After being interrruped on the 11th by some 3000 foraging British soldiers, General Washington and a tired, cold, and hungry Continental Army readied for another try to march into Gulph Mills. They started their day at the Swede’s Ford, at present day Norristown on the east side of the Schuylkill River and Bridgeport on the west side. Yet, the army stayed at Swede’s Ford for most of the day. Why?
South Carolina’s Colonel John Laurens, one of Gen. Washington’s Aides-de-Camp explains why in a December 23, 1777 letter that he wrote to his father, Henry Laurens, President of the Continental Congress at York, Pennsylvania, where the Congress fled to when the British invaded Philadelphia in September 1777.
“…I weep tears of blood when I say it—the want of provisions render’d it impossible to march. We did not march till the evening of that day.” (From The Army Correspondence of Colonel John Laurens, in the Years 1777-8, Now First Printed from Original Letters Addressed to His Father, Henry Laurens, President of Congress, with a Memoir; p. 96, accessed 12/12/2023 at https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/simms1/id/69939)
Washington and his generals had waged a continual and distressing effort to secure enough food, clothing, and other provisions for the Continental Army from the Continental Congress, the various state governments, and local merchants. Brigadier General Anthony Wayne, from Pennsylvania, even used his own funds to purchase clothing and provisions for the troops under his command, and he was in the process of asking the Pennsylvania legislature to reimburse him. (Spoiler alert—they did not.)
The army built another makeshift bridge across the Swedes Ford and started marching out late at night. General Washington’s General Orders for the day, pictured above, note that headquarters are at Swede’s Ford.
My award-winning book, Threshold to Valley Forge: The Six Days of the Gulph Mills Encampment examines the encampment from the perspective of the army and the Gulph Mills and Pennsylvania residents. But, it also puts into perspective the state of the nascent United States in the six days of the encampment, 12/13 – 12/19; the days leading up to it, and the role of Gulph Mills while the Army was encamped at Valley Forge.
I look at what was happening at that time regarding the forming of and growth of our country in the Continental Congress, which had just passed the Articles of Confederation in November, to form the mechanics of the government that the army was fighting for, and sent it to the states for adoption; the Pennsylvania legislature, which was dealing with a number of weighty matters while the British occupied the Pennsylvania capitol and largest city, Philadelphia, and the Continental Army depended on the support of the government and the people of Pennsylvania in so many ways, and abroad, with the work of Benjamin Franklin and the other American Commissioners in France trying to get the French King, Louis XVI, to formally recognize the new United States.
For more information of each day of the Gulph Mills Encampment, you can also see my article on the Gulph Mills Encampment in the Journal of the American Revolution, Valley Forge’s Threshold: The Encampment at Gulph Mills – Journal of the American Revolution
So, check this space tomorrow for an account of when George Washington and his 11,000 soldiers slowly and finally made it across their makeshift bridges, into Gulph Mills, and what they encountered.
Peace,
Sheilah
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