[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 126 (Monday, September 12, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
           BARON VON STEUBEN AND AMERICAN MILITARY TRADITION

                                 ______


                       HON. SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 12, 1994

  Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, as part of the Northern Frontier Project's 
campaign to share more information about unique and under-reported 
events and personalities from the New York Colony in the struggle for 
Independence, I am sharing an excellent speech by West Point historian, 
Tony Aimone.
  Delivered on July 9, 1994, to the Rome Historical Society, this 
speech celebrates the opening of a special exhibit honoring Baron 
Frederick von Steuben, ``Drillmaster of the Revolution.''
  Americans will find belonging, pride, and inspiration in the 
sacrifices and contributions from diverse ethnic peoples from the 
Northern Frontier in the cause of our Independence.
  Tony Aimone.

   Baron von Steuben Opening Program--200th Anniversary of Baron von 
    Steuben's Death--Saturday, July 9, 1994--Rome Historical Society

       Thank you for your introductory remarks. Distinguished 
     guest, ladies and gentlemen of the Rome Historical Society 
     and Mohawk Valley patriotic and historical organizations I 
     bring greetings from the Superintendent of the United States 
     Military Academy, Lieutenant General Howard D. Graves on the 
     bicentennial anniversary of Baron von Steuben's service to 
     the United States. West Point is considered by many people 
     the premier leader development institution in the world. It 
     is not hard to compare many of the leadership qualities of 
     the West Point program with what Baron von Steuben initiated 
     as the ``First Teacher'' of the American military 
     development.
       I will discuss three Baron von Steuben topics today:
       1. How Steuben trained and disciplined the American Army?
       2. The role of the blue book: As the first guide for 
     American soldiers.
       3. Steuben's influence of the American military tradition.
       During the course of his life Steuben went by as many as 
     seven German first names, but in America he was known as 
     Frederick William Augustus Steuben (17 September 1730--28 
     November 1794) He was a legend in his own time and after. 
     Starting at the age of sixteen, Steuben attained no higher 
     rank than an infantry captain. However, he served at the 
     Royal Headquarters as a general staff officer and as one of 
     the aides-de-camp to Frederick the Great. In 1763 Steuben was 
     one of only fifteen officers selected to be taught the art of 
     war under personal supervision of Frederick, but soon after 
     the Seven Years' War, probably because he was not of the 
     hereditary nobility, he was retired from the Army. The 
     significance of Steuben's general staff training and service 
     has not been sufficiently appreciated. During the next twelve 
     years the Baron served as an official to the household of a 
     minor German prince's court.
       In 1777 Steuben went to Paris to seek employment. By 
     gaining the support of the French War Minister and persuading 
     the American representatives led by Benjamin Franklin he 
     secured a volunteer position in the Continental Army. 
     Franklin saw in von Steuben the hope of creating a more 
     professional fighting force to take the field against King 
     George III's experienced troops. By his training and 
     experience he brought to Washington's staff a technical 
     training that was unknown in either the French or the British 
     armies at that time.
       Washington in a letter to the committee of the Continental 
     Congress on 28 January 1778 said that his original conception 
     of an Inspector General with assistants down to brigade 
     level, was still firm. It would require a combination of 
     competence and good humor to grapple with the problems facing 
     the Continental Army, which was at a low ebb in February 
     1778.
       There was no meat, the horses were dying, and the bare 
     country surrounding the camp was a poor location. Things were 
     even worse than they looked. To begin with, there was no 
     uniform organization of the army. ``I have seen a regiment 
     consisting of thirty men, and a company of one corporal!'' 
     said Steuben, ``nothing was so difficult, and often so 
     impossible as to get a correct list of the state or return 
     of any company, regiment, or corps.'' Many of the troops 
     were scattered on various fatigue details while several 
     thousand more were being used as officers' servants. This 
     manpower had to be restored to the tactical units to gain 
     the full benefit of training.
       Steuben's proposal to stake his fortune upon the success of 
     the cause made a deep impression upon the Continental 
     Congress. He also made a profound impression upon the 
     officers and men of the Continental Army. Washington was so 
     favorably impressed by his practical knowledge and experience 
     that he prevailed upon him to serve as Acting Inspector 
     General and to; undertake the training of the army.
