The Art of Manliness - December 23, 2018


#469： How Valley Forge Turned the Tide of the Revolutionary War

Hosted by
Brett McKay
Mentioned
Alexander Hamilton George Washington Trayvon Martin John Adams Patrick Henry John Hancock
#468： Does Meditation Deserve the Hype？ #470： A Proven System for Building and Breaking Habits

Episode Stats


Length

49 minutes

Words per minute

179.16

Word count

8,809

Sentence count

—

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

18 months after the Declaration of Independence was signed, this continental army was on the verge of being snuffed out. battered, demoralized, and half naked, 12,000 Americanan troops marched into a small poorly supplied encampment in British occupied Pennsylvania to hunker down for the winter. This was the encampment known as Valley forge. And despite the terrible conditions and circumstances, there something happened at Valley forge that would change the tide of the revolutionary war in the entire course of history. My guest today is a co-author of a new book entitled Valley forge about this historic crucible. His name is Bob Drewey, and I had him last on the show to discuss his stellar book, Lucky 666. Today, he explains the dire obstacles that General George Washington and the continental army were up against at the time of Valley forge, from coming off a string of strategic defeats to weathering political infighting. And he offers a vivid description of the squalor soldiers lived in, as well as a rundown of the common myths people have about this historical episode.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast
00:00:18.360 18 months after the declaration of independence was signed this continental army was on the ropes
00:00:23.040 and the american revolution was on the verge of being snuffed out battered demoralized and half
00:00:27.440 naked 12 000 american troops marched into a small poorly supplied encampment in british occupied
00:00:32.180 pennsylvania to hunker down for the winter they call the encampment valley forge despite the
00:00:37.000 terrible conditions and circumstances there something happened at valley forge that would
00:00:40.360 change the tide of the revolutionary war in the entire course of history my guest today is a
00:00:44.660 co-author of a new book entitled valley forge about this historic crucible his name is bob drewey and
00:00:48.840 i had him last on the show to discuss his stellar book lucky 666 today he explains the dire obstacles
00:00:54.000 general george washington and the continental army were up against at the time of valley forge
00:00:57.540 from coming off a string of strategic defeats to weathering political infighting he then offers
00:01:01.580 a vivid description of the squalor soldiers lived in at valley forge as well as a rundown of the
00:01:05.460 common myths people have about this historical episode we end our conversation discussing how
00:01:09.280 the situation at valley forge got turned around and why the men who survived this crucible ended up
00:01:13.220 stronger because of it this show will give you some fresh insights and new appreciation for this
00:01:16.680 pivotal event in american history after it's over check out the show notes at aom.is
00:01:20.860 slash valley forge bob joins me now via clearcast.io
00:01:24.320 all right bob drewey welcome back to the show right it's great to be back thanks uh i had a fun
00:01:44.840 time with you when we did lucky 666 and looking forward to the same for valley forge that's right
00:01:49.820 so you got a new book out valley forge now this is interesting it's just like an iconic moment in
00:01:53.960 american revolutionary history i think all of us have seen the the painting of washington praying
00:01:58.980 we'll talk about that here in a bit but what got you thinking about valley forge and writing writing
00:02:05.420 the history of this event uh and such great to tell frankly brett it was a family affair believe it or
00:02:12.180 not i have a 20 year olds 21 year olds he's 21 now uh son leah mantuan with a hyphen and his
00:02:19.280 mother's french and leah mantuan has been he's a dual citizen he's been bilingual since infancy he's
00:02:25.900 in university of the uk now he speaks four different languages but one day i guess it was six or seven
00:02:30.980 years ago he was 13 or 14 we were down at my wife's house outside of philadelphia for a holiday i think
00:02:36.660 it was christmas and i heard this kerfluffle in the next room in the tv room and i went as i was walking
00:02:42.960 towards it my son is kind of stomping out i said what's wrong son and he said uh my wife's brother
00:02:49.560 had made a crack about the united states bailing france out of two world wars and my son shot back
00:02:56.120 at him oh yeah if it wasn't for the marquis de lafayette in the french army you'd be canada right
00:03:01.220 now there wouldn't even be a united states and not only was i proud of my you know early teen son for
00:03:07.680 standing up to this 40 year old man brad it was like a light bulb went off over my head
00:03:12.060 lafayette during the revolution what a great book and so i got a hold of my co-author tom clavin we
00:03:19.080 both agreed we were just finishing up our ray cloud book the heart of everything that is and we had
00:03:23.900 already committed to the world war ii book lucky 666 but lafayette was in the queue he was next online
00:03:30.420 and of course as we were working on lucky 666 the inestimable sarah val terrific writer she came out
00:03:37.100 with her book lafayette in the somewhat united states so alas there goes that idea down the
00:03:43.060 tubes let's find something else but tom stopped me tom clavin my co-author and he said hold on a
00:03:48.760 second i just been doing some perfunctory research on lafayette what do you know about valley forge
00:03:54.080 and i kind of answered i don't know i suppose what most americans learned in civics class or social
00:04:00.340 studies or eighth grade history a lot of freezing half naked men starving to death and as you put it
00:04:08.820 kind of washington and all the portraits he's sitting on a big white horse watching them starve to death
00:04:14.060 and and tom said there i think there might be a lot more to that winter of 1777 1778 that meets the
00:04:22.320 eye and that most americans know about so by this time i had done a little research on my own
00:04:27.180 and this was three februaries ago 2015 i made an appointment with the park services chief valley
00:04:34.180 forge historian and brad i spent the day with him i drove to valley forge and we did a walking tour for
00:04:40.080 the entire day and what i learned just in that day when i got home i was so excited i called clavin i said
00:04:46.700 we have a book we have a book no one no american knows the half of what was going on at valley
