Tater Hales' Dispatch from the American Revolution Valley Forge Suffering and Renewal, 1777-78

Well, Ole Tater has had his share of bad times, but nothing compares to the time when Gen. Washington decided to march us to Valley Forge for our winter quarters. Tho' we were feeling pretty good about our victory at Saratoga, many of our comrades were killed at the battle of Brandywine. We knew we could still kick some red coats, but winter had set in and Gen. Washington felt we needed to regroup.
It was a good thing, too, 'cause we were "an army of skeletons . . . naked, starved, sick and discouraged." After marching 25 miles through the snow, without shoes and pretty much just eating trees, Congress decided to make a day of thanksgiving for our victory at Saratoga. They gave us half a pound of rice and water. Well, you don't want to know what ole Tater thought of that mess.
With no food and no clothes, you can imagine how sick we were. More than 3,000 died that winter and more than 1,000 were still too ill for combat. I think we suffered most because our Quartermaster Gen. Thomas Mifflin wanted "glory on the battlefield," not the mundane mess of getting troops supplies."
Gen. Washington fired Mifflin and by March Gen. Nathaniel Green began to bring us our supplies.
Some of our country's patriots didn't come from our own ranks . . . they came from the surrounding towns. A German-born baker named Christopher Ludwig came to our camp to bake bread. He wanted no payment, but I want my future Tater generation to always remember him and to give thanks to him. Without him, we would not have been able to regain our strength.
As food, clothes and supplies came in, we got better physically, but our spirits were still dampened. We didn't look like an army and we sure didn't act like one. Even though Gen. Washington gave orders, some of our men just didn't know how to behave. Then one day, in walked an unbelievable sight. A big, tall, heavy-set Prussian man who went by the title, Baron von Steuben, brings his staff to inspect us. His greyhound dog followed him around, but stayed close 'cause some of us thought greyhound stew sounded pretty good at the time. The baron spoke no English, but you didn't need English to tell us how to use a gun.
He started to whip us into shape, yelling and cursing up a storm, and when we didn't react to his Prussian curses, he got his aides to curse at us in English. He showed each person how to drill and even wrote the army's very first manual of arms and drill. He started out with teaching 100 of his best NCOs, and then they in turn taught the rest of us.
Of course, my grandpappy already taught me how to use my rifle, but this training came just in time for some of these other greenies. Pretty soon, we got to feeling a little bit of pride come back into our unit. Gen. Washington continued to lobby Congress on our behalf and soon we had gotten paid for "sticking it out through the miseries of the winter." Washington even added a ration of rum for each of us. Some of the local farmers began bringing in food and soon we were ready to go, especially since hearing that France had joined us in the war effort.
We broke camp by June and attacked the British during their retreat from Philadelphia, as they were heading back to New York City. We almost lost this battle due to an arrogant and inept Gen. Charles Lee, but as always, Gen. Washington galloped among his men and rallied us to keep driving the British out of our land. I wouldn't say we won this battle at Monmouth Courthouse, but they were definitely on the run. And it was clear to everyone that we were a fair match for 'em!