Impact Without Limits

S5 E13: Washington's Winter at Valley Forge

• Dale and Brian Karmie / Adkins Media Co.

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In this episode of Impact Without Limits, Brian and Dale explore George Washington’s harsh winter at Valley Forge and one of the most pivotal seasons of the American Revolution, where survival itself became the victory. Facing loss, disease, hunger, desertion, and political pressure, Washington and the Continental Army endured when everything pointed toward collapse.

They also unpack the unexpected people and moments that helped reshape the war—from Baron von Steuben’s training to growing French support—and reflect on a timeless truth: sometimes growth doesn’t happen in the victories, but in the seasons where people simply refuse to quit.


Episode Highlights: 

  • The Winter That Nearly Ended the Revolution.
  • Valley Forge: Surviving Without a Battle.
  • Washington Under Pressure.
  • The Leaders Who Rebuilt the Army.
  • When Survival Becomes Victory.


Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on ForeverLawn:

This show has been produced by Adkins Media Co.


SPEAKER_04

To me, one of the things that makes him so great and so remarkable is that he didn't have an easy road. Oh, not at all. And it wasn't he was just this incredible general that won every battle and that everybody loved and respected and everybody fell in line. He had losses and battles and defeats and struggles. He had troops deserting, but he led through all of that in spite of that. Just that's remarkable.

SPEAKER_03

So why would two guys leave comfortable jobs, move across the country, and start a business in an industry they don't know, a place they don't know?

SPEAKER_02

And could it be successful? We're Dale and Brian Carmen. Join us as we share our story and inspire you to become people of Impact. Welcome to the Impact Without Limits Podcast.

SPEAKER_04

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Impact Without Limits Podcast. Dale Carmen here with my brother Brian. Dale. And we are um ready to dive into another episode. The new hat. I've got so many hats. This one is kind of a NASCAR hat, but it's when we ran the uh American flag car on Memorial Day. I think we were down at Charlotte. We ran that. So hat memorializing that signed by Jeffrey Earnhardt. Thank you, Jeffrey.

SPEAKER_03

And you got the Make My Heart Great Again show.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, look at this. So that's kind of a little play, but we've got red, white, and blue and stars and make my heart great again. Which we did. We did. We now we have to keep it great. Get a shirt that says keep my heart great again. Lori's working hard on that one.

SPEAKER_03

And I've got my semi-Qincenteno, the America 250 shirt. Um Angie got me for my birthday. Um I believe it was Angie. It was one of the girls.

SPEAKER_04

One of the girls and you're one of the most important ladies in your life.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, a very important one. Got you that shirt.

SPEAKER_04

That's a safe thing to say.

SPEAKER_03

All right. So we're gonna hit the question.

SPEAKER_04

The question, yes. Go for it. Who won the Battle of Valley Forge? All right, if you've answered that one, the follow-up question is how many casualties were there in that battle? All right. It's a little bit of a trick question. Trick question.

SPEAKER_03

Because the answer is there was no battle for Valley Forge. Technically, there wasn't a battle with enemy troops. It was a battle. It was a battle. It was a winter at Valley Forge. And the number of troops, the casualties were high. He said, Yeah, I think it's around 2,000.

SPEAKER_04

2,000 men died.

SPEAKER_03

2,000 died. One in six. That's shocking. Imagine. I can't comprehend that.

SPEAKER_04

Being in a room with six people and knowing one of you is gonna be dead just from existing. Yeah. Not even fighting. Astounding. So yeah, so so but we want to talk about this uh because it is and I feel like those announcers that they're talking about a player on Monday Night Football, and they're like, this is the greatest player in the league today, and then the next week it's somebody else. But this was potentially the most pivotal, pivotal turning point in this war. And I know last episode we just said Saratoga was, and Saratoga was. Um, you know, that that pivotal point, but Valley Forge happens just mere weeks, like six weeks, eight weeks it starts, because Saratoga was in October or November of 77, and in December of 77, um George Washington brings his troops into Valley Forge, and they begin preparing for winter after because where are the British? They're in Philadelphia, right? Right, and Valley Forge is a small town area, whatever, what a little bit southwest, west, southwest of Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_03

Correct, eastern Pennsylvania, yep.

