Valley Forge National Historic Park: Muhlenberg Brigade

The Muhlenberg Brigade stop is number 2 on the Encampment tour at Valley Forge National Historic Park, and since stop number 1 is the visitor center, this is really the first place you see on the tour. When we were there, the rangers were dressed in period costumes and running a program that started on the hour and lasted maybe twenty minutes.

The area is named for General Peter Muhlenberg, whose Virginia brigade lived here and protected the camp. He was originally from a prominent Pennsylvania German family in nearby Valley Forge. There are one or two replica cannons over near the parking area, then you cross the street to get to the main attraction, which are the replicas of huts where Continental Army soldiers lived during the winter of 1777-1778. These American forces during the Revolutionary War were under the command of General George Washington, who later became the first president of the United States of America. After the war, Muhlenberg served in the first United States Congress and was later elected a senator from the state of Pennsylvania.

There are about a dozen huts clustered together at Muhlenberg, and two were open so you could go inside a look. They are simply log huts with fireplaces to burn wood. Surrounding the huts were defensive entrenchments and fortifications made of earth. Some of these hills and trenches are still vaguely visible. There's also a reproduction of a "field bake oven" that is pretty interesting. The oven is made of iron then covered in a mound of earth. The sign by the oven said that the Valley Forge camp used about 84,000 pounds of flour every day to bake bread.  

The first open hut had exhibits inside that mostly documented the changing landscape. It showed what the land looked like before, during, and at several points in time after the encampment. The soldiers were really hard on both the land and the general population in the Valley Forge. The second hut had bunks in it and gave a sense of how tightly packed the soldiers were at Valley Forge.

Enlisted men and non-commissioned officers were packed twelve into a small hut, making it difficult to sleep and easy to catch any contagious diseases that were circulating.

From where the rangers held their program, you are looking at what's known as "The Grand Parade," which is where the soldiers trained.

This is where soldiers and officers from all over came together to practice together and to develop standard practices. The Prussian General Friedrich Wilhelm de Steuben is credited with providing much of the discipline.