oyU'y3'r

THE

New England Magazine.New Series. FEBRUARY, 1901. Vol. XXIII. No. 6.

VALLEY FORGE.Illustrated from photographs by the author.

By W. H. Richardson.

WHEN the name of ValleyForge is mentioned, the

average American immediate-ly associates with it the encampmentof the Continental army during- the

terrible winter of 1777-78, when the

hungry and forlorn champions of a

well-nigh hopeless cause, wasted bywounds, privation and disease, wereable only to "occupy a cold, bleak hill,

and sleep under frost and snow, with-

out clothes or blankets." The thou-sands of pilgrims who now visit that

historic shrine, Washington's head-quarters at Valley Forge, wanderthrough its rooms and halls and think

of the great commander-in-chief as hewrestled with problems that wouldhave appalled ordinary men ; of the

malign conspiracy he had to confrontand confound ; of the misery andwretchedness among his sufifering

soldiers which he had to contemplate,the pity of which he acknowledgesfrom his soul, but which he has nopower to relieve nor prevent ; and of

the almost superhuman strength andcourage which he there displayed in

keeping alive through the long, wearymonths the feeble spark of a thing-

called the American Revolution,eventually fanning it into a flame that

has burned with increasing brilliancy

to our own day.

Nestline: among- the trees near the

point at which the Valley Creek joins

the Schuylkill is the ancient pointed-stone house of miller Isaac Potts, the

structure which all America cher-

ishes to-day as the home of Washing-ton for the half year that the armywas encamped in that country. In it

he faced the crises of the winter andspring with about as much to

brighten and lighten his life as his

men had. "Three days successively

we have been destitute of bread, twodays we have been entirely withoutmeat ;" "our sick naked, our well

naked, our unfortunate men in cap-tivity naked ;" "the unfortunate sol-

diers were in want of everything ; theyhad neither coats, hats, shirts norshoes ; their feet and legs froze till

they became black, and it was often

necessary to amputate them ;"—these

are but a few of the horrible pictures

which met the view of the com-mander-in-chief whichever way heturned. And all this was almostwithin sound of the revelry of the

warmly housed and well fed British

soldiers in Philadelphia.

Even a casual reading of the his-

tory of the Pennsylvania campaignleading up to Valley Forge in the fall

of 1777 cannot fail to impress one withthe supreme optimism of the Ameri-can leader. Surely it was no pleas-

ant retrospect to look back over the

S97

59^ J 'ALLEY FORGE.

WASHINGTON S HEADQUARTERS AT VALLEV FURGE.

battlefields of the past four months

;

and yet in the orderly book there is

an entry dated December 17, twodays before the formal occupation of

\'alley Forge, in which the army is

reminded that althoujc^h, in some in-

stances, there were failures, "yet uponthe whole, fieaven hath smiled uponour arms and crowned them with sig'-

nal success." Howe landed, it will

be recalled, on August 25, at the headof Chesapeake Bay, with 18,000 menand a determination to take the rebel

capital. The first serious collision of

the hostile armies occurred at Chad'sFord, on September 11. A bit of

carelessness in scouting and a piece

of blundering reporting changed the

fortunes of the day from what wouldhave been a victory into a retreat.

More than one thousand men weresubtracted from the fighting force of

the patriots, and Howe occupied the

American camps on the night of the

battle of Brandywine. Yet Washing-ton took occasion to report to the

President of Congress that "the

troops were in good spirits." Ninedays later a division under General

Wayne was attacked by General Grey,

and what is popularly, but altogether

inappropriately, termed the Paoli

massacre, with its 150 casualties, wasthe result.

