The Drillmaster of Valley Forge

by Paul Lockhart

  The task that now faced Steuben was much less daunting than the one he had taken upon himself in late March. He was no longer a stranger; he had a smoothly functioning staff and a formidable hierarchy of sub-inspectors and brigade inspectors, and the army was already well versed in the basics. There still existed a huge disparity in the sizes of individual regiments, but that could not be fixed overnight, and the Baron would just have to work around it, as he had done so far. What he could do was focus his attention on grand maneuvers, putting the largest units possible—usually entire divisions—through the paces of complicated maneuvers. Barren Hill had shown just how important this could be.

  Practice maneuvers for larger units had actually commenced before the Grand Review, but they were held more frequently afterward, and even more so after Barren Hill. These were taxing all-day affairs from which no soldier or officer was excused. The division and brigade commanders took them very seriously, viewing poor performance at drill as a stain upon their honor. Steuben did not command these maneuvers per se—the major generals and brigadiers were qualified to do that by now—but he supervised them in person, and he set out in detail the specific movements that each brigade and division was to perform.

  The division maneuvers were designed to teach rapidity and precision in movements that would most likely be used in battle. One example should suffice. On May 16, 1778, Steuben scheduled a drill session for the four brigades led by Generals Learned, Paterson, Muhlenberg, and Weedon. First, the men had to be organized into units that were roughly equal in size. Steuben was uncomfortable with the organizational structure of American military units, so he temporarily—just for purposes of drill—would reconfigure the regiments in the Prussian manner. In the American service, the regiment was the basic tactical unit; it usually consisted of a half dozen to a dozen companies. In the Prussian service, the battalion was the basic unit of infantry. Two or more battalions made up a regiment, with the latter acting more as an administrative unit. Each battalion was then divided into four or five companies, and each company into two platoons. As Steuben would point out time and again, it didn’t matter what terminology was used, so long as all units of the same type were close to one another in size.

  Prior to instruction, Steuben would line up all the men in each brigade, and he and his assistants would then count them off and reapportion them, making battalions of around four to five hundred men. These battalions were then subdivided into eight platoons of roughly fifty men each, plus officers. There was a distinct advantage to this system. The men learned to work with different officers and different comrades, a process of homogenization that made for a more efficient army.11

  Then the maneuvers could begin. This took up most of the daylight hours. The four brigades, organized as two divisions, formed two divisional lines of battle, each two ranks deep. They practiced forming “columns of platoons.” If the order was given to form column of platoons to the right, each platoon would wheel ninety degrees clockwise, pivoting on the rightmost man in the platoon. Now each division would be formed up in a deep, narrow column, its width being equal to the battle-line width of one platoon, twenty to twenty-five men across (forty to fifty men formed in two ranks), with the platoons following closely upon one another in succession. Such a column could move forward much more rapidly, and was much more maneuverable, than a division in line of battle. When the order was given to form into line, the column would halt and the platoons would wheel ninety degrees counterclockwise on a left-hand pivot, placing the platoons back into their original positions in the line. This was practiced in the opposite direction (i.e., to the left) as well. Then the same maneuver was executed again, but this time in “column of divisions”—the term “division” here meaning a group of two platoons. Finally, this maneuver was combined with firing drills. When a column of divisions wheeled back into line of battle, each division would unleash a volley of musketry as soon as it resumed its position in the grand line of battle. In this way, an entire brigade or larger unit could be moved rapidly and directly into a firefight in column, wheel into line of battle, and begin to pour a rolling fire into an oncoming enemy in a matter of seconds.

  Further exercises included the practice of “moving fire,” something for which the Prussian army was renowned. “Firing by platoons in retreat”: as the battalions did an about-face and marched away from the enemy, individual platoons would take turns covering the retreat by halting, performing an about-face, firing a volley into their pursuers, doing another about-face, and marching at the quick-step to resume their place in the line of the retreating battalion. A similar maneuver involved volley fire by platoons while the line of battle was advancing toward the enemy.

