Valley Forge National Historical Park

Valley Forge was not a battle but a crucible. In December 1777, Washington marched his army of roughly 12,000 soldiers into the fields and woods twenty miles northwest of Philadelphia after a string of defeats that had allowed the British to occupy the city. Over the following six months the army built a city of log huts, suffered starvation, disease, and exposure, and buried as many as 2,000 men in unmarked graves — more than fell at Trenton, Brandywine, and Germantown combined.

What transformed the army was the arrival of Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus von Steuben, a Prussian officer who reached Valley Forge in February 1778 and immediately began drilling the ragged Continental regiments into something resembling a professional fighting force. The manual he wrote during that winter, Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, became the basis for American military training for decades. By June 1778, when the British evacuated Philadelphia, Washington’s army was capable of engaging a European professional force on equal terms — as demonstrated weeks later at the Battle of Monmouth.

The park today encompasses Washington’s headquarters at the Isaac Potts House, the National Memorial Arch, reconstructed soldier huts, earthwork fortifications, and a visitor center with exhibits on the encampment. A driving tour loops ten miles through the grounds, passing the artillery park, brigade encampment sites, and the Grand Parade where von Steuben ran his famous drills.