Winter at Valley Forge

From December 1777 to June 1778, George Washington's army encamped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, after the British captured Philadelphia. The Continental Army endured hunger, disease, and shortages while Washington struggled to hold the force together through the winter. During the encampment, Baron Friedrich von Steuben arrived and began drilling the army into a more disciplined professional force.

Valley Forge intensified the political and military strain of the war because Washington had to preserve the army while Congress, the states, and army suppliers failed to provide reliable support. The winter also overlapped with the Conway Cabal, which threatened Washington's authority just as foreign alliance and military reform were becoming essential. The encampment therefore tested whether the Revolutionary cause could sustain a national army through suffering rather than through battlefield victory alone.

The training system introduced by von Steuben at Valley Forge shaped the Continental Army that fought at Monmouth in June 1778 and in later campaigns. The army that marched out of Valley Forge was better prepared for the long war made possible by the French alliance of 1778.