Inefficiency meanwhile brought terrible suffering at Valley Forge, and the horrors of that winter remain still vivid in the memory of the American people.The army marched to Valley Forge on December 17, 1777, and in midwinter everything from houses to entrenchments had still to be created.At once there was busy activity in cutting down trees for the log huts.They were built nearly square, sixteen feet by fourteen, in rows, with the door opening on improvised streets.Since boards were scarce, and it was difficult to make roofs rainproof, Washington tried to stimulate ingenuity by offering a reward of one hundred dollars for an improved method of roofing.The fireplaces of wood were protected with thick clay.Firewood was abundant, but, with little food for oxen and horses, men had to turn themselves into draught animals to bring in supplies.
Sometimes the army was for a week without meat.Many horses died for lack of forage or of proper care, a waste which especially disturbed Washington, a lover of horses.When quantities of clothing were ready for use, they were not delivered at Valley Forge owing to lack of transport.Washington expressed his contempt for officers who resigned their commissions in face of these distresses.No one, he said, ever heard him say a word about resignation.There were many desertions but, on the whole, he marveled at the patience of his men and that they did not mutiny.With a certain grim humor they chanted phrases about "no pay, no clothes, no provisions, no rum," and sang an ode glorifying war and Washington.Hundreds of them marched barefoot, their blood staining the snow or the frozen ground while, at the same time, stores of shoes and clothing were lying unused somewhere on the roads to the camp.
Sickness raged in the army.Few men at Valley Forge, wrote Washington, had more than a sheet, many only part of a sheet, and some nothing at all.Hospital stores were lacking.For want of straw and blankets the sick lay perishing on the frozen ground.
When Washington had been at Valley Forge for less than a week, he had to report nearly three thousand men unfit for duty because of their nakedness in the bitter winter.Then, as always, what we now call the "profiteer" was holding up supplies for higher prices.To the British at Philadelphia, because they paid in gold, things were furnished which were denied to Washington at Valley Forge, and he announced that he would hang any one who took provisions to Philadelphia.To keep his men alive Washington had sometimes to take food by force from the inhabitants and then there was an outcry that this was robbery.With many sick, his horses so disabled that he could not move his artillery, and his defenses very slight, he could have made only a weak fight had Howe attacked him.Yet the legislature of Pennsylvania told him that, instead of lying quiet in winter quarters, he ought to be carrying on an active campaign.In most wars irresponsible men sitting by comfortable firesides are sure they knew best how the thing should be done.
The bleak hillside at Valley Forge was something more than a prison.Washington's staff was known as his family and his relations with them were cordial and even affectionate.The young officers faced their hardships cheerily and gave meager dinners to which no one might go if he was so well off as to have trousers without holes.They talked and sang and jested about their privations.By this time many of the bad officers, of whom Washington complained earlier, had been weeded out and he was served by a body of devoted men.There was much good comradeship.
Partnership in suffering tends to draw men together.In the company which gathered about Washington, two men, mere youths at the time, have a world-wide fame.The young Alexander Hamilton, barely twenty-one years of age, and widely known already for his political writings, had the rank of lieutenant colonel gained for his services in the fighting about New York.He was now Washington's confidential secretary, a position in which he soon grew restless.His ambition was to be one of the great military leaders of the Revolution.Before the end of the war he had gone back to fighting and he distinguished himself in the last battle of the war at Yorktown.The other youthful figure was the Marquis de La Fayette.It is not without significance that a noble square bears his name in the capital named after Washington.The two men loved each other.The young French aristocrat, with both a great name and great possessions, was fired in 1776, when only nineteen, with zeal for the American cause."With the welfare of America," he wrote to his wife, "is closely linked the welfare of mankind." Idealists in France believed that America was leading in the remaking of the world.When it was known that La Fayette intended to go to fight in America, the King of France forbade it, since France had as yet no quarrel with England.The youth, however, chartered a ship, landed in South Carolina, hurried to Philadelphia, and was a major general in the American army when he was twenty years of age.
