The Drillmaster of Valley Forge

by Paul Lockhart

  John Laurens, by Charles Willson Peale, from a miniature after Charles Willson Peale, ca. 1784. The young and idealistic aide-de-camp to Washington befriended Steuben as soon as the Baron reached Valley Forge. (Independence National Historical Park)

  The president had judged right. John Laurens fell in love with the Baron on sight. So, too, did Laurens’s best friend and fellow aide, Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton. And the Prussian was equally smitten with them. Here were two impressionable young men who understood his speech and who hung on his every word as he regaled them with tales of bloody battles decided by massive cavalry charges and the point of the bayonet, of warrior-kings and glittering courts. He could converse with them on topics ranging from infantry tactics to the works of Seneca, Cervantes, and Voltaire. He represented a touch of Enlightenment sophistication—something for which the young Laurens and Hamilton were starved—in the rough-hewn society of the camp, and they in turn helped him forget his homesickness. Steuben could relax in their presence. He regarded the two aides as his intellectual and social equals, and felt completely at home joking informally with them and being on the receiving end of their good-natured barbs. The bonds forged between Steuben, Laurens, and Hamilton would last to the end of their days—though for Laurens, sadly, that day was not far off.

  Their friendship had practical advantages, too. Washington trusted Laurens and Hamilton implicitly; their advocacy on Steuben’s behalf helped to speed the general’s acceptance of the Prussian. And through his father, Laurens served as the Baron’s foremost ally in Congress. The elder Laurens had already been impressed by “this illustrious Stranger” while dining with him at York; now he received regular reports about Steuben’s progress at Valley Forge, reports that overflowed with praise and wide-eyed admiration. “I have since had several long Conversations with the Baron Stuben,” young Laurens wrote his father shortly after the Baron’s arrival. “[He] appears to me a man profound in the Science of War and well disposed to render his best services to the United States.”12

  Alexander Hamilton, by Charles Willson Peale, from life, c. 1790–1795. Another aide to Washington, and John Laurens’s best friend, Hamilton never swerved in his loyalty to Steuben, and after the war he led the fight to secure adequate compensation for the Baron’s services. (Independence National Historical Park)

  Pierre Étienne Duponceau. This portrait shows Duponceau at around the age of seventy, when he had already established himself as a successful Philadelphia lawyer and a distinguished scholar of linguistics. But at age seventeen, he was Steuben’s translator and personal secretary.(The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia)

  Only a couple of days passed before General Washington took advantage of those services. He had been studying Steuben intently, and not from a distance, for Steuben was a guest at his dinner table no fewer than ten times in his first fourteen evenings in camp.13 To get a sense of what Steuben could do, Washington gave the Baron unlimited access to the camp, allowing him to poke and prod and give his professional opinion on the operations of the army. Steuben leaped into the role with gusto. Over the next couple of weeks, he spent hours each day riding through camp, observing the men at drill and at work, taking note of problems and drafting solutions. As he took stock of the army, he showered the commanding general with memoranda on a wide variety of topics: how to build an effective corps of light infantry, how to maneuver large bodies of troops more efficiently than the Continentals could, how to improve security in the camp, and how to fine-tune the camp’s fortifications.

  His counsel was invariably blunt. After making an inspection tour of the camp’s defenses, the Baron presented Washington with a dour assessment: there were tremendous gaps in the outer entrenchments; many of the redoubts were unfinished or poorly situated; General Sullivan’s bridge over the Schuylkill was indefensible. Washington was not the least offended by the criticism. He craved this kind of straightforward advice, and his meetings with Steuben over dinner grew into regular professional consultations on the health of the army.14

