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."