Posted on Nov 28, 2017
Baron von Steuben--Bringing A Sense of Professionalism to the Continental Army
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The American Revolution
When American troops faltered, Baron von Steuben helped whip them into shape
By Erick Trickey
smithsonian.com
April 26, 2017
The baron wore an eight-pointed silver star on his chest, etched with the word Fidelitas. “Squad, halt!” he shouted—some of the few English words he knew. He walked among the 100 men in formation at Valley Forge, adjusting their muskets. He showed them how to march at 75 steps a minute, then 120. When their discipline broke down, he swore at them in German and French, and with his only English curse: “Goddamn!”
It was March 19, 1778, almost three years into the Revolutionary War. The Continental Army had just endured a punishing winter at Valley Forge. And a stranger—former Prussian army officer Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben—was on the scene to restore morale, introduce discipline and whip the tattered soldiers into fighting shape.
To one awestruck 16-year-old private, the tall, portly baron in the long blue cloak was as intimidating as the Roman god of war. “He seemed to me the perfect personification of Mars,” recalled Ashbel Green years later. “The trappings of his horse, the enormous holsters of his pistols, his large size, and his strikingly martial aspect, all seemed to favor the idea.”
Some of the baron’s aura was artifice. Von Steuben had never been a general, despite the claim of the supporters who recommended him. A decade past his service as a captain in the Prussian army, von Steuben, 47, filled his letters home with tall tales about his glorious reception in America. But the baron’s skills were real. His keen military mind and charismatic leadership led George Washington to name him the Continental Army’s acting inspector general soon after his arrival at its camp in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. In less than two months in spring 1778, von Steuben rallied the battered, ill-clothed, near-starving army.
“They went from a ragtag collection of militias to a professional force,” says Larrie Ferreiro, whose recent book, Brothers at Arms, tells the story of foreign support for the American Revolution. Ferreiro considers von Steuben the most important of all the volunteers from overseas who flocked to America to join the Revolution. “[It was] Steuben’s ability to bring this army the kind of training and understanding of tactics that made them able to stand toe to toe with the British,” he says.
Born into a military family in 1730—at first, his last name was the non-noble Steuben—he was 14 when he watched his father direct Prussian engineers in the 1744 siege of Prague. Enlisting around age 16, von Steuben rose to the rank of lieutenant and learned the discipline that made the Prussian army the best in Europe. “Its greatness came from its professionalism, its hardiness, and the machine-like precision with which it could maneuver on the battlefield,” wrote Paul Lockhart in his 2008 biography of von Steuben, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge.
Von Steuben spent 17 years in the Prussian army, fought in battles against Austria and Russia during the Seven Years’ War, became a captain, and attended Prussian king Frederick the Great’s elite staff school. But a vindictive rival schemed against him, and he was dismissed from the army during a 1763 peacetime downsizing. Forced to reinvent himself, von Steuben spent 11 years as court chamberlain in Hohenzollern-Hechingen, a tiny German principality. In 1769, the prince of nearby Baden named him to the chivalric Order of Fidelity. Membership came with a title: Freiherr, meaning “free lord,” or baron.
In 1775, as the American Revolution broke out, von Steuben’s boss, the Hechingen prince, ran out of money. Von Steuben, his salary slashed, started looking for a new military job. But Europe’s great armies, mostly at peace, didn’t hire him. In 1777, he tried to join the army in Baden, but the opportunity fell through in the worst way possible. An unknown person there lodged a complaint that von Steuben had “taken liberties with young boys” in his previous job, writes Lockhart. The never-proven, anonymously reported rumor destroyed von Steuben’s reputation in Germany. So he turned to his next-best prospect: America.
In September 1777, the disgraced baron sailed from France to volunteer for the Continental Army, bankrolled by a loan from his friend, French playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. A letter from America’s diplomats in Paris, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, vouched for him and reported that France’s minister of war and foreign minister had done so too.
But Deane and Franklin’s letter also falsely claimed that von Steuben was a lieutenant general and exaggerated his closeness to Frederick the Great—“the greatest public deception ever perpetrated in a good cause,” wrote Thomas Fleming in Washington’s Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge. Why? Only the highest recommendation would make an impression back home. Congress, desperate for volunteers earlier in the war, had been overwhelmed by unemployed Europeans eager for military jobs, and the number of officers from overseas had begun to stir resentment among American-born officers. “Congress had sternly warned they wanted no more foreigners arriving in America with contracts for brigadier and major generalships in their trunks,” Fleming wrote. Though von Steuben didn’t exaggerate his accomplishments to Franklin and Deane, he went along with the story once he got to America—and added some flourishes of his own. At one point, he even claimed he’d turned down paid positions with the Holy Roman Empire to serve in the United States.
Von Steuben landed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on December 1, 1777, with four French aides to translate for him and a large dog named Azor. His exaggerated reputation spread fast. In Boston, he met John Hancock, who hosted a dinner for him, and chatted up Samuel Adams about politics and military affairs. Next, von Steuben headed to York, Pennsylvania, the temporary American capital while the British occupied Philadelphia. Aware that the Continental Congress had soured on foreign volunteers, von Steuben offered to serve under Washington and asked to be paid only if America won the war. They took the deal and sent von Steuben to Valley Forge.
“Baron Steuben has arrived at camp,” Washington wrote soon after. “He appears to be much of a gentleman, and as far as I have had an opportunity of judging, a man of military knowledge and acquainted with the world.” Washington’s confidence in von Steuben grew quickly. Within two weeks, he made the baron acting inspector general and asked him to examine the Continental Army’s condition.
“What [Steuben] discovered was nothing less than appalling,” wrote Fleming in Washington’s Secret War. “He was confronting a wrecked army. A less courageous (or less bankrupt) man would have quit on the spot.” Unlike the American forces in New York, who had beaten the British at Saratoga in fall 1777, the army in Pennsylvania had suffered a series of defeats. When they lost the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, the British had seized Philadelphia. Now—following common military practice of the era—they had camped for the winter. But Valley Forge, their winter quarters, was nearly as punishing as battle: hastily built huts, cruel temperatures, scarce food.