SPEAKER_04

And we've we've got to stay there to hold the British in check to hold our ground. Um so yeah, that this really was, and the line I have here, I want to read this. This guy says, at no time before or after was the flame of independence flickering so slightly, like we were on the brink. We had lost New York, we'd gotten pushed through New Jersey, we lost Brandywine, we lost Germantown, Philadelphia, where our Congress met, where our representatives uh existed, they get chased out, they're scattered. Yes, we had the win in Saratoga, which was critical, but overall we're reeling, and that flame is just barely flickering, especially in Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia area, and just surviving that winter. That that was a battle in a sense.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and I mean you you you think about it, we don't I mean, we can I don't think we can comprehend what it was like to to survive a winter when I mean a lot of times they didn't have even shelter, right? So they start building these log huts. They're trying to build a thousand log huts for all the I mean they have twelve thousand.

SPEAKER_04

They have to create a camp.

SPEAKER_03

I read I read one account that said that a lot of these soldiers are marching barefoot through the snow back to Valley Forge, and literally the path is blood stained because they don't have shoes, their feet are bleeding, and then they get there and they have to build the huts because they don't even exist. So they're trying to build these, and it took weeks to do that, and people are sleeping out in the open. You've got typhus, dysentery, typhoid fever, pneumonia, you have all these things happening. Starvation.

SPEAKER_04

I think about the logistics. I and I I try to understand this, and it's neat when I watch uh any of these movies or shows and I'm trying to get a handle on this. How do you feed? How do you care for? I mean, things as easy as going to the bathroom. You're out in the middle of nowhere, you have 12,000 people. Where do they go to the bathroom? Where do they shower? How do they clean? I don't think they're showering. How are they fed? How are they cared for? The logistics to support these people and these troops in normal conditions is gonna be a challenge. Now we're saying we're going into what what turned out to be a very harsh winter in uh you know, southern, southeastern Pennsylvania. You don't go down to the store and buy food. And you know, I've I've heard they were rationing um men wouldn't eat for two, three, four days. They had when they did eat, they ate something called fire cakes, which was just like some dough and water put together and and cooked up in the fire. There's no meat, no protein. Um and I heard this account, I think it was actually from uh a different battle, but I I think you probably had a lot of the same things. Sometimes they would boil leather. Yes, to make like the soup just to put something, get something out of the leather to get into the water that they could eat to sustain themselves. And and they're living outside. Oh my goodness. I I I'm telling you guys go read stories, go read accounts, go look at pictures, try to imagine what these men went through just to try and survive the winter. And and what's the reward if you survive? To fight a winter. You get to go fight the the ultimate um superpower in the world, the British military, which by the way has been kicking your butt for the last six or eight months. You see that that's what you're fighting to survive for. Uh I just I can't wrap my head around it.

SPEAKER_03

No, and and fortunately, we don't have anything we can even come close to relating to this. Um I mean, you said guys going four days with no food. I mean, rations just not showing up.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, I'm not getting without eating, and I'm I've heard it said if you miss if you miss a meal that you're considered what uh what do they call them not? I can't remember. Food food food deprived or underfed or you hunger. You know, you're you're counted as the people suffering from hunger. If you miss one meal a day, you're suffering from hunger. These guys went days without eating anything, and when they did eat, they didn't have any sustenance. We we are soft pansies today, I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_03

We've talked about the White House.gov uh 250 series, and there's a video on there, it's only about 10 minutes, but it's the American Soldier. Um, and it there's a section where they're talking specifically about Valley Forge. Just so good. Uh amazing.

SPEAKER_04

We should just play a clip from that. Can we do that? Can we take a clip from that and put it in the podcast? Bethany's gonna check and see if that's evil. And so if it starts playing, that means it was legal.

