Video
General von Steuben Statue: History and Context
Transcript
Dr. Emma Silverman: We'll start with Dave.
Dave, I'm going to ask you to start us off by talking about the history of the encampment at Valley Forge and the role that General von Steuben played in that history, so that we can begin to understand why a statue was built to mark his memory. David J. Lawrence: I'm glad to. I want to start out by just giving a quick overview about Valley Forge itself and explain where in history it fits within the American Revolution. I think most people listening to this know that this place is connected to the American Revolution, but not necessarily why.
This...the site that I serve at, it was a wintering encampment site or a general encampment site that occurred between two major campaigns in the war. When the army marched in here, it was December 19, 1777. And they stay here for basically six months. They leave June 19, 1778.
So, when they're marching in here, it's been about two and a half years since the beginning of the war with the shots fired at Lexington and Concord.
It's been about a year and a half since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It's also been almost a full year since Washington did his famous crossing of the Delaware to attack Trenton and Princeton. When they're marching into Valley Forge, they're marching in here at the very end of what was known as the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777. It was an attempt by the British under General How to capture Philadelphia, which at the time was the largest city in the United States. And the British succeeded.
They defeated the Americans, had several major battles, including, Paoli, Brandywine, Germantown. They captured Fort Mifflin and Fort Mercer along the Delaware. And they were able to occupy the city. Congress had to flee Philadelphia. They're currently settled over in New York. Pennsylvania's rebel government fled the city. Thousands of other Philadelphia residents fled.
Washington, put himself here at Valley Forge because being roughly 17 to 20 miles away from the city borders, they were this army was close enough to the British to keep them bottled up in the city. And to basically keep them from forging at will. And basically keep an eye on them. But also just far away enough, so if the British actually tried to attack them, the Americans could set up pickets and outposts, and be able to see them coming.
While they're here, though, the struggle that they end up facing was less against the British and more of a battle of logistics and organization. While they're here, their supply system absolutely collapses. And they're not getting the food, clothing, and equipment that the men desperately need during those winter months.
And discipline within the army is breaking down. A lot of the men are unfit for duty. The more men unfit for duty means less men working in camp to maintain it. Sanitation fell apart and as a result disease of various sorts typhoid, pneumonia, dysentery, becomes epidemic and deadly. Before this encampment is done, more American soldiers end up dying in this camp than die in any single battle of the American Revolution.
In spite of that, there is a second story to this.
Because the British were stuck in the just as much of it as the Americans, Washington had an opportunity at Valley Forge to enact all sorts of reforms to the army: streamlining the officer corps, improving the supply system, and coming up with a new training system to instill new discipline in the army. So by the time the army leaves the Valley Forge, in spite of all the misery and hardship that they encountered, they actually ended leaving stronger than when they arrived.
And that's actually where one von Steuben comes in because he was an important part of the reformation of his army. Now, von Steuben had been a Captain in the Prussian Army. He had joined the Prussian army from the age of 16. He had already served with distinction during the Seven Years War. He had been wounded twice at the Battle of Prague. And had fairly distinguished military career.
Nevertheless, he was eventually discharged from the Prussian army. And he found himself looking for other places to work, having only a military career. He primarily looked for for fields of military employment. Although he did serve for a period of time as the Grand Marshal for the Prince of a small German province of Hohenzollern-Hechingenn. Forgive me if I've mispronounced that, I'm doing my best.
Eventually he ends up finding himself unemployed in Paris and is offering his services as a military consultant.
It's while he's in Paris that people put them into contact with the American delegation. They're working on an alliance with France, including Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane. [von Steuben] at first refuses, decides not to join the American cause because he thought they had a good opportunity to work for the Margrave of Baden in a similar role. But then a scandal hit. He finds out word from Baden that rumors have been spreading about his sexuality. In particular, during this time, as Grand Marshal for the other prince that he might have been taking liberties with young boys under his charge.
Even if he managed to fight off these charges, that was going to leave a stain on his honor, and severely affected his employment chances in the tight knit community of European nobility. So, he went back to Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, and said "Hey, remember that job you offered? Hook me up." And he ended up joining the United States.
When he joins the United the United States Army, he joins the Continental Army at Valley Forge in late February when things were kind of at their worst for the army. And he immediately starts to work as Inspector General of the Army in reforming and coming up with a new unified system of drill. That includes a lot of marching, which we tend to highlight. You know, marching and training for battle. But something that I often stress is that most of US soldiers' work is not fighting. It's doing all the other stuff: like building and maintaining decent encampments. And as Valley Forge attested, knowing how to do that was just as important as knowing how to fight on the battlefield.
And if you ever got a chance to look at the drill manual that he completed, a lot of it dealt with the stuff in between the battles. And he's one of the key reasons why this army left in better shape than it arrived. He would serve throughout the rest of the war until 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed.
He never went back to Europe. He settled in the United States. He would start by settling at a townhouse in New York City where he lived with various other officers that had served with him as aides to camp. Most notably, a William North and Benjamin Walker, which stayed with him until 1787. He then moved up to a farm, a farmhouse in upstate New York, from land that was granted to him. He would live up there with a butler named John Mulligan. He never married, never had children and remained in close contact with a lot of the officers he served with throughout the war.
And over time, he became he became known as one of the key people for helping to reform and straighten up this army here at Valley Forge.
Dr. Emma Silverman: That's great. Thank you so much, Dave, for this overview of Valley Forge and von Steuben's life.
So, I want to turn now to the monuments in this series. We looked at monuments built between 1832 and 1993.
