School on a Bus (a.k.a. Radical Sabbatical)

Sarah: In the middle of December of 1777, the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, George Washington, marched his men into Valley Forge where they would stay for 6 months, coming out with fewer numbers, but stronger than when they had entered.

George Washington had decided on Valley Forge as a winter camp for several reasons, some being that it was close to supplies, easily defensible, and close enough to Philadelphia to keep an eye on the British. Washington tried to speed the building of shelters by offering a prize to the first cabin completed. 12,000 troops raced to complete the first cabin, which could hold 12 men. Simple log structures with bunk beds, a fireplace, and a plain dirt floor, they would house the men as the winter wind blew, the snow lay half a foot high outside, and as the weather slowly turned to the sunny, budding feeling of spring.

The supplies that Washington continually beseeched for from Congress did not arrive, mainly due to cold feelings to him from men set in charge of providing food and clothing. The soldiers lived in rags, mostly living on ‘firecake’, but hardly ever complained. The morale was high, as was their love and sense of loyalty to Washington.

General Washington, differing from General Lee of the Civil War, did not stay in a shelter but in a nearby farmhouse in the middle of the camp, as did many of the Brigadier Generals.

Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian drill master, was set to oversee the drilling of the men, in a large, open field. He fell to the task wholeheartedly, drawing a manual on drill techniques and swearing at the soldiers in German. When the army marched from Valley Forge exactly 6 months later, June 19, 1778, they were more organized, bonded, and ready for the battles that would face them before the end of the war in 1783.

The Pennsylvania Quakers refused to choose sides, staying non-violent because of their religious beliefs. Because of this they were arrested by Americans, who considered them Tories.