Valley Forge and Yorktown Valley Forge Winter of

Valley Forge and Yorktown

Valley Forge Winter of 1777 -78. It’s a bleak moment for Washington. Terms of enlistment are almost up, again, for most of his army. The Continental Congress is having a hard time financing the war. Plus, it’s flippin freezing!

“These are the times that try men’s souls…. . ” When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Washington spends the winter doing his best to keep up the moral of his men. And then a strange visitor shows up…….

Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand Steuben Or Freddy, for short. He was an officer in the Prussian army, but then mysteriously left and was unaccounted for, for about 20 years! He resurfaces in Valley Forge and offers his services to Washington

Von Stueben Washington gladly accepts and allows Freddy to put his soldiers through drills. Freddy is great at this, as he was a Prussian, and he whips the troops into shape! By the spring, Washington has a lean, mean, fighting machine!

Let’s skip ahead…. . The Battle of Yorktown is the last battle of the Revolutionary War. The British are occupying New York. Washington gathers 5, 000 troops just outside of New York. The British are expecting him to attack.

Psych! Instead, Washington marches south to Yorktown, where General Cornwallis had a large portion of the British Navy docked. In the meantime, French naval ships sailed down from Rhode Island, and north from the Caribbean. They have Cornwallis trapped!

He surrenders. On October 17, 1781, he surrenders.

The Surrender Cornwallis couldn’t bring himself to show up at the surrender ceremony, he sent his second in command. The British army played “The World Turned Upside Down. ” They British soldiers would not look at the Americans, they only faced the French. Lafayette (French General) orders the American band to play “Yankee Doodle Dandee. ”

The Treaty of Paris. The 13 Colonies are now the 13 original States of America. Murica. And we doubled our size! Check us out! Little baby Murica!!!