The Winter of Red Snow: The Revolutionary War Diary of Abigail Jane Stewart

This book is about a young girl, Abigail, who lived in Valley Forge during the terrible winter of 1777. The story is about George Washington bringing his army to the area and staying there over the winter, the weather being too bad to engage in any military operations.

The major emphasis on the story is about the conditions that Washington's troops had to survive in, bringing the story of those conditions quite vividly to life. The "red snow" in the title, for example, refers to the fact that many of the men did not even have shoes and when the soldiers would pass the snow would be stained red with blood from their feet.

Lack of proper food, terrible disease problems, "camp followers" and related things are discussed as is the fact that some men would desert and sometimes a man or a women would be found as a spy. The story talks about several hangings that were conducted to try to deal with those two problems.

The story also tells about how the army basically was not always the nicest thing to have around. The soldiers tended to steal food and wood from the houses in the area. The people in the area were also ordered to help provide the soldiers with grain. On the other hand, some of the local people were employed to handle the laundry of the officers.

The noise of the nearby soldiers also proved to be a problem at times, especially when they chose to get up early, practice using their guns or otherwise disturb the general quiet of the valley.

It's an especially interesting book, one that provides some very fascinating insights into the earliest military that this country actually had, and what kind of relationship it had with the general populace.


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