Valley Forge Research Paper

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Pages: 4

Valley Forge: Would You Have Quit?

“Vomit half my time - smoak’d out my senses - the Devil’s in it - I can’t endure it.” ( Dr. Albigence Waldo, 1777) During the winter of 1777, George Washington had set up a camp at Valley Forge. Valley Forge is located in Pennsylvania and was a military station for the soldiers fighting for Independence from Britain, known as the Patriots or Americans. The cacophonous winter made the conditions in Valley Forge exceptionally cold in the cabins, especially because many soldiers were not fully clothed. A soldier in the Continental Army should not stay because of death and illness, living conditions in the camp, and resentment towards congress. To begin with a soldier in the Continental Army should desert
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During the stay at Valley Forge, a surgeon from Connecticut named Dr. Albigence Waldo wrote down his experience in a diary portraying the conditions. Waldo had written “Cold weather- fatigue- Nasty Cloaths-nasty cookery.” The doctor disparaged Washington’s camp at Valley Forge as the conditions inside the camp were dire. Additionally, the food was poorly cooked and the soldiers were awfully sick, exhausted, starving, freezing, and languid. To further prove Dr. Albigence Waldo’s point he wrote “Heartily wish myself at home, my skin and eyes are almost spoil’d with continual smoke.” Specifically, the immutable smoke in the air and the harsh, snowy weather made living in the camp exceptionally hard. Not only did this camp seem uninhabitable, twelve had to live together whether they were ill or not. To back this thought up the DBQ(2016) stated “There were no beds just straw on the mud floor.” Under those circumstances a soldier had poor shelter and would have little rest to even fight. For these reasons a soldier should leave Valley Forge because not only were the conditions grim but the government also gave an insufficient amount of food and