SPEAKER_01

At Valley Forge, during the winter of 1777 to 1778, meat and bread all but disappeared. The men lived on fire cakes, flour and water paste, for days on end. The most common refrain from the feeble huts that lined the camp was, no meat. Joseph Plum Martin was 17 years old when he encamped at Valley Forge. Oftentimes, he wrote, Have I gone one, two, three, even four days without a morsel, unless the fields or forests might chance to afford enough to prevent absolute starvation. Often, when I have picked the last grain from the bones of my scanty morsel, have I eaten the very bones, as much of them as possibly could be eaten, and then have had to perform some hard and fatiguing duty. One in six soldiers died that winter. Those who survived the bullets and bayonets of the British, as well as the constant malnutrition, disease, dysentery, typhus, smallpox, and exposure. General Washington reported that by late December of that year, not less than 2,898 men were unfit for duty by reason of their being barefoot and otherwise naked. Many couldn't walk on their frost-bitten feet.

SPEAKER_04

But just amazing stories. And that one's neat, Brian, because right, we went out there and we were looking for information on Valley Forge, and they didn't have one about Valley Forge, but like you said, they had it called the American Soldier, and it just tells the story of the everyday soldier and the battles they went to and the hardships they they endured and the things they did. Uh, just powerful stuff.

SPEAKER_03

So again, just I mean, there are they said there are horses dying by the hundreds. People are deserting, right? Some of these guys are running away and in the cover of darkness because they can't take it anymore. Morale's really low. You've got disease.

SPEAKER_04

There are people freezing to death at their post. They're like sitting at their post and then they just die. They just freeze.

SPEAKER_03

That's insane. One in six died. One in six. So between 2,000 and 2,500 men dead with no battle. And there were other things going on. So on the political side of this, we you have Washington, who had just suffered two defeats, right? I mean, and there were some good things that came out of what we talked about in the last episode, but he lost Brandywine, lost Germantown. You've got Horatio Gates and Bennett Darnold that won the Battle of Saratoga. And so there's a little bit of this in Congress and some of the generals saying, hey, maybe Washington's losing, Gates is winning, maybe Gates should be our guy.

SPEAKER_04

This is one of those things they depicted in that the series turn. Turn the there was some subversion going on for power and leadership in the Continental Army.

SPEAKER_03

From what I was able to read and gather, and I I haven't made it through turn yet, so I don't know if they cover this or not, but Washington never directly confronted Gates, but there were letters back and forth, and Washington had a way. Um, and I'm I'm you know reading that that Washington book by Chernow. He had a way of like writing letters and and reprimanding people without it coming like he just the way he worded things. He was so smart with his wording, um, but kind of put him in his place. And Gates is like, hey, it wasn't me, right? Like it's the other guys that are they think I should be the leader. Oh, whatever. But this kind of gets Yeah, they said it. They're the ones that appointed me. I've heard it said. So and I'm gonna flash forward just a little bit because this so one of the things that happened is Gates, instead of reporting his victory at Saratoga to Washington, he reports it directly to Congress. Dirty. Washington ends up finding out second hand. But a lot of people say that Gates did that to kind of get the glory. Of course he did. And so later, some people in Congress actually they appoint Gates head of the Southern command. This is year two later, without Washington being involved in that, although Washington's supposed to be Supreme Commander. Gates Washington wants Nathaniel Green, Congress appoints Gates. Gates goes and fights this, it's the Battle of Camden in South Carolina and gets thumped. And he gets his butt kicked. And the the story was, and a lot of these are urban legend or mythical things, but that Gates turned around and retreated so fast that he raced 200 miles on his horse without stopping and never came back. And eventually Washington gets to a point Nathaniel Green commander down there, and then they start to win some battles again.

SPEAKER_04

I think he is probably the most remarkable historical figure outside of the Bible, the biblical care figures uh in the history of man. And to me, one of the things that makes him so great and so remarkable is that he didn't have an easy road. Oh, not at all. And it wasn't he was just this incredible general that won every battle and that everybody loved and respected, and everybody fell in line. He had other generals fighting to get recognition that they didn't want him to have. He had people wanted him supplanted as the the you know commander of the continental armies. He had losses and battles and defeats and struggles, he had people, you know, troops deserting, but he led through all of that, in spite all of that.