The baron found soldiers without uniforms, rusted muskets without bayonets, companies with men missing and unaccounted for. Short enlistments meant constant turnover and little order. Regiment sizes varied wildly. Different officers used different military drill manuals, leading to chaos when their units tried to work together. If the army had to fight on short notice, von Steuben warned Washington, he might find himself commanding one-third of the men he thought he had. The army had to get into better shape before fighting resumed in the spring.
So, von Steuben put the entire army through Prussian-style drills, starting with a model company of 100 men. He taught them how to reload their muskets quickly after firing, charge with a bayonet and march in compact columns instead of miles-long lines. Meanwhile, he wrote detailed lists of officers’ duties, giving them more responsibility than in English systems.
Soldiers gaped at the sight of a German nobleman, in a French-style black beaver hat, drilling poorly clothed troops. Though von Steuben raged and cursed in a garbled mixture of French, English, and German, his instructions and presence began to build morale. “If anything, the curses contributed to Steuben’s reputation as an exotic character who was good for a laugh now and then,” wrote Fleming.
And though the baron was appalled at the condition of the army he was tasked with making over, he soon developed an appreciation for its soldiers. “The genius of this nation is not in the least to be compared with that of the Prussian, Austrians, or French,” von Steuben wrote to a Prussian friend. “You say to your soldier ‘Do this and he doeth it’; but I am obliged to say [to the American soldier]: ‘This is the reason why you ought to do that: and then he does it.’”
Off the drilling field, von Steuben befriended the troops. A lifelong bachelor, he threw dinner parties rather than dine alone. One night, the guests pooled their rations to give von Steuben’s manservant the ingredients for a dinner of beefsteak and potatoes with hickory nuts. They also drank “salamanders”—cheap whiskey set on fire.
As von Steuben’s work progressed, news of the United States’ treaties of alliance with France reached Valley Forge. Washington declared May 6, 1778 a day of celebration. He asked von Steuben to ready the army for a ceremonial review.
At 9 a.m. on May 6, 7,000 soldiers lined up on the parade ground. “Rank by rank, with not a single straying step, the battalions swung past General Washington and deployed into a double line of battle with the ease and swiftness of veterans,” Fleming wrote. Then the soldiers performed the feu de joie, a ceremonial rifle salute in which each soldier in a line fires in sequence—proof of the army’s new discipline. “The plan as formed by Baron von Steuben succeeded in every particular,” wrote John Laurens, an aide to Washington.
The baron’s lessons didn’t just make the American troops look impressive in parades—under his tutelage, they became a formidable battlefield force. Two weeks after the celebration, the Marquis de Lafayette led a reconnaissance force of 2,200 to observe the British evacuation from Philadelphia. When a surprise British attack forced Lafayette to retreat, von Steuben’s compact column formation enabled the entire force to make a swift, narrow escape. At the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, the Revolution’s last major battle in the northern states, American troops showed a new discipline. They stood their ground during ferocious fire and bayonet attacks and forced the British to retreat. “Monmouth vindicated Steuben as an organizer,” wrote Lockhart. The Continental Army’s new strength as a fighting force, combined with the arrival of the French fleet off the coast of New York in July 1778, turned the tide of the war.
Von Steuben served in the Continental Army for the rest of the Revolutionary War. In 1779, he codified his lessons into the Army’s Blue Book. Officially the Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, it remained the Army training manual for decades. The Army still uses some portions of it in training manuals today, including von Steuben’s instructions on drill and ceremonies.
After the war, the governor of New York granted von Steuben a huge wilderness estate in the Mohawk Valley as a reward for his service in the war. Von Steuben died there in November 1794 at age 64. His importance to the Revolution is evident in Washington’s last act as commanding general. In December 1783, just before retiring to Mount Vernon, he wrote von Steuben a letter of thanks for his “great Zeal, Attention and Abilities” and his “faithful and Meritorious Services.” Though his name is little known among Americans today, every U.S. soldier is indebted to von Steuben—he created America’s professional Army.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/baron-von-steuben-180963048/
https://www.nps.gov/vafo/learn/historyculture/vonsteuben.htm
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-03-02-0134
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Steuben
@ col mikel COL Mikel J. Burroughs @ ltc stephen LTC Stephen C. @ ltc stephen LTC Stephen F. @ ltc wayne LTC Wayne Brandon @ ltc frank LTC (Join to see) @ ltc jeff LTC Jeff Shearer @ maj william Maj William W. 'Bill' Price @ capt tom Capt Tom Brown @ capt marty Maj Marty Hogan @ smsgt doc SMSgt Minister Gerald A. "Doc" Thomas @ tsgt joe TSgt Joe C. @ ssgt robert SSgt Robert Marx @ sra christopher SrA Christopher W. @ msg andrew MSG Andrew White @ sfc joe SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL @ ssg robert SSG Robert Webster @ sgt jim SGT Jim Arnold @ sgt david SGT (Join to see) @ sgt david SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth @ sp5 mark SP5 Mark Kuzinski
When American troops faltered, Baron von Steuben helped whip them into shape
By Erick Trickey
smithsonian.com
April 26, 2017
The baron wore an eight-pointed silver star on his chest, etched with the word Fidelitas. “Squad, halt!” he shouted—some of the few English words he knew. He walked among the 100 men in formation at Valley Forge, adjusting their muskets. He showed them how to march at 75 steps a minute, then 120. When their discipline broke down, he swore at them in German and French, and with his only English curse: “Goddamn!”
It was March 19, 1778, almost three years into the Revolutionary War. The Continental Army had just endured a punishing winter at Valley Forge. And a stranger—former Prussian army officer Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben—was on the scene to restore morale, introduce discipline and whip the tattered soldiers into fighting shape.
To one awestruck 16-year-old private, the tall, portly baron in the long blue cloak was as intimidating as the Roman god of war. “He seemed to me the perfect personification of Mars,” recalled Ashbel Green years later. “The trappings of his horse, the enormous holsters of his pistols, his large size, and his strikingly martial aspect, all seemed to favor the idea.”
