Hello and welcome to this day, a history show from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

We are in part two of our look at the winter of 1777 into 1778 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

George Washington has brought his troops 18 miles northwest

of Pennsylvania to regroup. Valley Forge is all of a sudden one of the biggest cities in the country,

but the real task at hand is to whip these soldiers into shape, and the man who's going to help do that

arrived in late February of 1778. That is a man by the name of

Barron Frederick Wilhelm von Steuben, a Prussian captain who arrived wearing that silk robe

and a letter of recommendation from Ben Franklin. And let's see what von Steuben can pull off

here to discuss, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter-Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.

Hello, Jody. Hey there.

And since the last episode, both of you have acquired

miniature greyhounds. It's remarkable, but, you know.

Yes, and mine is actually wearing a little silk robe.

Oh, to match.

With fur trim.

Yeah. I'm going to stay warm.

Oh, man.

Yeah. We're going to stay warm. Oh, man. We kind of painted a little picture of him, but who is this character who shows up in the Pennsylvania woods?

Von Steuben, I would call him a lifelong career military guy. He joins as in the officer corps

as a teenager. And throughout the years, he's rising and rising throughout the ranks.

About over the next 17 years, he reaches the rank of captain. He's seen as this person who is like refined, as we talked about before, very cosmopolitan.

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