Cold Christmas

New England troops had a cold Christmas in 1777 at Valley Forge. Most of us are familiar with the story—ragged, cold, hungry troops encamped in tents and tiny huts amid the snow—but the words of the men who were there remind  us of that reality. (A typical camp of the time can be seen in the background of this Peale portrait of Colonel Walter Stewart of the 2nd Pennsylvania). The encampment at Valley Forge was part of a larger strategy that required General Washington and his commanders to care about the quotidian details of their men’s lives. For us, Christmas and the winter holidays usually mean warm hearths or homes and presents, celebratory meals and the comfort of families. For Albigence Waldo, it did not.

From Waldo’s diary:

December 24.—Party of the 22^nd not returned. Hutts go on Slowly—Cold & Smoke make up fret. But mankind are always fretting, even if they have more than their proportion of the Blessings of Life. We are never Easy, always repining at the Providence of an Allwise & Benevolent Being, Blaming Our Country or faulting our Friends. But I don’t know of any thing that vexes a man’s Soul more than hot smoke continually blowing into his Eyes, & when he attempts to avoid it, is met by a cold and piercing Wind.

December 25, Christmas.—We are still in Tents—when we ought to be in huts—the poor Sick, suffer much in Tents this cold Weather. But we not treat them differently from they used to be at home, under the inspection of Old Women and Doct. Bolus Linctus. We give them Mutton & Grogg and a Capital Medicine once  in a While, to start the Disease from its foundation at once. We avoid Piddling Pills, Powders, Bolus’s Linctus’s Cordials and all such insignificant matters whose powers are Only render’d important by causing the Patient to vomit up his money instead of his disease. But very few of the sick Men Die.

2, 898 men (or about 25 % of the men in the camp) were reported unfit for duty at Valley Forge on December 23, 1777, largely due to a lack of clothing. Supplies were short, from flour and meat to linen and wool and shoes; a lack of supplies would dog the Continental Army for years, but the troops fought on. By February, about 32% of the men were listed unfit because they lacked clothing. In November, 1776 the Providence Gazette had published advertisment for “All Taylors who are desirous of employ” to make up “a great Quantity of woolen Cloathing, for the Continental Army,” but 13 months later, coats were still scarce on the ground.

Some basic information about the huts and tents can be found online at Valley Forge Encampment and about medical staff and conditions at Valley Forge at Historic Valley Forge .

~ Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

Fire Cake & Water: Soldiers’ Winter Part III

Perception is reality, but how does a soldier’s own reality color his perception? For Jeremiah Greenman of the 2^nd Rhode Island, who had marched to Quebec on Arnold’s expedition of 1775, eaten squirrel and dog and endured barefoot marches through snow, Valley Forge proved less remarkable an experience than it was for Albigence Waldo, the well-educated surgeon with the  1^st Connecticut. Ebenezer David, Chaplain with the 2^nd Rhode Island, was also there.

Here are their accounts for this week in December, 1777.

Greenman
S 20 to W 31
Continuing near vally forg / we drawed axes to build huts for ye winter / we began our huts / order’d to build them with logs 14 feet  one way & 16 ye other / Continuing building our huts / nothing very Remarkable & C  / mov’d in.

Waldo
December 21—[Valley Forge.] Preparations made for hutts. Provisions scarce. Mr. Ellis went homeward—sent a Letter to my Wife. Heartily wish myself at home, my Skin & eyes are almost spoil’d with continual smoke. A general cry thro’ the Camp this Evening among the Soldiers, “No Meat! No Meat!” —the Distant vales Echo’d back the melancholy sound—“No Meat! No Meat!” Immitating the noise of Crows & Owls, also, made a part of the confused Musick.

What have you for your Dinners Boys? “Nothing but Fire Cake & Water, Sir.” At night, “Gentlemen the Supper is ready.” What is your Supper Lads? “Fire Cake & Water, Sir.” Very poor beef has been drawn in our Camp the greater part of this season.  A Butcher bringing a Quarter of this kind of Beef into Camp one day who had white Buttons on the knees of his breeches, a Soldier cries out – “There, there Tom is some more of your fat Beef, by my soul I can see the Butcher’s breeches buttons through it.”

December 22.—Lay excessive Cold & uncomfortable last Night—my eyes are started out from their Orbits like a Rabbit’s eyes, occasion’d by a great Cold & Smoke.

What have you got for Breakfast, Lads? “Fire Cake & Water, Sir.” The Lord send that our Commissary of Purchases may live [on] Fire Cake & Water, ‘till their glutted Gutts are turned to Pasteboard.