Some of the baron’s aura was artifice. Von Steuben had never been a general, despite the claim of the supporters who recommended him. A decade past his service as a captain in the Prussian army, von Steuben, 47, filled his letters home with tall tales about his glorious reception in America. But the baron’s skills were real. His keen military mind and charismatic leadership led George Washington to name him the Continental Army’s acting inspector general soon after his arrival at its camp in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. In less than two months in spring 1778, von Steuben rallied the battered, ill-clothed, near-starving army.
“They went from a ragtag collection of militias to a professional force,” says Larrie Ferreiro, whose recent book, Brothers at Arms, tells the story of foreign support for the American Revolution. Ferreiro considers von Steuben the most important of all the volunteers from overseas who flocked to America to join the Revolution. “[It was] Steuben’s ability to bring this army the kind of training and understanding of tactics that made them able to stand toe to toe with the British,” he says.
Born into a military family in 1730—at first, his last name was the non-noble Steuben—he was 14 when he watched his father direct Prussian engineers in the 1744 siege of Prague. Enlisting around age 16, von Steuben rose to the rank of lieutenant and learned the discipline that made the Prussian army the best in Europe. “Its greatness came from its professionalism, its hardiness, and the machine-like precision with which it could maneuver on the battlefield,” wrote Paul Lockhart in his 2008 biography of von Steuben, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge.
Von Steuben spent 17 years in the Prussian army, fought in battles against Austria and Russia during the Seven Years’ War, became a captain, and attended Prussian king Frederick the Great’s elite staff school. But a vindictive rival schemed against him, and he was dismissed from the army during a 1763 peacetime downsizing. Forced to reinvent himself, von Steuben spent 11 years as court chamberlain in Hohenzollern-Hechingen, a tiny German principality. In 1769, the prince of nearby Baden named him to the chivalric Order of Fidelity. Membership came with a title: Freiherr, meaning “free lord,” or baron.
In 1775, as the American Revolution broke out, von Steuben’s boss, the Hechingen prince, ran out of money. Von Steuben, his salary slashed, started looking for a new military job. But Europe’s great armies, mostly at peace, didn’t hire him. In 1777, he tried to join the army in Baden, but the opportunity fell through in the worst way possible. An unknown person there lodged a complaint that von Steuben had “taken liberties with young boys” in his previous job, writes Lockhart. The never-proven, anonymously reported rumor destroyed von Steuben’s reputation in Germany. So he turned to his next-best prospect: America.
In September 1777, the disgraced baron sailed from France to volunteer for the Continental Army, bankrolled by a loan from his friend, French playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. A letter from America’s diplomats in Paris, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, vouched for him and reported that France’s minister of war and foreign minister had done so too.
But Deane and Franklin’s letter also falsely claimed that von Steuben was a lieutenant general and exaggerated his closeness to Frederick the Great—“the greatest public deception ever perpetrated in a good cause,” wrote Thomas Fleming in Washington’s Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge. Why? Only the highest recommendation would make an impression back home. Congress, desperate for volunteers earlier in the war, had been overwhelmed by unemployed Europeans eager for military jobs, and the number of officers from overseas had begun to stir resentment among American-born officers. “Congress had sternly warned they wanted no more foreigners arriving in America with contracts for brigadier and major generalships in their trunks,” Fleming wrote. Though von Steuben didn’t exaggerate his accomplishments to Franklin and Deane, he went along with the story once he got to America—and added some flourishes of his own. At one point, he even claimed he’d turned down paid positions with the Holy Roman Empire to serve in the United States.
Von Steuben landed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on December 1, 1777, with four French aides to translate for him and a large dog named Azor. His exaggerated reputation spread fast. In Boston, he met John Hancock, who hosted a dinner for him, and chatted up Samuel Adams about politics and military affairs. Next, von Steuben headed to York, Pennsylvania, the temporary American capital while the British occupied Philadelphia. Aware that the Continental Congress had soured on foreign volunteers, von Steuben offered to serve under Washington and asked to be paid only if America won the war. They took the deal and sent von Steuben to Valley Forge.
“Baron Steuben has arrived at camp,” Washington wrote soon after. “He appears to be much of a gentleman, and as far as I have had an opportunity of judging, a man of military knowledge and acquainted with the world.” Washington’s confidence in von Steuben grew quickly. Within two weeks, he made the baron acting inspector general and asked him to examine the Continental Army’s condition.
“What [Steuben] discovered was nothing less than appalling,” wrote Fleming in Washington’s Secret War. “He was confronting a wrecked army. A less courageous (or less bankrupt) man would have quit on the spot.” Unlike the American forces in New York, who had beaten the British at Saratoga in fall 1777, the army in Pennsylvania had suffered a series of defeats. When they lost the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, the British had seized Philadelphia. Now—following common military practice of the era—they had camped for the winter. But Valley Forge, their winter quarters, was nearly as punishing as battle: hastily built huts, cruel temperatures, scarce food.
The baron found soldiers without uniforms, rusted muskets without bayonets, companies with men missing and unaccounted for. Short enlistments meant constant turnover and little order. Regiment sizes varied wildly. Different officers used different military drill manuals, leading to chaos when their units tried to work together. If the army had to fight on short notice, von Steuben warned Washington, he might find himself commanding one-third of the men he thought he had. The army had to get into better shape before fighting resumed in the spring.
So, von Steuben put the entire army through Prussian-style drills, starting with a model company of 100 men. He taught them how to reload their muskets quickly after firing, charge with a bayonet and march in compact columns instead of miles-long lines. Meanwhile, he wrote detailed lists of officers’ duties, giving them more responsibility than in English systems.
Soldiers gaped at the sight of a German nobleman, in a French-style black beaver hat, drilling poorly clothed troops. Though von Steuben raged and cursed in a garbled mixture of French, English, and German, his instructions and presence began to build morale. “If anything, the curses contributed to Steuben’s reputation as an exotic character who was good for a laugh now and then,” wrote Fleming.