  Still, Washington kept his thoughts to himself. To Henry Laurens he remarked only that the Baron “appears to be much of a Gentleman, and as far as I have had an opportunity of judging, a man of military knowledge and acquainted with the World.” Washington’s coolness fretted the Congress’s president. “I am anxious to know whether [Steuben] will find amusement & employment in your Camp & whether he is likely to be a valuable addition to the Main Army,” he wrote in concern to his son in early March. “It is remarkable that your General has kept such a profound silence on the Officer’s name although I have had occasion to announce it to His Excellency in three several letters.”15

  Laurens needn’t have worried. Washington’s reserve did not signal a lack of interest in the Baron. The problem was finding a suitable channel for Steuben’s abilities. There were so many deficiencies in the Continental Army that cried out for redress, all of which could use the trained eye of a professional soldier. The most pressing crises lay within the departments of the quartermaster general and commissary general, that part of the army administration charged with the procurement and distribution of supplies. The quartermaster general’s department was rife with mismanagement and blatant corruption, largely the fault of Washington’s nemesis Thomas Mifflin. A small, overworked staff, coupled with intolerable working conditions and little political support—both the fault of the Whig ideologues in Congress—had hobbled the Commissary. These twin failings lay behind nearly all of the army’s miseries at Valley Forge.

  James Lovell, Sam Adams’s whiggish friend from Massachusetts, thought Steuben the perfect choice to serve as quartermaster general. Lovell’s motivation was undoubtedly political; like his allies in Congress, he vehemently opposed both of the men whom Washington had nominated to replace the incompetent Mifflin—Philip Schuyler and Nathanael Greene, both just too close to Washington. Steuben was popular in Congress, however, and perhaps the Whigs thought they could control him. And hadn’t Steuben served as a quartermaster in the Prussian army, the very model of efficiency? Indeed he had, but of course the duties were not the same, and Lovell—like most Americans—was unaware of the difference. Yet there were legitimate objections to Lovell’s proposal, upon which both pro-and anti-Washington partisans could agree. Since a quartermaster’s duties were as much civil as military, purchasing supplies and finding contractors, an uninitiated foreigner like Steuben would be hard pressed to comprehend the difficulties of working with American civilians. Moreover, as the Baron was still a “stranger,” it would not be fitting to trust him with funds and accounts worth tens of thousands of dollars.

  Washington was inclined to agree, and he had his heart set on Greene anyway. So, too, did his aides, for although they worshipped the Baron, they did not think that this would be the best use for his abilities. “[He] seems perfectly aware of the disadvantages under which our army has laboured from short inlistments and frequent changes,” John Laurens wrote to his father at the end of February. So why not, John Laurens asked, make him inspector general?16

  The inspector general was the most vital staff officer in an eighteenth-century army. He wore many hats. First, it was the inspector’s duty to keep the army properly trained and well drilled. Second, an inspector was supposed to ensure that his army maintained its discipline on the march and in camp: encampments had to be laid out in a certain regulated way, for the sake of efficiency and cleanliness; guard details had to be posted according to a strict regimen. Third, the inspector acted as the enforcing arm of the supply officers. Someone had to make sure that the men were adequately clothed and fed, and that they kept up a soldierly appearance. An attentive inspector would spot deficiencies promptly so that the quartermaster could issue replacements as needed. Finally, he acted as a kind of truant officer, keeping an accurate record of regimental strengths and holding commanders accountable for the whereabouts of their men.

  Ever since the battles for Philadelphia in the autumn of 1777, the need for suc
h an officer was widely acknowledged. Complaints about irregularities in the army’s conduct and about the unnecessary wastage of valuable military supplies came to Washington’s desk in a veritable flood. The officers who had foreign military experience, being most attuned to the importance of following proper and standardized procedure, pointed out the army’s failings incessantly. The Continentals lacked the necessary discipline on the drill field, in camp, and therefore also in battle. Officers and men were too familiar with one another, breeding insubordination. “I must confess to you, Sir, it is painfull to me, to see the Commander in chief[’s] orders Slighted or ill-obeyed in many essential parts,” the Baron de Kalb noted.17

  Supply presented the thorniest problems. Continental property was not accounted for. “The spoil and waste of tents, arms, ammunition, accoutrements and camp equipage” was ruinous.18 Men whose enlistments had expired frequently took their muskets and equipment—all of it government property—home with them, while new recruits rarely had sufficient stocks of the same items.

