March 15, 1778
Dear Father,
I'm in Valley Forge, living with 12 people in a really small room. Its very cold right now, because there are lots of snow on the ground and we don't have very much warmth. Our cabin is drafty, damp, smoky and terribly unhealthy. We don't have enough food, but just fire cakes, because don't come and drop off supplies, because the roads are so bad. I spend most of my time keeping warm and dry. Many of the soldiers are getting ill, maybe from water from the river because people and animals are peeing and dumping upstream. People are either too sick to fight or dying. About 3,000 soldiers have died at camp or in the hospitals.
I joined the army because I wanted to fight the Britain's so that we can control our own colonies. This army isn't really prepared to fight the Britain's because we didn't get much training and we didn't know how to march in ranks or maneuver on the battle fields. Baron Von Steuben is going to get us to beat the Britain's but he does not speak English. Steuben speak very few words and we have to try figuring out what he is saying.
In the begging of the war Washington was not a very good leader, because we lost all of the battles with the British, but in the end Washington emerged stronger than ever, because we "soldiers" worship Washington, this army did not fall apart. The French will send us uniforms and gear to help us with the war.
Since I joined this war I felt like a real soldier until it got to the point of everything getting bad, but after quite a while everything turn out to be much better, because of the French helping us. We also got extra months pay for sticking throughout the winter.
Sincerely, Joe
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