The Civil War - 150 Later - Division,Election, Secession, Inauguration

In this and subsequent special editions of Hooves, Heels and Wheels, the blog will take a look at the 150th anniversary of the events of the Civil War, and reflect on how they came about, and what implications they have for today ...

The Civil War

150 years ago This Week - The Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln

March 4th, 1861

The Divided States of America

It is not remarkable that the the Northern and Southern States began following two separate paths in the years following the American Revolution. The differences between North and South were very plain even before that conflict began. Rather, it ought to be viewed as miraculous that the two sections of the country were able to put aside their glaring differences and unite for the purpose of resisting the British Empire and achieving independence. At no time during that struggle, did either section of the new country envy the other's way of life, and seek to incorporate it for their own. Only the furnace of combat could bring these two lifestyles together, for in peacetime, they had little in common with each other.

The northernmost states had never been suitable for large scale farming. New England's thin and rocky soil could support subsistence farms, but the true economy would come from the sea. Fishing, shipbuilding and mercantilism made fortunes for New Englanders.

The Middle Atlantic States were more agreeable to farming, and upstate New York would soon boast orchards while Pennsylvania and New Jersey would become the breadbaskets of the new nation. Fruits, vegetables and grains would flow seasonally from the rich farmlands of these states.

In The South, (read: from Maryland on down) the Appalachian Mountains were well inland, over a hundred miles from the Atlantic, and nearly all the land was agreeable to large-scale farming. The south readily adopted the plantation system, large plots of land that were dedicated to the growing of a single cash crop. In Maryland, and Virgina it was tobacco. The Carolinas and the Georgia began by growing rice.

Slavery In The North

Post Revolution, every single one of the thirteen states had slaves. In the North, the slaves were few in number (in some cases very few), and were viewed as luxuries. They served as chauffeurs, maids, laundresses and menial laborers, usually for the rich. In the Mid-Atlantic states, a few slaves worked the farms and the orchards, as well as serving domestic chores for the well-to-do.

t no time did the Northern slave population seriously compare with the free labor force ... and in the North, that would soon mean that slaves would be more trouble then they were worth. The businesses and farms of the north preferred the use of free born laborers, who could be hired and fired at the whim of the employer, as the economic situation dictated. Unskilled workers were not hard to find, and almost always worked for cheap. The large port cities of Boston, New York and Philadelphia drew in immigrants from all all corners of Europe, and their populations swelled. It made far more economic sense to take advantage of this abundant and fluid labor pool then to buy slaves, who couldn't be laid off, and could only be disposed of by selling - possibly at a time nobody wanted to buy.

Less decisive then the economics - but more emotional- was the ethical issue. The North had a considerable population that was hostile to slavery on moral grounds. There was a hodgepodge of religions in the North, and some of them- Quakers and Catholics mostly - never tired of condemning the institution.

Thus, in the North, slavery was unprofitable and unpopular. Beginning with Massachusetts, Northern states began emancipating the slaves one by one. Massachusetts unilaterally freed all of their slaves (there weren't many), and all the other Northern states eventually passed gradual emancipation laws - there would be no new slaves, but current slaves would remain in bondage until they had worked to pay for their freedom (or of course, died).

Slavery In The South

The South had an entirely different relationship with slavery. In the South, slaves made up the backbone of the plantation system's labor force. No large immigrant fed cities and towns existed in the South- cities like Charleston, Savannah and Richmond were never to be compared with Northern cities in terms of population. Here, the idea of ending the institution of slavery was far more problematic, for the consequences far more severe then the simple discharge of a few man servants and laundresses. Rich Northerners like John Hancock may free their few slaves and begin paying them a wage to keep their house and drive their carriage, but how would a Southerner like Thomas Jefferson, used to not paying his 200 slaves to work his plantation be expected to suddenly begin paying this huge labor force? Certainly with great difficulty, if at all.

The hypocrisy of a slave holding nation espousing the ideals of freedom was not lost on the founding fathers, even the slave-holders. The difference between the North and the South was that ending slavery in the North meant economic prosperity for farmers and businessmen. In the South, it was seen to be economic catastrophe.

