There are many reasons that I would want to leave Valley Forge. In the source “Estimates of Death and Illness at Valley Forge”(Doc A) is just one of the sources that proves why you should leave. For example about 3,989 people were sick in February at Valley Forge. Another reasons is that 1,800 to 2,500 died in the total time they were there.(Estimates of Death and Illness at Valley Forge) Another source that shares my view is the Diary of Doctor Waldo. He writes about the “poor food-hard lodging-cold weather-fatigue-nasty clothes-nasty cookery…” Another thing he writes about is how they ran out of meat in December 21, 1777. A Third source is the Engraving of the Committee of Congress at Valley Forge. In it General George Washington had to…
2. The men in the left were the committee, in the right the soldiers, and the men in the…
* Canadians volunteered to join the war because they believed it would be over by Christmas. Others joined because they were unemployed and the war would bring them out of hardships. Women were considered too frail. Women worked as nurses and ambulance drivers. Canadian officials did not accept aboriginal people and were reluctant to take African and Japanese.…
The emperors, Henry VII and Ludwig IV, had both dreamed of bringing about a renewal of imperial authority and the empire, in the mould of the Carolingians, or perhaps even, Rome itself, and it seemed at the beginning of the fourteenth-century that this might be plausible. Yet, this had not been the only envisioned ‘empire’ at the start of the fourteenth-century; there was the imagined papal monarchy, reigning supreme over all of Italy, or perhaps even all Christendom, the Plantagenet Empire dreamed of by King Edward I of England, or the Capetian Empire of King Philip IV of France, or even King Alfonso XI of Castile’s united Iberian Peninsula. These “fantasy kingdoms”, to borrow a phrase from John Watts, would prove to be unachievable, but as…
World War II was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. In 1940, in accordance with the Selective Service Act set forth by Congress, over 1 million men were drafted (World). Most men who served were husbands, sons, fathers, brothers, or perhaps all four. Their risked their lives, were willing to fight and if necessary, die for their country. Children were left fatherless, and many lived in families of women. The biggest change on society at the time was the contributions women were making. During World War II, thousands of American women left their homes for the first time to…
When you hear “Valley Forge” do you think of great living conditions, a large quantity of food, and all healthy soldiers? No. In the winter of 1777 and 1778 when George Washington’s Continental Army was forced to set up winter camp in Philadelphia even the littlest task of surviving was a struggle. Washington couldn’t even keep his own soldiers in the battle. So if you were a 9 month soldier, living in huts, becoming ill, and not being provided with enough supplies would you have stayed to fight for your country or would you have left to be with your family? Even though the Continental Army was made up of patriot soldiers, many deserted, and so would I due to the fact that death and illness were very common, Washington wasn’t a very good leader, and the housing was poor.…
Initially soldiers joined the fight with a sense of patriotism and nationalistic pride. A steady income was also appealing to any man willing to fight. The war was deadly and brutal to the…
The WWII generation shares some similarities when it comes to national pride, services and, family life, and equality of all Americans. National pride is something we have had almost since the beginning of the country. During WWII was one of the peeks we have had as a country, we supported almost everything, and everyone. Since then it started going downhill, until September 11th, 2001, although a horrible day for the nation it also united us and made us stand up for the counter with pride. Even with that pride, there is not much sacrificing in these current generations. Back during WWII you could go back behind a house and you were almost guaranteed to see a victory garden, a garden full of vegetables and other food, because stores were rationing food for the war effort. Today what sacrifices do you see? What do you see people doing for the country, because I don’t see much. Family life was also much different than it is today. Families would lose sons and fathers and the mothers and daughters would go to work in factories which up until then was the…
The Prussian Baron von Steuben, being a newcomer to the Revolutionary cause in America, was in a position to see many of the deficiencies in military discipline and their causes. The reasons for his unique insight may have been due to the fact that he was distanced from the revolutionary ideals in America, and as a result, was able to better observe and understand them; and ultimately use them to shape his new and successful form of discipline in the Continental Army. Most of the commanders of the Continental Army, from the commander in chief to the lower officers had subscribed to the traditional European method that relied on fear to achieve discipline. This method of fear was probably not essential, and had little if any effect in the early days of the war because the soldiers were mostly fighting for their own ideologies. To the soldiers, the commanders were of little importance.…