SPEAKER_03

Just it's remarkable. And with the biggest target on his back, because the British knew if they could take out Washington. Cut off the head of the snake, it all falls.

SPEAKER_04

So there were there were obviously lots of struggles.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So two key foreigners that played roles here. One um I kind of hinted at last episode, and I said?

SPEAKER_04

No, I've got to be around.

SPEAKER_03

There was another Ohio names namesake. Um this one was a Prussian officer, uh military veteran named. We're gonna make this a question. I don't know how. What was the name of the name was Baron von Steuben? And so what's named after him? I'm gonna guess it's a little town down on the river. You got it. I always wondered where the name Steubenville came from. It was from Baron von Steuben. He was a Prussian officer that arrived in the camp in February of 78 uh with a signed letter from Benjamin Franklin saying, you know, listen to this guy. He doesn't speak much English at all. Um, but he takes some of the troops and starts training them on marching, firing, how to use a bayonet, how to maneuver as a unit, and just warfare, really through translators, um, and and turns them from this like militia into this machine-like military.

SPEAKER_04

Well-trained, well-organized fighting force. So I don't have it up in front of me, but we talked about this uh one of our other recording sessions. I mean, von Steuben had an interesting path because he essentially came here because he was out of work. Correct. Right? Do you have it in front of you?

SPEAKER_03

Do you I I don't, but he was. I mean, you you talked a little bit about Ben McDonald, I think that was the last episode, like looking for advancement and looking for opportunities. Baron von Steuben was the same way. Yeah. He's this military military general looking for opportunities and not finding he's in a country that didn't have a war. What's what's he gonna do? He's gonna look for a war. And and I'm not sure. I think he might have talked to the British first, but ends up talking to Franklin, and Franklin convinced him to come to the US. So he comes here to well, not the US, comes to America to train our troops.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, so he's he's chasing opportunity.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Which is really weird. Uh it I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

That seems odd to get my head around, but I I think it's so different for us because we don't we we live in a society created by America, free enterprise capitalism, and and everything. And so back then, like if you read like Alexander Hamilton was was very similar, even George Washington, like they looked at the military as their only chance to raise their station in life, right? Like that you couldn't just save money and invest money or work hard enough, like start your own. It was just different. So they saw military was as a way to advance their career and and hopefully get to a different station in life. And so Baron von Steuben was like, look, I this is my career path. This is I'm this is a way I can succeed.

SPEAKER_04

Did he like after the war end up settling? He did in Ohio and down near Steubenville, or that was just one of those honorary names like Stark.

SPEAKER_03

Just namesake. He lived in New York, lived in upstate New York, and um he I it sounded like you know, a lot of these guys didn't necessarily get the wealth that they wanted, like the Continental Congress and and Army, like our government starting out, didn't have a lot of money, so they probably didn't pay as well or as on time or whatever. And so he ends up, he gets a land grant and lives in New York and has the land, but didn't really have a ton of wealth. Um, but Steubenville was named after him, so he dies in 1794. Steubenville is founded in 1797, so he was clearly never in Steubenville. But the reports I read said he never even made it to Ohio, like he just never came here.

SPEAKER_04

Before Steubenville had a name, it was still a place. Correct, he could have been there, but yeah, it just wouldn't have been Steubenville.

SPEAKER_03

The reports I've read he was not. But there you go. Baron von Steuben.

SPEAKER_04

And again, uh that idea out of out of hardship maybe comes opportunity because they were stuck there, because uh you know, you know, they're they have the time to train um George Washington was smart enough. And think about that, humble enough. So here's the leader of the Continental Army allowing an outsider to come in and train his troops. Yeah, absolutely. That's uh I think there's a certain amount of humility represented there.