00:04:52.540 forge so that's how the concept came about so to speak i love it so it started with your son
00:04:58.320 an argument that sounds fantastic he's gonna want in fact i you we used him you'll see on the book
00:05:03.760 it says contemporaneous materials materials never used before we hired my son to go into the french
00:05:10.800 archives and find out some stuff that's been in no other valley forge uh articles or books before
00:05:17.520 and maybe we could talk about that later but i just thought that was a that was a nice aside that
00:05:22.420 we got this french-speaking kid to go do our work for us that's awesome all right so i think for people
00:05:28.640 to understand valley forge and its importance you have to understand what was going on with the war
00:05:33.260 leading up to it so at what point did you take up the story we pick it up in august of 1777
00:05:40.680 with george washington marching the continental army through down market street in philadelphia
00:05:47.440 show of force i'll back up a little bit what had happened previous to where we begin the book
00:05:54.460 washington as as you probably know he was a compromise candidate for the commander-in-chief of
00:06:01.220 the continental army all those new england firebrands john adams sam adams james lavelle
00:06:06.240 they knew that if they were going to take on the most powerful empire in the world they needed
00:06:13.700 virginia the former colony of virginia now the state of virginia in the fold it was the most
00:06:18.720 populous state it was the largest state it was a richest state so as a compromise they plucked george
00:06:25.180 washington who had been a successful militia commander fighting alongside the british during the french and
00:06:30.320 indian war and they made him commander-in-chief now this pissed off a lot of people and
00:06:36.120 john adams was never really sold on george washington in fact he quipped the only reason
00:06:40.440 he's commander-in-chief is because he's the tallest man in any room he walks in so when washington
00:06:45.960 drove in 76 when washington drove the british out of boston feather in his cap but then things started
00:06:53.480 to go wrong he lost new york the battle of brooklyn heights the battle of white plains the battle of
00:06:59.300 parlam heights and he was basically just driven out of new york with his tail between his legs
00:07:05.280 and the whispers about washington in philadelphia where the continental congress was meeting they
00:07:12.160 started to get a little bit louder but then washington quelled that with his surprise attack
00:07:17.180 in 1776 on trenton and the mop-up duty in princeton that kind of bought him some time
00:07:24.920 but come what they call back then the fighting season of 1777 when general howe commander of all british
00:07:33.860 forces in the united states he was the one who had driven washington out of new york he and his
00:07:37.860 brother lord richard howe who was in charge of the royal navy they decided to make their move
00:07:43.020 on philadelphia which was of course the nascent capital of the united states and throughout that
00:07:49.800 late summer early fall campaign general howe flummoxed washington general washington at every
00:07:57.120 single turn there was the battle of brandy wine creek where washington chose a spot on a creek that
00:08:04.340 was more like a river to try to turn back the british from capturing philadelphia and instead
00:08:09.240 general howe ran an all-night flanking maneuver and he came back he almost came back around behind
00:08:14.620 washington and if only for the covering movements of two of washington's homegrown generals nathaniel green
00:08:20.560 from rhode island and pennsylvania's own anthony wayne later became known as mad dog if it wasn't for
00:08:26.240 their covering movement almost suicidal the continental army would have been annihilated or captured
00:08:31.140 so 10 days after brandy wine creek washington has sent general wayne with a brigade of american
00:08:38.800 soldiers shadow the british as they move towards philadelphia maybe you can come you can relay to me
00:08:44.660 another place where we can attack them but wayne made the mistake of staying one night too long in
00:08:50.060 this plateau in the township of paoli pennsylvania not far by the way from valley forge howe got wind of
00:08:57.500 wayne where he was local tories led him there and he ordered a midnight bayonet attack on wayne's
00:09:03.820 sleeping soldiers and the general he put in charge no flint gray they called him general charles gray gray
00:09:12.460 g-r-e-y he had ordered his soldiers a reason got the nickname no flint take your flintlocks out of
00:09:20.740 your brown best muskets this is strictly bayonets and b no quarter over 200 americans were massacred it
00:09:28.260 became known as the paoli massacre massacred in their tents in their sleep and then finally shortly after
00:09:33.920 that when washington tried one last ditch effort to take back philadelphia at what became known as the
00:09:41.180 battle of germantown he came this close brett they were so close to routing the british and then at
00:09:48.500 the last minute this fog rolled in the american militia started shooting at each other it was just
00:09:54.520 a mess a giant mess of friendly fire which gave the british enough time gave general cornwallis
00:10:00.600 enough time to get out of philadelphia with reinforcements for half and they turned what looked
00:10:05.580 for sure like it was going to be a continental victory into this rousing route of a retreat
00:10:12.020 so now washington's over three and the wish of course when the british took philadelphia the
00:10:16.700 continental congress such as they were abandoned the city now most of them went back to their their own
00:10:23.540 districts but a small quorum at any one point between 18 and 23 delegates took over the courthouse in
00:10:31.040 the inland philadelphia town of york and now the whispers that i spoke about about washington they're
00:10:36.340 they're a full-blown roar john adams wants him out dr benjamin rush uh pennsylvania surgeon very
00:10:43.460 respected man signer of the declaration of independence he writes an anonymous screed
00:10:48.580 calling washington a full-blown dictator with no military skills now this of course is turned into a
00:10:55.880 pamphlet it's circulated up and down the east coast through all the colonies patrick henry has a
00:11:00.960 matter of fact he saw the original and he writes to washington he said this is benjamin rush's
00:11:05.920 handwriting these i just want you to know the kind of statesman the kind of heavy hitters you're up
00:11:10.600 against who wants you out and washington oddly enough he was a great militia commander and infantry