Cotton Is King

In the 1780s, right after the Revolution, the slave plantations grew tobacco, rice and indigo. They made modest -and in some cases large - incomes on these cash crops. Perhaps it was possible that they'd gradually find a way to end slavery. Perhaps the benefits of a free market would become as evident to the South as it would in the North. Perhaps the inefficient slave system would die of natural causes.

This window of hope -if indeed it had ever been open- slammed shut in the 1790s. The plantations of the Deep South (The Carolinas, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas) began growing cotton in this decade. The invention of Eli Whitney's cotton gin made the fiber not just a cash crop, but the cash crop for anyone who could grow it. Profits soared. Plantation owners had never had it so good. Whereas a rice planter sold to a local market (rice goes bad quickly), a tobacco planter sold to tobacco users, and an indigo planter sold to clothiers and dyers, a cotton planter sold to everyone.

Cheap cotton. All of America -and much of the world - would be better dressed because of it. Northern textile mills that were now getting cheap raw materiel would be much more profitable because of it. Workers in these mills would be employed by it. Plantation owners would become some the the wealthiest men in the country because of it.

And ultimately, more then four million black Americans would be enslaved by it.

Hostility to Slavery

As the first half of the 1800s progressed, Northerners became increasingly angry about slavery. Southerners became increasingly defensive of it, and aggravated by Northern attempts to end it, discourage it, or restrict it's spread. As the nation moved west, and new states were added, the question of the future of slavery constantly came back to haunt the consciences and income forecasts of Northerners and Southerners. Each time the issue would be dealt with by a stop-gap compromise, and each compromise would be adhered to for a matter of years before a new crises raised the issue anew. By 1850, the issue of slavery was no longer simply one of many issues confronting the nations political scene, but the single most important issue. Passions over the nations attitudes over slavery were at the height of fury in the 1857 Dred Scott decision.

Republican Party -1856

Fourteen men had served the nation as President of the United States as of the election of 1856. All of them had been at least tolerant of slavery. Ten of them had been slave owners themselves (In justice, Martin Van Buren only owned one as a young man, and made no effort to recapture the slave when he ran away) . Only John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce had never owned slaves. The two Adamses had disliked slavery, but never dreamed they'd be able to do anything to hinder it. Fillmore and Pierce were what were called "doughfaces" - Northerners that took a pro-slavery stance to appeal to Southern voters. For the sixty-six years as a nation, no presidential candidate had ever seriously considered running for office on an anti-slavery platform.

By 1856 the national mood had changed so drasticaly, that a change was in the wind. The two political parties of the time, the Whigs and the Democrats could not agree on a stance on the issue of slavery. Northern leaning members from both parties abandoned their old loyalties and formed a brand new party- The Republican Party. Drawing all of their support from the Northern states, the Republicans looked at the electoral map of the United States, and did the simple arithmetic. If a Republican candidate could win the North and "West" (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota) then an anti-slavery candidate could be elected president, with little the South could do about it.

To their horror, Southerners looked at the same map and came to the same conclusions.

As a desperate compromise, the Democratic Party produced the James Buchanan/ John C. Breckenridge ticket, a ticket that was tolerably palatable to both Northerners and Southerners. Pro-slavery, and with Buchanan a "doughface" (Pennsylvania's only contribution to the White House) the "Buck/Breck" ticket swept the South in the 1856 election, and when Southern politicians threatened secession if an anti-slavery Republican were elected, Buchanan's ticket was strengthened. The Republicans, grasping that this would not be their year, sent up a figurehead candidate, John C. Fremont, as a sacrificial lamb against the Democrat ticket.

This 'sacrificial lamb' did far better then expected. Although he lost to Buchanan, Fremont collected 114 electoral votes (to Buchanan's 174). For a newborn party, clearly the anti-slavery Republicans were a force to be reckoned with. And they would not be going away.

Buchanan

The fifteenth President presided over one calamity after another. First, only a few months into his term, the Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision, codifying white supremacy for the first time in US history, striking down most legal obstacles to slavery, and even throwing the status of "Free States" in doubt.

Then, in 1859, an abolitionist fanatic named John Brown attempted to start a slave upraising in Virginia, by attacking the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry. The rebellion was quickly put down, and Brown was hanged, but Northern support for the violent man's efforts terrified the South. Sectional strife and anger over slavery was not getting better; it was getting much worse.

