Nancy K. Loane, Ed.D., a former seasonal ranger at Valley Forge National Historical Park, has studied more than five hundred Revolutionary War–era diaries, journals, letters, returns, orderly books, and records. She is the author of Following the Drum: Women at the Valley Forge Encampment (Potomac, 2009). A Pennsylvania Commonwealth Speaker (2006–2007), she has presented nearly 200 American Revolution-related lectures throughout the country, including at the Library of Congress, and was featured in C-SPAN's recent series on the first ladies (in the program on Martha Washington). Dr. Loane is a founding member of the American Revolution Round Table of Philadelphia and an honorary lifetime member of the Society of the Descendants of Washington’s Army at Valley Forge.
Six months of struggle shaped into twenty-six characters. A – Arrival The Continental Army under Gen. George Washington trudged into Valley Forge on December 19, 1777. About 14,000 soldiers and hundreds of women and children came to this winter encampment, the third of the Revolutionary War. The army left Valley Forge six months later, on […]
“The most unhappy man in the world,” wrote the Commissary General of Purchases at Valley Forge about Gen. George Washington.[1] On every portrait we examine, on every image we see, the commander in chief does appear burdened and preoccupied. Occasionally, though, hidden among the millions of words written by, and about, General Washington, we catch […]
Being ten unexpected and edifying quotations from the third winter encampment. I – “We live uncommonly well for Camp…We have Milk and sugar in plenty…I have my hair powdered every day.…”Samuel Ward, Jr. to Phebe Ward, Valley Forge, 5 May 1778.[1]The letters of “Sammy” Ward, who had been married only a month when he came […]
On the afternoon of April 5, 1778, four feisty women, accompanied by an escort, Israel Morris, boarded their coach in British-occupied Philadelphia and set out for a visit with General George Washington. The journey took the four friends—Elizabeth Drinker, Susanna Jones, Phebe Pemberton, and Mary Pleasants—twenty miles or so from Philadelphia to the Continental Army, […]