Then came the battle of German-town, on October 4. How much the

bitterness of that defeat must havebeen emphasized at the time may begathered from one of those pretty let-

ters General Wayne used to write to

his "Dear Polly." The action, in his

judgment, would have put an end to

the war, had not the smoke and con-

fusion prevented the following up of

a victory actually won at one phaseof the operation. "The commander-in-chief retiirns his thanks to the gen-

eral and other officers and men con-

cerned in the attack," and sees, not-

withstanding the disaster, "that the

enemy is not proof against a vigorous

attack, and may be put to flight whenboldly pursued." Germantown hadcost nearly 1,200 of the 8,000 men en-

gaged ; and the weary, wretched andragged soldiers—for troubles with

the commissary had now started—sat

down that night on the old camp-

VALLEY FORGE. 599

ground at Pennypacker's Mills to

catch their breath, while the officers

began to plan for another set-to witha victorious l)ut vulnerable antago-nist.

On Sei)teniber 26 the British ad-

vance had entered and taken posses-

sion of Philadelphia ; and safe within

that hospitable city they successfully

resisted all attempts to lure them out

or dislodge them. For nearly six

weeks, from November 2 to Decem-ber II, the Americans were strongly

intrenched at Whitemarsh. thirteen

m i 1 e s n o r t h -

west of the

city. Theirgradually-weakeningline was toothin, however.to give battle

to the British,

and too nearPhiladelphia to

feel absolutely

safe from at-

tack ; so it wasdecided tomove to a

more advan-tageous loca-

t i o n , fromwhich the in-

vaders couldat least bewatched andkept in check.The story of

the march to Valley Forge is anotherchapter in the epic of that frightful

winter. Various participants havecontributed their testimony about the

dismal conditions under which the

journey was prosecuted. A Pennsyl-vania lieutenant notes in his diary

that they started to cross the Schuyl-kill at Swede's Ford, not over 800feet wide at that point, at six o'clock

in the evening of December 12, andthat it was three o'clock the nextmorning before they reached camp at

Gulf Mill, two miles further along,

"where we remained without tents or

blankets in the midst of a severe snow-storm." A Connecticut warrior por-

trays his misery at the same place in

this suggestive style: "We are or-

dered to march over the river. It

snows-—I'm sick—eat nothing—nowhiskey—no baggage—Lord—Lord—Lord—till sunrise crossing the river

—cold and uncomfortable." After

the army had been four days in camp,the tents came and were pitched for

the first time, "to keep the men morecomfortable." How appropriate, then,

the day of thanksgving and prayer

that CongressJP" had ordered

for the eight-

eenth!

When thearmy arrivedat ValleyForge on the

nineteenth, the

campaign for

the year hadpracticallyclosed ; Gen-eral Howe hadtaken Phila-delphia— or,

as Franklin])ut it, Phila-

delphia hadtaken GeneralHowe; theA mericanswere huddledaround theircamp fires

away, freezing,

starving, wasting from disease ; but

still the characteristic cheerfulness

of Washington shines forth ; he re-

members that a French ship has ar-

rived at Portsmouth with a large

quantity of munitions of war, and heextends his congratulations to the

army upon the auspicious event.

But the saddest feature of the

months of suffering that followed wasthe fact that most of it was unneces-sary. Then, as now, members of

Congress had their favorites, and menwere selected for the commissariat

DUURW.VY, \VASUI.\GTU.\ S HEADQUARTERS.

twentv-two miles

6oo VALLEY FORGE.

without regard for their fitness,—in-

competents, whose especial claim to

fame to-day rests upon their havingfurnished a Revolutionary ancestry

for the familiar stories of the bunglingcommissary in our late unpleasant-

ness with Spain. We are told that, at

the very time the barefooted Conti-

nentals were making bloody tracks in

the snow on the bleak hills of Valley

Forge, there were hogsheads of shoes

—somewhere else. In answer to

General Wayne's fervid appeal for

clothing for his frost-bitten sol-

diers camethe reply

—

which mightbe countedalmost hu-morous butfor theghastly pic-

ture of his

men clutch-

ing shreds of

old blankets

over theirnakedness

—

that the de-

lay in fur-

nishing it

was "due to

the want of

buttons."