Election of 1860

A failed Senate bid in 1858 had catapulted one-time congressman Abraham Lincoln to the national spotlight. The new Republican was elected as that parties candidate for president in May 1860. He ran on a platform calling for the restriction of slavery, but he did not go so far as to call for it's abolition. Keeping slavery out of new territories would be acceptable to Lincoln and most of the Republicans. Abolitionists in the north were annoyed, even disgusted at Lincoln's seeming timidness.

For the South however, Lincoln was a nightmare incarnate. Although Lincoln's anti-slavery stance could only be described as 'mild', anything other then full support for the institution of slavery was completely unacceptable. The South believed that their very survival depended on an Democrat victory. Such might be possible if that party came up with a candidate that could sweep the South, but also siphon off Republican votes from the North.

The Democratic party confronted this challenge by self-destructing, splitting into three hopelessly weak parties: Democrats, Southern Democrats, and Constitutional Unionists. In November Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860, to jubilation in the North, and outrage in the South.

Secession

The Constitution of the US neither permits nor prohibits any state to break away from the Union. This issue is simply not addressed, even as the Constitution stands today. The only articles of the Constitution that have any possible bearing on the topic are the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which read

Ninth Amendment The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people

Tenth Amendment The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people

Southerners eager to leave the Union saw in this a possible justification for secession - after all, If no law said a state couldn't secede, then a state could. And if the Constitution did not grant the federal government the right to prevent secession, then the federal government had no such right. Such was the South's legal justification. The South, however did not plan to present their argument to the Supreme Court. They were well aware that in order to make independence a reality, they'd very likely need to fight.

For moral inspiration, they turned to the Declaration of Independence, submitting that the US government had a duty to protect US citizens and the property of US citizens (read here: 'slaves') and that by allowing Northerners to elect a man hostile to slavery, the US was neglecting it's duty. As the Declaration points out, when any government neglects it's duty, the people have a right to abolish it.

With almost unbelievable speed, Southern states declared themselves independent from the Union. South Carolina led the way on December 20th, 1860. By the end of January 1861 Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana had left too. By the end of February Texas had also left, and the six breakaway states had joined together to form the Confederate States of America. They would be joined later in the year by Virgina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, as well as some legeslators of Missouri and Kentucky, although these two states would never truly join the Confederacy.

Despite what some modern pro-Southern historians wish to promulagate, the Secessionists never attempted to disguse, obscure or veil the fact that nervousness about the future of slavery was the reason behind their decision to seccede.

Inauguration Day, March 4th, 1861

Presdent elect Abraham Lincoln left his home in Springfield IL on Februaruy 22nd 1861, touring the North by train before his inauguration. At Philadelphia's Independence Hall, he declared that he'd rather be assasinated then see a single star removed from the US flag.

There were plans for a big speech in Baltimore, but the mood in that city was considered to be particulary ugly. His personal bodyguard, Alan Pinkerton persuaded the President-elect to cancel. Lincoln entered Washington DC without fanfair, so serious were the percieved designs on his life.

On March 4th, 1861, Lincoln was sworn in as the Sixteenth President of the United States. His inaugural address was one of the most highly anticipated speeches in the young nation's history. In it he promised not to interfere with the institution of slavery in those states where it existed. He denied that any state had the right to break away from the Union. He promised that there'd be no invasion of the the South, so long as they did not interfere with federal business, but should the South take up arms against the US, then the South would be responded to.

He ended his speech with one of the most eloquent pleas for peace and fraternaty any President has ever had to make.

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature"

Lincoln's speech was hopefull, but The South was arrayed against him, and preparing to fight. US Army posts in South Carolina and Florida were being threatened. Major Robert Anderson of the US Army command evacuated all of his forts except one, Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. In Flordia the Union garrison at Fort Pickens prepared for a possible attack.

The South was not impressed by Lincoln's speech or his attitude towards succession.

".... just what is expected of him, stupid, ambiguous vulgar and insolent .... [it] is everywhere considered a virtual declaration of war" - Diarist Emma Holms of Charleston

As Lincoln's speech was reprinted and circulated in the Northern and Southern newspapers people prayed and wondered alloud. Had it truly come to this? Were the Southern states so serious about secession as to open fire opon the US flag? Were the Northern states so serious about keeping the Southern states in the Union that they'd respond to an attack with a full scale invasion of the South?

