The Drillmaster of Valley Forge (10 page)

The Baron made himself right at home. He was a soldier again, thank God, surrounded by all the familiar features of a winter cantonment: the sound of shouted commands and ringing axes, the smell of dense smoke, the kind that came from burning green wood, the constant activity of men performing fatigue duties. He knew no one here, apart from the immediate circle of his staff, but his was not the type of personality to be deterred by unfamiliarity, and he was never socially isolated.

As Steuben was preparing to leave York, Henry Laurens had suggested to him that he seek out his son, Lt. Col. John Laurens. Twenty-three-year-old Colonel Laurens, an aide on Washington's staff, had much in common with the older Baron: he was an avid student of the art of war; he embraced the progressive political and social thought of the Enlightenment; and he spoke the Baron's language, and not just in
terms of ideals. “The Baron has learned that you speak French,” Henry jokingly informed John, “& that you are not, une Mauvais Garçon.”
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Henry Laurens. President of the Continental Congress when Steuben first came to the United States in 1777–78. He and the Baron became fast friends, and Laurens was one of Steuben's most vocal supporters, but the two men fell out in a dispute over pay in 1779.
(Library of Congress)

John Laurens, by Charles Willson Peale, from a miniature after Charles Willson Peale, ca. 1784. The young and idealistic aide-de-camp to Washington befriended Steuben as soon as the Baron reached Valley Forge.
(Independence National Historical Park)

The president had judged right. John Laurens fell in love with the Baron on sight. So, too, did Laurens's best friend and fellow aide, Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton. And the Prussian was equally smitten with them. Here were two impressionable young men who understood his speech and who hung on his every word as he regaled them with tales of bloody battles decided by massive cavalry charges and the point of the bayonet, of warrior-kings and glittering courts. He could converse with them on topics ranging from infantry tactics to the works of Seneca, Cervantes, and Voltaire. He represented a touch of Enlightenment sophistication—something for which the young Laurens and Hamilton were starved—in the rough-hewn society of the camp, and they in turn helped him forget his homesickness. Steuben could relax in their presence. He regarded the two aides as his intellectual and social equals, and felt completely at home joking informally with them and being on the receiving end of their good-natured barbs. The bonds forged between Steuben, Laurens, and Hamilton would last to the end of their days—though for Laurens, sadly, that day was not far off.

Their friendship had practical advantages, too. Washington trusted Laurens and Hamilton implicitly; their advocacy on Steuben's behalf helped to speed the general's acceptance of the Prussian. And through his father, Laurens served as the Baron's foremost ally in Congress. The elder Laurens had already been impressed by “this illustrious Stranger” while dining with him at York; now he received regular reports about
Steuben's progress at Valley Forge, reports that overflowed with praise and wide-eyed admiration. “I have since had several long Conversations with the Baron Stuben,” young Laurens wrote his father shortly after the Baron's arrival. “[He] appears to me a man profound in the Science of War and well disposed to render his best services to the United States.”
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Alexander Hamilton, by Charles Willson Peale, from life, c. 1790–1795. Another aide to Washington, and John Laurens's best friend, Hamilton never swerved in his loyalty to Steuben, and after the war he led the fight to secure adequate compensation for the Baron's services.
(Independence National Historical Park)

Pierre Étienne Duponceau. This portrait shows Duponceau at around the age of seventy, when he had already established himself as a successful Philadelphia lawyer and a distinguished scholar of linguistics. But at age seventeen, he was Steuben's translator and personal secretary.
(The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia)

Only a couple of days passed before General Washington took advantage of those services. He had been studying Steuben intently, and not from a distance, for Steuben was a guest at his dinner table no fewer than ten times in his first fourteen evenings in camp.
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To get a sense of what Steuben could do, Washington gave the Baron unlimited access to the camp, allowing him to poke and prod and give his professional opinion on the operations of the army. Steuben leaped into the role with gusto. Over the next couple of weeks, he spent hours each day riding through camp, observing the men at drill and at work, taking note of problems and drafting solutions. As he took stock of the army, he showered the commanding general with memoranda on a wide variety of topics: how to build an effective corps of light infantry, how to maneuver large bodies of troops more efficiently than the Continentals could, how to improve security in the camp, and how to fine-tune the camp's fortifications.