Our Division are under Marching Orders this morning. I am ashamed to say it, but I am tempted to steal Fowls if I could find them, or even a whole Hog, for I feel as if I could eat one. But the Impoverish’d Country about us, affords but little matter to employ a Thief, or keep a Clever Fellow in good humour. But why do I talk of hunger & hard usage, when so many in the World have not even Cake & Water to eat. …

This evening a Party with two field pieces were order’d out. At 12 of the Clock at Night, Providence sent us a little Mutton, with which we immediately had some Broth made, & a fine Stomach for same. Ye who Eat Pumpkin Pie and Roast Turkies, and yet Curse fortune for using you ill, Curse her no more, least she reduce your Allowance of her favours to a bit of Fire Cake, & a draught of Cold Water, & in Cold Weather, too.

David
Decem. 22 1777
Dear Sir,
Have written you once or twice of late & missed in sending … I road through Germantown—to hear the inhabitants complain—to see the ruins of furniture, & Rooms kneedeep in feathers from beads was truly affecting—A Cow Horse or sheep was scarce to be seen for mile—After the Enemy returned we set out to Cross Schoolkill, accidentally met a large party of the Enemy at the Ford, who had drove our militia—this caused delay—since we have crossed we have lain a few days 7 or 8 Miles short of this at a place called the Gulph—The whole Army are come here to build Hutts to winter in The Huts are to be 14 feet by 16—in hight 6 ½–twelve Soldiers to a hut each mess builds their own—Those in each Regiment who build the best are to have 12 Dollars Premium—They are now laying out the ground

to Morrow I expect to take the ax—To think of the Jersey & so large a Part of this Province [Pennsylvania] lying at the Mercy of the Enemy is truely affecting—yet I believe the Measures to be the best possible in present circumstances—After Huts are provided we may send out large Scouts to check small parties—For our whole Force to be exposed for the winter as they have been we should have no Army in the Spring—Had we retired to any of the towns we should have found them crowded with Refugees—

May kind Heaven render the next Campaign prosperous & put speedy issue to this contest—we ruin the Country for miles round wherever we lay

“We ruin the Country for miles round wherever we lay:” Ebenezer David’s perspective is different from Greenman and Waldo’s. Waldo whines, he gripes, he complains, he thinks of the people who are better off than he is. Greenman observes, neutrally, for the most part.  David steps back farther and sees the effect of the war on the people and the country around him.  Each man’s record of the war is colored by his position and his education; as a minister, David has the broadest perspective and looks the most outside himself. As the best-educated and wealthiest, Waldo’s experience in the war offers the greatest contrast to his former life. Greenman, poorly educated and without a profession when he joned the Army at 17, has the most reportorial and neutral perspective of the three.

~ Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

Soldiers’ Winter Part II

Plan of Fort Mifflin

There is yet another Rhode Island record of the events at Fort Mifflin: the letters of Ebenezer David, Chaplain of the 2^nd Rhode Island. Today, his November 23, 1777 letter to Nicholas Brown will be added to the accounts of Fort Mifflin. David was a graduate of Rhode Island College (now Brown University), and a Seventh-Day Baptist. He resigned from the Regiment in January, 1778 to undertake medical training, but  rejoined the troops at Valley Forge in the medical service a month later. He died  March 19, 1778, of what was probably typhus, contracted during an epidemic.

Waldo
November 15
An attack was made on Fort Mifflin by 4 ships, 4 Batteries, & 1 Gally. Our People fired from Fort Mifflin 1 Battery, 12 Gallies & two Shearbacks or small ships. The firing was incessant all Day. Our people defended themselves with unparallel’d bravery amidst a continual storm of Balls ‘till at length when Capt. Lee’s company of Artillery were almost all cut off, and a reinforcement had stood at the Guns till 9 o’clock in the evening the Garrison evacuated the  fort, after having spiked up the Cannon. Capt. Stephen Brown was kill’d by a shot from the round-top of a Ship that had hauled up in pistol shot of the Fort.
Mem.—Fort Mifflin was a Burlesque upon the art of Fortification.

Greenman
S15.
This morning about 9 oClock the Enemy made a furious attack, by the River, & land / the Ships came as near to the Fort as posable in the Main Channell, & a large East Indiaman they cut down & mounted 20 24 pounders on here. She came up under the protection of the Land Batteries, behind Hog Island & anchored four yards from the Angle of the SW Battery, the Fort had been very much exposed on this side / than on it, did not remain one Single Gun except those that was dismounted Major Thayer ordered a 32 pounder to be carried thare, which was effected with great trouble & danger, this was done before the Ship got up / the single gun put 14 shot into her bow but as soon as She was farly at anchor she began to play, all resistance became imposable, in 3 or 4 Broad Sides and from the tops with Cowhorn filled with Grape Shot so that it was almost imposable for a man to move without being killed…

David
Nov 23—1777
–the 15 of the Month & 6^th Day of the Canonade the East-indiaman Cut down [the Vigilant] of which you must have heard with 20-24 pounders came up a Channel that was said by the Commodore to the insuffitient for her, & laid within Pistol shot of the Fort. Our Cannon being chiefly dismounted, & the Fort badly constructed—What was extraordinary she fired 2- 24 pound shot into a 32 Pounder, from which she received the chief annoyance. This Day the fire exceeded all Description from their Fleet & Batteries.