The answers, so well known to modern history, were looming, ominous mysteries to Americans 150 years ago this week.

Valley Forge National Historical Park

Valley Forge National Historical Park - The Encampment Story Overview

Why Visit Valley Forge? Located 17 miles up the Schuylkill River from Philadelphia, Valley Forge is one of the most iconic parks associated with the American Revolutionary War. It was here where George Washington's Continental Army camped during the winter of 1777-78 after a series of military defeats cost the young army the use of their capital of Philadelphia. There was no "Battle of Valley Forge", unless we count a small skirmish that took place in September of 1777, long before the main Army got here (usually, we don't). The park witnessed little violence, and there are no details of troop movements, cavalry charges, bayonet attacks, or artillery bombardments. Note that the place is called a "National Historical Park", and not "National Military Park" or "National Battlefield". Valley Forge has since become an towering symbol of privation, hardship, hope and eventual success. As a name, it's so commonly known that even people who know very little about the Revolution know that it has to do with George Washington, his hungry army, and snow.

The Philadelphia Campaign - 1777

A year before the Valley Forge encampment, Washington's Continental Army had survived the darkest days of the entire war. A string of defeats in 1776 had almost completely crushed the army and any dreams of independence. In December 1776, Washington staged an 11th hour rally and defeated an enemy force at Trenton, and bested another British force at Princeton in January 1777. These victories produced nothing short of a miracle for the 6-month-old nation. Citizen soldiers began believing again, and the ranks of Washington's army swelled with new volunteers in the spring of 1777. The commander-in-chief put his generals to work drilling the new men. The British army, headquartered in New York, took their time in making plans for the year, not launching a major strike until July. General Sir William Howe boarded his men onto ships and sailed into the Chesapeake Bay, disembarking on the Elk River, in Maryland. Their target was the Patriot capital of Philadelphia. Washington hustled his men from New Jersey to the Brandywine Creek in lower Chester County PA, hoping to block the British advance. On Sept 11th, 1777 the Continental Army was defeated at the Battle of Brandywine. Although it was embarrassing defeat for the Yankee Doodles, the Americans were not demoralized, and hungered for another chance to engage the redcoats. The British gave the reeling Americans another hard knock at the Battle of Paoli a week later, resulting in more frustration for the Continental cause. Down, but not even close to out, Washington's soldiers mustered themselves up for some payback. In early-October, the American Army struck back at the British outside of Philadelphia in a surprise attack at Germantown. The assault was initially successful, and a rare sight heartened the Americans - the first redcoats they met ran away from them in panic! Sadly it was not to last, as British reinforcements arrived, the weather got worse, ammunition was exhausted, and several mistakes made by officers disjointed the American forces. The British gained the upper hand and held it, pushing the Americans back. For a third time in two months, Washington had to score a battle in the "loss" column, and had to concede that the British were going to hold Philadelphia for the time being. The days were now shorter and colder, the weather worsened and Washington was compelled to set up winter camp for his men. His bivouac would be Valley Forge.

Encampment for Winter

Up until the time armies started using motorized transport, wars were normally put on hold for the winter months. All heavy equipment like cannons and supply wagons were hauled by horses, donkeys and oxen, and feeding these animals in the wintertime was a full time job in and of itself. Armies normally did not move much during the winter, rather they'd send out small foraging parties hither and yon to buy, capture or commandeer needed foodstuffs. Washington's selection of Valley Forge as his campsite was an excellent choice. 17 miles up the Schuylkill River from Philadelphia, it was just far enough away that the British could not attack without marching at least one day out of the city.... and yet, it was also close enough to town to keep the British food-gathering parties from getting too far out into the countryside. Philadelphia might be British held, but Lancaster, Reading and York would not be. In the event of a British attack, the triangular shaped valley was impassible to the north (by the Schuylkill River), difficult to approach from the west (Mounts Joy and Misery), and very hard to attack from the South East (a wide open empty slope). The soldiers marched into camp on December 19th, 1777 and went right to work building huts. Washington awarded prize money to the first properly built 12 man hut in each brigade. The forests around the Valley quickly fell to the axes of the soldiers, and slowly but steadily, a log city erected itself on the hillsides. With no lumber, only timber, the going was slow, but most of the men were under roof within a few weeks. Given their recent defeats and the loss of their capital, the soldiers were understandably dismayed and grouchy, but they were not downcast and certainly not despairing. In fact, word had come in October of a great victory in upstate New York, at the battle of Saratoga. There, an entire British army had been taken prisoner, an achievement that few French, Spanish or Dutch generals had ever matched! Americans were truly showing some skill with the business of war. With every battle, they gained more experience, and with every struggle they improved as soldiers. They had been confronting the best and most powerful army in the world, and more and more often, they were holding their own against the King's heaviest blows. Circumstances however were about rain down even heavier blows on the American Army.

