Valley Forge

After finishing our tour of the Masonic Temple, we picked up our rental car and headed to Valley Forge. We stopped in at the visitor's center to look around. They had some random relics such as shoes, utensils, weapons and such displayed along with lots of timelines and descriptions of what happened there. It was fairly small and didn't take much time at all. 

I learned that Valley Forge was named for a nearby forge located on Valley Creek. The army stayed there all winter and suffered miserably. According to Wikipedia:

On December 19, 1777, when Washington's poorly fed, ill-equipped army, weary from long marches, staggered into Valley Forge, winds blew as the 12,000 Continentals prepared for winter's fury. Only about one in three of them had shoes, and many of their feet were leaving bloody footprints from the marching. Grounds for brigade encampments were selected, and defense lines were planned and begun. Though construction of more than a thousand huts provided shelter, it did little to offset the critical shortages that continually plagued the army.

Undernourished and poorly clothed, living in crowded, damp quarters, the army was ravaged by sickness and disease. Typhoid, jaundice, dysentery, and pneumonia were among the numerous diseases that killed around 2,500 men that winter. Although Washington repeatedly petitioned for relief, the Continental Congress was unable to provide it and the soldiers continued to suffer. Women who were relatives or wives of enlisted men alleviated some of the suffering by providing valuable services such as laundry and nursing that the army desperately needed.

Through all of their suffering, the army kept busy with military training and drills.

Today, Valley Forge is a National Historical Park and we drove through the area to see it more closely. It was beautiful, with wide open fields and stands of trees. It was really hard to image the afflictions that the Continental Army went through because the day was bright, sunny and in the high 60's. I had a hard time picturing snow drifts, freezing temperatures and cold winds. 

We got to see the National Memorial Arch that stands on one of the hills. On the top portion of the arch's backside it reads "Naked and starving as they are we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery. - Washington at Valley Forge, February 16, 1778"

Nearby the arch is a much smaller memorial erected by the Freemasons. It says "In remembrance of the Continental Army led by George Washington, a member of the Mason Fraternity, and in honor of the many Freemasons who were a part of the encampment at this site, the Freemasons of Pennsylvania place this monument so that future generations will know that freedom was as important in 1997 as it was in 1777-1778."

There are reconstructed huts reminiscent of the huts the soldiers built for shelter.

George Washington's headquarters at Valley Forge were located in a stone building. We made it just in time to take a peek inside before they closed up for the day.

The building is restored and furnished with items commonly used during the late 1700's. It was interesting to see what the rooms may have looked like.

We left Valley Forge and headed west to Gettysburg. We got to drive through Lancaster County, where we saw multiple Amish horse-drawn buggies driving down the two lane highway. The highway was lined with regular houses and businesses, but you could see past these buildings to open fields and farms. It was gorgeous country. 

We stopped to eat dinner at a place called Good and Plenty Restaurant and Bakery. We sat down to a family style dinner of home-cooked Pennsylvania Dutch food. It was delicious. We had fried chicken, ham, homemade bread, whipped butter, apple butter, beef stroganoff, the creamiest potatoes we've ever tasted, sweet corn, green beans, coleslaw, etc. There was SO much food, and all of it tasted really good. After we had eaten our fill, our server, Donna, came out and informed us that we would be served five different desserts. We all just looked at each other and started laughing. Dessert consisted of homemade chocolate ice cream, cherry crumble pie, shoo-fly pie, blueberry cheesecake and cracker pudding. Shoo fly pie is a molasses pie and cracker pudding is made from milk, sugar, eggs, saltine crackers and coconut flakes. It was all so good. All five of us just shared one piece of the cherry pie. Brian was so sad to leave a whole pie behind, so he sweet-talked Donna into letting us take it with us.

We never really had an opportunity to eat the pie during the next and last day of our trip, so Brian ended up carrying it all the way back to New York. We shared it with Layne (Brian's Dad), who didn't come with us on our Pennsylvania trip because he had to work, the night we got back and we were all very grateful to Brian for bringing it home.