  And this was only the tip of the iceberg. The entire army was in an organizational shambles. It was to be expected that regiments were not even close to full strength; what was truly frustrating, though, was the fact that the sizes of individual regiments were so inconsistent. When an entire brigade was no bigger than a single regiment in another brigade, when one regiment consisted of five or six companies while another contained more than a dozen, it was almost impossible for the high command to estimate the strength of the army as a whole, let alone make intelligent plans for the coming campaign. Company and regimental officers were often completely ignorant of the whereabouts of their men.

  Within Congress there existed a “mania for reform,” but nothing was actually done until November 1777, when the Board of War appointed Thomas Conway as the army’s first inspector general. That appointment was actually a political move, an attempt to discredit Washington—and as it turned out, a futile gesture. Washington was predisposed to disregard anything Conway had to suggest.

  Steuben filled a critical need at a critical time. His poor command of the language might be a temporary hindrance, but he had the requisite knowledge and experience. And he had another vital quality: a practical appreciation of the American character, remarkable for a man who had been in the country for so brief a time. “He seems to understand what our Soldiers are capable of,” John Laurens observed approvingly. He knew, in other words, that Americans were not Europeans. They were citizens, not subjects; if he were to achieve anything with them, he would have to take a different approach than he would if dealing with Prussian serfs. “[He] is not so starch a Systematist as to be averse from adapting established forms to stubborn Circumstances. He will not give us the perfect instructions absolutely speaking, but the best which we are in condition to receive.”19

  With or without Steuben, the army had to be reorganized now. Within a few short weeks the snows would thaw, the roads would dry, and the spring campaign would be upon them. “We want some kind of general Tutoring in this way so much,” John Laurens told his father, “that as obnoxious as Conway is to most of the Army, rather than take the Field without the advantages that might be derived from a judicious exercise of his office, I would wish every motive of dissatisfaction respecting him for the present to be suppressed.”20 The aide had hit upon the single obstacle to putting the Baron in charge: there already was an inspector general.

  Yet over the next few weeks, the Baron made such a name for himself that all reservations about substituting him for the volatile Conway quickly evaporated. His broad grasp of military affairs could have made him appear intimidating, a condescending know-it-all, if he had had a different temperament; but when combined with his openhearted friendliness, his literary wit, and his simple desire just to be liked, his knowledge was well received by nearly everyone he met. He won over the army command just as he had the factionalized Congress. “The Baron Stüben has had the fortune to please uncommonly for a Stranger, at first Sight,” John Laurens wrote, proud of his new friend and mentor. “All the Genl Officers who have seen him are prepossessed in his favor and conceive highly of his Abilities.”21

  The congressional Committee in Camp also sought him out for his advice. Their leader, Francis Dana, consulted with Steuben on Washington’s proposal to enlist Native Americans as an organized corps of light infantry, and at his request, the Baron gave Dana a detailed lesson on the use of “irregular” forces in European warfare—something Steuben knew a great deal about firsthand. Dana was enthralled by the Baron’s analysis of the Austrian Grenzer, light infantry recruited in the border regions of Croatia, whom Steuben described as “a kind of White Indian.”22

  But Steuben was not content with merely being accepted by his new comrades. He had to immerse himself in the social scene at camp, too, which was surprisingly vibrant. Officers of all grades made the best of their unpleasant circumstances, hosting dinner parties and “carousals” in the evenings, and the presence of so many generals’ wives in the camp lent the whole an air of almost surreal gaiety amid the army’s sufferings.