SPEAKER_03

The other um big-named uh or big-named, well-known um foreigner that was there was Lafayette, Marquis de Lafayette, who was 20 years old when he was at Valley Forge, to think he was like a big deal, but he had some connection to French royalty, and I don't remember exactly what it was, but so he was like an aristocrat, aristocrat. Aristocrats are different. That was a good movie. That was a good movie, but um so from French Aristocracy, he's here, and it kind of provided this like connection to the the French throne. And again, the the French American Alliance is formally announced in May, but this is kind of like the French are starting to to pick a side. They'd kind of secretly picked a side, but it it's coming out now. And um, you know, the people that made it through the Valley Forge Winter are now being trained by Baron von Sub and turned into a more uh regimented organized military. They've got Lafayette there, and then they announce the French alliance, and now there's this boost of morale, like, hey, we can we can go toe-to-toe.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and I'm thinking about the French, it's like they want to make sure if they're gonna pick a side, they pick a winner. You don't want to pick the loser. Oh, absolutely. Because that's just not only you know, you think, well, if America loses, it doesn't affect the French. Well, it does because if they back a loser and that thing loses, the British might just uh, you know, hold that against the French and how they do business and what happens, and and the British have more power. So they were we we keep saying they were watching. They were watching, they were looking to see is this the the time, is this the place, is this the group to get behind? And and they did, you said in the spring of 78, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So they the Washington's army ends up staying camped there and training and drilling through June, and then the first major battle coming out of that is the Battle of Monmouth, and you have 10,000 British soldiers to about 5,000 American soldiers, and it's kind of a standoff, and and the Americans fight toe to toe, and it's like, okay, these guys things have changed. It's a different army than went into the winner at Valley Ford Forge. And um, Washington had always had like the guys that were willing to, he he had a way of of uh driving morale or driving people to to want to give their best. And so he had hard fighters, he had people that would would risk everything, but they weren't polished. And so this was a place where it really got polished, and and it becomes this this again, sometimes the darkness leads to the dawn, and you have this moment that was a winner of starving and suffering. But coming out of that, they get refined, they get the French Alliance, and you end up with an army that's a formidable, formidable army that can go toe-to-toe with the British. And that's when you start to get other countries jumping in, the Netherlands and Spain, and other people starting to pour resources in, and opening up wars against Britain and Europe to open up another front, not necessarily as part of this war, but their own wars, they see a weakened Britain, and that starts to have an impact as well.

SPEAKER_04

All right. Well, I think we're winding down on this one. Yes, we did everything.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and you you know, we've we've we've talked about it, but the you know, the you were talking about in the last episode the the how it applies to us today. I mean, one, to remember and and to appreciate and have gratitude for what was done. But two, sometimes you're in those seasons where you just have to survive. And Valley Forge, I mean, there were a lot of guys that deserted at that time, a lot of guys that left, but the ones that stayed, they they ended up coming out into a what ended up becoming a victorious army. And we've had those moments too, right? And I think everyone has had moments where you've just had to survive. You just you just gotta take sometimes in life, you just have to take the beating and make it make it to another day. We've taken many beatings, we're pretty good at taking beatings.

SPEAKER_04

Uh every now and then it's good to give one.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Every now and then. But Washington survives deserters, he survives lack of rations, he survives one out of six of his crew dying, he survives a coup and ends up coming out with a stronger army than he went in. So that's a win. It is a win. All right. We will be back. I think we are going to do one more battle. There are we said there are hundreds of battles, but we've just decided we're gonna do one more battle.

SPEAKER_04

Maybe it depends on what else we find. Digging into that one.

SPEAKER_03

Then I we'll see. We might, I think, start diving into some of these names.

SPEAKER_04

Here's what I want to throw out there. The semi-quincentennial, which is annualized on July 4th, 2026. That's not necessarily the end of the party.

SPEAKER_03

No, it is definitely not the end of the party.

SPEAKER_04

We were when we first started this, we were thinking we were gonna try and wrap up by then, but we might keep rolling. I feel a little mo going on here.

SPEAKER_03

I think there's a little more to talk about. But uh, all right. If you're enjoying this, let us know. We've got fan mail. You can get to us through the the uh podcast on Apple or Spotify wherever you listen. And then um we'd love to hear your feedback. Uh five-star ratings always.

SPEAKER_04

Five stars.

SPEAKER_03

We'll see you next week. See you guys.

SPEAKER_00

This is the threadcall me reminding you that faith looks up, hope looks ahead, and love looks all around to see whom it can help. Good day.