And though the baron was appalled at the condition of the army he was tasked with making over, he soon developed an appreciation for its soldiers. “The genius of this nation is not in the least to be compared with that of the Prussian, Austrians, or French,” von Steuben wrote to a Prussian friend. “You say to your soldier ‘Do this and he doeth it’; but I am obliged to say [to the American soldier]: ‘This is the reason why you ought to do that: and then he does it.’”
Off the drilling field, von Steuben befriended the troops. A lifelong bachelor, he threw dinner parties rather than dine alone. One night, the guests pooled their rations to give von Steuben’s manservant the ingredients for a dinner of beefsteak and potatoes with hickory nuts. They also drank “salamanders”—cheap whiskey set on fire.
As von Steuben’s work progressed, news of the United States’ treaties of alliance with France reached Valley Forge. Washington declared May 6, 1778 a day of celebration. He asked von Steuben to ready the army for a ceremonial review.
At 9 a.m. on May 6, 7,000 soldiers lined up on the parade ground. “Rank by rank, with not a single straying step, the battalions swung past General Washington and deployed into a double line of battle with the ease and swiftness of veterans,” Fleming wrote. Then the soldiers performed the feu de joie, a ceremonial rifle salute in which each soldier in a line fires in sequence—proof of the army’s new discipline. “The plan as formed by Baron von Steuben succeeded in every particular,” wrote John Laurens, an aide to Washington.
The baron’s lessons didn’t just make the American troops look impressive in parades—under his tutelage, they became a formidable battlefield force. Two weeks after the celebration, the Marquis de Lafayette led a reconnaissance force of 2,200 to observe the British evacuation from Philadelphia. When a surprise British attack forced Lafayette to retreat, von Steuben’s compact column formation enabled the entire force to make a swift, narrow escape. At the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, the Revolution’s last major battle in the northern states, American troops showed a new discipline. They stood their ground during ferocious fire and bayonet attacks and forced the British to retreat. “Monmouth vindicated Steuben as an organizer,” wrote Lockhart. The Continental Army’s new strength as a fighting force, combined with the arrival of the French fleet off the coast of New York in July 1778, turned the tide of the war.
Von Steuben served in the Continental Army for the rest of the Revolutionary War. In 1779, he codified his lessons into the Army’s Blue Book. Officially the Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, it remained the Army training manual for decades. The Army still uses some portions of it in training manuals today, including von Steuben’s instructions on drill and ceremonies.
After the war, the governor of New York granted von Steuben a huge wilderness estate in the Mohawk Valley as a reward for his service in the war. Von Steuben died there in November 1794 at age 64. His importance to the Revolution is evident in Washington’s last act as commanding general. In December 1783, just before retiring to Mount Vernon, he wrote von Steuben a letter of thanks for his “great Zeal, Attention and Abilities” and his “faithful and Meritorious Services.” Though his name is little known among Americans today, every U.S. soldier is indebted to von Steuben—he created America’s professional Army.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/baron-von-steuben-180963048/
https://www.nps.gov/vafo/learn/historyculture/vonsteuben.htm
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-03-02-0134
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Steuben
@ col mikel COL Mikel J. Burroughs @ ltc stephen LTC Stephen C. @ ltc stephen LTC Stephen F. @ ltc wayne LTC Wayne Brandon @ ltc frank LTC (Join to see) @ ltc jeff LTC Jeff Shearer @ maj william Maj William W. 'Bill' Price @ capt tom Capt Tom Brown @ capt marty Maj Marty Hogan @ smsgt doc SMSgt Minister Gerald A. "Doc" Thomas @ tsgt joe TSgt Joe C. @ ssgt robert SSgt Robert Marx @ sra christopher SrA Christopher W. @ msg andrew MSG Andrew White @ sfc joe SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL @ ssg robert SSG Robert Webster @ sgt jim SGT Jim Arnold @ sgt david SGT (Join to see) @ sgt david SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth @ sp5 mark SP5 Mark Kuzinski
American History
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National Park Service
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Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was the U.S. (Continental) Army's first inspector general, SGT John " Mac " McConnell! I proudly served as a detailed inspector general for almost four years after attending the DAIG course at Fort Belvoir in June, 1990. We were required to learn von Steuben's history and his long lasting impact on the U.S. Army!
The inspector general insignia has DROIT ET AVANT inscribed on it which is French for "right and forward".
Maj Marty Hogan SP5 Mark Kuzinski LTC (Join to see) SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth SMSgt Minister Gerald A. "Doc" Thomas LTC Stephen F.
The inspector general insignia has DROIT ET AVANT inscribed on it which is French for "right and forward".
Maj Marty Hogan SP5 Mark Kuzinski LTC (Join to see) SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth SMSgt Minister Gerald A. "Doc" Thomas LTC Stephen F.
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SFC William Farrell
SP5 Mark Kuzinski - And he certainly has great respect for our military Mark, because he didn't have the balls to serve! But hats off to LTC Stephen C. too!
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SGT John " Mac " McConnell
That is very Respectful duty to accomplish LTC Stephen C. . Proud to know you sir !
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Thanks, my friend SGT John " Mac " McConnell for reminding us about the influence of Prussian Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand Steuben who is known to us as Baron von Steuben.
Image: Major General Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus Baron von Steuben by Ralph Earl
We studied the impact of Major General Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus Baron von Steuben while I was a cadet at West Point.
Transforming a disparate group of French and Indian War veterans, farmers, militias and townspeople with mixed weapons skills into a formidable fighting force was no easy task,
At the time the British Army with its German mercenary and American Indian allies was a formidable force to be reckoned with.
Images: Major General Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus Baron von Steuben by Ralph Earl; January 17, 1781 Battle of Cowpens, tactical Map
Training soldiers to be disciplined in tactics required forts the basic steps of marching, facing movements, prepare to load a round, load around and ramrod it, fire, repeat, etc. was painstaking process. Initially many of the colonial forces folded in pitched battles.
