Stealth History Lesson
I’m still watching Liberty’s Kids because REASONS and I watched an episode with Baron von Steuben, and I get why they didn’t include this in a kid’s show, but this dude is THE BEST PART of the winter at Valley Forge.
LET ME TELL YOU WHY, WITH ABUSE OF CAPS LOCK AND BAD LANGUAGE AND IRREVERENCE.
Okay, some background. Baron von Steuben was a Prussian baron who shipped his ass over to America in 1777 in order to help Washington whip the bunch of random farmers, miners, tradesmen, etc who formed the Continental ‘Army’ at the time into shape. He reached Valley Forge in early 1778 (after almost getting his own soldiers ARRESTED IN BOSTON because he accidentally outfitted them in red coats, honestly this dude’s life is just PRIME HISTORICAL COMEDY MATERIAL, someone get the fuck on that) and immediately made a name for himself as a complete–but effective!–wackjob. He would go outside in the middle of winter in full military dress and have all the soldiers (many of whom were lacking a coat and boots at the time, because the goddess of efficiency Martha Washington had not yet made her presence known) run drills from sunup to sundown, whereas most military commanders of the day were Pointedly Uninvolved in the messy day-to-day shit. He also continued the trend of having commanders who were still learning English (Lafayette spoke almost no English upon his arrival, for example), because when von Steuben reached America he spoke zero English and had to write all his orders in French and give them to either HIS aide de camp to translate or the aide Washington periodically lent him (fun fact: Lt. Colonols Hamilton and Laurens were his usual lent-out aides because they both spoke French).
NOW YOU HAVE SOME BACKGROUND AND WE CAN GET TO THE GOOD STUFF.
First off, Baron von Steuben was, I swear to Christ, the gayest human ever. You know how normally historians will run fucking rings around themselves trying to prove that various persons are perfectly straight (emphatic side-eye at a number of biographers here) and EVEN IF THEY WEREN’T, well, can’t go applying modern sexualities to historical characters and so on? NOT AN OPTION. This dude was SO gay. He is on record as having mentioned a woman EXACTLY ONCE as a teenager and then apparently gave the whole gender up as a bad job. Like, I could start going into the evidence that he was gay and we would be here all night. Literally the only thing to say to someone who questions you on whether Baron von Steuben was gay is “PROVE IT BITCH” and then laugh at them while they cry over how unprovable their argument is. YOU’RE GONNA NEED TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. Or you could just read his Wikipedia article. (Memorably, he met a young man named Benjamin Walker in Washington’s camp and announced “If I had seen an angel from heaven I would not have more rejoiced,” took this guy on as his aide de camp, and referred to him as 'his angel’ indefinitely. Walker apparently had very few compunctions about using this to his advantage.)
THE REASON THIS MATTERS is that Baron von Steuben, a VERY IMPORTANT HISTORICAL FIGURE, who trained an entire army like it was, how d'you say, no sweat, to all appearances threw the very first underwear party in our illustrious nation’s history.
It’s colloquially known as the Pantless Party (don’t google that, for obvious reasons). But so the deal was that, at Valley Forge, they were basically running out of everything. You name it, they were out of it. Trees? GONE, used 'em for the fortifications and the huts. Medical supplies? Dude we used 'em all over the winter treating, like, I don’t fuckin’ know, polio and smallpox and shit. Blankets? Literally everything that we COULD be using for a blanket IS BEING USED FOR A BLANKET. Shirts? Fuck bro, we don’t have blankets, where the fuck are we gonna get cloth for shirts? PANTS? SEE PREVIOUS RE: TOTAL LACK OF CLOTH. But so everyone had whatever breeches they came to Valley Forge with and that was pretty much it.
EXCEPT FOR THE UPPER LEVEL OFFICERS, LIKE THE BARON.
But so he looked around at all his junior staff and he was like “It’s not that I don’t APPRECIATE having a lot of fit attractive young men running around in threadbare breeches, but that’s gotta be depressing, right?”
And so he gave his aides permission to invite a bunch of junior staff members over to his headquarters and throw, basically, the 1778 version of a kegger.
I shit you not.
The only rule for admission to the party was that “none should be admitted that had a whole pair of breeches.” (x) Some guys tore their breeches, most (in deference to the fact that they weren’t exactly rolling in spares) just stripped them off and trotted inside for the best feast they could put together on the collected rations of the attendants. They also drank what were reportedly called “salamanders,” meaning flaming shots. And yes, I do mean flaming shots JUST like the ones you would see a bunch of dumb spring breakers drinking. The Baron was known to speak fondly of this party for years afterward–and of his sansculottes ('without breeches’ in French) as he called the attendants. This term entered common use for the Revolutionary army and, presumably, most of them were mum on the fact that it came from being literally sans culottes.
AND THAT IS YOUR FUN HISTORICAL STORY FOR THE DAY.
