Valley Forge
"You might have tracked the army... by the blood of their feet" - George Washington
A Bitter Winter
George Washington ordered his troops to pitch tents and build log huts
- Troops used tents as blankets and wrapped their bare feet and legs in them
- Martha Washington visited Valley Forge and wrote, "The poor soldiers are without [enough] clothing and food, and many of them barefooted. Oh how my heart pains for them"
The American Soldiers Need Help
- George Washington called upon Baron Friedrich Willhelm August von Steuben to make the Americans better soldiers
- Von Steuben was a skilled soldier from Prussia
- He taught the Americans how to use their weapons to fight better at Valley Forge
- Benjamin Franklin traveled to France to ask French leaders to send troops and money
- The French agreed to help the Americans fight the British in the spring of 1778