Over time, the training resulted in a disciplined force which could stand against withering fire and crush the British forces at battles like Monmouth, New Jersey colony [June 28, 1778], Stony Point, New York colony [July 16, 1779], Cowpens, South Carolina colony [January 17, 1781] and Guilford Court House, North Carolina, colony [March 15, 1781] the now thoroughly trained Continentals consistently maneuvered with skill, and often stunned their Crown opponents. Von Steuben obtained a field command in 1780 and his talents in siege warfare helped the Americans win the battle of Yorktown. But by then the actions listed above, that were the Baron’s true legacy, had actually already taken place.
"Except for Washington, no one had more influence in the creation of a professional United States Army than Major General Friedrich von Steuben. Even his name was cool: Von Steuben. If he were around today he’d be a rock star.
But it was no mob that scored the American victories in open battle at Harlem Heights, Trenton, and Princeton. Was it an undrilled mob that fell back before the British attack on Long Island? Actually, it kind of was, and this indicates the problem Washington faced when his troops went into camp at Valley Forge in December 1777; for every instance where the Continentals maneuvered as well as their Redcoat and Hessian opponents, there was an equally embarrassing case where Continental formations became unglued; sometimes on the same battlefield. What was the problem?
Part of the problem was that battle in the eighteenth century was really, really, really complicated. Commanders had to successfully combine maneuvering and firing to win. Take the battle of Germantown for example. Gen. Washington developed a good plan for his army of 11,000 soldiers to conduct a night march in four separate columns and converge in a vise on Gen. Howe’s British camp of 9,000 men at Germantown. Like in any action, for any brigade of four regiments to deploy from their march column, the brigade commander had to analyze the field and issue clear orders to form a line of battle. Then all 8 platoons in each regiment had to wheel twice in the correct sequence, for a total of 64 movements, to form the line. Captains, lieutenants and sergeants kept the ranks in alignment and ensured that the soldiers moved in perfect synchronization. And deploying from column to line was just one maneuver – regiments also had to march obliquely, countermarch, change front, and many other movements with multiple moving parts. Now imagine that occurring uncounted times throughout Washington’s Germantown force of 15 brigades with over 50 regiments across a battlefield that was nearly 15 square miles in size, filled with obstacles like woods, fences, and farms. This only starts to describe what I meant by “really, really, really complicated.”
We’re not done, because so far in my little tableau nobody has fired any bullets. Once the soldiers were in line of battle it took fifteen separate actions to prime and load a flintlock musket and two more to fire it on command. All of this was very difficult to master on the drill field. Imagine how it was to pull all of that off amid the smoke, noise, and confusion of battle; when enemy musket balls whizzed through the air and tended to break a man’s concentration. Thorough drill was the means that gave the soldiers the ability to perform these maneuvers the same way, without thinking, every time, especially under fire.
Another part of the problem was that very few regiments did any of this the same way. Drill methods were the purview of regimental commanders, and they used everything from the British Army manual Regulations to a variety of colonial treatises produced for militia use. Drill was not uniformly practiced or enforced, so every unit had varying levels of competence. Steuben would later complain, “Each colonel exercised his regiment according to his own ideas, or those of any military author that might have fallen into his hands,” and, “march and maneuvering step was as varied as the color of our uniforms.”
Baron von Steuben drilling Washington's army at Valley Forge. Source: Library of Congress
Baron von Steuben drilling Washington’s army at Valley Forge. Source: Library of Congress
Thanks in part to this disparity in drill and battle skills, the American attack at Germantown broke down. Parts of Washington’s plan initially worked well and many Continental units fought with admirable skill, but others, not so much. Units got lost on the march, some did not press their attacks, gaps opened in the lines, dense fog and battle smoke added to the confusion and brigades literally collided with and fired at each other. In contrast, Howe’s forces recovered quickly under fire and launched a coordinated counterattack. The Americans gave the day to the British.
Two months after Germantown the army marched into Valley Forge. By that time Congress, Gen. Washington, and many senior officers knew that the army needed to fix its problems with training and discipline. Congress had recently appointed Maj. Gen. Thomas Conway as the army’s Inspector General to oversee these matters, but Conway was a schemer, rapidly falling from the favor of Washington and Congress, and ultimately a deadbeat. For his Inspector General, at a time when the army desperately needed the best training, Washington needed a rock star.
In February 1778, just after Conway fell from grace and the Army should begin training for the next campaign, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin the Baron von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge as a new volunteer from Prussia. For years historians believed that his title “Baron von Steuben,” was a fabrication composed to impress the Americans, but according to historian Paul Lockhart, his family name actually included the noble “von” moniker and he truly was a baron. But the titles garnered him no wealth, and Steuben came to America as a nearly broke, former captain in Frederick the Great’s army.
Steuben was initially without official rank or position in Washington’s army, and spent his first few weeks at Valley Forge going all over the camp and talking with soldiers through interpreters (he barely spoke English). He soon realized that the Continental Army relied more on initiative and flexibility than the British and that American soldiers followed leaders out of respect, not blind obedience. He understood that British methods for drill and discipline, with their roots in European class hierarchies, would never be fully effective in the more egalitarian American society. Another part of the problem with the Continentals, he also realized, was that most officers left drill and discipline to sergeants, in the British Army manner. Luckily Steuben had a keen understanding of how to train soldiers because he cut his teeth leading drill as a young Prussian officer cadet. And with the need for training and a competent Inspector General, he was truly the right man in the right place at the right time. In early March 1778 Washington assigned him as acting Inspector General, in an unofficial capacity, while that loser Conway took his time in stepping down from the position.
Steuben began his training program immediately with a “model company” composed of men picked from each brigade in the army. He created a standard method of drill by combining and streamlining the most effective aspects of European tactics. Then Steuben taught his drill techniques to the soldiers of the model company, beginning with the basics of standing and facing, then marching with a uniform speed and step, then combining all the skills while in ranks. Steuben took care to explain the importance of the tasks, which helped his students learn “the Prussian exercise,” as they called it. Although the instruction included the “Manual Exercise” for musket handling and bayonet use, Steuben’s primary emphasis was on maneuvering. A natural showman, the barrel-chested Baron exuded confidence as he instructed the troops with the aid of a silver-tipped swagger stick and was an immediate hit with the Americans. The training methods made the most of Steuben’s drill master skills and perfectly suited the somewhat independent character of the American soldier.