00:11:17.400 commander but he knew nothing about cavalry tactics or about about military engineering or about
00:11:23.360 artillery so when he was named commander-in-chief he ran out and bought all these books about how does
00:11:27.940 this work so now he was not only learning how to be a military commander he was learning how to be a
00:11:33.540 savvy politician if the knives are out for me i'm going to turn i'm going to turn the situation around
00:11:39.500 and make the knives out for them so what he did was he didn't respond to rush right away instead he
00:11:46.920 asked congress in york the delegates were there can you send a commission out here on an inspection tour
00:11:52.520 i want you to see what's happening down here and when the five delegates who eventually arrived to
00:11:57.180 valley forge saw the condition of the army right when i'm saying naked or half naked i'm not talking
00:12:03.740 metaphorically foreign officers who came to valley forge to either volunteer to fight for the americans
00:12:08.760 or to observe were shocked to see continental sentries naked under a ratty blanket barefoot
00:12:17.200 standing on their hats in the snow or the freezing mud i mean this army was on the on the verge as
00:12:23.560 washington wrote to congress of starving dissolving or dispersing when these five delegates reached
00:12:29.740 valley forge they were so embarrassed they started taking off their own shoes and handing them to
00:12:33.080 soldiers so now washington starts manipulating what came to be known as the camp committee these five
00:12:39.100 delegates and without them really knowing it they're putting into action everything that washington
00:12:44.600 wants every day he sends over one of his young aides perhaps to john lawrence alexander hamilton
00:12:50.720 and cajoling and kind of putting into mind oh god we need food washington's not an autocrat
00:12:56.660 he's the only thing keeping this army together which in fact was true so it was almost like the tail
00:13:01.720 started wagging the dog the five delegates of the camp committee began wagging the dog of the continental
00:13:07.180 congress back in york and washington was so close to turning things around when i don't know if you
00:13:15.940 want to talk about saratoga but as all these losses were piling up during the pennsylvania campaign
00:13:21.860 randy wine creek paoli germantown up in a little hamlet in upstate new york the hamlet of saratoga
00:13:30.020 the american general horatio gates defeats the british general gentleman johnny burgoyne
00:13:36.680 captures 5 000 redcoats and hessians including 23 generals now gates of course he's held by the 0.51
00:13:44.640 john adams clique this is the man to replace washington now gates was fine with that he was a
00:13:50.380 political animal he was a he was british born he had fought for the british during the french and indian
00:13:56.160 war and after the british won that war he had settled in the states on an estate of virginia
00:14:00.660 and when the rebellion broke out the american rebellion broke out gates cast his lot with the
00:14:06.440 colonies which were now states he went to boston he expected to be named commander-in-chief and was
00:14:12.260 quite peeved when washington was chosen as the compromise candidate gates considered washington
00:14:17.680 middle gentry fox hunting virginia and a country bumpkin more or less so now gates sees his chance
00:14:24.120 and he takes logic in york and he begins lobbying the delegates there i'm your man make me commander-in-chief
00:14:30.720 but because there were so few congressmen in york they could not get a majority so they did the next
00:14:37.260 best thing they gifted general gates by making him president of the board of war now previously the
00:14:42.900 american board of war had been kind of a bureaucratic political position you know what are we going to do
00:14:49.000 with the pow's how are we going to get wagon wheels made where are we going to purchase our arms but
00:14:54.040 gates turns it around and suddenly he's giving orders to the field you don't do this that's way out of
00:15:01.760 line it was public slap in the face to washington and the denouement came when gates named his friend
00:15:08.380 the irish-born french officer thomas conway as inspector general of the continental army this was way out of
00:15:15.940 league washington was the only man to name his name he was it was in protocol that the commander-in-chief
00:15:21.920 names the inspector general not some president of the board of war but washington once again takes this
00:15:28.180 very public slap in the face with equanimity and he knows what gates doesn't know what adams doesn't
00:15:34.620 know what none of the new england faction know is that without his physical and emotional presence
00:15:40.340 at valley forge this army this continental army of ours would fall apart and suddenly the delegates
00:15:46.760 out of the camp committee that went to valley forge they're starting to realize this too it's only
00:15:51.300 washington's preternatural sense of will it's only the loyalty that these soldiers have to their
00:15:57.840 commander-in-chief that is keeping this army together now don't get me wrong there were plenty
00:16:02.820 there were scores hundreds of desertions men just saying we can't take this anymore albigin's well
00:16:08.600 some of the diaries and and journals we read bread i remember it was joseph plum martin he was like the
00:16:14.440 zellig of the revolution he was everywhere and at one point he wrote in his diary oh yes i think it
00:16:20.040 was thanksgiving the continental congress had declared a day of thanksgiving for gates's victory
00:16:25.540 at saratoga and he said oh we were served a hearty lamb stew with onions and carrots and cabbage and
00:16:32.200 hickory nuts without the lamb stew the onions the carrots the cabbage or the hickory nuts instead they
00:16:37.020 were issued a gill of vinegar to ward off scurvy and a gill of rice i mean this army was in bad
00:16:42.900 shape and the delegates at valley forge are beginning to realize only washington can keep
00:16:47.880 this army together that was a very long-winded answer to your question and i apologize no no no
00:16:54.360 it's a great story so so basically they were they were hunkering down in valley forge for the winter
00:16:59.500 after these defeats at brandy wine in germantown this is in pennsylvania so this raises the question
00:17:05.200 why were things so bad why why were there men who were naked no shoes in the winter during valley
00:17:11.900 valley forge just as the nascent united states did not know how to set up an army we had no clue how
00:17:19.520 to put an army together in fact most of the congressmen did not want a standing army they
