Washington’s Soldier

Captain William Croghan entered Valley Forge with ten thousand soldiers in December 1777 and left with Washington the following June as a major in Charles Scott’s brigade. He lived and worked with Lafayette, Steuben, Wayne, Hamilton, Burr, and Knox for six brutal months before emerging to encounter Clinton’s British army on a blistering day near Monmouth Court House, New Jersey. Reassigned to the Southern army in defense of Charleston, Croghan was one of approximately thirty-five hundred Americans who were forced to ground their arms to the tune of TheTurk’sMarchon 12 May 1780, the largest patriot defeat of the American Revolution. Released on parole with Colonel Jonathan Clark in the next spring, Croghan was assigned to Fort Pitt, but raced to take part in the battle of Yorktown, the last major military encounter of the Revolution.