Welcome to Call to Decision 

 American Minute with Bill Federer

 December 19

 Driven into Pennsylvania by the British, the Continental Army set up
 camp at Valley Forge, DECEMBER 19, 1777, just 25 miles from British
 occupied Philadelphia.

 Lacking food and supplies, soldiers died at the rate of twelve per
 day.

 Of 11,000 soldiers, 2,500 died of cold, hunger and disease.

 A Committee from Congress reported "feet and legs froze till they
 became black, and it was often necessary to amputate them."

 Soldiers were there from every State in the new union, some as young
 as 12, others as old as 60, and though most were white, some were
 African American and American Indians.

 Quaker farmer Isaac Potts observed General Washington kneeling in
 prayer in the snow.

 Hessian Major Carl Leopold Baurmeister noted the only thing that kept
 the American army from disintegrating was their "spirit of liberty."

 In a letter written to John Banister, Washington recorded:

 "To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without
 blankets to lay on, without shoes, by which their marches might be
 traced by the blood from their feet...

 and at Christmas taking up their...quarters within a day's march of
 the enemy...is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion
 can scarce be paralleled."