       The Baron was up early in the morning of March 19, 1778 
     while his German soldier servant, Carl Vogel, was dressing 
     his pigtail, he smoked a pipe and drank a cup of coffee. He 
     mounted his horse and rode to the parade ground. Training of 
     the Commander in Chief's guard began with Steuben in charge. 
     Steuben himself trained one squad first, then set his 
     subinspectors, whom Washington had been appointing for 
     several days, to drill other squads, while he galloped about 
     the camp, supervising. Steuben shocked American officers by 
     personally teaching the men the manual of arms and drill, but 
     his success helped to convince them. He disapproved of the 
     British-inspired distance between the soldiers and American 
     officers, who had been content to leave instructions to 
     sergeants. Steuben not only offered a good example, but 
     specifically instructed officers in how to train their own 
     men.
       The Baron succeeded, not because he had an exceptionally 
     intelligent military mind, but because he was a diligent 
     organizer who was willing to adapt the principles of 
     professional warfare to the needs of the American soldiers. 
     Steuben decided to start small. He taught a greatly 
     simplified manual of arms, because there was no time to 
     follow elaborate European practices. He had about two months 
     to train a partially experienced Continental Army before the 
     campaign season would commence. The baron learned English as 
     quickly as possible. During the drills he sometimes lost his 
     temper and then he would swear in German and French. At first 
     he only knew one English swear word, ``Goddam.'' When he had 
     exhausted his oaths, he would turn to an aide and say, ``Come 
     and swear for me in English!'' The outburst were rather 
     comical and they amused the men, who burst into laughter.
       As usual some soldiers could not master the new lessons as 
     quickly as the rest and were formed into separate squads of 
     awkward troops for learning the new manoeuvres. New recruits 
     were placed into these squads and had to earn their way out 
     by competence in the mastery of the new ways.
       After the model guard company was ready, he extended his 
     system to battalions, then brigades, and in three weeks was 
     able to maneuver an entire division for Washington. His 
     inspectors were his agents. The results of the training were 
     impressive and it did not take long to persuade Washington 
     that Steuben knew what he was doing. Three days after the new 
     drilling began, Washington issued orders to the Army paving 
     the way for Steuben's promotion on March 28 to Inspector 
     General by directing unit commanders to stop all drills under 
     systems then in use and begin preparations to use Steuben's 
     methods. A few days later, he directed them to begin 
     practicing under Steuben's supervision. At that time 
     Washington also appointed four lieutenant colonels to act as 
     subinspectors, while the next day he appointed brigade 
     inspectors for all brigades. By May 5, Steuben's duties were 
     expanded to being responsible for training of all American 
     troops.
       No less an improvisation was the way the regulations were 
     first distributed. A unique solution was reached to assure 
     rapid reproduction. There were no printing presses at Valley 
     Forge, while circumstances demanded the fastest possible 
     dissemination of the regulations. One chapter was prepared at 
     a time. To distribute the drill regulations, brigade 
     inspectors wrote out copies for themselves, then entered 
     copies in the orderly books of the brigades and each 
     regiment. From regimental orderly books copies were made for 
     each company, from which each officer and drillmaster made 
     his own copy. It required two to three days for each 
     chapter to be distributed.
       Steuben and his staff spent the winter of 1778-1779 in 
     Philadelphia preparing the manuscript of his now famous 
     Regulations or ``Blue Book.'' It became the military bible of 
     the Continental Army for drill and field service regulations. 
     The manual contained the essentials of military instruction 
     and procedure adapted to the needs of the American citizen 
     soldier. Writing from memory, he salvaged whatever seemed 
     essential from the Prussian regulations that could be adapted 
     to a system based upon British organization, and in a 
     situation where soldiers were motivated by devotion to the 
     cause and their leader.
       No important book has ever been produced under greater 
     difficulties. The Baron first wrote each passage in German 
     which he translated into inelegant French. Pierre Etienne 
     Duponceau, his secretary, translated the text into literary 
     French, but he was no military man. Another aide, Captain 
     Francois Louis de Fleury rewrote the text into workable 
     French. Captain Benjamin Walker translated the French into 
     English. Washington's aides John Laurens and Alexander 
     Hamilton then edited the instructions into a military style, 
     and Steuben memorized the text as well as his broken English 
     allowed.