His counsel was invariably blunt. After making an inspection tour of the camp's defenses, the Baron presented Washington with a dour assessment: there were tremendous gaps in the outer entrenchments; many of the redoubts were unfinished or poorly situated; General Sullivan's bridge over the Schuylkill was indefensible. Washington was not the least offended by the criticism. He craved this kind of straightforward advice, and his meetings with Steuben over dinner grew into regular professional consultations on the health of the army.
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Still, Washington kept his thoughts to himself. To Henry Laurens he remarked only that the Baron “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 coolness fretted the Congress's president. “I am anxious to know whether [Steuben]
will find amusement & employment in your Camp & whether he is likely to be a valuable addition to the Main Army,” he wrote in concern to his son in early March. “It is remarkable that your General has kept such a profound silence on the Officer's name although I have had occasion to announce it to His Excellency in three several letters.”
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Laurens needn't have worried. Washington's reserve did not signal a lack of interest in the Baron. The problem was finding a suitable channel for Steuben's abilities. There were so many deficiencies in the Continental Army that cried out for redress, all of which could use the trained eye of a professional soldier. The most pressing crises lay within the departments of the quartermaster general and commissary general, that part of the army administration charged with the procurement and distribution of supplies. The quartermaster general's department was rife with mismanagement and blatant corruption, largely the fault of Washington's nemesis Thomas Mifflin. A small, overworked staff, coupled with intolerable working conditions and little political support—both the fault of the Whig ideologues in Congress—had hobbled the Commissary. These twin failings lay behind nearly all of the army's miseries at Valley Forge.

James Lovell, Sam Adams's whiggish friend from Massachusetts, thought Steuben the perfect choice to serve as quartermaster general. Lovell's motivation was undoubtedly political; like his allies in Congress, he vehemently opposed both of the men whom Washington had nominated to replace the incompetent Mifflin—Philip Schuyler and Nathanael Greene, both just too close to Washington. Steuben was popular in Congress, however, and perhaps the Whigs thought they could control him. And hadn't Steuben served as a quartermaster in the Prussian army, the very model of efficiency? Indeed he had, but of course the duties were not the same, and Lovell—like most Americans—was unaware of the difference. Yet there were legitimate objections to Lovell's proposal, upon which both pro-and anti-Washington partisans could agree. Since a quartermaster's duties were as much civil as military, purchasing supplies and finding contractors, an uninitiated foreigner like Steuben would be hard pressed to comprehend the
difficulties of working with American civilians. Moreover, as the Baron was still a “stranger,” it would not be fitting to trust him with funds and accounts worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Washington was inclined to agree, and he had his heart set on Greene anyway. So, too, did his aides, for although they worshipped the Baron, they did not think that this would be the best use for his abilities. “[He] seems perfectly aware of the disadvantages under which our army has laboured from short inlistments and frequent changes,” John Laurens wrote to his father at the end of February. So why not, John Laurens asked, make him inspector general?
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The inspector general was the most vital staff officer in an eighteenth-century army. He wore many hats. First, it was the inspector's duty to keep the army properly trained and well drilled. Second, an inspector was supposed to ensure that his army maintained its discipline on the march and in camp: encampments had to be laid out in a certain regulated way, for the sake of efficiency and cleanliness; guard details had to be posted according to a strict regimen. Third, the inspector acted as the enforcing arm of the supply officers. Someone had to make sure that the men were adequately clothed and fed, and that they kept up a soldierly appearance. An attentive inspector would spot deficiencies promptly so that the quartermaster could issue replacements as needed. Finally, he acted as a kind of truant officer, keeping an accurate record of regimental strengths and holding commanders accountable for the whereabouts of their men.

Ever since the battles for Philadelphia in the autumn of 1777, the need for such an officer was widely acknowledged. Complaints about irregularities in the army's conduct and about the unnecessary wastage of valuable military supplies came to Washington's desk in a veritable flood. The officers who had foreign military experience, being most attuned to the importance of following proper and standardized procedure, pointed out the army's failings incessantly. The Continentals lacked the necessary discipline on the drill field, in camp, and therefore also in battle. Officers and men were too familiar with one another, breeding insubordination. “I must confess to you, Sir, it is painfull to
me, to see the Commander in chief['s] orders Slighted or ill-obeyed in many essential parts,” the Baron de Kalb noted.
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