Example 1777 World Events

Valley Forge –

TOC

With the winter setting in, General George Washington sought quarters for his men. Washington and his troops had just fought their last major engagement of 1777 at the Battle of White Marsh. He wanted a more secure location for the winter. He selected Valley Forge, 18 miles northwest of Philadelphia. On December 19, 1777 , when his poorly fed, ill-equipped 12,000-man army, weary from long marches, struggled into Valley Forge. Grounds for 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. The men described their huts as "cozy and comfortable quarters" and they provided sufficient protection from the moderately cold, wet, Pennsylvania winter. But, alternating freezing and melting of snow and ice made it impossible to keep dry and allowed for disease to fester. Undernourished and poorly clothed, living in crowded, damp quarters, the army was ravaged by sickness and disease. Typhoid, jaundice, dysentery, and pneumonia felled as many as 2,000 men that winter at Valley Forge.