Mouths to Feed, Diseases to Fight

Food and supply

This was Washington's third winter of war, but the first time he commanded a force so large at a winter bivouac. In 1775-6, his army had been besieging Boston, with various detachments spread around for miles. The locals were very supportive of the Patriot cause, and supply was not a formidable challenge.

For the second winter, the winter of 1776-7, the army had shrunken to a tiny force of about 3,000. When this band of soldiers encamped in Morristown, NJ the few soldiers merely sought shelter in the homes and barns of the locals.

As the Continental Army went into winter quarters in December 1777, it had ballooned into a force of 10,000 men. Anywhere this army went immediately became the 5th largest city in America (Behind New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Charleston). Feeding this massive body of men was always a difficult task, and system for meeting it would break down spectacularly during the winter of 1777-1778. Several factors were to blame.

First of all Valley Forge was "out in the sticks". Unlike Morristown, Middlebrook, or Cambridge, Valley Forge was not a substantial town- it was an iron plantation, and one that had recently been destroyed by the British at that. This meant that shipments of food and clothing had to come from the depots of Reading, Lancaster, York and farther, a formidable journey fraught with danger and hardship for the drivers and teamsters. Gen. Thomas Mifflin had been the Army's quartermaster, but resigned to pursue a political career just before the Valley Forge encampment. Leaving just when his services would be needed most, Mifflin neglected to secure wagons, horses and teamsters for the exclusive use of the military. Washington's men would have to rely on private wagons for supply. Picture what would happen today if the US Army had to rely on UPS for shipments of their bullets, boots, belt buckles, and beans.

Not only that, but also most of these freelance drivers preferred to sell their services to the British rather then the Americans anyway. South East Pennsylvania was populated with many families that wished to remain free of conflict - or were pro-British. They did not willingly sell their goods or services to Washington's army. Even pro-American businessmen were sometimes pinched by the fact that the American army paid in continental scrip, not hard cash like the British. The scrip would be worthless if the Americans lost the war, and so selling to Washington's army was a financial risk, one that otherwise supportive patriots weren't always willing to take.

The Commander-In-Chief did have the authority to seize goods ... but Washington was always conscientious about trampling citizens' liberties, and was very reluctant to adopt a tyrant's tactics to support a war against tyranny. Historians still debate Washington's reluctance on this matter. No doubt it subjected his army to more privation, but there can also be little doubt that raiding the local inhabitants would have turned the local populace against the American cause, and into the arms of the British. And so, supplies of food, clothing and footwear remained inadequate.

General Nathaniel Greene was eventually put in charge of the quartermaster department, and his foraging expeditions into Maryland, coupled with general Anthony Wayne's cattle driving from New Jersey staved off absolute starvation of the Army.