00:17:24.780 thought they could they could defeat the greatest the greatest empire on earth militarily with a bunch
00:17:31.420 of disparate militiamen you know second sons and farmers and miners and shoemakers and and finally
00:17:38.060 they were disabused of that notion during the new york campaign where the british just rolled up the
00:17:42.280 americans so just as they did not know how to create an army from scratch they didn't know how to create a
00:17:48.980 supply system from scratch there was a general general mifflin wasn't charged with the supply line 0.96
00:17:54.260 but everybody working below him buyers teamsters they were all civilians and they were corrupt as
00:18:00.140 hell and even when there was we have bushels of wheat we have corn we have whatever they had the
00:18:08.520 continental army had no wagons there were maybe 16 wagons for the 12 000 men at valley forge so they
00:18:15.620 couldn't get the food there and washington one of his dictates to the camp committee the five delegates
00:18:22.120 at valley forge was we must totally restructure the supply stem of this army and of course they
00:18:27.660 agreed with him and eventually i'm jumping ahead of myself a little bit but general green who is just
00:18:32.440 a great character in the book he was washington had designated general green and when these guys are
00:18:39.940 so young brett green was in his mid-30s anthony wayne was in his mid-30s lafayette was 19 when he
00:18:45.640 introduced himself to washington hamilton was 22 lawrence was 20 john lawrence by the way the founding
00:18:51.300 father you'd never heard of john lawrence was 23 but washington has had designated general green as
00:18:56.880 his successor as commander-in-chief should he fall to battle and when washington went to green and said
00:19:01.780 i need your organizational skills please take over the supply line green didn't want to he wanted
00:19:08.260 battlefield honors as he put it no one in history ever heard of a supply general he only heard of
00:19:14.920 battling generals but for the good of the country for the good of the army for the good of his
00:19:19.060 great good friend george washington he did it and eventually not yet february was the cruelest cruelest
00:19:25.180 month of valley forge but eventually by the time that army marched out of valley forge green had set
00:19:30.400 up all these depots for the horses the horses were dropping dead where they stood of starvation and we
00:19:37.900 didn't talk about a couple of the myths and now that i'm onto the horses do you mind let's talk about
00:19:41.640 some of the myths two of the things i found out that day when i did my tour of valley forge my very first
00:19:46.480 tour were the myths of oh freezing winter what washington's bad luck the coldest winter ever
00:19:53.000 it wasn't brett in fact it was one of the mildest winters ever recorded in southeastern pennsylvania
00:19:59.500 but what would happen washington's previous encampment at marstown new jersey and his subsequent
00:20:04.880 encampment at marstown new jersey were far more arctic but what would happen is that valley forge would be
00:20:11.100 buried in a week in a snowstorm and that would be followed by an ice storm and then the temperatures
00:20:17.960 would rise and 40 degree rains would just flood the camp the the once again they did not dig latrines
00:20:26.320 the latrines were just dug haphazard through the camp and uh all kind well it was just flying all
00:20:32.580 over the camp the horses who had dropped dead and been dead and maybe a foot or two of ground because it
00:20:37.180 was freezing at the time now they're starting to rise the one thing that was an ongoing uh trail
00:20:44.540 through all the research that tom clavin and i did i i personally read everything
00:20:50.260 watch george washington wrote or dictated between july 1 1777 and july 15 1778 i can tell you brett
00:20:58.680 sometimes my eyes were glazing over but sometimes you just come across a nugget say yes that's what i'm
00:21:03.100 talking about but the the winter hot cold hot cold hot cold washington much preferred cold
00:21:10.060 the previous morristown the subsequent of morristown and with this mud everything that we read from 0.77
00:21:16.720 everybody everyone commented on the stink hanging over the camp like an illness it just smelled to high
00:21:23.160 heaven and another myth as long as i'm on myth is that oh the pencil the previous autos pennsylvania
00:21:29.800 campaign had denuded all the farmsteads of the surrounding counties chester county where alley
00:21:35.220 forge was the neighboring counties delaware montgomery bucks county there was no food to be had that's
00:21:41.200 why the continentals had no food that is 100 wrong in fact 1777 had been one of the best harvests of the
00:21:49.580 decade for that area but the surrounding the civilians the merchants the uh the farmers continental
00:21:57.860 soldiers who survived valley forge many of them went to their deathbed cursing as they put it those 0.97
00:22:04.480 damn quakers because there were many religious sects who preferred dunkers men and knights the 0.99
00:22:09.940 soldiers all just called them quakers that preferred to smuggle their goods their merchandise their cattle 1.00
00:22:15.600 their poultry their sheep their corn their wheat into british occupy philadelphia where they would
00:22:21.880 be paid in pounds sterling and sometimes even gold as opposed to selling their goods for the the
00:22:28.860 worthless script that the continental congress was issuing so those are two myths right there you know
00:22:34.400 cold winter and no and no food around no and one other thing i'll mention is that it's not so much a myth
00:22:42.500 but it it kind of shocks people when i mention it in my presentation but brett i'll ask you well yes of
00:22:49.480 course you know because you read the book but nobody seems to realize there were 750 black soldiers
00:22:54.340 at valley forge now they were all freemen many of them had been born freemen others had been slaves on
00:23:03.360 new england plantations their owners were given compensation and these men were formed into battalions
00:23:08.700 and they fought ferociously and the deal was if you'll fight that was in their contract for the duration
00:23:14.520 of the war we will we will free you afterwards and rhode island was the first state to do this
00:23:21.060 and when politicians and generals from connecticut and massachusetts saw how ferociously these black 0.94
00:23:28.840 soldiers fought they said we have to do this ourselves and this was the last time until the
00:23:33.660 korean war that black american soldiers fought side by side with white american soldiers yes there were black
00:23:40.180 units in world war ii tuskegee airmen but they were all segregated this was the last integrated 0.71
