Valley Forge is easily one of the most iconic places in American lore. For anyone who has set through civics classes in high school or social studies in elementary school we can well remember the tale of the beleaguered continental troops and their harrowing winter in Pennsylvania.
As I read through the chapter in the Washington biography on this time, though, something struck me which didn't when I was a kid, because when you are a kid things like this never occur to you. Or, I should say, when you are a pampered American kid things like this never occur to you. That was a freaking miserable winter.
It was one of the coldest in history and there were lots of people that did not even have a blanket. It was 40 degrees here the other night and we put an extra blanket on our bed. In our heated house. Upstairs, where warm air tends to congregate anyway. Didn't want my toesies to be cold.
Think of the coldest you have ever been. Then imagine that, unbroken, for four months. Now imagine you are the hungriest you have ever been. Also, imagine that unbroken for four months. To top it off picture a well-trained army settled snugly in New York that when the ground thaws is going to come and try to kill you with a musket ball or a bayonet.
Washington and his staff shared a tiny house with men literally sleeping in piles on the wooden floor. Firewood was rationed. There was no food. Thank God for rum.
You can understand why Washington's grasp on the army was often tenuous and why the threat of mutiny was omnipresent. Here are men who have abandoned their homes and fields to starve or freeze to death on some godforsaken clearing.
Wars back then were matters of attrition. One side outlasted the other side as much as they beat them. In fact, there were very few battles, so to speak. Washington's army went almost three years without a significant engagement. But when troops freeze to death or drop dead of sunstroke or dysentery or just give up hope and leave, that changes the whole face of war.
I cannot imagine what those men went through, what they endured. I have never had to be cold. Most of the coldest times in my life have been because I decided voluntarily to go to the mountains in the winter and strap a piece of fiberglass to my feet and rocket down a hill. Not exactly noble. But deep, bone-chilling cold, gut-wrenching hunger, and myriad other privations were the struggles that built this country. It really does make it hard to not feel as if we are squandering everything away.
No comments:
Post a Comment