Valley Forge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 3 views
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With winter almost completely setting in, and the prospects for campaigning greatly diminishing, General George Washington sought quarters for his men. Washington and his troops had just fought what was to be the last major engagement of 1777 at the Battle of White Marsh (or Edge Hill). He devised to pull his troops from their present encampment in the White Marsh area (now Fort Washington State Park) and move to a more secure location for the coming winter. Though several locations were proposed, he selected Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, 18 miles (29 km) northwest of Philadelphia.
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On December 19, 1777, when Washington's poorly fed, ill-equipped army, weary from long marches, struggled into Valley Forge, winds blew as the 12,000 Continentals prepared for winter's fury. Grounds for brigade encampments were selected, and defense lines were planned and begun. Though construction of more than a thousand huts provided shelter, it did little to offset the critical shortages that continually plagued the army.
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Soon word of the British departure from Philadelphia brought a frenzied activity to the ranks of the Continental Army. On June 19, 1778, six months after its arrival, the army marched away from Valley Forge in pursuit of the British, who were moving toward New York. The ordeal had ended. The war would last for another five years, but for Washington, his men, and the nation to which they sought to give birth, a decisive victory had been won — a victory not of weapons but of will
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Valley Forge in Pennsylvania was the site of the camp of the American Continental Army over the winter of 1777–1778 in the American Revolutionary War.
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Washington and his men stood there for the winter. They built their own houses.
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This was where G.W. stayed with his men during the first worst winter. Most of his men either got Hypothermia or Frostbite. When they would get frostbite they had to go the hospital to get whatever had frostbite cut off. Most of the men wouldn't survive.
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National Memorial Arch inscription: Naked and starving as they are We cannot enough admire The incomparable Patience and Fidelity of the Soldiery –George Washington
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It proved to be an excellent choice. Named for an iron forge on Valley Creek, the area was close enough to the British to keep their raiding and foraging parties out of the interior of Pennsylvania, yet far enough away to halt the threat of British surprise attacks.
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The men described their lodgings as "cozy and comfortable quarters"
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Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben