When General Washington’s exhausted troops arrived at Valley Forge on December 19, 1777 in bitter cold and snow, the Continental Army’s situation was desperate. A few days later, the commander-in-chief wrote to President of Congress Henry Laurens, “I am now convinced beyond a doubt that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place in that line, this Army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things. Starve, dissolve or disperse.”

I tell the story of what happened in that crucible of the American Revolution in this week's podcast:

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