Yes. Very helpful in your personal Zoom background. Throughout the series, we've learned that monuments often tell us as much about the people who built them and the times in which they were built, as the history that they commemorate.
So the Gentleman Scheuermann statue was dedicated in 1915.
Dr. Emma Silverman: Can you tell us more about its construction? Who commissioned it? Why and who was the artist that created it?
David J. Lawrence: It was designed by a German sculptor named James Jay, although Schweitzer and it was commissioned by the National German American Alliance. And if there was any time in American history where a German American group would want to try to honor German contribution to our nation's founding, it was in nineteenth teen thruout.
Obviously, Germans have been part of America's tapestry and culture from the colonial era. As a matter of fact, at the time of the American Revolution, it's estimated that about a third of all Pennsylvanians spoke German and were of German descent and they have a deep history.
And for most of American history at least among non English speaking immigrants, if anything, Germans were the ethnicity least discriminated against, they will encounter obstacles here and there. But in comparison to, say, Eastern European or Italians or the second wave of immigration in the 19th century, they were generally embraced by American culture.
That is going to change, however, with World War One in 1914. A combination of things [happened] such as the sinking of the Lusitania, the Zimmermann Messaggero with Mexico, and even from the very beginning, most of the English press about the war came via England, and so we were getting a very English centric view of that war. And since England was fighting Germany, Germany did not look all that good. And all of those accounts. And so all of a sudden, Germans were now Huns and they were...it was now...German culture was now considered to be un-American. And many German Americans, who many of whom had had multiple generations of history in America, suddenly found themselves being discriminated against.
If we were to harken back to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, if you remember when we had our little spat with France regarding that war. People started to call French fries "freedom fries." Well, that is a time honored tradition in America, going all the way back to World War One when sauerkraut was suddenly called "liberty cabbage" and frankfurters were being called "liberty sausages." And I mean, even German measles was changed to Liberty measles. I am going to assume German Americans were not fighting too hard over that issue. But considering all the others, it was getting serious. And it actually would culminate with an infamous lynching.
There was a German miner who was actually murdered - and - in a lynch mob as a result of his supposed speaking of anti-American sentiment. The people who committed that lynching were captured and tried and fully exonerated, even though most of them admitted to having done the deed, gives an idea of how Germans were being treated in the United States.
So what better time and what better place for German Americans to demonstrate their patriotism? And some would do it by serving in the military. Some would do it by hanging flags of...American flags of their shops and homes. And in some cases, they would do it by building a statue to a German who helped America win its independence, to again remind people of the German heritage and German culture within America from that time.
And so, yeah, it's the von Steuben statue. von Steuben clearly had a significant contribution to America's founding, but so did a lot of other officers who did not get their statues established at Valley Forge. And one of the reasons his is most notable isn't just because of his personal contributions, but because of what he represented to later German Americans as a symbol of their part in American identity. And ironically, nowadays, of unemployment is being used again by a marginalized group that is trying to use him as a symbol of how they have contributed to American society since the Colonial era.
Dr. Emma Silverman: Yeah, so let's pick it up and speak about that topic a little more. You've done a great job of really concisely giving us that history about how the statue reflects the identity and values of the people who commissioned it.
But how about the ways that members of the public respond today? And in particular, as I mentioned in the opening remarks, we're interested in the ways that visitors to balance Valley Forge's interactions with the monument are shaped by the recent interest in von Steuben as the "gay general" of the Revolution. And then, how does National Park Service interpretation address this topic?
David J. Lawrence: It is interesting. We have begun to get some questions. Most of the time, especially when I've been doing role activities occasionally at the statue around the grand parade ground that the statue surrounds.
When people bring up his sexual identity. First of all, they merely say oh, he is the gay guy. Right? They actually take it in stride. And think of it is just like another interesting tidbit similar to how old he was when he arrived here or, you know, or his background in the Prussian army. You know, it is also interesting because we are we do sometimes have to end up disappointing people in the way we we respond. I think von Steuben is a perfect example of sometimes how difficult it is to try to interpret the sexuality of people back then, especially those who might be deemed homosexual because of they're never going to be out about it.
There was no such thing as coming out. They were you know, there was still a strong social stigma against it. In many cases, it was illegal. And as a result, they're never going to put in writing or letters or correspondence anything that might reflect that. And as a result, we have to parse out through codes, through his affectionate writings to his fellow officers, the fact that he never married and never had children, that he lived much of his life with other men, either in the military and in civilian life.
A couple of his aides de camp would eventually become his heirs. He essentially adopted them in order...so that they could inherit some of his property...and work all of that. But that means also that we have to always add modifiers to what we say. We cannot say that he is gay. We say that it is likely that he was gay or probable that he was gay or that was possible.
But we can never know for sure. And that makes us...basically for a lot of people, that's basically like sitting down between two bar stools. People who are upset of the allegations that he's gay, they want us to fully exonerate him and say, "No, there's definitely no chance." Those who...who are afraid that were intentionally trying to closet him and hide the fact of his identity will be upset that we aren't more adamant about directly expressing his sexuality.
And I think that's going to be a problem that we encounter with other folks who live from that time period and being able to parse out the evidence and express the evidence as best as possible to the public and let the public figure...put together the pieces from there.
Description
In 1915 the National German American Alliance built a statue of General von Steuben in what is now Valley Forge National Historical Park in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The monument honored the Prussian-born Revolutionary War General at a moment of rampant anti-German sentiment in the United States. However, in recent years Steuben has been embraced in popular culture for a different aspect of his identity—as the “gay man who saved the American Revolution.”
Duration
16 minutes, 13 seconds
Credit
Emma Silverman et al
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