It is arguably the most iconic image from the American Revolution. You can find drawings, paintings, and sculptures commemorating its significance in town halls, courthouses, libraries, churches, and veterans’ associations throughout the country. Variations were once commonly displayed in homes, schools, and businesses.
Is it Paul Revere’s historic engraving of the Boston Massacre? Or Emanuel Leutze’s famous Washington Crossing the Delaware? Or perhaps John Trumbull’s The Declaration of Independence? Those are all good answers, but the image of which I write is of George Washington kneeling in silent prayer near the Continental Army’s winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in December 1777.
You can conjure that picture in your mind almost immediately — the tall, striking figure of General George Washington with knee and sword touching the snowy ground, his military coat draped around his shoulders, his cocked hat removed and at his side, his bare fingers firmly interlaced, and his head bowed in solemn contemplation. To his right stands Blueskin, Washington’s strong and noble war horse whose fearlessness during battle was well known. Blueskin’s whitish-gray coat blends with Washington’s whitish-grey wig, while the war horse’s visibly cold breath blends with the frigid Pennsylvania snow. A ray of morning light crosses before the general and his loyal companion, as both man and horse appear intimately aware of God’s presence.
When you think of that image, you can feel the chill. You can hear the crunching of frozen snow beneath their feet. You can briefly experience the weight of responsibility one man bore to shape his nation’s destiny. You can almost walk into that moment during the winter of 1777, when so few sacrificed so much for all of us alive today. Our emotional bond to that instant in time reflects our recognition that Washington’s prayer is also our country’s birth.
The most famous depiction of that moment today is Arnold Friberg’s The Prayer at Valley Forge, which the artist produced for the bicentennial of the United States. President Reagan prominently displayed Friberg’s painting in the White House while he was in office. The “most sublime picture in American history,” the president noted, “is of George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge. That image personifies a people who know that it’s not enough to depend on our own courage and goodness. We must also seek help from God our father and preserver.” Even in this cynical age, Americans know the truth of Reagan’s words. In Friberg’s painting, we see the “Father of America” in humble supplication before Our Father Who art in Heaven. There can be no America, in other words, without God’s continued blessing.
Christmas at Valley Forge was rough. The British, having defeated the Continental Army at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, easily captured the colonial capital of Philadelphia in the weeks that followed. For the Americans, the loss was an enormous strategic and emotional blow. General Washington was forced to withdraw and seek winter shelter for 12,000 soldiers, wives, and children. Valley Forge offered a defensible plateau about a day’s march from Philadelphia, but British raids had left American troops with dwindling supplies.
By December, the fugitive Second Continental Congress granted General Washington authority to direct the war at his discretion. At the same time, after the loss of Philadelphia, some members questioned whether he should remain commander-in-chief. Perhaps because of this uncertainty, Congress failed to fix severe deficiencies in the Continental supply chains meant to reach Valley Forge. Washington’s men lacked winter clothes, shoes, and food. They were forced to build makeshift shelters in the freezing cold. The wartime settlement was the fourth largest community in the colonies. The fate of the Revolution depended on whether weary colonial troops could survive a brutal winter. Tragically, some two thousand succumbed to cold, hunger, and disease.
However, the difficult Christmas at Valley Forge forged a formidable army. Washington wrote that there had never been an “instance of an army’s suffering such uncommon hardships as ours has done and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude. To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes (for the want of which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet), and almost as often without provisions as with them, marching through the frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a day’s march of the enemy, without a house or a hut to cover them till they could be built, and submitting without a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled.”
The resiliency of Washington’s troops was also proof of his remarkable leadership. Throughout their terrible ordeal at Valley Forge, General Washington admonished his soldiers to “fear God, to put away wickedness ... and to practice Christian virtues.” Martha Washington, who joined her husband for part of each winter encampment, encouraged others through “her presence and submission to privation” and by “strengthening the fortitude of those who might have complained ... giving hope and confidence to the desponding. She soothed the distresses of many sufferers, seeking out the poor and afflicted with benevolent kindness, extending relief wherever it was in her power.” Together, General and Lady Washington provided tremendous spiritual leadership during a time of tremendous physical suffering.
It was from this Christmas season that various accounts later emerged of General Washington’s early morning prayers. Although twentieth-century historians questioned whether Washington’s “Prayer at Valley Forge” is more American myth than American history, there are numerous contemporary descriptions of the great man praying for God’s protection and guidance. Officers recorded in their own writings General Washington’s habit of praying each morning and whenever he presumed to be alone. Washington regularly encouraged others to be obedient servants of God. A Lutheran minister named Henry Muhlenberg observed of Washington’s Christian virtue: “Therefore, the Lord God has also singularly, yea, marvelously preserved him from harm in the midst of countless perils, ambuscades, fatigues, etc., and has hitherto graciously held him in his hand as a chosen vessel.” George Washington continually sought God’s blessing, and he continually directed those under his command to be God’s instruments here on Earth. Those facts are often overlooked in modern history books.
Heartfelt prayer at Valley Forge did work. Food, clothing, blankets, and ammunition eventually arrived. The alliance with France and the arrival of the Marquis de Lafayette boosted colonial morale. A Prussian drillmaster named Baron von Steuben turned Washington’s volunteer army into a disciplined unit. Weeks before they should have run the Schuylkill River, protein-rich shad fish swam up to the Valley Creek. Soldiers starving for food and encouragement found both. In their own way, each event was its own miracle at Valley Forge.
Writer Rick Chromey observes that despite the hardships experienced at Valley Forge, soldiers optimistically sang this carol together: “God rest ye, merry gentlemen / Let nothing you dismay / Remember Christ our Savior / Was born on Christmas-day / To save poor souls from Satan’s power / Which long time had gone astray / And it is tidings of comfort and joy.” Following General Washington’s lead, they put their faith and hopes for salvation in the hands of Almighty God.
As stories of Valley Forge reached American colonists, a shared national bond formed around the army’s suffering. The soldiers’ sacrifice united disparate peoples into one country. One story, however, transcended the rest — that of General George Washington praying in the Pennsylvania snow. That image was treasured and reproduced and passed through each generation to the present. Those who fought and died for America sent us a clear message: there can be no America unless we Americans are obedient to God.
This Christmas, let us listen to our ancestors. Let us bow our heads. And let us pray.
Image via Pixabay.
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