Steuben trained at an aggressive pace – faster than that in most European armies. After the entire model company mastered the techniques he expanded the program to the army’s brigades with the help of newly-appointed sub-inspectors. In early April, barely a month after beginning the program, entire regiments were successfully drilling as whole units. The program so impressed Washington that he banned all other drill until Steuben’s methods could proliferate throughout the army. Morale soared as the soldiers gained confidence. “Discipline flourishes and daily improves under the indefatigable efforts of Baron Steuben – who is much esteemed by us,” wrote the veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Scammell in April. Some believed that any of the European officer volunteers could have done the same thing as Steuben, but that was a superficial consideration of training. It was Steuben’s unique combination of perspective, personality, adaptability, dedication and experience that enabled him to train an entire army in such a short span of time.
Tangible proof of the value of Steuben’s training came on May 20, 1778, when a force of 2,000 men under Brig. Gen. Lafayette was out scouting British lines near Philadelphia. About 10,000 British troops forayed out to corner the Americans, but Lafayette avoided the trap using maneuvers that would have been beyond the Continentals’ capabilities before Steuben’s training. When signal guns alerted the rest of the army at Valley Forge to Lafayette’s predicament, it took only fifteen minutes for the Continentals to fall out of their huts, prepare for action, and form a line of battle.
Congress formally appointed Steuben as a major general in May 1778, and his impact continued long after the Continentals left Valley Forge. The Baron worked tirelessly to capture his drill and instructions on paper in a single manual. At the end of March 1779, Congress approved publication of Steuben’s drill in Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, Part I, the first manual for the United States Army. The “Blue Book,” so nicknamed because of the color of its cover, contained instructions on every aspect of operating a military organization including tactics, administration, encampments, inspections, maintaining arms and equipment, artillery, treatment of the sick, drum commands, and the proper duties of every rank from regimental commanders to private soldiers. “A captain cannot be too careful of the company the state has committed to his charge. He must pay the greatest attention to the health of his men, their discipline, arms, accoutrements, ammunition, clothes, and necessaries,” was just part of the Blue Book’s instructions for junior officers, which made it much more than a mere drill manual – it’s the foundation of a professional army.
Continental training continued long after Valley Forge, and over the next two years Washington and Steuben constantly implemented the Blue Book with new recruits and existing regiments alike. The value of Steuben’s methods showed itself time and again. At battles like Monmouth, Stony Point, Cowpens, and Guilford Court House, the now thoroughly trained Continentals consistently maneuvered with skill, and often stunned their Crown opponents. Von Steuben obtained a field command in 1780 and his talents in siege warfare helped the Americans win the battle of Yorktown. But by then the actions listed above, that were the Baron’s true legacy, had actually already taken place.
If that’s not enough proof of Steuben’s impact, then consider that the Army used the Blue Book until 1812, eighteen years after the Baron died and went to the big drill field in the sky. Generations of American military leaders have carried on his principals that officers and sergeants should act as public servants and take genuine interest in their soldiers’ welfare. And since the techniques he applied at Valley Forge – dedication, adaptability, enthusiasm, and humor – have been part of almost all military training I’ve ever received (at least, the good training), I think there’s a little Von Steuben in anybody who has ever worn the United States uniform.
To read up on Steuben and his impact on the Continental Army, you can’t do better than Paul Lockhart’s excellent The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army, or The Continental Army, by Robert K. Wright Jr.. And if you want to see just how complicated eighteenth century maneuvers were, several reproductions of the Blue Book are in print. I use Baron von Steuben’s Revolutionary War Drill Manual, from Dover Publications."
https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/05/impact-of-von-steuben/
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Wayne Brandon Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown 1stSgt Eugene Harless SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx TSgt Joe C. SP5 Robert Ruck SP5 Mark Kuzinski SrA Christopher Wright SGT Robert George CPL Eric Escasio SPC (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SGT (Join to see)
Image: Major General Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus Baron von Steuben by Ralph Earl
We studied the impact of Major General Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus Baron von Steuben while I was a cadet at West Point.
Transforming a disparate group of French and Indian War veterans, farmers, militias and townspeople with mixed weapons skills into a formidable fighting force was no easy task,
At the time the British Army with its German mercenary and American Indian allies was a formidable force to be reckoned with.
Images: Major General Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus Baron von Steuben by Ralph Earl; January 17, 1781 Battle of Cowpens, tactical Map
Training soldiers to be disciplined in tactics required forts the basic steps of marching, facing movements, prepare to load a round, load around and ramrod it, fire, repeat, etc. was painstaking process. Initially many of the colonial forces folded in pitched battles.
Over time, the training resulted in a disciplined force which could stand against withering fire and crush the British forces at battles like Monmouth, New Jersey colony [June 28, 1778], Stony Point, New York colony [July 16, 1779], Cowpens, South Carolina colony [January 17, 1781] and Guilford Court House, North Carolina, colony [March 15, 1781] the now thoroughly trained Continentals consistently maneuvered with skill, and often stunned their Crown opponents. Von Steuben obtained a field command in 1780 and his talents in siege warfare helped the Americans win the battle of Yorktown. But by then the actions listed above, that were the Baron’s true legacy, had actually already taken place.
"Except for Washington, no one had more influence in the creation of a professional United States Army than Major General Friedrich von Steuben. Even his name was cool: Von Steuben. If he were around today he’d be a rock star.
But it was no mob that scored the American victories in open battle at Harlem Heights, Trenton, and Princeton. Was it an undrilled mob that fell back before the British attack on Long Island? Actually, it kind of was, and this indicates the problem Washington faced when his troops went into camp at Valley Forge in December 1777; for every instance where the Continentals maneuvered as well as their Redcoat and Hessian opponents, there was an equally embarrassing case where Continental formations became unglued; sometimes on the same battlefield. What was the problem?