  These movements sound hopelessly complicated to modern ears. They were complicated, which is why they required constant practice. But they also made the difference between an army that could attack, retreat, and change formation quickly, and an army that found it an almost insurmountable challenge just to form up for battle. It was this marriage of fluidity, rapid motion, and constant firepower that had set the Prussian army apart from its foes and allies.

  The accolades poured in unsolicited. A Pennsylvania militia officer watching one of the divisional drills of May 1778 wrote in astonishment to a friend that the Continentals he saw were “as well disciplined as any of the british troops can be, they performed several manovres [sic] with great exactness & dispatch, under the direction of Baron Stuben, and…I am informed that our whole army are in as good order as them 15 regiments.”12

  In Congress, too, admiration for Steuben’s work in May and June was nearly universal. William Henry Drayton, friend of Henry Laurens and new congressional delegate from South Carolina, congratulated the Baron. Because of the “rapid advance of our young Soldiers in the art military under your auspices,” he wrote, “you are my Dear Baron, intitled to the thanks of every American.”13 Richard Peters told his fellow Board of War member Timothy Pickering that he

  continued to be pleased with the Appearance of every thing [at Valley Forge]. Discipline seems to be growing apace & America will be under lasting Obligations to the Baron Steuben as the Father of it. He is much respected by the Officers & beloved by the Soldiers who themselves seem to be convinced of the Propriety & Necessity of his Regulations. I am astonished at the Progress he has made with the Troops.14

  STEUBEN HIMSELF was not quite so satisfied with his progress. As he reported, with evident dissatisfaction, to Congress at the end of May:

  The little time, the situation of the Army & in part every Circumstance has prevented me from getting more forward. I have hitherto Confined myself to an uniform formation of the Troops…an easy March, & a few Evolutions to give the Officers some Idea how to conduct their Troops. We have not in fact yet taught the Soldiers the Elementary Principles nor have I even instructed them in the Manual Excercise indeed the Discipline as yet is but just touched upon…. In all these I was obliged to submit to Circumstances which…has hinder’d me from proceeding further.15

  He did not elaborate much upon these “Circumstances” in writing, but those closest to him knew exactly what he meant: Steuben had begun to make enemies. They were not the same as Washington’s, not precisely. The Baron’s popularity in Congress was universal, and cut across party lines. Washington liked and admired him, as did most of the major generals. To them, he was frank, erudite, witty, and warm; but to others he was tactless, abrasive, imperious, and power-hungry. To some of the brigadiers, he was a foreign parvenu, and that was enough in itself.

  Thomas Conway was one of those enemies—naturally, since Steuben had replaced him. The former inspector general still had powerful adherents at Valley Forge who shared his sentiments. One of these former allies stood out—in rank, reputation, and influence—above all others: Maj. Gen. Charles Lee.16

  Lee, the senior-most of Washington’s major generals, was not present at Valley Forge when Steuben arrived in February. In December 1776, before the crossing of the Delaware a
nd the Christmas miracle at Trenton, Lee had been captured by a British cavalry patrol as he sat in a tavern at Basking Ridge, New Jersey, still dressed in his nightgown.

  Steuben was probably the most experienced officer in Continental service, measured by the richness of his experience in the Seven Years’ War, but Lee had the longest service record. A Briton by birth, and a soldier by profession from the age of twelve, he had served for nearly thirty years in the British and Polish armies. Few, if any, of his fellow officers in America could match him in military learning. None knew so much as he did about the inner workings of the British army, whose recent crop of leaders—Howe, Clinton, Charles Cornwallis, Thomas Gage—he could count among his friends. Lee considered himself to be the foremost American authority on the art of war in Europe, and he was not far off the mark in thinking so highly of himself.

