Architect of the Capitol ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ricardo A. Herrera is a historian on the Staff Ride Team at the Combat Studies Institute (CSI), U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a doctorate in history from Marquette University. Before joining CSI, he was director of honors at Mount Union College in Ohio and chair of the Department of History and Geography at Texas Lutheran University. He has published several articles and chapters in military history. Commissioned in 1983, he served as an Armor officer on active duty, in the Army Reserve, and with the California National Guard. George Washington, by Charles Willson Peale, 1779 February–March 1778 BY RICARDO A. HERRERA enerale George Washington be destroyed, giving Direction, to the SIZE MATTERS: CAMPAIGNS, BATTLES, G wwas understandably con- Officer or Officers to whom this Duty AND MYTHS ccerned about the continued is assign’d, to take an account of the prprovisioningovisioni of his army at Valley Quantity together with the Owners Compared to the campaigns and Forge, Pennsylvania, in the middle of Names.”1 battles that bookended it, the Grand the winter of 1778. Writing to Maj. In issuing these orders, Washington Forage was small indeed. In terms of Gen. Nathanael Greene on 12 Febru- set in motion one of the Continental raw numbers, the four thousand or ary 1778, the American commander Army’s largest, riskiest, and most so Continentals, Britons, Pennsylva- observed that “whereas by recent in- complex operations executed while nians, Delawareans, and New Jersey telligence I have reason to expect that at Valley Forge, the Grand Forage of men who took part quite simply paled they [“the Enemy”] intend making an- 1778. The expedition involved some in comparison to the larger number of other grand Forage into this Country, fifteen hundred to two thousand sol- soldiers who fought at Brandywine, it is of the utmost Consequence that diers of the Continental Army and Germantown, or Monmouth. Yet, the Horses Cattle Sheep and Proven- thus constituted a substantial portion while the forage was not equal in scale der within Fifteen or Twenty miles of the roughly sixty-five hundred to the Philadelphia campaign or the west of the River Delaware between able-bodied, armed, and uniformed Battle of Monmouth, a closer study of the Schuylkil and the Brandywine be Continental Army troops at Valley that effort reveals in fine detail some immediately removed, to prevent the Forge. It also included elements of of the operational, logistical, and civil- Enemy from receiving any benefit the Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New military complexities, constraints, and therefrom, as well as to supply the Jersey militias and contingents of the opportunities faced by commanders in present Emergencies of the American Continental and Pennsylvania Navies. the War of Independence. Moreover, Army.” Washington did “therefore The forage spanned southeastern it demonstrates the growing tactical Authorise impower & Command . Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and operational maturity of the Con- [Greene] forthwith to take Carry off & northern Delaware, and northeastern tinental Army. Washington’s forces secure all such Horses as are suitable Maryland. It lasted nearly six weeks executed actions that today might be for Cavalry or for Draft and all Cattle and engaged an estimated twenty- deemed joint (involving companion & Sheep fit for Slaughter together three hundred British soldiers (about services like the Army and Navy), with every kind of Forage that may be one-sixth of the able-bodied British compound (involving missions under- found in possession of any of the In- force in Philadelphia), as well as sev- taken in conjunction by regular and habitants within the Aforesaid Limits.” eral vessels and crews of the Royal irregular forces), and full-spectrum That which could not be carried off, Navy. Yet, the Grand Forage remains operations (combining “offensive, Greene was to “immediately Cause to largely unexamined and unknown.2 defensive, and stability or civil support 7 UCKS Trenton 8 N OUNTY Army History Bristol Whitemarsh VALLEY FORGE Spring 2011 Germantown Dunk’s Ferry Paoli Schuylkill PENNSYLVANIA River Mount Holly PHILADELPHIA Cooper’s Ferry Upper Bridge Evesham Meeting House Springfield Meeting House Cooper’s Darby Creek Haddonfield Gloucester Billingsport Mantua Creek ER IV R DELAWA RE E R A W A L E D Wilmington Swedesboro NEW JERSEY New Castle Blessington Approximately 10 Miles Salem Port Penn operations simultaneously as part of they reduce the Continental Army plies could be had, but a host of factors an interdependent joint force”). Those to passive witness and caricature, like the declining purchasing power actions stand in a startling contrast rather than viewing it as a field army of Continental currency, the disorga- to the image of the encampment that engaged in active operations. These nization and lack of firm leadership most