Hello and welcome to a history of the United States. Episode 147. Valley Forge.

Valley Forge is a location in Pennsylvania, around 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia. It was a

terrible location to set up camp. There was little food nearby, foraging parties were unable to find anything,

it was a difficult location for the state to supply, and local merchants preferred to sell their food

to the British, who paid with hard currency instead of the paper money being produced by the

Continental Congress.

The army had little food or clothes and spent the winter sheltering in crude huts.

Many regiments deserted.

I'm now going to quote in full a letter sent from Washington to the Convention of New Hampshire,

which I hope captures the situation better than my own words would be able to. Quote,

Headquarters, Valley Forge, December 29th, 1777. Gentlemen, I take the liberty of transmitting

you the enclosed return, which contains a state of the New Hampshire regiments.

By this, you will discover how deficient, how exceedingly short they are, of the compliments of men which, of right according to the establishment they ought to have.

This information, I have thought it my duty to lay before you,

that it may have attention which its importance demands,

and, in full hope, that the most early and vigorous measures will be adopted,

not only to make the regiments more respectable,

but complete. The necessity and expedience of this procedure are too obvious to need arguments.

Should we have a respectable force to commence an early campaign with, before the enemy are reinforced, I trust we shall have an

opportunity of striking a favourable and a happy stroke. But if we should be obliged to defer it,

it will not be easy to describe with any degree of precision what disagreeable consequences may

result from it. We may rest assured that Britain

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