![]() A decade past his service as a captain in the Prussian army, von Steuben, 47, filled his letters home with tall tales about his glorious reception in America. Von Steuben had never been a general, despite the claim of the supporters who recommended him. “The trappings of his horse, the enormous holsters of his pistols, his large size, and his strikingly martial aspect, all seemed to favor the idea.” ![]() “He seemed to me the perfect personification of Mars,” recalled Ashbel Green years later. To one awestruck 16-year-old private, the tall, portly baron in the long blue cloak was as intimidating as the Roman god of war. And a stranger-former Prussian army officer Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben-was on the scene to restore morale, introduce discipline and whip the tattered soldiers into fighting shape. ![]() The Continental Army had just endured a punishing winter at Valley Forge. It was March 19, 1778, almost three years into the Revolutionary War. When their discipline broke down, he swore at them in German and French, and with his only English curse: “Goddamn!” He showed them how to march at 75 steps a minute, then 120. He walked among the 100 men in formation at Valley Forge, adjusting their muskets. “Squad, halt!” he shouted-some of the few English words he knew. The baron wore an eight-pointed silver star on his chest, etched with the word Fidelitas.
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