Fortunate-ly there is

somethin gelse thantragedy tobe read in

davs. The

RIVER ROAD.The village of Valley Forge lies in the hollow at the right.

the records of those

old orderly books, for

example, tell us a great deal that

has a difit'erent sort of flavor.

Here is an account of a courtmartial held to consider the case of a

Virginia captain who was chargedwith having been "so far Ellivated

with liquor when on the parade for

Exercising as rendered him imCapa-ble in doing his duty with precission."

Luckily the good captain was able to

prove an alibi, or that something else

was responsible for his "Ellivation,"

—for his acquittal is duly noted.

Then there was a Pennsylvania lieu-

tenant tried for "unofficer and ungen-tlemanlike behavior in taking 2 maresand a barrel of carpenter's tools onthe line, which mares he conveyedaway, and sold the tools at private

sale." The chronicler does not give

a detailed account of the testimony

;

but it is written that the court foundthat while the lieutenant was "guilty

of the facts alledged" in the charge,

yet they did not amount to "unof^cerand ungentlemanlike behavior, and so

acquit him of it." There is somethingso delight-

fully vagueabout theverdict that

we are led

to wonderhow far anofficer andgentlem a nat ValleyForge mighthave gone in

the business

of pickingup and dis-

posing ofstray maresand barrels

of carpen-ter's toolsbefore cross-

ing the bor-

ders of pro-

priety.

It waswhile the army was at Valley

Forge, too, that sweeping reforms in

its organization were inauguratedEarly in the spring, Frederick Wil-

liam Augustus, Baron von Steuben,

arrived there, and started upon his

duties as inspector-general. "Thearms at Valley Forge," he wrote,

"were in a horrible condition, covered

with rust, half of them without bay-

onets, many from which a single shot

could not be fired. The poucheswere quite as bad as the arms. Agreat many of the men had tin boxesinstead of pouches ; others had cow-

VALLEY FORGE. 6oi

LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE FORTIFIED HILL .SHOWING MOUNT JOY.

General Huntington's Connecticut troops occupied the land shown in the foreground of the picture; General

Conway's Pennsylvania and General Maxwell's New Jersey troops, ihe middle distance at the left.

may safely say no such thin,2^ ex-

isted."

Von Steuben, from all accounts,

horns ; and muskets, carbines, fowl-

ing-pieces and rifles were to be seenin the same company. The descrip-

tion of the dress is most easily given.

The men were literally naked, someof them in the fullest extent of the

word. The oflficers who had coats

had them of every color and make.I saw officers at a grand parade at

Valley Forge mounting guard in a

sort of dressing-gown, made of an old

blanket or a woollen bed-cover. Withregard to their military discipline, I

was a man who would rather fight andwork than eat or sleep ; and so, per-

haps, it is not surprising that he fash-

ioned so wonderful a weapon fromthe woefully raw and rough material

he had to deal with. Rising at three

o'clock in the morning, he would beon the parade at sunrise, take a mus-ket in his own hands, and show the

picked squad just how the thing was

EAST FROM FORT HUNTINGTON.

602 I -ALLEY FORGJl.

CIENEKAL WAVM-: S HEADQUARTERS.

to be done. In a few weeks of that

sort of personal elifort he had the

whole camp fired with his own enthu-

siasm, so that the men with whom hebeg'an were able to execute the mostdif^cult movements with the greatest

precision. The petty jealousies, the

sectional feeling, of the various con-tingents were forgotten, and all

seemed to be animated by a nobler ri-

valry that boded a different outlookfor the cause. x\ little later we see

that regenerated army not only stur-

dy enough to withstand the fiercest

onslaughts of

British guards andgrenadiers, butcapable also to

beat them at their

own favorite busi-

ness of the bay-onet charge.