For instance, a German soldier reports to the Daily Observer in 1915 that he was enraged because of high prices and food shortages in Germany. The German soldier expresses his strong displeasure over high class citizens who take the soldiers’ inhuman sacrifices for granted and mistreated the women and children(Doc 7). The German soldier is very reliable because he first hand experiences total war, especially because he loses his morality in killing opposing soldiers. Fighting for a country with national pride is one thing, but knowing that civilians who are not “doing the dirty work” and exploiting a community at home is very frustrating, especially for a soldier. Also, German soldiers were unable to return home to protect or check up on their families in the middle of war efforts; this act is a defiance of orders if the soldier neglects to notify his supervisor or is classified as desertion, which is punishable by death. Due to this dissatisfaction with conditions in German cities, many soldiers do not want to fight if it benefits a civilian who is “dead weight.” Also, another example of a German who observes the effects of total war is Evelyn Blucher von Wahlstatt, who records in her diary that several women protest, “The state that called on us to fight cannot even give us decent food, does not treat our men as human beings,”(Doc 8).…
In 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. Over two million military age men from all over the country, including a large contingent from Bradley, served in the armed forces to fight on…
During the Great War, Americans on the homefront contributed to the war effort in a multitude of ways. With practically every able-bodied man fighting over seas, much of the war effort was left to be managed by women and African-Americans. Women took over jobs on farms, loading docks, railway crews, and in armaments industries, machine shops, steel and lumber mills, and chemical plants. They worked in factories to provide supplies, ran hospitals to care for the sick and wounded, and recruited men. Liberty Bonds were purchased to support the war. President Hoover directed a propaganda campaign encouraging “Meatless Mondays” and “Wheatless Wednesdays” in an effort to “both unite the general public behind the war effort and furnish these essential resources to the allied nations” (Food). Other ways to help the war effort included donating blood, recycling at local collection centers, and taking part in war-bond and war-relief drives. Local food boards would hold canning demonstrations and distribute recipes that replaced wheat and sugar with other ingredients, allowing such important ingredients to be sent to the soldiers. Victory gardens, where Americans would grow their own vegetables as opposed to purchasing them from a store, became commonplace. Even children were involved in supporting the war effort from the homefront by creating spotter models to help pilots train to quickly discern what was an enemy aircraft and wasn’t to decrease the chance of friendly fire. Journalists, photographers, artists, and entertainers became useful in war propaganda, conveying the Allies’ war aims to the people as well as the enemy. The American homefront as a whole was remarkably united in supporting and assisting the war effort.…
America’s second world war is conserved by the memorial in Washington D.C. It contains the memories and facts about this event in history, that honors the sixteen million who died in the armed forces, 400,000 who died in the war, and millions of Americans who supported the American war effort at home (National WWII Memorial).…
John Morton Blum retiree of Yale University depicts “combat soldiers as largely disconnected from the geopolitical goals articulated by President Roosevelt.” Each soldier had his own individual motivation entering into the war but all had the same reason to win the war, to make it home. Home was what encouraged the troops to fight. The Saturday Evening Post ran a series asking soldiers what they were fighting for, they were quoted saying “I am fighting for that big house with the bright green roof and the big front lawn”...“that girl with the large brown eyes and the reddish tinge in her hair.” Blum describes the GI as a homely hero, the common good man and the peoples' hero. The soldiers had no visible purpose but winning the war so that he could return to comfort.…
With a war overseas Americans were forced to look at their own prejudices on the home front. While Hitler and Nazism supported the elimination of the non-Arian German, African Americans and other cultures of the United States fought to gain the respect of the United States. While whites and American males fought in the wars of the past numerous other cultures saw World War 2 as a war to show their worth. Cultures such as African Americans, Native Americans, and Chinese Americans fought side by side to fight for America.…