BY OUR MALICE COMBINED

The average high school textbook says “yeah the winter at Valley Forge was a turning point for the American revolutionary war because it was really harsh but the shared experience and training from baron von Stauben brought the continental army together.” and they often act like Valley Forge was some woods in the middle of nowhere, but it was in Philadelphia’s backyard. The continental army was surrounded by small towns and villages, and military doctrine of the time said that Washington would have been justified to roll into those towns and say “give us food and supplies or else.” But Washington knew that he wasn’t just trying to win a war, he was trying to make a point! Part of the reason why the USA was seceding was because they were so sick of being forced to feed and house British troops, and Washington knew it would be, to put it mildly, a bad look to go “you’re free from British perfidy. welcome to continental perfidy!” and so his troops spent months freezing and hungry and sick while leaving the surrounding civilians unharmed*, which is an impressive feat in any period of military history.

*(it was not entirely without incident, there were small scale accounts of livestock being stolen, fences being broken down for firewood, the general discomfort of soldiers camping in your yard, etc, but still exponentially less than you would expect from over ten thousand starving and freezing soldiers with broken supply lines)