The house in

which Baron vonSteuben livedwhile at ValleyForge is still

standing. A mile

or so southeast of

it is the housethat was the mil-

itary home of

General Wayne,the dashing of^-

cer who made

much of the honest work(lone by the Prussian drill-

master. It was the braveryand discipline of the troops

under "j\Iad Anthony" at

Monmouth which gave lustre

to the American arms and set

him in the hearts of his coun-trymen as a "modern Le-onidas."

In striking contrast withthe sombre coloring whichthe name of Valley Forgesuggests was the brilliant

sortie of a party of 2,500 menunder La Fayette, on May18, 1778. For the general

purpose of gathering informa-tion about the British, the

youthful Frenchman was directed to

proceed toward the hostile lines at

Philadelphia. Early on the morningof that day his command arrived at

Barren Hill, on the east side of the

Schuylkill, some eight or nine miles

from the city. From that point the

wings were extended to cover otherhighways, and scouting parties sent

into Philadelphia, one of them giving

the revellers at the Mischianza a ter-

rible scare. Another object of the

demonstration was to develop the

streno-th of the enemv ; and in this it

HEADQUARTERS OF GENERALS STEUBEN AND DUPORTAIL.

J'ALLEY FORGE. 60^

was highly successful, for an over-whelming force set out from Philadel-

phia to surround the American divi-

sion and carry La Fayette back to the

city, where a dinner partv awaited his

coming. The details of the opera-tions around Barren Hill church andits ancient burying-ground, the fail-

ure of the carefully laid plans of the

British, the withdrawal of the Ameri-can command from an exceedinglyperilous position to a safe place onthe opposite side of the Schuylkill,

combine to make one of the mostspirited chapters in the narrative of

Valley Forge.Of course it should not be forgot-

ten that the news of the French al-

liance reached the army at X'alley

Forge ; and fromthat glad first of

May, when Wash-ington announcedit, the local lit-

erature seems to

have taken on a

sprightliness it did

not possess be-

fore. The orderly

book from that

time fairly rings

with directions for

grand parades, general rejoicings,

manoeuvres before members of

the "grand" congress ; and divine

services are not forgotten. Thereare councils of war and speculations

as to the probable course of the evi-

dently uncomfortable enemy. Asearly as May 23 it was known that the

evacuation of Philadelphia had beendecided upon. Soon the news camethat transports in the Delaware werebeing loaded with baggage andstores. Then the rumors of the

coming of D'Estaing's fleet decided

for the British that the walking to

New York would probably be safer

than the sailing. On the eighteenth

of June the first divisions of the Con-tinental army left Valley Forge andoccupied Philadelphia, taking posses-

sion of the city only a few hours after

its former guests were gone. The

next day the mass of the army—nolonger the disorganized conglomera-tion of colonial troops, but a thor-

oughly welded, homogeneous Ameri-can army—was making all possible

haste after the retiring Sir HenryClinton, his 17,000 troops and twelve

mile supply train.

From a military point of view the

selection of \'alley Forge for the en-

campment was a most admirable one.

Two of its boundaries, the west andnorth, were deep streams, whose pas-

sages were easily defended, while the

approaches from the east and south

were absolutely dominated by the

heights which rose in the angle of

these water courses. A brief descrip-

tion of the topography of the country

GENER.\L KNOX S HEADOU.XRTERS.

will put the reader more closely in

touch with the subject.

Imagine the Valley Creek flowing

due north between precipitous hills

for nearly a mile before it reaches the

Schuylkill River. Mount Joy, the

highest summit on the east bank, is

fully a mile from the river, and it lifts

its wooded crest 426 feet above the

sea level. A little further to the northis another hill, which is really a sort

of spur of Mount Joy, 350 feet high ;

while still further ofT to the northeast

is a third hill, with its summit some-thing more than 100 feet below that

of Mount Joy. On the eastern de-

scent of these hills the citizens of

that long departed community haveleft the indelible record of their occu-

pation. Mount Joy and her two sis-

ters are still the proud wearers of

their grass-grown chaplets, lines of

6o4 VALLEY FORGE.