Huts, Hygiene and The Sick

Washington's Army had no professional military engineers. When the huts were built in December and January, not enough thought was given to proper alignment and drainage of the structures. The only consideration when building the huts was the proximity and convenience to the defensive line. This oversight would cost many lives. Months spent in the huts turned them into germy, vermin infested pits of slops, stinks and pestilence. The soldiers were indifferent to hygiene, sometimes not bothering to make their way to the latrine when nature called. Trash sometimes collected in camp. When the cold of winter dissipated, the thawing began, and the huts became warmer and wetter, perfect petrie dishes for typhoid, typhus, influenza, and dysentery. These plagues worked their vile contagions on an army that was already malnourished, and the results were all too predictable. As soon as a soldier was revealed to be sick, he was removed from camp to avoid infecting his bunkmates, and transported a day's travel to army hospitals in Reading, Bethlehem, Lancaster and Ephrata. Ironically army hospitals only made the matter worse. They were soon overcrowded with suffering men who would soon die, but not before they infected almost everyone in the stuffed building. The possibility of being transferred to one of these places was a justly terrifying prospect for each soldier. In the six months of the Valley Forge encampment, 1800 US soldiers died of disease. Almost all of them perished not in camp, but in the far-flung hospitals. Most of them also died in the warmer months of March, April and May, and not the colder, earlier months. Washington lost nearly 20% of his army in this dreadful winter.

The Prussian and the French Into this under supplied, underpaid, undermanned, and under disciplined army came the man who would become one of America's great heroes. Frederich Wilhelm Augustin von Steuben had served upon the general staff of Frederick The Great, and was knowledgeable in the ways of discipline and military drill. He arrived with an entourage of professional aides in February 1778. Von Steuben was not above padding his resume a bit, advertising himself to George Washington as a Prussian general (really a captain), and a baron (he wasn't). But Steuben was also professional, a worker, and came with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. Stueben disarmed his new employer immediately by offering to drill the Continental army free -of -charge, forsaking pay or rank until he had proven his merits to Washington. For Washington, who had had his fill of self-serving, pompous foreign born aristocratic generals, this was indeed a breath of fresh air. He eagerly brought Steuben aboard. That decision would pay handsome benefits.

Steuben, a master of drill, knew how to whip soldiers into shape. The only thing he didn't know how to do was speak English, unless one counts swear words. Steuben would write down his drill orders in German, which his aides would then translate into French. Washington's aides, Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton would then translate the French into English.

Not above getting his hands dirty, Steuben assumed the role of instruction sergeant, and personally drilled a model company of 100 soldiers, cursing them in 3 languages until they perfected the evolutions he wanted them to learn. These men then disbanded to their own regiments, and drilled their fellows in what they had learned. By May, Steuben's style had worked it's magic. Washington was overjoyed. Instead of a smorgasbord of 13 small independent armies, each with their own method of drilling, training, marching and fighting, his Continental Army now marched as one, with commands and discipline being uniform. The American Army, having already acquired lessons in combat, was now a formidable fighting force.

Into this transforming army came electrifying news, and the most brilliant rays of hope. King Louis XVI of France, eager to avenge France's losses in the Seven Years/ French and Indian War, signed a treaty with the young United States of America. The French had been impressed by the American victory at Saratoga, and by the American initiative shown at Germantown. They were now joining the war as an American ally.

The repercussions of this would swing the balance of the War in America's favor. For the luckless British, the American Revolution was now an expensive sideshow, one whose goals now needed to be balanced against the military menace the French posed. What for King George III had started as a police action against rebellious colonists, had grown into a war of attrition against an ever present, ever evolving enemy, and had now exploded into a world war, a global struggle that could threaten the very existence of the British Empire.

Back In The Fight

In June 1778, the British Army evacuated Philadelphia, fearful of a French fleet trapping the British fleet in the Delaware River. In Valley Forge, the Continental Army readied for action. More supplies had been coming in. Fresh shoes and clothes were distributed. Horses fattened and sleeked on the spring feed. New recruits made it into camp. And four months of von Steuben's training and drilling had the soldiers marching and forming smartly and with precision.

On June 19th, Washington's revitalized divisions marched out of Valley Forge, the dreadful winter behind them, and the Campaign of 1778 ahead. The prospects of victory had never been brighter, and the solders we once again eager to meet the Imperial forces. This they would do at the Battle of Monmouth, a victory for Washington and his men. There, the British would be dismayed to learn that the previous winter had not weakened the American army -- it had strengthened it. The Americans were more dangerous then they ever had been, and British victory, which only 6 months ago had seemed inevitable, was actually no place in sight, and never would be.

The time of the encampment at Valley Forge was a major turning point in Revolutionary War history, and the National Park preserves the story of why this is so. The park is available to explore by Auto Tour, horseback and foot.