Print the Legend
As Washington rode slowly past them, returning the salute, he beckoned the colonel to join him. "How comes it sir," he asked, "that I have tracked the march of your troops by the bloodstains of their feet upon the frozen ground? Were there no shoes in the commissary stores, that this sad spectacle is to be seen along the public highways?"
The officer replied: "Your Excellency may rest assured that this sight is as painful to my feelings as it is to yours; but there is no remedy within our reach. When the shoes were issued, the different regiments were served; and the stores became exhausted before we could obtain even the smallest supply!"
Washington was "observed to be deeply affected" by this report, Custis wrote. "His compressed lips, the heaving of his manly chest, betokened the powerful emotions that were struggling in his bosom." Washington turned away and "with a voice tremulous yet kindly," exclaimed: "Poor fellows" and rode on. The soldiers, hearing these compassionate words, replied: "God bless your excellency, your poor soldiers' friend." It was, Custis concluded, a glimpse of Washington's "native goodness of heart."
This encounter never happened. The story is typical of the way 19th Century writers attempted to dramatize Valley Forge as a place of pathetic misery for the enlisted men -- while distancing General Washington and the Continental Congress from their pain.
By December 19, 1777, Washington knew that far more than one unlucky regiment in his army lacked shoes. He had been receiving cries of distress about disintegrating footwear (and uniforms) for months. On December 1, 1777, Brigadier General George Weedon of Virginia told Washington his men lacked shoes, as well as warm clothing and blankets. On the same day, Major General John Sullivan of New Hampshire reported a third of his men were "without shoes, stockings or breeches."
Two days later, Major General William Alexander (also known as Lord Stirling -- he claimed the title of a Scottish ancestor) told the American commander that half the men in his division were "walking barefooted on the ice or frozen ground." On the same day, Major General Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island made an identical estimate -- half his men were "without breeches shoes or stockings."
Private Joseph Plumb Martin of Connecticut confirmed these cries of alarm in his memoir. "The greatest part" of the army "were...shirtless and barefoot." Martin told how he fashioned crude moccasins from a piece of "raw cowhide" but he soon gave them up because the hard edges cut deep ridges in his ankles. Thereafter he went barefoot "as hundreds of my companions had to."
As for the army distributing shoes to barefoot regiments, on December 3, 1777, sixteen days before the march to Valley Forge, James Mease, the clothier general, sent Washington a report of the army's warehouses in Lancaster, Pennsylvania: there was a smattering of coats (200) breeches (30) hats (50) and a grand total of 90 pairs of shoes. In a followup letter on December 16 Mease added that he had a terrible cold and his generally "weakened" constitution made it necessary for him to quit his job.
Was America incapable of producing shoes for its soldiers? By no means. The image of the primitive frontier clings to the American Revolution. In fact, America had been settled for 150 years and a surprisingly mature economy had long since evolved. On October 19, 1777, two months before the march to Valley Forge, Elias Boudinot, a wealthy New Jerseyan from Elizabethtown, wrote to Timothy Pickering, the Continental Army's adjutant general, about the soldiers' shoelessness. "I have an offer from three substantial men immediately to erect a large tannery in a secure place." These men were prepared to tan from 1500 to 2000 hides a year and make shoes out of them. "Had attention been paid to this last spring many thousands of pairs of shoes might have now been ready."
Why was no attention paid to this the previous spring? The answer was the wrongheaded policies of the Continental Congress, which insisted on trying to manage all aspects of running the war -- without the knowledge or skills to do the job. The congressmen appointed second or third raters like James Mease to clothe and feed the army and never bothered to find out if they were doing it. Worst of all, they did not think anyone should make money out of the war. Patriotism should be the only motivation for everyone from politicians to army privates.
Congress's reaction to every problem was to give it to a committee. In 1777 the solons created 114 of these creatures and in 1778 the number was 253. Before the war ended, the total hit 3,249. Most were three man affairs, whose members were chosen with little or no reference to their expertise or abilities. That meant they were usually incapable of getting much done. When Washington told the solons that his men were not only shoeless but virtually naked, their uniforms in shreds, Congress huffily replied they had ordered 80,000 full uniforms from France. It was not their fault that the garments had failed to arrive.
This fundamental flaw had already been identified by many participants in Congress. Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris summed it up bluntly in a 1776 letter to Benjamin Franklin and his fellow diplomats in Paris. "As long as [Congress] persist[s] in the attempt to execute as well as deliberate on their business, it will never be done as it ought...this has been urged many a time by myself and others, but some of them do not like to part with power..."
Another myth of Valley Forge concerns the weather. Too many writers have portrayed the encampment as whipped by freezing winds and raging blizzards 24 hours a day. Fortunately, we have diaries of Valley Forge soldiers who flatly contradict this portrait. Colonel Israel Angell of Rhode Island called January 30 "the pleasantest he ever knew for the time of year." Bluebirds were chirping in the trees!
Other diarists confirm that overall temperatures at Valley Forge added up to a relatively mild winter -- more or less typical weather for southeastern Pennsylvania. More than half the time the mercury was above the freezing mark. Only twice did the temperature drop into the single digits.
The National Park Service recently conducted an experiment in one of the reconstructed huts at contemporary Valley Forge. Ranger Mark Brier and several volunteers spent from January 27 to February 1 in a hut with a brisk fire blazing in the fireplace. With the temperature 31 degrees outside, the temperatures in the hut ranged from 70 degrees in front of the fire to 47 at the other end, by the door. In 1778, there were 12 men in each 14x16 hut. There was hardly room for everyone in front of the fire. We are not talking about comfort here -- but no one was in danger of freezing to death or suffering frostbite.
How should history teachers handle these contradictory stories about Valley Forge? I recommend using both versions. One of my favorite movie directors, John Ford, had a saying which applies to this problem. When he found two versions of a western story, he used to say: "Print the legend!" Of course, Ford was out to entertain an audience. He could, up to a point, be indifferent to the historical facts.
Nevertheless, the director was on to something. When we examine the legends, we soon find how they became legendary in the first place. There was a core of truth in the story of Washington's supposed encounter with barefoot soldiers on the Gulph Road. Washington did feel deep sympathy for his suffering men and they knew it. There was a bond between these soldiers and the tall seemingly aloof Virginian that had spiritual as well as patriotic dimensions. It played a large part in the story of Valley Forge.
Similarly with the weather. It was sometimes very cold at Valley Forge. On January 5, 1778, Lieutenant Colonel John Brooks of the 8th Massachusetts regiment told a friend that for the previous week the weather had been "as cold... as I ever knew at home." On January 11, Colonel Israel Angell of Rhode Island, the same diarist who heard bluebirds chirping in the trees, wrote it was an "exceeding snowy day." In early February, a blizzard all but buried the camp and brought the starving army to the edge of mutiny.
History, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. once wryly remarked, is an argument that never ends. Maybe we can lower the volume on a some of the altercations by printing the legends and the truth.