Valley Forge: A Revolutionary Christmas

- Valley Forge was not the scene of a battle. It was actually a winter encampment, where General George Washington and his men spent the Christmas of 1777.
- George Washington needed a sanctuary for his men during the winter season, a place safe from the English regulars who were well equipped to fight in the cold. However, towns such as Philadelphia were already crowded from refugees, and other cities such as Lancaster and York were open to surprise attacks by the British militia. George Washington eventually chose Valley Forge as his site because Congress had already hidden thousands of barrels of flour, horseshoes, tools, and other necessities behind the hills of Valley Forge. It was General Washington’s job to make sure that the supplies never fell into the hands of the British regulars.
- The soldiers faced temperatures as low as –12 degrees Celsius. They also were forced to endure 3 snowstorms in a row in early February, followed by rain and melting ice that flooded the nearby roads. The soldiers survived the winter while wearing torn, fall season clothing. If a soldier were lucky, he would sleep in a log hut during the freezing nights. Those who weren’t as lucky were forced to camp in simple, fur tents.
- The army required approximately 35 000 lbs. of meat and 170 barrels of flour a day to survive. However, food supplies often could not be transported to the soldiers for weeks at a time because of frozen roads and blizzards. However, the soldiers maintained high spirits during the encampment by singing, drinking, and eventually by playing wicket (what they called cricket) during the spring.
- Valley Forge eventually turned into a training ground as well. For example, a Prussian by the name of Freidrich Wilheim Augustin Baron von Steuben volunteered to teach Washington’s rag-tag, peasant army the military training that forged Prussia into a European power. If it were not for Steuben, Washington’s army may not have figured out how to reload their rifles at the same rate as the British.
- On June 19, 1778, over 6 months since the day the encampment began, George Washington abandoned Valley Forge and led his troops to victory at Monmouth, New Jersey. The military and survival training learned by Washington’s soldiers served them well as they defeated an English army just 9 days after leaving camp.
- It was this rag-tag army that eventually won the Revolution for America at Yorktown.

Sacajawea, 1787-1884

-Boinaiv (Grass Child) was born in Shoshone village in Idaho; she was captured at age 13 by Amerindian tribe Hidatas; they renamed her Sacajawea (Bird Woman)
-she was sold to another tribe, and eventually won in a card game by the Metis man, Toussaint Charbonneau (forest Bear, Horse from Abroad, Squaw's man); they got married
-Prez Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to chart Louisiana; by winter 1804-1805, they had reached Missouri River; they looked for an interpreter and guide; they hired Charbonneau and his wife
-Sacajewea was the real guide since she knew the local language of Shoshone; she gave birth to Jean Baptiste in Feb 1805 when she was 16 years old
-her baby strapped to her back prevented Amerindians from thinking Lewis and Clark were hostiles; she saved their records once when their boat was captized; she also guided Lewis and Clark through the only safe river passage through the Rockies; any other route would not have led to the Pacific ocean
-Clark mentioned Sacajewea often in his journals by calling her "Janey" and her son "Pomp"; he named one of the mountains in Yellowstone "Pomp's Pillar"; he later provided for Pomp's education
-it is unclear what happened to her after 1810; she may have been killed in South Dakota, or she may simply have left Charbonneau
-she also may have left and married a Commanche and joined an expedition led by Capt. John Fremont in 842; she then settled in a fort made by Jim Bridger in Utah
-she is reported to have died on the Wind River Reservation on April 4, 1884

Tecumseh, 1768-1813

-born in a Shawnee village near Springfield, Ohio; he attacked American settlers who moved onto Shawnee land when he was young
-after Amerindian defeat at battle of Fallen Timers 1794, 12 tribes surrendered their land to Americans in Treaty of Grenville
-Tecumseh became alarmed when America began taking more and more land from Amerindians; he said "Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?"
-1809, W.H. Harrison makes treaties with several tribes in Wabash Valley; Tecumseh and his brother, Tenskwatawa (the Prophet) traveled and spoke to Amerindians to create a Confederation of tribes that agree to not surrender any more lands; he told Harrison that peace would remain if recently American acquired lands would be given back
-while Tecumseh was gone, Harrison and an army of 1000 attacked the Prophet at Prophet Town; this led to brutal wars that ended the confederation
-President Madison called for war against England because he believed that only Europe could organize Amerindians into a confederation
-in beginning of War of 1812, Tecumseh was at first neutral; after the British took Michilimacjinac, he joined them; he became a brigider general and helped in the American surrender at Detroit
-1813, after Detroit was abandoned by England, Americans killed Tecumseh, his Amerindians, and the Brits along the Thames River near London, Ontario

Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826

-he was born on a plantation in Virginia; his father was a frontier man and a Planter, his mother was a rich aristocrat
-after his father died when Thomas was 14, he inherited 1200 ha and 100 slaves; he entered William and Mary College and became one of Virginia's foremost lawyers
-1769, he was elected to House of Burgesses and made himself an anti-British radical; 1774, he published "A summary View of the Rights of British America" which demanded colonial self-gov't
-he was elected to Continental Congress in 1774 and 1776; he spent two weeks drafted the Declaration of Independence
-when he returned to Virginia, he introduced a law that brought religious freedom; he said that his reforms laid "a foundation for a government truly republican"; it included a public school system
-he was elected to Congress in 1783; he made Congress adopt the cents and dollars decimal monetary system and authorized the North West Ordinance Act
-1785, he became ambassador to France with Benjamin Franklin; here, Thomas published "Notes on Virginia", a response to questions about America that was sent to all colonial governors; it contained American geography, races, economy, history, his opinion on slavery (which he thought should be abolsihed gradually), race relations (he feared slavery would turn Americans into white tyrants), and blacks (he thought they should all be shipped back to Africa)
-1789, he saw and was disgusted by Parisian Revolutionary mobs; he opposed all the violence
-he returned to America as Washington's new Secretary of State for foreign affairs and opposed Alexander Hamilton's "strict" interpretations of the new Constitution; 1793, at outbreak of war in France, Jefferson favoured republican France and Hamilton favoured monarchial Britain
-1796, Jefferson was elected Vice-President to John Adams; they were from different parties, and thus made a coalition government
-Jefferson wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions; he unknowingly justified secession of the Southern states in 1860 through his law
-1800, Jefferson was elected president and served two terms; he kept US neutral in the European wars, made the Louisiana purchase to double the size of US and remove French as an enemy; he invented the doctrine of "executive privilege" in his effort to have his vice-prez, Aaron Burr, found guilty of treason
-Thomas was very nervous when he spoke in Congress; he has his annual State of the Union speech read to Congress by others
-Jefferson left office with democracy strong in America and forced the Federalist party out of national politics; Jefferson began the "Virginian dynasty" in which his Democratic-Republican party dominated for the next 20 years; he created a "one party state"
-1819, he established the University of Virginia which is now the Library of Congress
-he died on July 4, 1826, the 15^th anniversary of his Declaration of Independence; on his epitaph, Jefferson wrote: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and the father of the University of Virginia"
-he had designed his home at Monticello as well as many offices in Virginia; he had invented the dumb-waiter (a revolving chair), a award-winning plow, a walking stick that folded into a chair, a letter-copying machine; he knew Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, and Anglo-Saxon

Andrew Jackson

-Jackson claimed that he was born in south Carolina, sources say North Carolina, and some say Ireland
-he was a troublesome kid with little formal education, although he could read and write
-at age 14, he and his brother joined the revolution; both were taken captive, his brother nearly died from smallpox and it nearly killed Andrew as well; when he got out, he learned that his mom and another brother had died as well
-while a prisoner, he refused a British officer's orders to clean his boots; the officer scarred Andrew's face with a sword
-after gambling away all his inheritance, he got an old friend who became a judge to be appointed as Public Prosecutor in Nashville, Tennessee; Jackson later became district attorney and judge; he supported landowners over the poor and became very rich; he bought a plantation and 100 slaves
-1791, he married Rachel Donelson Robards; after she learned that she was still legally married to her old husband, she got a divorce and re-married Jackson in 1794
-1796, Andrew joined the Senate and ran for president in 1824; Thomas Jefferson did not want the disrespectful Andrew Jackson to become president
-1798-1804, Jackson was judge of Supreme Court when he went bankrupt; this gave him a hatred towards paper money, debts, and banks
-1802, he was commander of Tennessee militia; 1814, he defeated the Creek Amerindians and his treaty was extremely harsh; 1814, he formed a rag-tag army that slaughtered an army of 2000 British on January 5, 1815 in New Orleans
-1818, he pursued the Seminoles who fled into Spanish Florida; Jackson captured 2 Spanish forts and caused an international crisis with Spain
-1824, Andrew Jackson won presidential election but not by majority; House of Reps instead chose John Quincy Adams as president and prepared to beat Jackson at 1828 election; "John Q. Adams who can write, Andy Jackson who can fight!"
-Rachel died a few weeks after election and Andrew blamed it on his political enemies: "May god almighty forgive her murderers, as I know she forgave them. I never can."
-he ended the Jeffersonian Democratic dynasty which led to new parties being formed: Democratic and the Whig Party by Henry Clay
-Jackson won because he identified with the "common man"
-his two terms in office are known as "Jacksonian Democracy"; however, he did not give any more power to the presidency than before; he brought to the White House his anti-Amerindian policies and strengthened ties with South Carolina