America’s Worst WinterEver And why mythmakers chose to forget it By Ray Raphael

In January 1780, fighting in the Revolutionary War came to a standstill as Mother Tiny P Nature transformed America into a frigid hell. For the only time in recorded history, ix to come all of the saltwater inlets, harbors and sounds of the Atlantic coastal plain, from North Carolina northeastward, froze over and remained closed to navigation for a period of a month or more. Sleighs, not boats, carried cords of firewood across New York Harbor from New Jersey to Manhattan. The upper Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and the York and James rivers in Virginia turned to ice. In Philadelphia, the high daily temperature topped the freezing mark only once during the month of January, prompting Timothy Matlack, the patriot who had inscribed the official copy of the Declaration of Independence, to complain that “the ink now freezes in my pen within five feet of the fire in my parlour, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”

The weather took an especially harsh toll on the 7,460 while its sequel at Morristown is now largely forgotten. patriot troops holed up with General in And therein lies a paradoxical tale. The climatic conditions Morristown, N.J., a strategic site 30 miles west of the the faced at and a year British command in . On January 3, the later at Middlebrook, N.J., were mild compared to those II No man encampment was engulfed by “one of the most tremendous they endured at Morristown during the harshest winter in snowstorms ever remembered,” army surgeon James American history (see sidebar, p. TK). “Those who have could endure Thacher wrote in his journal. “No man could endure its only been in Valley Forge and Middlebrook during the last violence many minutes without danger of his life.” When two winters, but have not tasted the cruelties of this one, its violence tents blew off, soldiers were “buried like sheep under the know not what it is to suffer,” wrote Baron Johann de Kalb, snow…almost smothered in the storm.” The weather made a German soldier who served as a major general in the many minutes it impossible to get supplies to the men, many of whom had Continental Army. no coats, shirts or shoes and were on the verge of starvation. So why do we remember Valley Forge and not “For a Fortnight past the Troops both Officers and Men, Morristown? The answer, in a nutshell, is that Valley Forge without have been almost perishing for want,” George Washington better fits the triumphal story of the Revolution passed wrote in a letter to civilian officials dated January 8. danger of The winter at Valley Forge two years earlier is a A19th-centuryengravingdepictsasentryatValleyForge.Winter celebrated part of America’s revolutionary mythology, conditionsatMorristown,N.J.,twoyearslaterwereevenworse. his life II