00:23:46.100 american army until korea that's that's crazy that's a i did not know that haven't been until i read the
00:23:51.280 book we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show so i mean
00:23:57.500 okay washington is basically just having a hell of a time right now he's faced these defeats
00:24:01.220 his army is about to fall apart so what i love about the book is you describe his inner circle these
00:24:09.120 characters that kind of buoyed him up yeah and the one the one that really stuck out to me we started
00:24:14.100 talking we began the show talking about him as lafayette i mean i i knew of him but i didn't know
00:24:18.860 much about him until i read the book and i made me like fall in love with this guy this guy sounded
00:24:23.980 amazing like i said he was 19 years old so tell us how did this aristocratic french kid basically
00:24:31.100 end up being washington's basically a kind of adopted son well tom and i contend in our book valley
00:24:38.460 forged that the shared core of values that men like lafayette and hamilton and green and mad anthony
00:24:46.660 wayne and john lawrence their shared court core of values was the most productive generation of
00:24:55.140 statesmen that the united states has ever produced we say this knowing full well about lincoln's team
00:25:02.460 of rivals and fdr's kitchen cabinet but these men stood out i believe now don't forget it was it
00:25:10.220 sounds it's easy to be sarcastic about this now but this was another era and these were idealists
00:25:15.460 and there was none more ideal than the marquis de lafayette when he arrived in the united states
00:25:22.100 in august of 1777 as you said he was 19 years old he uh he turned 20 around the time of the battle of
00:25:28.160 brandy wine he wanted to fight he had read about american ideals and he believed that
00:25:34.900 he could fight in this war and take that ideology back to france with him and washington who for the
00:25:41.720 most part hated the foreign mercenaries that ben franklin and his associate silas dean the two
00:25:48.800 american diplomats in paris they were sending all these i love this word he wrote to him i read the
00:25:54.040 letters stop sending me these poppin jays it's a good word it's falling into disuse but these were
00:26:01.740 predominantly frenchmen and they came over with no english and they expected to be handed a general
00:26:07.600 sash the moment they set foot on united states soil and washington just had no use for these people
00:26:13.660 but lafayette was different i think washington saw some of his younger self in lafayette
00:26:21.080 in the enthusiasm for the battlefield honors because washington was very much that way
00:26:26.420 in his younger days uh during the with the seven years war which we called the french and indian war
00:26:32.300 and there was something about lafayette it didn't help that lafayette was the only man washington was
00:26:38.100 a tall man he was six three at the time when i guess the average height was maybe five nine
00:26:42.200 and lafayette was tall enough he was the only man that could look washington in the eye
00:26:46.380 and washington there was a double-edged sword with lafayette not only did he personally
00:26:53.100 come to consider him his surrogate son don't forget washington was childless he had a he had
00:26:59.020 a stepson jackie custis with martha custis but he had no children of his own lafayette was about the
00:27:04.560 right age for him to have been george washington's son and i'll give you a perfect anecdote at the
00:27:11.060 battle of brandy wine creek when lafayette took a bullet hole a musket ball in his uh leg washington
00:27:17.900 sought out the surgeons attending to lafayette and said treat him as you would my own son
00:27:22.360 now there's that there's that personal connection between the two but there's also washington as i
00:27:31.020 said before was learning to become a canny political atom and he knew that lafayette was
00:27:36.780 writing back to france about the american struggle for independence especially to the french foreign
00:27:43.000 minister the count de vijon who had the ear of the boy king louis the 16th would go a long way to
00:27:49.980 bringing friendship france into the war he needed lafayette he was he was walking a tightrope because
00:27:56.360 on the one hand he couldn't have lafayette killed because oh the greatest frenchman in the united states
00:28:01.800 is now dead no we're not going to fight this war for you that's what the king would say and on the
00:28:05.880 other hand he needed lafayette he couldn't really stop him i think at one point he said he wrote to
00:28:10.880 the to henry lawrence the president of the continental congress he said i've tried my best the man lives to
00:28:17.260 be in the way of danger i'm putting him in charge of everybody whatever happens happen let's let the
00:28:21.180 chips fall where they may so finally of course lafayette's importuning to versailles to the count de vijon
00:28:31.220 and to the king it did bring the french into the war in february of 1778 although given the vagaries
00:28:37.840 of ocean travel at the time no one in america would know that for months so um there was that
00:28:44.220 aspect uh that person in his inner circle that kind of buoyed him up and played a political role as well
00:28:49.180 uh you mentioned john lawrence you says like the forgotten founding father tell us about this guy and
00:28:53.900 what role did he play in washington's circle he is uh well of course washington's my favorite character in the
00:29:00.060 book i just you know brett we tend to look at washington or when we think of washington and i know i'm
00:29:06.520 getting off your question i promise i'll get right back that's fine no let's get back here talk about
00:29:09.680 washington we we think of him like coming out of the womb in his you know in the portrait that's on
00:29:15.800 the one dollar bill and washington was a a very human man he had his he had his weaknesses he had
00:29:24.420 his uh he had his doubts about himself that's why these these kids we would call them that he had
00:29:30.180 around him lafayette hamilton i mean they were all there's 17 of them all living in a three-bedroom
00:29:35.480 farmhouse on the northwest corner of valley forge that washington had made his headquarters
00:29:40.200 and among them were john lawrence 23 year old john lawrence and you're right he's one of my favorite
00:29:45.920 characters in the book lawrence had been studying he was the son of henry lawrence who succeeded john
00:29:52.260 hancock as president of the continental congress in 1777 the lawrences were a big south carolina family
00:30:00.480 in fact they had made their money on slavery henry lawrence owned the biggest slave house in south