THE INTRENCIIMENTS NEARTHE RIVER ROAD.

earthworks, i,6oo feet,

300 feet and 1,300 feet

long, thrown up near the

crests of the three by the

toilers in the youth of

our nation. Below these

works are still to be seenFort Huntington, pro-

tecting the north end of

the lines and dominatingthe River road, a high-

way p a ra 1 1 e 1 i n g theSchuylkill all the wayinto Philadelphia, andthe deeper and better

preserved Fort Wash-ington at the south end of the lines onMount Joy commanding the ap-proach from the south and west.

Further down, the hills break gent-ly into an undulating landscape, uponwhich most of the brigades were en-

camped. At the south end of MountJoy, beyond Fort Washington, wereGeneral Woodford's Virginia troops.

North of Fort Washington, and onthe same hill, were General Maxwell'sNew Jerseymen and General Knox'sartillery. In the cove or hollow in

front of the shoulder of Mount Joywere the Pennsylvania troops com-manded by General Conway—the

same Conway who is remembered in

history solely for his connection with

the infamous cabal against Washing-ton. Then, next the River road, near

to the fort which bears his name,General Jedediah Huntington'sConnecticut troops were en-

camped.Still further down the slope

and lying back of the outer line

of intrenchments—now entirely

disappeared—beginning at the

south and running in a curvedline to the northeast, were the

encampments of General Scott's

X'irginians, General Wayne'sh""irst and Second Pennsylva-nians. General Poor's NewYorkers, General Glover's Mas-sachusetts troops, General

Learned's New Hampshire men,General Patterson's Vermonters,General Weedon's Virginians, andGeneral Muhlenberg with his

Pennsylvanians and Virginians

on the extreme left. The loca-

tions of these thirteen brigades can bebetter comprehended by imagining a

pair of gigantic compasses extendedto sixty degrees, with the head to the

south. One leg laid to the north

along the three hills would roughlycover the inner line of four brigades

first mentioned ; the other leg ex-

tended to the northeast would coverthe outer line of nine brigades last

named. Upon the River road, uponwhich the points would rest, wereGeneral Varnum's Rhode Islanders

and a battery known as Fort Piatt or

VALLEY FORGE. 605

the Star redoubt. A well definedknoll in a field about two hundredyards east of the building- in whichGeneral Varnum had his headquar-ters marks the site of this fortifica-

tion, which was built to command the

approach to Sullivan's bridge. Thiswas a temporary structure thrownacross the Schuylkill about a quarterof a mile northeast of the fort.

The sites of the huts occupied bysome of the officers can also be readily

traced in the thicket about a quarterof a mile east of the star redoubt.

When these structures were erected

the earth was banked up around the

logs as an additional protection fromthe biting cold, and in the remains to-

day the regularity of the plan of this

diminutive village is quite apparent.

Just across the River road at this

point the ground slopes sharply to

the south. Close to the foot of the

declivity is a large sycamore standing

alone. Near it is the grave of JohnWaterman, one of the many heroes

from Rhode Island who never wenthome from the war. A substantial

wire cage now entirely covers the

grave—not for the purpose of keep-

ing John Waterman in, as some ir-

reverent visitor has remarked, but for

keeping vandals out. It is rather dif-

ficult to understand howrelic hunters who camebefore the cage ever man-aged to leave as much as

they did of this lonely

monument.The location of the va-

rious brigades, etc., as

just given, is based uponthe investigations of JaredSparks, who, in illustrat-

ing the letters of Wash-ington in the early part of

this century, had a mapprepared under the aus-

pices of John Armstrong,then secretary of war. Anold man named Davisgave his recollection of

the various dispositions

of the different encamp-

ments, and his information helped

to plot the map. It is a curi-

ous fact that no contemporary mapof the whole camp was known to

be in existence until 1897, when that

indefatigable antiquarian, Hon. S. W.Pennypacker, secured from Amster-dam a set of original drafts and plans

of the Revolutionary period, drawnby a French engineer with the armj.Among them was a priceless map of

