THE MARCH TO VALLEY FORGE

The wind is cold and piercing on the old Gulf Road, and the snow-flakes have begun to fall. Who is this that toils up yonder hill, his footsteps stained with blood? "His bare feet peep through his worn-out shoes, his legs nearly naked from the tattered remains of an only pair of stockings, his breeches not enough to cover his nakedness, his shirt hanging in strings, his hair dishevelled, his face wan and thin, his look hungry, his whole appearance thatof amanforsaken and neglected." On his shoulder he carries a rusty gun, and the hand that grasps the stock is blue with cold. His comrade is no better off, nor he who follows, for both are barefoot, and the ruts of the rough country road are deep and frozen hard. A fourth comes into view, and still another. A dozen are in sight. Twenty have reached the ridge and there are more to come. See them as they mount the hill that slopes eastward into the great valley. A thousand are in sight, but they are but the vanguard of the motley company that winds down the road until it is lost in the cloud of snow-flakes that have hidden the Gulf hills. Yonder are horsemen in tattered uniforms, and behind them cannon lumbering slowly over the frozen road, half dragged, half pushed by men. They who appear to be in authority have coats of every make and color. Here is one in a faded blue, faced with buckskin that has once been buff; there is another on a tall, gaunt horse, wrapped "in a sort of dressing-gown made of an old blanket or woolen bed-cover." A few of the men wear long linen hunting-shirts reaching to the knee, but of the rest no two are dressed alike,—not half have shirts, a third are barefoot, many are in rags. Nor are their arms the same. Cow-horns and tin boxes they carry for want of pouches. A few have swords, fewer still bayonets. Muskets, carbines, fowling-pieces, and rifles are to be seen together side by side.

Are these soldiers that huddle together and bow their heads as they face the biting wind? Is this an army that comes straggling through the valley in the blinding snow? No martial music leads them in triumph into a captured capital; no city full of good cheer and warm and comfortable homes awaits their coming; no sound keeps time to their steps save the icy wind rattling the leafless branches and the dull tread of their weary feet on the frozen ground. In yonder forest must they find their shelter, and on the northern slope of these inhospitable hills their place of refuge. Perils shall soon assault them more threatening than any they encountered under the windows of Chew's house or by the banks of Brandywine. Trials that rarely have failed to break the fortitude of men await them here. False friends shall endeavor to undermine their virtue and secret enemies to shake their faith; the Congress whom they serve shall prove helpless to protect them, and their country herself seem unmindful of their sufferings; Cold shall share their habitations and Hunger enter in and be their constant guest; Disease shall infest their huts by day and Famine stand guard with them through the night; Frost shall lock their camp with icy fetters and the snows cover it as with a garment: the storms of winter shall be pitiless,—but all in vain. Danger shall not frighten nor temptation have power to seduce them. Doubt shall not shake their love of country nor suffering overcome their fortitude. The powers of evil shall not prevail against them, for they are the Continental Army, and these are the hills of Valley Forge!



Henry Armitt Brown Oration at Valley Forge 19 June 1878