Valley Forge

Site in Pennsylvania 32 km/20 mi northwest of Philadelphia, USA, where George Washington's army spent the winter of 1777–78 in great hardship during the American Revolution.

Of the 10,000 men there, 2,500 died of disease and the rest suffered from lack of rations and other supplies; many deserted.

During that winter, Washington introduced Prussian officers who trained the irregulars. The Franco-American alliance 1778 boosted morale and brought new recruits to the army, which emerged from the ordeal to inflict heavy losses on the British.