2 AMERICAN HISTORY APRIL 2010 NORTH WIND PICTURE ARCHIVES one of the most severe—something Private Martin recalled. “They saw no alternative The Big Chill: akin to the one soldiers experienced but to starve to death, or break up the army, at Morristown two years later. give all up and go home. This was a hard matter Then and Now Historical memory of Morristown for the soldiers to think upon. They were truly was conveniently suppressed, in part patriotic, they loved their country, and they had atriot soldiers and civilians endured extremes of because it revealed that the soldiers’ already suffered everything short of death in its P weather that Americans in the modern era have hardships continued throughout the cause; and now, after such extreme hardships to never experienced—but may be forced to contend with war, virtually unabated. Even worse, give up all was too much, but to starve to death if severe global warming occurs. The Revolutionary War Morristown afforded clear proof was too much also. What was to be done?” took place during the Little Ice Age, a period from 1300 that the soldiers’ suffering was not to 1850 when winters in North America and Europe always so silent. were frequently more bitter and stormy than they are today. Summers tended to be cool and droughts fre- Finally, on May 25, Martin and his fellow quent. In some areas, the growing season shortened as soldiers in the Connecticut line snapped. It was a much as three to four weeks, leading to crop failures. t Morristown “we were “pleasant day,” Martin recalled, but as the troops A Climate science is notoriously inexact, but some absolutely, literally starved,” Private paraded, they started “growling like soreheaded researchers predict that global warming could, para- Joseph Plumb Martin recalled after dogs.” That evening they disregarded their doxically, lead to another little ice age and drop average the war. “I do solemnly declare that officers and acted “contrary to their orders.” temperatures as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit over I did not put a single morsel of When an officer called one of the soldiers “a much of the and 10 degrees in the The Continental Army Slept Here victuals into my mouth for four days mutinous rascal,” the rebel defiantly pounded and as many nights, except a little the ground with his musket and called out, “Who Northeast and Northern Europe. Patriot soldiers black birch bark which I gnawed off will parade with me?” Martin reported the Suspected causes of a little ice age include reduced endured the hard a stick of wood, if that can be called response: “The whole regiment immediately fell solar activity, volcanic activity and alteration in ocean winter of 1780 at currents that carry warm water from the tropics to the aMorristown,N.J., down from generation to generation, while victuals. I saw several of the men roast their old in and formed” with the dissenter. Then another North Atlantic. It is this last factor that offers reason to camp huddled in Morristown is viewed as an embarrassment. At shoes and eat them, and I was afterwards regiment joined in, and they both started groups of 12 in Valley Forge, the story goes, soldiers suffered informed by one of the officers’ waiters, that marching to the beat of the drums—without worry. According to models of global warming, if the crude 14-by-16- quietly and patiently. They remained true to some of the officers killed and ate a favorite little orders. Officers who stepped in to quell the massive Greenland ice sheets were to melt significantly, foot log huts. their leader. At Morristown, on the other hand, dog that belonged to one of them.” incipient mutiny found bayonets pointed at their the influx of freshwater into the North Atlantic could Replica huts have they threatened to mutiny. The prospect of mass desertions worried chests. Meanwhile, the defiant troops smother or stall the current of warm saltwater that been erected at General . “Here we are continued parading and “venting flows from the tropics and warms the coasts of both the site, which is One detail of now a national surrounded with Snow banks, and it is well we our spleen at our country and the iconic North America and Europe. A recent study by climatol- historical park. are, for if it was good for traveling, I believe the government, then at our officers, and Washington ogist William Patterson of the University of Nobody celebrated either Valley Forge or Soldiers would take up their pack and march,” then at ourselves for our imbecility in Crossing the Saskatchewan and his colleagues found that such a Delaware tells Morristown during the Revolution itself. The he reported on January 5. The following day, staying there and starving in detail meltoff could bring on a little ice age in just a few years. sorry plight of the poor men and teenage boys Greene’s fears were almost realized. “The Army for an ungrateful people who did not a chilling story: Ice choked the “Making central New York as cold as Greenland in five who comprised the Continental Army was a is on upon the eve of disbanding for want of care what became of us.” river in 1776. years,” he says, “would be terrible.” guarded secret, kept from the British, who must Provisions,” he wrote. Although the army did not Two days after the men had so not know their vulnerability, and from the French, break up as Greene feared, men deserted almost dramatically registered their who might deny aid to a weak ally. Further, the daily, about at the same rate as they had been complaints, a shipment of pork and failure of civilian governments to supply troops leaving throughout the war, including the winter 30 head of cattle arrived in camp. was just that—a failure, not to be publicized. spent at Valley Forge. The rest toughed it out, The immediate crisis was over, but a By the early 19th century, however, writers and most of those survived. series of escalating protests occurred who looked to the Revolutionary War to inspire a Ironically, the largest threat to the continued in and around Morristown the new wave of patriotism developed a storyline that existence of the Continental Army came in the following winter as well. Throughout transformed the troubled winter at Valley Forge spring, with the passing of harsh weather. Then, the war, American soldiers did not into a source of pride. Soldiers had endured their soldiers hoped for better fare at their mess, and suffer in silence, as the Valley Forge sufferings without complaint, drilled obediently they did get some food—but not with the myth suggests. They kept under the instructions of Baron Von Steuben, and regularity they would have preferred. The themselves fed and alive however emerged strong and ready to fight. “How strong army’s supply line continued to experience they could, even when that meant must have been their love of liberty?” Salma periodic lapses. When nature was to blame, speaking out. By remembering Hale asked rhetorically in a romanticized history soldiers found the inner strength to endure, but Morristown, we acknowledge the written in 1822 for schoolchildren as well as when human error was the cause of their can-do, rambunctious spirit that adults. If Valley Forge was the low point of the discontent, they were less tolerant. So when characterized revolutionary soldiers war, the story went, it was also the turning point. little meat turned to no meat in the middle of and helped them carry on. I After that, things got better. May, many felt it was time to force the issue. For the Valley Forge story to work, a “The men were now exasperated beyond Ray Raphael is the author of climatically normal winter was transformed into endurance; they could not stand it any longer,” Founding Myths and Founders.

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