00:30:05.120 carolina john was studying law in london after having received his university degree in geneva
00:30:11.100 when war broke out in the united states much to his father's chagrin he immediately rushed back
00:30:16.720 volunteered his services washington liked this man too and so did hamilton alexander hamilton and john
00:30:24.520 lawrence became fast friends they became the best of friends finishing each other's sentences and
00:30:30.380 at one point i mean during brandywine creek much to once again his father's chagrin lawrence showed his
00:30:37.540 military ability and then he was actually heroic at germantown in the defeat of germantown if we had
00:30:43.520 won that battle i think more people would know about john lawrence but you know there's so much about
00:30:48.760 john lawrence's story arc in the book that i could go to here today but let me just say the reason i call
00:30:54.040 him the founding father you never heard of was because late in the war when washington had finally
00:30:59.120 hamilton lawrence they were always pleading release me from my inkwell that's what they called
00:31:03.960 being washington's aid to camp release me from my inkwell late in the war when washington had
00:31:08.840 finally given hamilton and lawrence a command lawrence was down in south carolina outside of his
00:31:13.540 hometown of charleston and he was down in sickbed with uh he was suffering from malaria and he had heard
00:31:21.580 he got word that the british were sending a foraging party out of the city brett this was months from the
00:31:28.860 end of the war it was mere weeks before the british would evacuate charleston but lawrence gets out of
00:31:35.920 bed shaking with malaria determined to look for a fight with this foraging party he leads a company
00:31:42.100 of men and as he's looking for him a squad of british scouts spots him they shoot him out of shoot him
00:31:47.780 off his horse out of the saddle and he's dead he's dead at the age of 27 it's just i am certain from
00:31:54.860 everything i've read and know about john lawrence that he would have been president george washington's
00:31:58.900 first secretary of state but anyway we're getting way ahead of ourselves here but let me just go back
00:32:04.060 to saying that it was the young men as washington felt the weight of the world on his soldiers at his
00:32:10.640 headquarters in valley forge at the potts house what came to be known as the potts house it was a rented
00:32:15.360 from a quaker named potts it was lawrence and lafayette and hamilton who buoyed him in his darkest time
00:32:22.760 and you mentioned at the onset of our conversation here about washington praying in the snowy glade down
00:32:29.520 on his knees tom and i as we write have come to the conclusion that this is a an apocryphal story
00:32:35.740 washington was not a very religious man he sometimes attended like jefferson he was a deist and he
00:32:42.440 sometimes attended episcopalian services but he always left before the communion and there's just
00:32:49.180 because the story came out over half a century later it's not sourced well we just can't believe
00:32:56.480 that washington went off by himself into the woods valley forge and got down on his knees in the snow
00:33:03.020 and prayed to his god to help him persevere and keep his army together but that painting which you know
00:33:12.540 everyone has seen it circulates so much washington on his knees it is symbolic of how washington felt
00:33:19.000 that winter so in that sense had he been a religious man he probably would have done that
00:33:25.380 he just did it in his own way and once again it was the youngsters you know these guys are veterans
00:33:31.040 wow lafayette's wounded but it was the youngsters as tom and i call them that really buoyed this man
00:33:37.200 in his deepest darkest hour how long was the continental army hold up at valley forge precisely six months
00:33:44.920 six months they slogged in there on december 19th 1777 and they marched out and there's a difference
00:33:53.420 when i say slog and march and they marched out on june 19th 1778 well let's talk about that difference
00:33:59.780 like what happened to the army while they were in valley forge that because like after valley forge
00:34:04.460 like things changed for the continental army right it went toward like they started winning so like what
00:34:08.960 happened at valley forge that started that sort of precipitated that i think you can't put it all on
00:34:15.260 his soldiers shoulders i'm sorry on his shoulders but i told you before john lawrence and of course
00:34:21.280 washington is my favorite character in the book john lawrence might be one of my favorites but my favorite
00:34:27.000 secondary protagonist in this book is the baron friedrich wilhelm ludolf gerhard augustin von steuben
00:34:35.260 baron von steuben to you and me this guy was as colorful as his name brett he arrived at valley
00:34:42.100 forge in late february in his sleigh pulled by pulled by a team of coal black percheron horses he had
00:34:49.740 purchased in france just to make a good impression on uh of course he had purchased the horses on borrowed
00:34:55.460 money he was dead flat broke the sleigh was adorned with 24 jingle bells steuben himself had a silk
00:35:02.540 tunic tunic on a silk officer's tunic two big horse pistols in his holster on either on either hip
00:35:08.460 and his pocket greyhound azar sitting in his lap he was a big man he was not a young man von steuben
00:35:14.540 was in his mid-40s and he was a he was an ample man shall we shall we say and in his trail was his
00:35:21.920 retinue of servants and aid to camps and translators he had no english he was fluent in french and german
00:35:28.420 but and translated he even brought he brought a french chef to valley forge the guy quit after 48
00:35:35.620 hours he said no no no this is not for me but what really intrigued me about von steuben was he also
00:35:44.080 arrived at valley forge with a resume that was more doctored up than the mayo clinic
00:35:48.680 now i'll step back to explain that von steuben had risen to the rank of captain
00:35:54.400 in frederick the great's prussian army now of course frederick the great at the time was the
00:35:59.660 most renowned military commander in the western world and his prussian army although small was the
00:36:05.040 most feared in fact they used to say that frederick the great had an army with a country as opposed to
00:36:10.800 a country with an army von steuben had learned under frederick the great something that no other western
00:36:17.880 officer had not in france not in poland not in britain not in idaly certainly not in the continental
00:36:23.360 army united states and that was frederick the great made his officers live eat and breathe with
