and 400 women and children throughout the winter. Washington directed that each hut measure approximately 14 feet by 16 feet. Sometimes the soldiers’ families joined them in the space as well. Soldiers were instructed to search the countryside for straw to use as bedding, since there were not enough blankets for everyone.
In addition to the huts, the men built miles of trenches, military roads and paths. According to the National Park Service, one officer said the camp “had the appearance of a little city” when viewed from a distance. General Washington and his closest aides lived in a two-story stone house near Valley Forge Creek.
Life at Valley Forge
Popular images of life at Valley Forge depict tremendous suffering from cold and starvation. While it was cold, the National Park Service says there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about the conditions at Valley Forge, characterizing the hardship as “suffering as usual" since the Continental soldier experienced a perpetual state of hardship.
A lack of organization, food and money shortages plagued the Continental Army throughout the first half of the seven-year-long revolution. These problems exacerbated the harsh living conditions at Valley Forge, during the third year of the war.
While the winter of 1777-1778 wasn’t exceptionally cold, many soldiers lacked proper clothing, which left them unfit to serve. Some were even shoeless. As Washington described in a December 23, 1777 letter to Henry Laurens, “...we have, by a field return this day made no less than 2,898 Men now in Camp unfit for duty because they are bare foot and otherwise naked…”
Army records suggest that each soldier received a daily ration of one-half pound of beef during January 1778, but food shortages during February left the men without meat for several days at a time.
Sickness and Disease at Valley Forge
Cold and starvation at Valley Forge were not even the most dangerous threats: diseases proved to be the biggest killer. As the National Park Service says, “Disease was the true scourge of the camp.” By the end of the six-month encampment, some 2,000 men—roughly one in six—died of disease. Camp records indicate that two-thirds of the deaths happened during the warmer months of March, April and May when soldiers were less confined to their cabins and food and other supplies were more abundant.
The most common illnesses included influenza, typhus, typhoid fever and dysentery—conditions most likely exacerbated by poor hygiene and sanitation at the camp.
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