Happily Suppressed

Part Five of a five-part series about the footwear worn during the Valley Forge winter encampment.

---

What amount of misery and privation might lead a Continental Army soldier to mutiny?

At Valley Forge, some regiments fared better than others, depending on their home states’ ability to send aid. Even then, commanders dealt with shortages of not just shoes, but also tools, transport, uniforms, medicines, and food rations. Soldiers began to complain. Some even acted out on their frustrations.

Reportedly, commanders subdued a “dangerous mutiny” as early as December 21, 1777—a mere three days after the Continental Army encamped at Valley Forge.¹ And on December 22, Brigadier General James Mitchell Varnum informed General George Washington:

“If you expect the Exertions of virtuous Principles, while your Troops are deprived of the essential Necessaries of Life, your final Disappointment will be great, in Proportion to that Patience, w’ch now astonishes every Man of human Feeling. I mention these things on Paper, that the Evil may be inquired into.”²

Essentially, Varnum alluded to the threat of insubordination, or worse.

Then on February 16, 1778, Congressman Francis Dana stated:

“Upon an average every regiment had been destitute of fish or flesh four days. On Saturday evening [14 Feb.] they received, some three-fourths and others one half pound of salted pork a man—not one day’s allowance.”

Dana added that there was a danger of mutiny in the army:

“Sunday morning Colonel Brewer’s [12th Massachusetts] regiment rose in a body and proceeded to General Patterson’s quarters, in whose brigade they are, laid before him their complaints, and threatened to quit the army. By a prudent conduct he quieted them, but was under a necessity of permitting them to go out of camp to purchase meat as far as their money would answer, and to give their certificates for the other, and he would pay for it. The same spirit was rising in other regiments, but has been happily suppressed for the present by the prudence of some of their officers.”³

Three days earlier, Major General William Alexander (Lord Stirling) reported similar concerns to General George Washington:

“The Complaints of the want of provisions and forrage are become universal and Violent, every officer speaks of it with dread of the probable Consequences.”⁴

In 2021, the average United States soldier in garrison requires approximately 3,250 calories per day.⁵ At Valley Forge, soldiers performed hard, physical labor: they cooked, cleaned their firearms, performed sentry duty, went on foraging expeditions, and built earthenwork defenses. During the winter, they rarely had an adequate, regular source of food to sustain their work. While no one starved to death at Valley Forge, food scarcity hurt morale, and it exacerbated vulnerabilities to epidemic disease. A total of 1,700 to 2,000 men died of influenza, pneumonia, typhus, typhoid, and dysentery.

Soldiers with substandard footwear had difficulty marching through muddy or frozen conditions like those shown here. Poor roads like this also prevented much-needed supplies from reaching the Continental Army.

NPS Photo

So, Continentals did not always have the “patience & obedience” that Washington conveyed to Virginian John Banister.⁶ While commanders successfully quelled discontent at Valley Forge, frustrations over perceived injustices continued to threaten their control of the Continental Army (as demonstrated with the Pennsylvania Line Mutiny in 1781).

What can we glean from all this? While we lack hard evidence (there is no smoking gun), it remains likely that a few hundred soldiers had extreme difficulties with their footwear, so much so that at least some of them did leave blood upon the frozen ground as they marched into Valley Forge. This probably comprised a small percentage of the Continental Army. Indeed, many park rangers argue that while this likely occurred, the account is overemphasized.

But historians do not just analyze important events. They also consider cultural memory—the way groups come to know a shared past. They look at what gets remembered, how, and why.

Why do Americans continue to fixate on this particular story about Valley Forge? Part of it might be the macabre or heart wrenching nature of the accounts, of course. But it did not take long before it became an example of the “ragtag soldier,” buoying a myth that Continentals endured hardship without complaint because of a dedication to independence. In turn, it concealed how privation during the Valley Forge winter encampment threatened to undermine soldiers’ confidence in their commanders, and even in Washington as commander-in-chief. We now have the benefit of hindsight, but none of them knew how the war would end, or even if they would make it through.

Something to think about the next time you take a hike at Valley Forge.

Just be sure to bring good footwear.

Thank you for reading this five-part series: Valley Forge Underfoot - Shoes of the Encampment. To learn more about what life life was like within the Valley Forge encampment, check out the park’s online museum collections.

Sources

1. “From George Washington to Henry Laurens, 23 December 1777,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-12-02-0628. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 12, 26 October 1777 – 25 December 1777, ed. Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. and David R. Hoth. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2002, pp. 683–687.]

2. “To George Washington from Brigadier General James Mitchell Varnum, 22 December 1777,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-12-02-0619. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 12, 26 October 1777 – 25 December 1777, ed. Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. and David R. Hoth. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2002, pp. 675–676.]

3. “General Orders, 15 February 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-13-02-0456. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 13, 26 December 1777 – 28 February 1778, ed. Edward G. Lengel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003, pp. 542–544.]

4.“From George Washington to Major General Nathanael Greene, 12 February 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-13-02-0430. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 13, 26 December 1777 – 28 February 1778, ed. Edward G. Lengel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003, pp. 514–517.]

5. Bob Reinert, “Army studying special operators’ nutritional needs,” U.S. Army, accessed February 25, 2021, https://www.army.mil/about/.

6. “From George Washington to John Banister, 21 April 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-14-02-0525. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 14, 1 March 1778 – 30 April 1778, ed. David R. Hoth. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004, pp. 573–579.]