00:36:30.900 the enlisted men get down in the muck and mire with them all the other armies thought the officers 0.94
00:36:36.900 that this were this was uh below an officer station we leave that to the sergeants and the corporals the
00:36:42.760 nco von steuben knew how to drill an army so when he kind of shows up in france and the count of
00:36:50.320 virgin once again a man the frenchman in the middle of a lot of this introduces him to franklin and
00:36:55.320 silas dean now of course their initial reaction is oh christ no no no no we're already getting
00:37:01.640 screaming letters from watch and not to send any more of these mercenaries these soldiers of fortune
00:37:06.620 over to the united states but it only took a few interviews with von steuben they all chatted in french
00:37:12.040 for them to realize franklin especially this is just the man that washington needs to turn his
00:37:19.760 disparate conglomeration of militias into a well-oiled fighting machine he knows what he's
00:37:27.720 doing he knows how to train he knows how to drill but he and dean and virgin got together and he said
00:37:32.340 well what are we going to do though he's only a captain washington's rejecting the generals we're
00:37:36.420 sending over so suddenly brett von steuben's captain's bars miraculously disappear from his
00:37:42.420 shoulder and they're replaced by general stars and he became the inspector general of frederick
00:37:47.580 the great's prussian army which of course he never was and he became a principal aide to camp to frederick
00:37:53.180 the great for over a decade of course which he never did but this is the way that they figured
00:37:57.460 they can get him into the states later on when it gets exposed we'll figure it out then but for now
00:38:02.820 let's get him over there and sure enough he shows up within his first week at valley forge
00:38:09.100 the enlisted men the junior officers and even the american generals who are very suspicious of
00:38:14.680 foreigners he's ingratiated himself to every one of them his first week he's writing memos to
00:38:21.900 washington you cannot have your latrines run willy-nilly through the bread baking oven territory
00:38:28.120 you got to put them on the other side of the hill you can let's grade the roads in front of the huts
00:38:32.720 there's 2 000 huts they built at valley forge let's grade those roads and give them regimental names to
00:38:39.380 give the soldiers a sense of professionalism within 10 days washington had told all his other officers
00:38:46.680 do not train your men the training is going to come from this prussian washington gave on steuben 0.74
00:38:53.840 his personal guard of 50 men chose another 50 men from the states that were represented at valley
00:38:59.240 forge and said to von steuben train these 100 men and then spread them out throughout the army as
00:39:05.140 your sub trainers so every day von steuben would take these 100 men out on the break onto the parade
00:39:11.240 ground at valley forge and the other soldiers didn't have a lot to do so there's thousands of them lined up
00:39:15.980 in a square in a square watching von steuben in action and sure enough von steuben would get down on
00:39:22.640 his rather large gut in the muck in the mire to teach them how to read terrain or he'd pick up he'd
00:39:29.580 doff his coat and throw away his riding crop pick up a musket and show him the proper way
00:39:35.200 to put a to put a bayonet in somebody's gut and then twist it the men took to this like never before
00:39:43.620 and brett this is the other well one of the many reasons why i love von steuben he was a prickler for
00:39:50.400 detail he was prussian what do you expect and when someone made a mistake or did something wrong or
00:39:56.120 somehow incurred von steuben's ire as i said before he had no english just french and uh german well
00:40:03.780 washington had assigned lafayette and lawrence as his translators in fact they followed him he was a
00:40:10.140 false staffian character and they followed him around like a couple of prince house but when someone
00:40:14.660 made a mistake on the drilling field von steuben's double-chinned face would get red and he'd start 0.82
00:40:21.260 flailing his arms and and i said before he had no english he had one word of english god damn and he 0.85
00:40:28.460 would call over to lawrence or hamilton or whoever was translating for him that day and in french he 0.90
00:40:33.060 would yell get over here and curse for me and hamilton would come over and a string i mean the spittle
00:40:40.380 coming out of von steuben's mouth there would be a string of french and german oaths and curses 0.86
00:40:46.020 punctuated by the occasional god damn and by the time whoever was translating lawrence hamilton by the 0.74
00:40:51.720 time they translated the american soldiers were doubled over in laughter they loved this guy and he
00:40:57.400 in the same way with the junior officers he because his uh rations were not quite as meager as the
00:41:03.500 the captains the lieutenants the majors he would invite them over to the farmhouse where he was staying
00:41:08.520 for dinner but on one condition the clothing situation by the time of von steuben's arrival
00:41:15.100 and through march had not improved much so if you wanted to attend one of von steuben's dinners you
00:41:20.500 had to have no pants or your pants weren't such rags they were just falling off you he called him his
00:41:25.280 son's culottes dinners suppers his son's culottes suppers and on the many occasions when von steuben was
00:41:32.400 invited to the potts house to dine with washington and the other generals he would charm the other
00:41:36.940 generals wives who spoke french with like ribald tales of salons of europe but all that aside it 1.00
00:41:45.560 should be remembered that the very last letter the very last public official letter that george
00:41:52.680 washington wrote in 1783 before resigning as commander-in-chief of the continental army
00:41:58.640 was to the baron von steuben thanking him for turning this disparate contingent of militias
00:42:06.320 into a professional army and that's what von steuben did for us so not only did valley forge forge the
00:42:17.000 army into an army but like it did something spiritually too like something happened to the i don't know the
00:42:23.200 motivation the drive of not only washington but also the the continental army like what do you think
00:42:29.060 happened there was it just like a crucible that they went through and they came out refined yes you
00:42:32.940 just said the word i was just going to use the word crucible kind of like you know what what doesn't
00:42:38.220 kill you makes you stronger i don't forget 2 000 men died of valley forge of malnutrition exposure
