Valley Forge The March to Valley Forge Baron von Steuben Von Steuben and Washington at Valley Forge	After Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga, many Americans believed that the war would soon be over.  General Washington, however, did not share that view.  French help might be in the offing, but no one knew when it would arrive.  In the meantimes, he reminded Congress that the Continental Army still needed funds and supplies.  Congress ignored all his urgent requests.  The result was a long and dreadful winter at Valley Forge.      Valley Forge was twenty miles from Philadelphia, where General Howe and his army were comfortably housed for the winter.  Throughout December 1777, Washington's men labored to build the huts and cabins they would need for their winter encampment.  While two officers were assigned to share quarters, a dozen enlisted men were expected to crowd into a 14 x 16 foot hut.  Rations were a problem from the start.  Technically, each man was entitled to raw or cured meat, yet most soldiers at Valley Forge lived on a diet of fire cakes, made from flour and water baked over coals or over the fire on a stick.  Blankets were scarce, coats were rare, and firewood was precious.  An army doctor named Waldo summed up conditions when he wrote:  "Poor food--hard lodgings--cold weather--fatigue--nasty clothes--nasty cookery--vomit half my time--smoked out of my senses--the devil's in it--I can't endure it."      Dr. Waldo, however, did endure it, as did the soldiers he tended daily:  half-naked, barefoot, dirty young men, often covered with sores and lice.  The enlisted men who survived the winter at Valley Forge were strangers to luxury even in peacetime.  Most were from the humblest social classes:  farm laborers, servants, apprentices, even former slaves.  They were exactly the sort of person most Americans believed ought to fight the war.  But if poverty had driven them into the army, a commitment to see the war through kept them there.  The contrast between their own patriotism and the apparent indifference of the civilian population made many of these soldiers bitter.      What these soldiers deparately needed, in addition to new clothes, good food, and hot bath, was professional military training, and that is the one thing they got.  Beginning in the spring of 1778, there arrived in the camp an unlikely volunteer from the small European country of Prussia [part of modern Germany], Baron Friderich von Steuben.  The Prussian was almost fifty years old, dignified, elegantly dressed, with a dazzling gold and diamond medal always on his chest.  Like most foreign volunteers, many of whom plagued Washington more than they helped him, the baron claimed to be an aristocrat with vast military experience, having held high rank in a European army.  In truth, he had purchased his title only a short time before fleeing his homeland in bankruptcy, and he had only been a captain in the Prussian army.  A penniless refugee, von Steuben hoped to receive a military pension for his service in the American army.  He had not, however, exaggerated his talent as a military drillmaster.  All spring, the baron could be seen drilling Washington's troops, alternately shouting with rage and applauding with delight.  Washington had little patience with most of the foreign volunteers who joined the American cause, but he considered von Steuben a most unexpected and invaluable surprise.      In the spring of 1778, Washington received the heartening news that France had formally recognized the independence of the United States.  He immediately declared a day of thanks, ordering cannon to be fired in honor of the new alliance.  That day the officers feasted with their commander.  American diplomacy had triumphed.  Washington hoped that the combined forces of France and America would soon bring victory as well.
Monmouth (June 1778) and Stalemate Joseph Brant George Rogers Clark	The French presence in the war did not immediately affect the strategies of  British or American leaders.  English generals in the North displayed caution after Burgoyne's surrender, and Washington waited impatiently for signs that the French fleet would come to his aid.  The result was a stalemate.  After 1778, most of the fighting would take place in the southern colonies, where the British would mount a major campaign in the Carolinas.      The British had a new commander.  General Sir Henry Clinton replaced William Howe as the overall leader of the British army in North America.  Clinton knew that the French fleet could easily blockade the Delaware River leading to Philadelphia, and this cut off supplied to British forces in that city.  So, when warm weather returned, he moved his (formerly Howe's) army out of Philadelphia and return to New York City.      Clinton's slow-moving caravan made an irresistable target for the Americans, and General Washington took advantage of the opportunity to attack.  The British force was larger than the attacking Americans, but Washington saw a tactical advantage if he were to attack when the British force moved through a narrow neck of land at Monmouth, New Jersey, on the way to New York.  The smaller area, he knew, would limit the maneuverability of British forces, thereby negating their advantage of their superior size.      The attack at Monmouth should have worked, but Washington trusted the initial attack to an unreliable Virginian, General Charles Lee, who ordered his men to open fire on the British, but when the British army began to return fire, Lee retreated.  When Washington arrived on the scene, American troops were fleeing before the advancing British army.  Washington rallied the retreating troops and made them reform their lines.  Trained by von Steuben, the men responded well, moving forward with speed and driving the redcoats back.  Although the Americans claimed the victory at Monmouth, it was not the decisive victory Washington had hoped for.  Had his plan been executed, he could have captured the main British army and ended the war that day.  Instead, the British made it back to New York City, where Washington could only sit and wait for them to come out again.      Monmouth was only the first of several missed opportunities that summer of 1778.  In August, the French and Americans launched their first joint attack at a British base at Newport, Rhode Island.  At the last minute, however, the French Admiral D'Estaing decided the casualty rate would be too high.  He abruptly gathered up his own men and sailed to safety on the open sea, leaving the American troops to retreat as best they could.      Throughout the fall and winter of 1778, Washington waited in vain for French naval support for a major campaign.  Meanwhile, news from the western front did little to improve his morale.  In Kentucky and western Virginia, Indian attacks had decimated many American settlements.  The driving force behind these attacks was a British official named Harry Hamilton, nicknamed the "Hair Buyer" because of the bounties he paid for American scalps.  In October Hamilton led Indian troops from the Great Lakes tribes into the Illinois-Indiana region and captured the fort at Vincennes.  The American counter-attack was organized by a stocky young frontiersman, George Rogers Clark, whose own enthusiasm for scalping earned him the nickname "Long Knife."  To Washington's relief, Clark and his volunteer forces managed to drive the British from Vincennes.      Border conflict with Britain's Indian allies remained a major problem, and when loyalist troops joined these Indians, the danger increased.  When patriot General John Sullivan's regular army was badly defeated by Mohawk chief Thayendanega, known to the Americans as Joseph Brant, and local loyalists, Sullivan took revenge by burning forty Indian villages.  It was an act of violence and cruelty that deeply shocked and shamed General Washington.       Spring and summer of 1779 passed and still Washington waited for the French navy's cooperation.  Admiral D'Estaing and his fleet had sailed for the West Indies under orders to protect valuable French possessions in the Caribbean and, if possible, to seize English possessions there.  News of D'Estaing's departure spurred a new wave of discipline problems among Washington's idle troops.  Mutinies and desertions increased.  From his winter headquarters in Morristown Heights, New Jersey, Washington wrote to von Steuben:  "The prospect, my dear Baron, is gloomy, and the storm thickens."  The real storm, however, was raging not in New Jersey but in the Carolinas.
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