  Later events would cast Lee in a most unflattering light; no American officer, save Benedict Arnold, has been so vilified as he. To some of his detractors, he was little better than a traitor; even his defenders acknowledged that while in British captivity he had given Clinton advice on how best to fight the American rebels. He did not intend to betray his adopted country, but rather hoped for a compromise peace between Britain and her former colonies, a peace that he himself would broker. In his defense, though, it should be pointed out that Lee considered himself an American. He had spent much of his British service in the colonies during the French and Indian War, marrying the daughter of a Seneca chieftain, and returned after the end of his British career in 1773 to settle down in Virginia. Like Washington, he became a gentleman-planter and a patriot, speaking out against British misrule and openly espousing the cause of independence.

  But the similarities with Washington ended there. Washington had the outward appearance and the inner character of a great leader. Lee, by contrast, cut a poor figure. Short, thin, and perpetually stooped in stature, with a large hawkish nose jutting prominently from his pinched face, he was known—even among his friends—as a coarse and vulgar man. There was no doubting his intelligence, but that intelligence was tempered by neither modesty nor tact. In the words of one acquaintance, he was “a good scholar and soldier…full of fire and passion, but little good manners: a great sloven, wretchedly profane, and a great admirer of dogs.”17

  Lee’s greatest public sin, apart from his uncouth manner and his preference for low-born women, was that he despised Washington. To Lee, the general-in-chief knew little about tactics and less about the art of command. He knew that he was Washington’s better in these regards, and his vanity and envy overcame his better judgement. He could not hide his contempt for Washington, nor did he try to, and for that reason alone he made a poor subordinate. As the functioning second-in-command of the army, a man upon whom Washington should have been able to rely, Lee proved instead to be churlish and uncooperative, obeying Washington’s orders at his own pace and only when it suited him.

  Yet there was no getting rid of him. None of the other major generals dared challenge the man, for he had an indefinable mystique that lent great authority to his opinions. Other men seemed to defer to him, whether they liked him or not. Washington valued Lee’s experience and wisdom, and tried his best to work with him, but over time it became more and more difficult to do so. Washington did not like Lee, but he respected him, probably more than Lee deserved.

  There was more to their mutual dislike than a clash of egos. Washington and Lee had two very different strategic philosophies. Washington aspired to lead an army built on the European model, while Lee subscribed to the Whiggish idea that freedom-loving, virtuous Americans were much better equipped to fight an irregular “war of posts” than they were to meet the Redcoats head on. Any attempt, therefore, to fashion the Continentals into a professional army would be misguided and fruitless. “It is in vain for Congress to withstand british Troops in the Field,” Lee proclaimed to Elias Boudinot, Continental commissioner for prisoners. Washington only underscored his own egotism by claiming otherwise.

  After more than a year in British hands, Lee was exchanged on April 21, 1778, and was honored with a reception at Valley Forge two days later. He spent the next month in York, hobnobbing with his friends in Congress, and returned to the army on the very day of the scrap at Barren Hill. Washington was not pleased to see him come back. Lee was not pleased with what he found upon his return.

  The army he found at Valley Forge was much different than the one he had left in December 1776. That army had been on the verge of dissolution, low in morale and with so many enlistments due to expire at year’s end. It vindicated Lee’s ideas on the conduct of the war. This army was a reasonable facsimile of a professional European army, at least in bearing, and it contradicted Lee’s beliefs regarding Americans and war. Unable to concede that he might have been wrong, Lee instead steadfastly refused to admit that anything had changed. As he remarked to Boudinot, the army at Valley Forge “was in worse shape than I had expected,” and Washington was still “not fit to command a sergeant’s guard.”