Part of the problem was that battle in the eighteenth century was really, really, really complicated. Commanders had to successfully combine maneuvering and firing to win. Take the battle of Germantown for example. Gen. Washington developed a good plan for his army of 11,000 soldiers to conduct a night march in four separate columns and converge in a vise on Gen. Howe’s British camp of 9,000 men at Germantown. Like in any action, for any brigade of four regiments to deploy from their march column, the brigade commander had to analyze the field and issue clear orders to form a line of battle. Then all 8 platoons in each regiment had to wheel twice in the correct sequence, for a total of 64 movements, to form the line. Captains, lieutenants and sergeants kept the ranks in alignment and ensured that the soldiers moved in perfect synchronization. And deploying from column to line was just one maneuver – regiments also had to march obliquely, countermarch, change front, and many other movements with multiple moving parts. Now imagine that occurring uncounted times throughout Washington’s Germantown force of 15 brigades with over 50 regiments across a battlefield that was nearly 15 square miles in size, filled with obstacles like woods, fences, and farms. This only starts to describe what I meant by “really, really, really complicated.”
We’re not done, because so far in my little tableau nobody has fired any bullets. Once the soldiers were in line of battle it took fifteen separate actions to prime and load a flintlock musket and two more to fire it on command. All of this was very difficult to master on the drill field. Imagine how it was to pull all of that off amid the smoke, noise, and confusion of battle; when enemy musket balls whizzed through the air and tended to break a man’s concentration. Thorough drill was the means that gave the soldiers the ability to perform these maneuvers the same way, without thinking, every time, especially under fire.
Another part of the problem was that very few regiments did any of this the same way. Drill methods were the purview of regimental commanders, and they used everything from the British Army manual Regulations to a variety of colonial treatises produced for militia use. Drill was not uniformly practiced or enforced, so every unit had varying levels of competence. Steuben would later complain, “Each colonel exercised his regiment according to his own ideas, or those of any military author that might have fallen into his hands,” and, “march and maneuvering step was as varied as the color of our uniforms.”
Baron von Steuben drilling Washington's army at Valley Forge. Source: Library of Congress
Baron von Steuben drilling Washington’s army at Valley Forge. Source: Library of Congress
Thanks in part to this disparity in drill and battle skills, the American attack at Germantown broke down. Parts of Washington’s plan initially worked well and many Continental units fought with admirable skill, but others, not so much. Units got lost on the march, some did not press their attacks, gaps opened in the lines, dense fog and battle smoke added to the confusion and brigades literally collided with and fired at each other. In contrast, Howe’s forces recovered quickly under fire and launched a coordinated counterattack. The Americans gave the day to the British.
Two months after Germantown the army marched into Valley Forge. By that time Congress, Gen. Washington, and many senior officers knew that the army needed to fix its problems with training and discipline. Congress had recently appointed Maj. Gen. Thomas Conway as the army’s Inspector General to oversee these matters, but Conway was a schemer, rapidly falling from the favor of Washington and Congress, and ultimately a deadbeat. For his Inspector General, at a time when the army desperately needed the best training, Washington needed a rock star.
In February 1778, just after Conway fell from grace and the Army should begin training for the next campaign, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin the Baron von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge as a new volunteer from Prussia. For years historians believed that his title “Baron von Steuben,” was a fabrication composed to impress the Americans, but according to historian Paul Lockhart, his family name actually included the noble “von” moniker and he truly was a baron. But the titles garnered him no wealth, and Steuben came to America as a nearly broke, former captain in Frederick the Great’s army.
Steuben was initially without official rank or position in Washington’s army, and spent his first few weeks at Valley Forge going all over the camp and talking with soldiers through interpreters (he barely spoke English). He soon realized that the Continental Army relied more on initiative and flexibility than the British and that American soldiers followed leaders out of respect, not blind obedience. He understood that British methods for drill and discipline, with their roots in European class hierarchies, would never be fully effective in the more egalitarian American society. Another part of the problem with the Continentals, he also realized, was that most officers left drill and discipline to sergeants, in the British Army manner. Luckily Steuben had a keen understanding of how to train soldiers because he cut his teeth leading drill as a young Prussian officer cadet. And with the need for training and a competent Inspector General, he was truly the right man in the right place at the right time. In early March 1778 Washington assigned him as acting Inspector General, in an unofficial capacity, while that loser Conway took his time in stepping down from the position.
Steuben began his training program immediately with a “model company” composed of men picked from each brigade in the army. He created a standard method of drill by combining and streamlining the most effective aspects of European tactics. Then Steuben taught his drill techniques to the soldiers of the model company, beginning with the basics of standing and facing, then marching with a uniform speed and step, then combining all the skills while in ranks. Steuben took care to explain the importance of the tasks, which helped his students learn “the Prussian exercise,” as they called it. Although the instruction included the “Manual Exercise” for musket handling and bayonet use, Steuben’s primary emphasis was on maneuvering. A natural showman, the barrel-chested Baron exuded confidence as he instructed the troops with the aid of a silver-tipped swagger stick and was an immediate hit with the Americans. The training methods made the most of Steuben’s drill master skills and perfectly suited the somewhat independent character of the American soldier.
Steuben trained at an aggressive pace – faster than that in most European armies. After the entire model company mastered the techniques he expanded the program to the army’s brigades with the help of newly-appointed sub-inspectors. In early April, barely a month after beginning the program, entire regiments were successfully drilling as whole units. The program so impressed Washington that he banned all other drill until Steuben’s methods could proliferate throughout the army. Morale soared as the soldiers gained confidence. “Discipline flourishes and daily improves under the indefatigable efforts of Baron Steuben – who is much esteemed by us,” wrote the veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Scammell in April. Some believed that any of the European officer volunteers could have done the same thing as Steuben, but that was a superficial consideration of training. It was Steuben’s unique combination of perspective, personality, adaptability, dedication and experience that enabled him to train an entire army in such a short span of time.