\^alley Forge. This map exhibits

slight deviations from the arrange-

ment already quoted, and has less

detail; but apart from its inestimable

value as a unique historical docu-

ment, it tells what was not known be-

fore, that Lord Stirling's brigade of

Carolina troops was encamped on the

west bank of Valley Creek, opposite

general headquarters, at the spot that

has hitherto been allotted to the artifi-

cers ; and further it reveals the fact

that Washington's headquarters be-

fore he occupied the Potts house werenot, as has been alleged, in a mar-quee, but in a house some distance

southeast of Valley Forge.Valley Forge takes its name from

an iron-working plant established

there many years before the militant

Americans made it famous Themusty records of the past tell us that

INTERIOR OF FORT HUNTINGTON.

6o6 VALLEY FORGE.

LAFAYETTE S HEADQUARTERS.

in 1757 one John Potts purchased

property which inchided what wasthen known as Mount Joyforg-e. This

stood on the banksof Valley Creek,

the fall of that

stream as it passed

on down to the

Schuylkill throughthe narrow gorgebetween the high

hills on either handfurnishing an abun-dance of power.The business of

Mount Joy forge

—

or the Valley forge,

as it soon came to

be known locally

—

was a very flourish-

ing one ; a great

many men andteams were em-ployed in makingits products. Ironmaster John Potts

saw that a flour mill which could fur-

nish feed for the horses and flour for

the drivers would be a profitable ad-

junct to the older industry on the

creek; and in 1758 this was built

—

and it lasted until 1843. when it wasdestroyed by fire; later it was rebuilt

a little further up the stream, almost

opposite the present headquarters

building, and after serving as a paper

mill for many years it was finally

dismantled and is now falling into

decay.

About the same year that JohnPotts built the flour mill the famousmansion was also erected. In 1768both the mill and house came into the

possession of his son Isaac, and the

forge went to another son, Joseph.

One of the earliest historical refer-

ences to this mill appears in a letter

from Richard Peters, secretary of

war, to Thomas Wharton, president

^ of the Executive Covmcil of Pennsyl-

vania. He wrote on August 30, 1777,about "a large quantity of flour spoil-

ing for want of baking; it lies at Val-

ley Forge." If Isaac Potts had been

a modern advertiser, he would doubt-

less have claimed that it was the taste

of that flour of his which later secured

for him the exclusive trade of a great

^'^v^'

j_iii .J i

' ' [JMiiiin \iimiSwBSlF'

LAFAYETTE S Hi: I Ml-: REAR.

and marketing galgalaxy of public men and the entire

American army for six months.

That illustrious housekeeper, MarthaWashington, must have eaten bread,

perhaps prepared by her own hands,

made from this same flour of Isaac

Potts's mill. How could a miller

ever let such an opportunity for get-

ting a testimonial about it from so

preeminent an authority as the Gen-eral's wife slip by him!While dealing with Isaac Potts it

VALLEY FORGE. 60/

GENERAL MUHLENBERG S HEADQUARTERS

will be proper to refer to an incident

in which he is involved and which has

been repeatedly embalmed in verse

and gayly colored lithographs. Every-body has heard how Washington wasdiscovered at prayer in the woodsabove the headquarters, pleading

with the Almighty for guidancethrough the troublous times whichthen beset his country. The discov-

ery is said to have been made by "a

good old Quaker," sometimes re-

ferred to as a blacksmith ; but a man-uscript in the hand of his daughter in-

forms us that the "good old Quaker"who viewed the remark-able spectacle was twenty-sev en-year-old IsaacPotts. 'After the death of