       The manual is illustrated by 38 plates showing the 
     positions of the soldier. Steuben had explicit drawings of 
     the manual of arms and basic troop movements, prepared by 
     Captain Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a military engineer and 
     architect, who later gained fame as the city planner of 
     Washington, D.C.
       Despite the printing business shortages of paper, ink, and 
     other materials in Philadelphia, binding proved to be the 
     major obstacle as production dragged through the summer and 
     into the fall of 1779. At last the binders adopted 
     substitutes in order to get the job done. The actual printing 
     of the manual was given to a thrifty Scottsman, named James 
     Aitken. Aitken came up with the idea of using surplus 
     Pennsylvania Magazine paper. Three reams of the unused 
     newspaper was used as end and frontice pages for the manuals. 
     Aitken's records show that 2,969 copies were actually printed 
     by November 1779. Among the substitutions was blue paper for 
     half-covers, instead of full leather. That substitution gave 
     Steuben's regulations the name they would bear thereafter--
     Steuben's ``blue book.'' Few of the original copies printed 
     at Philadelphia in 1779 are extant. Relatively few copies of 
     the subsequent printings are also available.
       It immediately became canon for all the military from 
     Washington down and was adopted by Congress in March 1779 as 
     official for the officers and men in the service of the 
     United States. It was composed specifically for the 
     Continental Army and was not a reprint of an European 
     treatise. The manual differed from its predecessors by being 
     written for the wartime use of a national army and not solely 
     for employment by militia units. The handbook, had twenty-
     five chapters, which covered elementary tactics and army 
     administration. The earlier manuals of arms were full of 
     movements which were not absolutely essential, excessive 
     motions were eliminated. Steuben replaced the three ranks of 
     men with the easier and more efficient two ranks of men. 
     Instructors were requested to refrain from castigating the 
     soldiers with verbal abuse, [something Steuben preached but 
     did not always followed] and were reminded to exercise 
     patience and moderation during training.
       The official sanction which had been given by the 
     Continental Congress led to an uniformity of use which had 
     never before been achieved by an American martial handbook. 
     After the passage of the Militia Acts in the early 1790's, 
     virtually all states adopted Steuben's Regulations which 
     accounts for the large number of printings in 1794. The 
     ``Blue Book'' continued to be used as the official drill 
     manual of the United States' militia until it was supplanted 
     in the Militia Act of 1820. By then, its reputation was 
     firmly established with the public and it was the most famous 
     of all American military manuals and one of the most 
     important documents in the history of our country.
       Many have paid tribute to the memory of Steuben and to his 
     distinctive contributions to the cause of American 
     independence, but of all testimonials the general 
     probably would have most preferred the 1792 ``Creed 
     adopted by the Officers of the American Army at 
     Verplanck's Point,'' affirming:
       ``We believe that George Washington is the only fit man in 
     the world to head the American Army . . . that Nathaniel 
     Greene was born a general . . . (and) that Baron Steuben has 
     made us soldiers, and that he is capable of forming the whole 
     world into solid column, and deploying it from the center. We 
     believe in his Blue Book. We believe in General Knox and his 
     artillery. And we believe in our bayonets. Amen!''
       Rules were applied to military inspection, which was made a 
     subject of the regulations. But it was not presented as an 
     activity of designated inspectors, rather as a function of 
     command. The regulations made inspection a routine duty of 
     company commanders. At ``troop beating,'' company officers 
     were to ``inspect into the dress of their men,'' to ``see 
     that the clothes are whole and put on properly, their hair 
     combed, their accouterments properly fixed and every article 
     about them in the greatest order.'' Steuben founded the 
     army's long tradition of the Saturday morning inspection, 
     when captains were to ``examine into the state of the men's 
     necessaries.''
       Steuben's signal accomplishment was to train the 
     Continental Army as regular infantry of the line capable of 
     standing up to the British in the field. He perceived that 
     the American units had difficulty in going from column of 
     march into line of battle. The source of the problem was the 
     customary marching formation of a column of files (``Indian 
     file''), stringing the force out impossibly. That was one 
     reason why many units had arrived late at the battles of 
     Brandywine and Germantown. Steuben moved quickly to correct 
     that bad habit, training battalions to occupy no more road 
     space than they would require room in battle. At his 
     instigation, Washington outlawed the column of files. 