Americans hold.3 views ignore the Continentals’ nearly in the Commissary and Quartermas- Herein lies the second reason for constant combat and reconnaissance ter’s Departments, and, of course, the the Grand Forage’s obscurity: the patrols and the foraging the Army British Army militated against the power of myth as popular history. For undertook to supply itself and to deny Continentals. The “situation of the most Americans, including military those supplies to the British. In the Camp is such that in all human prob- officers, the Valley Forge canton- scope, planning, and execution of the ability the Army must soon dissolve,” ment is little more than a national Grand Forage, Washington revealed wrote Brig. Gen. James Varnum of morality play highlighting the virtu- his burgeoning acumen as a planner Rhode Island on 12 February. Valley ous self-sacrifice and patriotism of and commander and his continued Forge historian Wayne Bodle agrees George Washington and his ragged willingness to accept risk. Equally that the army was fast approaching band of Continentals. Sketched in important, the Grand Forage revealed collapse and probably could not have broad outlines, they marched along the maturity of Washington’s staff and lasted through March 1778 without frozen, snow-choked roads, leav- the Army’s leadership. The operation obtaining additional sources of food ing their bloody footprints to mark was too distant and too dispersed for and fuel.5 their route in the cruel Pennsylvania Washington to exercise direct control; The problem was not that Pennsyl- winter. While these patriots, ignored thus he relied on the experience and vania was barren; it was not. There by Congress, their parent states, and judgment of his generals, dozens of were supplies to be had to the west and local farmers, starved and froze, they field- and company-grade officers, and south of Valley Forge, but transport- endured in the service of the “glori- the Army’s logistical staff. Washington ing them to the army was difficult. ous cause”—independence. By way of exercised centralized command but The roads were poor and even under contrast, General Sir William Howe placed his confidence in decentralized clement conditions the journey was and the British Army enjoyed the execution. Meanwhile, his opponent, difficult for heavily laden wagons. Col. winter and the pleasures of Loyalist General Howe, demonstrated a sin- Ephraim Blaine, deputy commissary society, snug and warm in occupied gular lack of interest in the largest general of purchases for the Middle Philadelphia, the erstwhile American and riskiest operation undertaken by Department, noted the “neglect in capital. American officers’ knowledge the Continental Army in the winter the Quarter Master Department [for] typically goes beyond this. They note of 1778.4 not keeping up a continual supply of the appearance of Friedrich Wilhelm Waggons from the Magazines with von Steuben, formerly a Prussian FEEDING THE CONTINENTALS provisions.” Increased military traffic, officer, who would, with vulgar to the extent this was possible, merely charm, lead the effort to transform By February 1778, the Army’s Com- churned the roadbeds, which in the the Continental Army from a group missary and Quartermaster’s Depart- freeze, thaw, and rain cycle made of individualistic and undisciplined ments had collapsed. The month’s an arduous journey hellish. Further- republican-warriors into citizen-sol- bad weather and the atrocious road more, wagoners often siphoned off diers, part of a well-drilled machine network compounded the dismal brine from barrels of pickled fish or able to stand up to British bayonets. logistical picture. On 5 February, the meat in order to lighten their loads, In each of these cases, the Continen- Schuylkill River, which divided the thus spoiling the food. Many simply tal Army emerges as a static force, a principal encampment of Washing- jettisoned barrels along the roadside. “Greek chorus” trumpeting stoic mar- ton’s Main Army on the right bank The frequent snow, rain, and cold tial values and patriotism. While there from its local magazine on the left, was weather made foraging for food very are kernels of truth to these images, impassable because of flooding. Sup- difficult. The proposition that hunting 9 January 1778, Howe’s Hessian aide de camp, Capt. Friedrich von Muench- hausen, matter-of-factly recorded the dispatch of “three regiments . this morning to cover our foragers and wagons, all of which returned unmolested.” They “brought almost 200 tons of hay” into Philadelphia. Often enough, however, lone farmers and millers brought their goods to the British.7 Howe’s foragers favored the lands east of the Schuylkill, where Loyalism was more pronounced, the enemy’s presence was lightest, and the risk of being caught on the wrong side of a rising river was obviated. Col. Walter could supply the army while maintain- ment a difficult proposition. Com- Stewart, whose 13th Pennsylvania ing its position is, at best, ludicrous.