  The Baron fit right in. Like most of the European-born officers, he became a regular guest at the table of Caty Greene, the vivacious spouse of Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene. Mrs. Greene, an incurable flirt who was fluent in French, took an immediate shine to Steuben. So, too, did Martha Washington and Kitty Alexander, the daughter of Maj. Gen. William Alexander, Lord Stirling. Men and women alike tended to find Steuben charming, but women in particular found his manner especially endearing. Several years later, when visiting with the prominent Livingston family of New York, the Baron was introduced to a young lady friend of the Livingstons. “I am very happy,” Steuben purred, “in the honor of being presented to you, Mademoiselle, though I see it is at an infinite risk. I have, from my youth, been cautioned to guard myself against mischief, but I had no idea that her attractions were so powerful.”23

  In their first month at Valley Forge, the Baron and Duponceau attended a dinner engagement or party almost every night. Only rarely did Steuben stay in his quarters for an evening “at home” with his staff. When he did, it was not often a quiet evening. The Baron delighted in throwing his own parties for his American hosts. By pooling his rations with those of his staff and trading the surplus for little luxuries, he could present a relatively well-stocked table for his officer guests. He was anxious to make sure that junior officers were welcome, too. “Poor fellows,” he once remarked, “they have field officers’ stomachs, without their pay or rations.”24

  At the request of his aides, the Baron hosted a party exclusively for their lower-ranking friends. He insisted, though, that “none should be admitted that had on a whole pair of breeches,” making light of the shortages that affected the junior officers as they did the enlisted men. His Sansculottes, he called them, “those without breeches”—the same name that would later be applied to radical republicans in the French Revolution—and never was there “such a set of ragged, and at the same time merry fellows” at Valley Forge. Duponceau led the group in singing a few raucous American songs he had learned, while the captains and lieutenants—including Lord Stirling’s aide-de-camp, the future President James Monroe—indulged in the feast put together by Carl Vogel: “tough beefsteak and potatoes, with hickory nuts for our dessert.” Over this rough fare, and several rounds of a flaming high-proof concoction dubbed “Salamanders,” the Baron quickly earned a reputation as a bacchanalian lord of mirth. It was not the kind of behavior that the Continentals expected out of a Prussian nobleman, and they liked it. Only a couple of weeks into his stay, Steuben had already made himself a legend.25

  THE BARON SENSED that he was accepted, that although he may not have made himself indispensable yet, he was seen as having the potential for it. For, less than a week after he rode into Valley Forge for the first time, he intentionally let it slip that he was not precisely the man everyone thought he was.

  Thus far, he had told every American leader he
met that he had no interest in rank or pay, and had made a great show of refusing even the humble rank of captain. He said the very same thing to Washington in their first interview. But by the end of February, he said something much different to John Laurens, with no attempt at secrecy: “The Baron proposes to take the rank of Major General with the pay, rations, &c.” This was no trifling ambition. “Major general” was the highest rank the Continental Army had to give; only Washington ranked higher. Such an appointment would put Steuben, who had been at Valley Forge for a matter of days, and in the United States for less than three months, on the same level as leaders who had been with the army from the very beginning of the war. He did not ask for a field command—not yet—“as he is not acquainted with our lang[uage] and the genious of the people,” but that very sentiment implied that he intended to command troops in the field once he had established himself.26

  He didn’t stop there, but continued to compromise the packaging that had been so carefully designed for him by his backers in Paris. On March 9, he revealed—again to John Laurens—that he had never been a “lieutenant-general in Prussian service.” In Prussia, he said, he had never risen above the rank of colonel. It was another lie, just one of lesser magnitude. His generalship came not from Prussia but from Baden—another lie. Three days later, maybe forgetting the details of his latest untruth, he informed Henry Laurens that his commission came instead from the ineffectual army of the Holy Roman Empire, the Reichsarmee. There he had been a general commanding the “Circle of Swabia,” one of the ten administrative districts into which the Empire was divided.* This, too, was an unvarnished fabrication.27