     Thereafter, in all situations all sizes of units were to 
     march exactly as they were taught on the drill field. The 
     result was an army that marched faster and deployed faster 
     for battle.
       Steuben also wanted the Army to fight as well as to march, 
     and that required weapons instruction. He prepared and taught 
     a simplified manual of arms, with many-fewer movements than 
     those of European armies, and emphasized the use of the 
     bayonet, the essential infantry assault weapon of the day. 
     The bayonets supplemented or replaced the unreliable 
     flintlock muskets. Previously lacking the discipline 
     essential to bayonet charges, American soldiers had shyed 
     away from the weapons. Steuben himself observed that their 
     chief utility in the Continental Army was as spits for roast 
     meat. He turned the Americans into confident bayonet 
     fighters, something they demonstrated within a few weeks at 
     Monmouth.
       Washington also commissioned von Steuben with the formation 
     of an elite corps (light infantry) which was to be comprised 
     of hand-picked soldiers. Because of its rapid mobility the 
     corps could be deployed whenever the fighting flared up and 
     likewise, operate loosely, using familiar Indian tactics. 
     This unit--like the entire army--also received its first 
     instruction on the use of the bayonet. The light infantry 
     particularly demonstrated their effectiveness at Stony Point 
     and at Yorktown.
       His duties as Inspector General also included his 
     development of a system of property accountability that went 
     far to check the waste of public property which had formerly 
     prevailed in the American army. During the war he grew 
     steadily in popularity throughout the army and grew more and 
     more in Washington's confidence. He was consulted upon all 
     questions of strategic and administrative policy and 
     performed all of the essential functions of a modern general 
     staff officer. During the winter of 1779-1780 he was 
     Washington's representative with the Continental Congress in 
     the efforts to reorganize the army.
       The last years of the War Steuben served as Washington's 
     trusted adviser in all military affairs. In the spring of 
     1783 he assisted Washington in the preparation of a plan for 
     the future defense of the United States and in the 
     arrangements for demobilizing the Continental Army. At the 
     same time he took a leading part in forming the Society of 
     the Cincinnati which helped to keep alive the ideals of the 
     American Revolution. When Washington relinquished command of 
     the army, December 23, 1783, he deliberately made it his last 
     official act to write a letter to the Baron commending his 
     invaluable services to the United States throughout the 
     war.
       He continued to write on military affairs, and in his 
     recommendations for a Swiss militia system to supplement the 
     small Regular Army, for the harbor defenses of New York City, 
     and the establishment of a military academy, Steuben 
     continued to contribute to the military needs of the young 
     Republic. His proposals for national defense although not 
     adopted by Congress in his lifetime, foreshadowed the system 
     eventually adopted in 1920.
       Long familiar to schoolchildren as the Prussian who drilled 
     the Continental Army at Valley Forge, his memory has served 
     as the principal inspiration for the Inspector General's 
     Department of the United States Army, its successor, and 
     other organizations patterned after it. His genuine concern 
     for individuals, personal integrity, and willingness to 
     devote his time to the training of those less experienced 
     epitomized the standards expected of those who followed him. 
     The relationship he eventually developed with the commander 
     in chief remains the pattern for modern military inspectors.
       Steuben was of middle height but superb military bearing 
     when he would don his most respledent uniform. He had a fine 
     soldierly bearing and his manners were graceful and courtly. 
     His picturesque personality made a strong impression upon his 
     contemporaries and the anecdotal history of the Revolution 
     presents him as one of the most conspicuous figures in the 
     esteem and affections of the rank and file of the 
     Continential Army. Through his influence in converting the 
     American army into an effective and highly disciplined 
     military force he was an indispensable figure in the 
     achievement of American Independence. Here he performed an 
     essential service that none of his contemporaries in America 
     was qualified to perform.
       A United States Military Academy plaque sponsored by the 
     National Council of the Steuben Society in America located 
     where a majority of cadets and instructors pass daily honors 
     Baron von Steuben:
       As Washington's principal advisor he gave military training 
     and discipline to the citizen solders who achieved the 
     Independence of the United States. His service was 
     indispensable to the achievement of American Independence.

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