While serving as CEO of Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, I occasionally escorted VIPs through Valley Forge National Historical Park, which bordered our campus. I never tired of telling what the Continental Army endured there, or what General George Washington accomplished there, in the crucible of the American Revolution.
It was on one such visit that I took our guests to the Isaac Potts home, which served as Washington’s headquarters from December 1777 to June 1778. There we joined a tour of the home led by a National Park Service guide who knew his history. He recounted the crushing burdens and overwhelming challenges Washington confronted that bitter winter. He described in detail many of the occupants of and visitors to the home: bright young aides de camp, senior army officers, foreign dignitaries, overseers from the Second Continental Congress.
Although engaging and otherwise thorough, the guide’s presentation omitted someone essential. So I asked about Martha Washington’s arrival and subsequent activities.
“Huh,” snorted one tourist. “Probably sewing.” (As if that didn’t matter when the soldiers’ clothes were in tatters.)
The guide was more respectful. He said that Mrs. Washington had buoyed the spirits of the commander in chief, managed the household staff and entertained distinguished visitors. Then he moved on.
What he said was true — but didn’t begin to do justice to Martha’s service. There’s so much more to her story.
Yes, she sewed. Arriving in February 1778 — when the army was on the verge of dissolution or mutiny — Martha immediately went to work organizing simple socials, boosting morale for the officers and recruiting their wives to join her in sewing shirts and socks for the suffering soldiers.
In the small structure — which served simultaneously as Washington’s military headquarters, his residence, the residence for key officers and aides, and the only hostelry for visitors — she welcomed foreign officers, congressional delegations and others, filling an essential diplomatic role.
She ministered to the sick. She visited their squalid huts, nursing and comforting them there — notwithstanding the stench of the camp and the risk of contagion.
Imagine the courage it took for her to be there. Imagine the courage it took for her to get there in the first place.
In the dead of winter, she left the comfort and safety of her home in Virginia and spent 10 arduous days slogging through mud-swamped roads and ice-choked rivers to reach a camp in Pennsylvania where — by winter’s end — a quarter of the men would die from disease and exposure. Neither her arrival nor even her survival could be taken for granted. Had she been captured — and there were plenty of British patrols — instantly she would have become the world’s most valuable prisoner of war.
Why would she hazard such a journey? Why would her husband want her to?
She didn’t only journey to Valley Forge. From the Revolution’s inception in 1775 through its conclusion in 1783, Martha joined George in every one of the Army’s winter camps. She spent nearly half the war in camp with him.
The Washingtons were deeply devoted to independence and freedom. They were also deeply devoted to each other. “Almost all observers found them exceedingly well matched,” writes biographer Ron Chernow. “Martha … was his dear companion, trusted adviser, and confidante … and they delighted in each other’s company.” Of her arrival in camp, historian Thomas Fleming writes that “she brought with her an indefatigable good cheer” — a vital contribution in the darkest days of the Revolution.
Perhaps her greatest contribution came years later. Long troubled by slavery, Washington had freed several of his slaves at the end of his presidency. In his will he freed all the rest, effective upon Martha’s death. Beyond that, he provided for the education of the young, the training of the able and the support — for life — of the infirm and elderly.
Martha didn’t wait. A year after his death, she signed the deed of manumission freeing them.
From its inception in 1949, Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge recognized and publicized the contributions of women to the American founding. Emblematic of that, it was for Martha Washington that our headquarters building was named. Thousands enter its doors each year, many of them pausing to read this passage on the adjacent bronze plaque:
“Martha Washington, first first lady of the nation, merited personal distinction over and above the honors bestowed upon her as the wife of our first president. Her love of mankind and belief in the dignity of the individual found frequent expression in her daily life.
“Martha Washington loved her country and her husband. Her compassion for the soldiery and steadfast faith in the cause of independence sustained George Washington during the dark hours of despair as he labored to insure personal liberty for all Americans.”
On this Mother’s Day, we remember and honor an unsung hero of the American Revolution: Martha Washington, Founding Mother.