00:42:44.820 disease i mean cholera typhus they just ran wild through the camp because until von steuben got there 0.97
00:42:51.040 nobody knew the personal hygiene or a lack thereof breeds disease but the 10 11 000 men it's funny 1.00
00:42:59.940 historians that don't they say the victors write history no one could say for sure how many men marched
00:43:04.620 into valley forge and how many men marched out so let's say the 12 000 marched in and the 10 000
00:43:10.740 that marched out had gone through this crucible and once again i don't want i hate to come off as naive
00:43:17.360 but there was a burning desire in all these men for freedom for for an independent united states and
00:43:25.120 all they needed was the right direction and between washington and and everyone we've talked about
00:43:30.700 green and wayne and and von steuben these men gave those enlisted men the right direction and uh
00:43:38.940 i'll i'll tell you i know i might be jumping ahead but it's another one of my favorite stories
00:43:44.260 what i like to call it when they marched out of valley forge in quick step by the way having been
00:43:51.940 taught what quick step was by the baron von steuben when they met the british on the sandy plains of new
00:43:58.900 jersey near the small hamlet of monmouth courthouse the british had their butch and sundance moment
00:44:06.820 who are these guys this is not this is not the rag tag you know a bunch of farmers we brushed off 0.99
00:44:15.260 our shoulders like lint at brandywine creek that we massacred at paoli that we turned the tables on
00:44:21.260 at germantown look at these guys they're wheeling in formation they're spreading out in columns they
00:44:26.900 never did that before one of the great myths of the american revolution brett is of the you know
00:44:33.500 musket carrying minute men stealing through a copse of trees or crouch behind a boulder picking off
00:44:39.380 the squared british attack formations one by one and that's how we won now don't get me wrong our
00:44:45.520 indian style guerrilla warfare did come in handy many many times but if it hadn't been for a von 1.00
00:44:51.680 steuben who by the way wrote the manual for the u.s army war college and it was in use for 50 years
00:44:58.360 after valley forge if it hadn't been for the likes of von steuben teaching these men how to
00:45:03.180 fight like professionals there never would have been that who are these guys moment and if you want
00:45:10.540 to roll into the end i i there's there's just a great story about the end uh i don't know where we
00:45:15.760 are i'm yakking no much here and i apologize yeah well no you're fine this is being like so yeah let's
00:45:21.960 roll into the end so how did this how did you how did all right how did this end all right well we're
00:45:26.420 talking about you know here comes the army here comes the continental army marching to meet the
00:45:32.280 british near monmouth courthouse the town of monmouth courthouse in quick step wheeling and
00:45:36.800 turn all von steuben's doing who are these guys but washington had made one mistake that day
00:45:42.680 he had put another general in charge of the attack on the british and he was bringing up the relief in
00:45:49.380 the rear the other general who had been a pow for the last 16 months didn't realize that the men he
00:45:55.320 was leading were changed troops he thought he was still eating the rag tag from 1776 and at the first
00:46:02.300 hint of british opposition he called a retreat by the time washington gets to the front line
00:46:07.400 the soldiers are retreating in an orderly fashion thanks to the baron von steuben they're not running
00:46:13.300 for their lives but they're retreating for the first time ever among his aides among his close
00:46:18.740 associates among his favorite generals they had never seen the stoic george washington explode
00:46:26.300 he explodes on the front line calls over the general charles lee had put in charge of the attack
00:46:30.980 what is the meaning of this you pull true what is the meaning of this get to the back i dismiss you to
00:46:38.260 the back washington takes over the lead of the attack but first he's got to turn his troops so he's riding
00:46:43.860 up and down the front lines trying to halt this orderly retreat he's on this big white charger it was a
00:46:49.720 stifling blistering day over 100 degrees at one point the horse just collapsed beneath him died of
00:46:55.800 heat exhaustion he takes the reins of another horse and he's riding up and down trying to turn this
00:47:01.340 retreat into an attack of his own by now he can see across a swale a mile and a half away a sea of red
00:47:08.320 is approaching 10 000 redcoats have doffed their packs and they're attacking in a in a in a bayonet
00:47:14.700 charge the british artillery were close enough that the grape shot is whizzing by washington's head
00:47:20.020 a cannonball lands yards from where he's sitting on his horse splattering him in his horse with mud
00:47:26.200 and yet he's riding up and down will you fight with me not will you fight for me will you fight
00:47:33.220 with me his sword is extending his right hand he's pointing it towards the sea of red coming closer and
00:47:39.620 closer will you fight with me and finally the soldiers stopped and they turned and they answered
00:47:45.920 in unison and brett if you want to know what they answered you're gonna have to read the book okay
00:47:51.180 i love it well bob this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn
00:47:57.680 more about the book you know i have a website my co-author tom clavin has a website but it you just
00:48:04.460 can never go wrong if you went to amazon.com and typed in bob drury page it would probably give you
00:48:11.060 everything you need fantastic well bob drury always a pleasure thanks for coming on oh brett thank you i
00:48:17.360 always have fun when i talk with you my guest today is bob drury he is the co-author of the book valley
00:48:21.840 forge it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about
00:48:25.860 his work at rfxdrury.com or you can check out our show notes at aom.is valleyforge where you find
00:48:32.660 links to resources we can delve deeper into this topic
00:48:34.860 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:48:51.280 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy
00:48:54.680 the show you've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us
00:48:57.860 a review on itunes or stitcher helps out a lot and if you've done that already thank you please
00:49:01.640 consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of
00:49:05.020 it as always thank you for your continued support until next time this is brett mckay telling you to
00:49:09.100 stay manly