Tangible proof of the value of Steuben’s training came on May 20, 1778, when a force of 2,000 men under Brig. Gen. Lafayette was out scouting British lines near Philadelphia. About 10,000 British troops forayed out to corner the Americans, but Lafayette avoided the trap using maneuvers that would have been beyond the Continentals’ capabilities before Steuben’s training. When signal guns alerted the rest of the army at Valley Forge to Lafayette’s predicament, it took only fifteen minutes for the Continentals to fall out of their huts, prepare for action, and form a line of battle.
Congress formally appointed Steuben as a major general in May 1778, and his impact continued long after the Continentals left Valley Forge. The Baron worked tirelessly to capture his drill and instructions on paper in a single manual. At the end of March 1779, Congress approved publication of Steuben’s drill in Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, Part I, the first manual for the United States Army. The “Blue Book,” so nicknamed because of the color of its cover, contained instructions on every aspect of operating a military organization including tactics, administration, encampments, inspections, maintaining arms and equipment, artillery, treatment of the sick, drum commands, and the proper duties of every rank from regimental commanders to private soldiers. “A captain cannot be too careful of the company the state has committed to his charge. He must pay the greatest attention to the health of his men, their discipline, arms, accoutrements, ammunition, clothes, and necessaries,” was just part of the Blue Book’s instructions for junior officers, which made it much more than a mere drill manual – it’s the foundation of a professional army.
Continental training continued long after Valley Forge, and over the next two years Washington and Steuben constantly implemented the Blue Book with new recruits and existing regiments alike. The value of Steuben’s methods showed itself time and again. At battles like Monmouth, Stony Point, Cowpens, and Guilford Court House, the now thoroughly trained Continentals consistently maneuvered with skill, and often stunned their Crown opponents. Von Steuben obtained a field command in 1780 and his talents in siege warfare helped the Americans win the battle of Yorktown. But by then the actions listed above, that were the Baron’s true legacy, had actually already taken place.
If that’s not enough proof of Steuben’s impact, then consider that the Army used the Blue Book until 1812, eighteen years after the Baron died and went to the big drill field in the sky. Generations of American military leaders have carried on his principals that officers and sergeants should act as public servants and take genuine interest in their soldiers’ welfare. And since the techniques he applied at Valley Forge – dedication, adaptability, enthusiasm, and humor – have been part of almost all military training I’ve ever received (at least, the good training), I think there’s a little Von Steuben in anybody who has ever worn the United States uniform.
To read up on Steuben and his impact on the Continental Army, you can’t do better than Paul Lockhart’s excellent The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army, or The Continental Army, by Robert K. Wright Jr.. And if you want to see just how complicated eighteenth century maneuvers were, several reproductions of the Blue Book are in print. I use Baron von Steuben’s Revolutionary War Drill Manual, from Dover Publications."
https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/05/impact-of-von-steuben/
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Wayne Brandon Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown 1stSgt Eugene Harless SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx TSgt Joe C. SP5 Robert Ruck SP5 Mark Kuzinski SrA Christopher Wright SGT Robert George CPL Eric Escasio SPC (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SGT (Join to see)
The Impact of General von Steuben - Journal of the American Revolution
Dear Mr. History: Does General von Steuben deserve the fantastic amount of fame he gets for training the Continental Army at Valley Forge? The...
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SGT John " Mac " McConnell
My pleasure LTC Stephen F. . I found his story quite interesting. Thanks and have a great day my friend.
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Good Morning, John!
This bit of history stirred up some memories of 1975 - 1976 when America celebrated her Bi-Centennial anniversary.
The army had allocated funds to create a Bi-Centennial color guard to serve in parades and other special functions related to that celebration. The compliment of four soldiers (two flag bearers and two musket bearers) were to be trained and led by an officer who would either be a part of the color guard or one who remained in regular military attire but travelled with the group and acted as their spokesman. The soldiers were dressed in continental army regalia complete with the long coat, white shirt, white trousers, black shoes a three corner hat and a wig. The musketeers carried a replica Brown Bess flintlock musket which we learned to disassemble / reassemble, load, fire and clean.
I was selected to be the OIC and sent to Ft. Meade, MD for a week in May of '75 to learn von Steuben's method of close order drill, manual of arms and marching. When I returned to my unit I trained the men who would be the color guard and reserved a uniform for myself in the event someone was not available for a particular performance. I spent the next 18 months traveling about the state and parts of Canada participating in these events and found it to be a very enjoyable experience.
Somewhere, my wife has photos of these events and if she can locate them for me I will post a couple to show how we looked.
Thanks for posting this - good memories for a gloomy morning in Michigan.
This bit of history stirred up some memories of 1975 - 1976 when America celebrated her Bi-Centennial anniversary.
The army had allocated funds to create a Bi-Centennial color guard to serve in parades and other special functions related to that celebration. The compliment of four soldiers (two flag bearers and two musket bearers) were to be trained and led by an officer who would either be a part of the color guard or one who remained in regular military attire but travelled with the group and acted as their spokesman. The soldiers were dressed in continental army regalia complete with the long coat, white shirt, white trousers, black shoes a three corner hat and a wig. The musketeers carried a replica Brown Bess flintlock musket which we learned to disassemble / reassemble, load, fire and clean.
I was selected to be the OIC and sent to Ft. Meade, MD for a week in May of '75 to learn von Steuben's method of close order drill, manual of arms and marching. When I returned to my unit I trained the men who would be the color guard and reserved a uniform for myself in the event someone was not available for a particular performance. I spent the next 18 months traveling about the state and parts of Canada participating in these events and found it to be a very enjoyable experience.
Somewhere, my wife has photos of these events and if she can locate them for me I will post a couple to show how we looked.
Thanks for posting this - good memories for a gloomy morning in Michigan.
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SGT John " Mac " McConnell
I bet that was a fun and unique experience. Not to many people can say that they did this very historical venture during the Bi-centennial. Thanks for sharing LTC Wayne Brandon . Glad I can bring a little light to you..
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