  It was only natural that Lee’s disapproval would extend to the Baron de Steuben. Steuben had superceded Lee as the army’s resident expert on military affairs, and had displaced Lee’s ally Conway as inspector general. He was a newcomer, too, and close to Washington. Steuben encouraged Washington’s irrational belief that American soldiers could be made the equal of their British foes. And as if to rub salt into a raw wound, Steuben made no attempt to conceal his low opinion of the British military. To Steuben, the British army was second-rate at best, a haven for mediocre talent, its officers unimaginative, ignorant, and negligent of their men. Steuben’s prejudices reflected the common sentiment of military men in continental Europe, but as Lee thought the British army to be without parallel in the modern world, Steuben’s ideas rubbed him the wrong way.

  Lee adamantly refused even to acknowledge that Steuben existed. He preferred to undermine the Baron indirectly, by instigating dissatisfaction with the new inspector general within the officer corps. Alex Hamilton knew this firsthand. “You have no doubt heard while you were with the army,” he reported to his friend Boudinot, “of the obstacles thrown in [Steuben’s] way by many of the General officers, excited to it by Lee and Mifflin I believe, in the execution of the Inspectorship.”18 It was not sheer coincidence that most of the subsequent complaints about Steuben came from officers in Lee’s command.

  The substance of those complaints came down to one thing: the Baron de Steuben wielded too much authority over his fellow generals. Some of the measures the Baron had adopted during the training program, though they were necessary and had Washington’s full approval, irritated a few of the brigade commanders. Steuben had prohibited the use of any drill but his own or the introduction of any maneuvers that he had not approved, and he temporarily suspended the right of the colonels and brigadiers to exercise their men except when under the supervision of brigade inspectors. He had even dared to lecture the field officers on the need to be patient and kind with their men. The men “are not to be used ill, Either by abusive Words, or otherwise but their faults are to be pointed out with patience,” Steuben had ordered. “There will be no other punishment for the soldier who is inattentive to Instruction but to make him Exercise for a whole hour after the others have done.”19 Who was he, a stranger without rank, to tell honest and long-serving American officers how to treat their men? Even worse, by restructuring the regiments into temporary battalions, Steuben had temporarily deprived some officers of their commands. This would not do.

  Steuben’s most vocal critic, Brig. Gen. James Mitchell Varnum of Rhode Island, was a brigade commander under Lee. He would be Lee’s mouthpiece. Precisely one day before the Grand Review, Varnum raised his concerns about Steuben with Washington in a long, rambling grievance. “I have observed for some Time since,” he wrote, “the progressive Encroachment of a newfangled Power, which, if not checked, may prove destructive to this Army. I mean the Office of Inspector.”

  The Ba
ron, as the head of this “newfangled Power,” threatened the integrity and harmony of the army in several ways, Varnum argued. First, he and his assistants were given unlimited access to sensitive information, including precise strength reports from each brigade. Only the commander in chief should be privy to these statistics. Certainly they should not be entrusted to ordinary staff officers, and never to a foreigner. With Loyalists and spies everywhere, it would be all too easy for these strength reports to be leaked to the enemy. When, therefore, Steuben directed the brigade inspectors to collect current reports of all men fit for duty two days before the Grand Review, Varnum was “filled…with Horror.”

  But security, Varnum claimed, was a lesser issue. What really troubled him was what he saw as the unreasonable reach of the Baron’s authority. “If the Baron, by his Aids, & Inspectors can manage my Brigade without my Orders, his Power is directly in Opposition to your Excellency’s, and there are two commanders in Chief at the same Time.” That this power could be granted to a foreigner made it that much more galling. Varnum portrayed Steuben as knowledgeable but condescending to the native-born officers. He was “too much prejudiced against the American Officers from an ignorance of their Abilities…[and] may have extended his Authority farther than he otherwise would.”

  This was largely what Varnum’s grievances boiled down to: Steuben was a foreign know-it-all. “I am sensible,” he concluded, “that great Politeness and Respect are due to the Foreign Officers; But our complaisance should never subjugate our Reason.” For so many of the foreign officers didn’t have the talents they claimed to, or even “Qualities worth Emulation.” “The world will laugh at us,” Varnum concluded, “when they view the List of Appointments and Promotions in their favor.”20