Founding Myths (51 page)

  
3
.
  
Washington to John Hancock, September 24, 1776, in
The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources
, John C. Fitzpatrick, ed. (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1931–1944), 6: 107–108.

  
4
.
  
John Shy,
A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 173.

  
5
.
  
Soldiers John Brooks and Isaac Gibbs, cited in Wayne Bodle,
The Valley Forge Winter: Civilians and Soldiers in War
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), 127, 202.

  
6
.
  
Cited from the diary of Albigence Waldo in Charles Royster,
A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and the American Character, 1775–1783
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 191.

  
7
.
  
Bodle,
Valley Forge Winter
, 134.

  
8
.
  
Joseph Plumb Martin,
Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier
(New York: Signet, 2001; originally published in 1830), 245.

  
9
.
  
Bodle,
Valley Forge Winter
, 165–169; Washington to Nathanael Greene, February 12, 1778, in Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 10: 454–455.

10
.
  
Martin,
Narrative
, 90.

11
.
  
Royster,
A Revolutionary People at War
, 196.

12
.
  
Bodle,
Valley Forge Winter
, 180; Washington to Thomas Wharton, February 12, 1778, in Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 10: 452–453.

13
.
  
Washington to the president of Congress, December 23, 1777, in Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 10: 193.

14
.
  
Washington to William Smallwood, February 16, 1778, and Washington to George Clinton, February 16, 1778, in Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 10: 467, 469.

15
.
  
Washington to John Banister, April 21, 1778, in Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 11: 285.

16
.
  
Thomas Fleming,
Liberty! The American Revolution
(New York: Viking, 1997), 20.

17
.
  
Edmund Lindop,
Birth of the Constitution
(Hillside, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 1987), 16.

18
.
  
Martin,
Narrative
, 157.

19
.
  
Ibid., 161–162.

20
.
  
David M. Ludlum,
The Weather Factor
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), 50–51.

21
.
  
Temperatures for the winter of 1777–1778 come from Thomas Coombe, who resided in what is now West Philadelphia, near Sixty-Third Street and Market Street, about seventeen miles southeast of Valley Forge. Coombe took at least two readings every day from an outdoor thermometer, one at 8:00 a.m. and one at 2:00 or 3:00 p.m., roughly corresponding to the low and high temperatures of the day. Most evenings, he also recorded temperatures at 9:00 or 10:00. The vast majority of the “low” temperatures tabulated in this chart are from the 8:00 a.m. readings. (David M. Ludlum,
Early American Winters
,
1604–1820
[Boston: American Meteorological Society, 1966], 1: 101.) The historic average comes from the low daily temperatures reported on the Internet by
CityRatings.com
.

22
.
  
Ludlum,
Weather Factor
, 57.

23
.
  
Joseph Lee Boyle, “The Weather and the Continental Army, August 1777–June 1778,”
unpublished manuscript, available electronically by contacting the Valley Forge National Historical Park,
www.nps.gov/vafo/
. Boyle's masterful work is a chronological compilation of primary sources that mention the weather and its impact on the army, for both the winter of 1777–1778 and the winter of 1779–1780. Because the manuscript is transmitted electronically, pagination is not reliable. Boyle's entries appear in chronological order, however, so citation should be easy to locate. The section on the 1779–1780 winter at Morristown appears at the end of the manuscript.

24
.
  
Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.” In Elizabethtown, near Morristown, the
indoor
temperature in the morning never rose above freezing for the entire month. (See “The Hard Winter of 1779–1780,” available electronically from the Morristown National Historical Park.
www.nps.gov/morr/
.)

25
.
  
Ludlum,
Weather Factor
, 57.

26
.
  
Ludlum,
Early American Winters
, 1: 115.

27
.
  
Ludlum,
Weather Factor
, 56.

28
.
  
Ludlum,
Early American Winters
, 1: 114–116; Ludlum,
Weather Factor
, 56–58; Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.”

29
.
  
Martin,
Narrative
, 147–148.

30
.
  
Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.”

31
.
  
Ibid.

32
.
  
Washington to magistrates of Virginia, January 8, 1780, in Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 17: 362–363; cited in Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.”

33
.
  
Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.”

34
.
  
Ibid.

35
.
  
Washington to Lafayette, March 18, 1780, in Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 18: 124–125. Cited in Ludlum,
The Weather Factor
, 59, and Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.”

36
.
  