The noise and misery of Mud Island must have been intense, as 400 Americans defended the Fort against some 2000 British troops. More than half of the American defenders were killed or wounded before the Americans evacuated and began the march to Whitemarsh and eventually to winter quarters at Valley Forge. When Major Simeon Thayer, of the 2^nd Rhode Island, ordered the evacuation of the Fort, Greenman wrote:

Major Thayer evacuated the Fort with a Degree of fermness equal to the Bravery of his defence, he set fire to the Remains of the Barracks & with less than two hundred men carried off all the wounded & most of the Stores

A 32-pound gun produces not just enormous noise but also a shockwave that reverberates in your chest and pops in your ears, so the terror and noise is multidimensional; you cannot escape it. It is impossible for most of us to really imagine what those men experienced 234 years ago.  Reading their journals, erratic spelling and all, helps us put ourselves in their place.

Soldiers’ Winter

Sometimes you find the best things in a random way: thanks to an emailed reference question, I discovered the diary of Albigence Waldo, surgeon with the 1^st Connecticut Regiment, Continental Army, covering the period November 10, 1777-January 8, 1778. The “So what?” of this for Rhode Island is that the 1^st Connecticut and the 2^nd Rhode Island were both engaged in the Defense of the Delaware in 1777 and encamped at Valley Forge in 1777-1778, months recorded in the Diary of Jeremiah Greenman, sergeant with the 2^nd Rhode Island. (Full disclosure: this writer’s family belongs to the reenacted 2^ndRhode Island Regiment.) While the RIHS does not own the original of either of these diaries (Waldo’s is at Harvard, and Greenman’s remains in private hands), both have been published and can be compared.At 17, Greenman joined the army in 1775 and participated in Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Quebec; the privations of that starving march when soldiers ate squirrel head and candle wick soup, killed and ate their own dogs, and abandoned their sicker comrades, surely colored Greenman’s experience of Valley Forge. Waldo, well-educated, a scholar of Latin, left behind a flourishing practice, a comfortable home, wife, and children; his perspective and his language, are far different from Greenman’s.

But to compare them is to understand each man better, and to understand the war better—so hard to do now, when it is so long ago and far away in time, technology, and myth-making.

West Jersey History Project Hessian Map

To begin with, some minor background: After the battle and retreat from Fort Mifflin in November, the Continental Army fell back to Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, and engaged in minor skirmishes with British forces in early December 1777. The goal was to get to winter quarters at Valley Forge, and to build shelter for the coming winter.

Here is the action at Fort Mifflin, side by side:

Waldo November 10 After describing the turn of fortune experienced by Captain Nichols, caption of an English packet captured at New Castle, Waldo notes, “An incessant cannonading at or near Red Bank this day. No salt to eat dinner with. November 11, 12, 13, & 14—Nothing material happened.

Greenman M 10.  this day the Enemy set out a new, resolving if posable to reduce the fort, knowing if it was nor done they would be obliged to evacuate Philadelphia, [they] opened three more batteries upon it & keep up an incessant fire on the Fort, all the palisades where broken dow[n], the Diches filled up with Mud by the strong tides, Capn. Treet, who distinguished himself by his bravery, and his Lieut, was killed / the Garrison exhausted & almost reduced. T 11. this morn cule / We burst an eighteen pounder which was got from the wreck of the agusta, and killed one Many & by the Scales & peaces of the Carriage Eighteen More where slightly wounded— W. 12 Colo. Smith was wounded and went out of the [fort] with the old Garrison, being relieved by Major Thare [Thayer] with sum of our men, the Enemy now began to doubt the promises of their Engineer Montresor who had constructed the Fort & had bosted at the beginning that he would reduce it in a few days…

Greenman, uneducated, a sergeant, has a different set of responsibilities than Waldo, and a in every sense, a different position. He seems unlikely to have agreed with Waldo’s estimation that “Nothing material happened” those days in November, 1777.

~Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

You can read Greenman’s published diary, Diary of a common soldier in the American Revolution, 1775-1783 : an annotated edition of the military journal of Jeremiah Greenman by Robert C. Bray and Paul E. Bushnell (DeKalb, IL: 1978)  in the RIHS Library. Waldo’s diary was published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 21 No. 3, 1897, now available free through JSTOR. The Map of the American Fortifications on the Delaware is one of the Revolutionary War Era Maps available through the West Jersey History Project.