After a string of defeats in the fall of 1777, the Continental Army needed an encampment to wait out the winter and prepare for the fighting to resume in the spring. General George Washington chose to station his men in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The conditions proved formidable; more than 2,000 men died from disease, exacerbated by poor housing and scant supplies. In the following selection, from a memoir written in 1828, Chevalier de Pontgibaud, a French volunteer in the Continental Army, describes his arrival at Valley Forge in December 1777.

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