According to Eric P. Olsen, park ranger and historian at Morristown National Historical Park: “Parts of the Continental Army spent four winters around Morristown during the Revolutionary War. The first two winters featured General Washington and the bulk of the ‘main' Continental Army. The later two winters did not include Washington and featured only small parts of the Continental Army. First winter, January 1777 to May 1777—Washington stays at Arnold's Tavern in Morristown [building no longer exists]. The troops stay in private homes and public buildings spread out from Princeton through Morristown to the Hudson Highlands. Second winter, December 1779 to June 1780—Washington stays at the Ford Mansion [part of Morristown NHP] and up to 13,000 soldiers camp 5 miles south of Morristown in Jockey Hollow [also part of Morristown NHP]. Third winter, November 1780 to January 1781—The Pennsylvania Line camps in Jockey Hollow while Washington is in New Windsor, NY. The Pennsylvania Line mutinies on January 1, 1780, and most of them leave Jockey Hollow. Later in January/February 1781 the Pennsylvania Line is replaced in Jockey Hollow by the New Jersey Brigade. The NJ Brigade had been camped further north in New Jersey and had also mutinied but their mutiny, unlike the PA Line mutiny, was suppressed. The NJ Brigade stays in Jockey Hollow until sometime in the Spring/Summer of 1781. Fourth
winter, 1781–1782—The New Jersey Brigade returns to Jockey Hollow for this winter.” (Personal correspondence, September 2003.)

37
.
  
According to military historian Howard Peckham, about seven thousand American soldiers lost their lives in battle, while ten thousand American soldiers perished from disease. (Peckham,
Toll of Independence
, 130.)

38
.
  
Washington to Congress, December 22 and 23, 1777, Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 10: 183, 195–196.

39
.
  
Washington to Congress, December 22, 1777, Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 10: 183. Washington was also the source of the defining metaphor of the soldiers' plight: on April 21, 1778, he wrote that because the soldiers had no shoes, “their Marches might be traced by the blood from their feet.” (Washington to John Banister, April 21, 1778, Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
, 11: 291.) William Gordon, in his 1788 history of the Revolution, claimed that Washington had told the story to him personally at a dinner party after the war: “Through the want of shoes and stockings, and the hard frozen ground, you might have tracked the army from White Marsh to Valley-forge by the blood of their feet.” (William Gordon,
The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America
, reprint edition [Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969, first published in 1788], 3: 11–12.) Writers for over two centuries have followed Gordon's lead, using this catchy image to sum up the winter's experience. Lost in the translation has been a practical aspect of this quaint remark: tracking footprints in those days was a matter of military importance.

40
.
  
John Marshall,
Life of George Washington
(London and Philadelphia: Richard Phillips, 1804–1807), 3: 279–282.

41
.
  
Mercy Otis Warren,
History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, interspersed with Biographical, Political and Moral Observations
(Boston: E. Larkin, 1805; reprinted by Liberty Classics in 1988), 1: 389; 3: 268–269.

42
.
  
Quoted in John Resch,
Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 72.

43
.
  
Mason L. Weems,
The Life of Washington
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1962; reprint of ninth edition, 1809), 181–182. After the sixth edition, the story was included in all others.

44
.
  
Resch,
Suffering Soldiers
, 75.

45
.
  
Ibid., 73–74.

46
.
  
Salma Hale,
History of the United States, from their first Settlement as Colonies, to the Close of the War with Great Britain in 1815
(New York: Cothins and Hannay, 1830; first published in 1822), 188–189.

47
.
  
Charles A. Goodrich,
A History of the United States of America
(Hartford, CT: Barber and Robinson, 1823), 193.

48
.
  
From the
Tri-Weekly Post
, Springfield, MA, March 7, 1848. Cited in Boyle, “Weather at Valley Forge,” Introduction.

49
.
  
Benson Lossing,
The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851), 2: 331. George Bancroft, writing in the same era, cemented a place for Valley
Forge in America's collective memory. Bancroft devoted a full chapter to “Winter- Quarters at Valley Forge,” but only half a paragraph to the winter camp of 1779–1780, without even mentioning Morristown by name. For Bancroft, the secret to the soldiers' success at Valley Forge was filial piety: “Washington's unsleeping vigilance . . . secured them against surprise; love of country and attachment to their general sustained them under their unparalleled hardships; with any other leader, the army would have dissolved and vanished.” Bancroft played heavily on the contrast between the British and American armies: while Continental soldiers at Valley Forge starved and froze, the Redcoats in Philadelphia danced, gambled, and attended theatrical productions. (George Bancroft,
History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the Continent
[Boston: Little, Brown, 1879; first published 1834–1874], 6: 41, 46.) Richard Hildreth, writing concurrently with Lossing and Bancroft, gave a more matter-of-fact rendering of the winter at Valley Forge, in keeping with his usual style. Although he detailed the shortages and bemoaned the need for soldiers to forage for their food, he did not glorify their suffering or use it to indulge in effusive displays of patriotism. (Richard Hildreth,
The History of the United States of America
[New York: Harper & Brothers, 1849; Augustus Kelly reprint of 1880 edition, 1969], 3: 231–232.)

50
.
  
Lorett Treese,
Valley Forge: Making and Remaking a National Symbol
, published on the Internet site for the Valley Forge National Historical Park,
www.nps.gov/vafo/
.

51
.
  
John Mack Faragher, Mari Jo Buhle, Daniel Czitrom, and Susan H. Armitage,
Out of Many: A History of the American People
, Seventh Edition (Upple Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2012), 165–67. Ironically, the text does mention one of the four winters at Morristown—but only the first winter there (1776–1777), not the notorious hard winter of 1779–1780—and it does so to contrast that earlier winter to “the hard winter at Valley Forge.”