HISTORY PROVIDES REMINDER OF THANKS

Dear Editor:

On Dec. 18, 1777, Gen. Washington marched his 9,000 Continental Regulars into winter quarters at Valley Forge. Washington himself wrote in his diary that the army could be tracked by the flood of their feet in the snow. Their food lasted only a few days. After that they ate "fire-cake" (corn-meal and water mixed and baked on a heated rock). When that was gone, they boiled their shoes and ate them. Their clothing and shoes became worn. Only a fortunate few had blankets. Twelve men lived in a hut designed for four people.

There was rain, sleet, snow, wind and mud. Cadavers of 500 dead horses putrefied the camp. General Lafayette wrote: "The unfortunate soldiers were in want of everything; they had neither coats, hats, shirts nor shoes; their feet and legs froze till they had become almost black, and it was often necessary to amputate them." Valley Forge has been called "The Crucible of Freedom." Smallpox, typhus and cholera decimated the ranks. The army did not mutiny it stood fast.

And two years later, historians tell us, the Morristown, N.J., winter encampment was even more severe in its circumstances! The grizzled veteran of many campaigns, including Valley Forge, Baron von Steuben, said the soldiers "exhibited the most shocking misery I have ever seen, scare a man having wherewithal to cover his nakedness." Another devastating December experience (December 1779) for these "martyrs for liberty."

The Allen Laws Oliver Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution offers these two reminders from history as our Christmas gift to your readers. We have so much to be thankful for as Americans! Our ancestors and yours, in the War for Independence and in many other struggles for liberty since have made it possible. "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required." We must make every effort to pass the torch of freedom under law to the coming generations.

Walter A. Schroeder Jr.

Allen Laws Oliver Chapter

Cape Girardeau