Washington he pro-nounced a eulogy on his

character in Friends'

meeting, that was a mas-terly production, a mem-ber of Congress declaring

that he would not go to

hear "Light Horse Harry"Lee's address in the

Lutheran Church in Phil-

adelphia because he hadjust heard "a much better

one than he will deliver,

from an old Quaker."A few years since the

headquarters building was

restored to its condition of

nearly a century and a

quarter ago. "'The Gen-eral's apartments is very

small," wrote Mrs. Wash-ington from there; "he has

had a log cabin built to

dine in, which has madeour quarters much moretolerable than they were at

first." The log dining-

room has been rebuilt, andthe whole house, with its

sacred memories, has beengiven over to the perpetua-

tion of "the times whichtried men's souls." A. sub-

terranean passagewaywhich once led to the

river's edge has been freshly vaultedfor a long distance ; one roomof the house is adorned with a

chronological portraiture of Wash-ington ; others contain many in-

teresting pictures, pieces of furniture

and other relics of the Colonial andRevolutionary eras. Externally the

substantial and comfortable lookabout the building is very impressive,

its simple yet dignified proportionsappealing at once to the good taste

of every visitor. The curious porchover the front door, the exquisite

hand-made mouldinsr and other de-

HEAUgUARTERS OF GENERALS VARNUM AND DE KALB.

6o8 VALLEY FORGE.

tails of its architecture are of a char-

acter seldom seen in any structure

of this generation. The house andgrounds are now owned and cared for

by the Centennial and Memorial As-sociation of Valley Forge.

Tt is to the credit of the state of

Pennsylvania that she has done evena little in the way of acquiring owner-ship in this hallowed ground. So far

VALLEY CREEK.

the sum of $35,000 has been spent bythe Commonwealth, and about 250acres of land, embracing the innerline of breastworks and the two prin-

cipal fortifications, purchased. Na-ture has been more generous than the

state in preserving the grounds for

the free enjoyment of all generations,in that she has admirably providedagainst their obliteration by puttingforth a fine growth of trees. On May30, 1893, the Valley Forge Commis-sion was created by act of Legisla-ture, and the committee of publicspirited gentlemen who formed it

went actively to work, with the result

stated. In their last report to thegovernor they recommended the open-ing up of an avenue which would giveaccess to the site of the nine brigadeencampments along the outer line of

intrenchments, besides the laying outof such roads or paths as would putthe existing relics of Valley Forgewithin easy reach of tourists. Thecost would be $50,000 ; but the com-

mittee is now without funds, andPennsylvania has not yet seen fit tospend so much additional money in

that sort of patriotism. There shouldbe no question as to the value to bereceived from such an investment.Americanism as a principle would bemore deeply felt and better taught;the spirit of nationality which wasborn at Valley Forge would be moreforcibly impressed upon the mind of

every visitor, and the whole countrywould be the gainer. When somedisposition is dispayed by Pennsyl-vania that looks like real interest in

caring for these things, it is likely

that other states whose sons suffered

in those terrible days would be proudto erect memorials to them. Tt hasbeen suggested as not outside the

range of probabilities that the na-tional government would erect agreat monumental tower on the sum-mit of Mount Joy, from which the

whole plan of the encampment couldbe comprehended. Local chapters of

the Daughters of the American Rev-olution are now working actively in

the matter of interesting the comingsession of the Pennsylvania Legisla-

ture in further condemnation of prop-erty ; and it is to be hoped that the

state will manifest her belief in his-

toric shrines as a valuable asset in

the Commonwealth.Another phase of popular interest

in Valley Forge has been developedby the movement, recently inaugu-rated, to make the place a govern-ment reservation. At a meeting held

under the auspices of the ValleyForge National Park Association in

Independence Hall, Philadelphia, onDecember 19th last, the project,

which has the hearty approval of

President McKinley, was given con-siderable impetus. A bill has alreadybeen introduced into Congress, pro-

viding for an appropriation to purchasethe desired property and then main-tain it under the jurisdiction of the

War Department.