Threshold to Valley Forge: The Six Day Encampment in Gulph Mills by Sheilah Vance
What would you do for democracy?
Between December 12–19, 1777, General George Washington and his Continental Army encamped in the towering hills of Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania, fifteen miles from Philadelphia. Known as the Threshold to Valley Forge, the Gulph Mills Encampment is often forgotten or minimized, falling between the more famous military engagements of the Philadelphia Campaign and the well-known experience of the army at Valley Forge.
Yet, the Gulph Mills Encampment was a significant microcosm of the Revolutionary War and the issues that confronted the Continental Army, the Continental Congress, state governments, and the American citizens who suddenly found themselves on the front lines of the war. This encampment included military encounters with the British; little food, clothing, and shelter for the troops; the celebration of the new nation’s first Thanksgiving, and tough decisions by Washington, including the one to make Valley Forge the army’s winter quarters.
Based largely on writings and documents from soldiers, generals, local residents, the Continental Congress, the British Army, the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and Benjamin Franklin and his colleagues who were in France seeking support from the French King Louis XVI, this first book on the Gulph Mills Encampment reveals the fascinating details of Washington’s and the Continental Army’s last stand before and as they moved into winter quarters at Valley Forge.
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PRAISE FOR THRESHOLD TO VALLEY FORGE
“Sheilah Vance’s book, Threshold to Valley Forge, is an important, unique, and detailed examination of the role of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the issues that faced the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the pivotal and overlooked Gulph Mills Encampment of the Revolutionary War on December 12 – 19, 1777. This book is a major contribution to Pennsylvania history, to the understanding of the Commonwealth’s significance during the American Revolution, and to the examination of Pennsylvania’s intersectional relationship with General George Washington, the Continental Army, and the Continental Congress during this critical time in the founding and progression of our United States. It is a must-read for every student of the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”—The Honorable Joanna McClinton, Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives
“Threshold to Valley Forge adds an important, untold chapter to Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary War history. Through extensive research, Vance illuminates how six days in Gulph Mills shaped the Continental Army’s path to Valley Forge, while highlighting the complex challenges faced by Pennsylvanians during this pivotal time.” — The Honorable Robert P. Casey, Jr., United States Senator for Pennsylvania
“Often the most familiar things are the least understood. Simply because they are so familiar, we never stop to really look at them. Nowhere is this more true than in American history where we think that we have the whole story, that we see the entire tapestry of events leading to where we are today, when in fact what we have is the barest outline of the facts – a mere sketch. And sometimes, as this book demonstrates, whole chapters can be missing.
Like a restorer of fine art, Sheilah Vance has carefully and lovingly revealed a whole section of that tapestry leading up to the encampment at Valley Forge. As we gaze at the events of the Gulph Mills encampment now restored to our consciousness by this book, we can truly appreciate the sacrifices and hardships of those who fought for the freedom we have today. There is no true understanding of the American Revolution without knowing the events at Valley Forge, and there is no true understanding of Valley Forge without an examination of the Gulph Mills encampment that immediately preceded it.
Perhaps at no other time in American history has it been more important to grow beyond the simplified stories we were taught when we were young into a fuller understanding of where we have come from, which of course enables us to understand who we are and where we are going. This book is a major step in that direction.”—Dave Montalvo, President, King of Prussia Historical Society
“This reviewer recommends this book for filling the void and doing so with a trove of wonderful excerpts and images. The primary accounts are numerous and specific to the period while the publisher presents the images in a welcome array of modern and period maps, old photographs and drawings, as well as numerous visual displays of the primary sources: official returns, original letters, advertisements, proclamations, and newspaper excerpts. This presentation is unique and appealing. Together, the sources and the visuals elevate Threshold to Valley Forge to a welcome addition to the Revolutionary War literature.”–Journal of the American Revolution
“Threshold To Valley Forge delivers a wonderful and insightful contribution to the historical scholarship of the American Revolution. With painstaking care and research, Sheilah Vance provides a comprehensive study of the important events leading up to the famous winter encampment of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Vance, not only, adds to our knowledge of Pennsylvania’s role in the Revolution, she also provides the readers an understanding of how individual states and communities, like Gulph Mills, played pivotal roles during the American Revolution.”–Shirley Green, Author, Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence
“Boston Harbor, Bunker Hill, Lexington and Concord, the Old North Bridge, Saratoga, Fort Ticonderoga, Philadelphia, Independence Hall, Valley Forge, the Delaware River, Trenton and Yorktown, are the place names that most commonly leap into our minds when we think of the American Revolution. In her new book, Threshold to Valley Forge: The Six Days of the Gulph Mills Encampment, author Sheilah Vance adds a lesser-known, but no less significant, name to this distinguished historical geography, that of Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania and the crucial role it played in America’s War for Independence. Meticulously researched, citing maps, official documents and the personal correspondence of such notables as Generals George Washington and Anthony “Mad Anthony” Wayne, among others, Vance brings to life the six-day encampment of Washington’s army at Gulph Mills, PA that led to the Continental Army’s brutal winter at Valley Forge, in 1777-78.
In a compelling narrative that hold the reader’s attention, Vance writes about the days before the British took command of Philadelphia, capitol of the new United States, and the days afterward when Washington had to weigh whether or not to battle the enemy throughout the winter or give his beleaguered army a chance to rest, by camping for the season. Vance reveals how Washington consulted his 20 generals, including the Marquis de Lafayette and Nathanial Greene, before making his decision. For the first time, thanks to Sheilah Vance’s attention to detail, we are able to read the responses of these generals and their varying opinions, in their own words. Their letters to Washington feel as though they were written today and through them, the reader is transported to 1777 and can feel the immediacy of the moment. Outcomes that today seem inevitable were not, and through the narrative, readers better understand that this nation was built on a series of decisions, one after the other, with no guarantee of the result. Threshold to Valley Forge also reveals the toll the war took on Pennsylvanians whose homes, food, and livestock were often commandeered by the British and whose everyday lives were upended by the war. Vance grew up in the Gulph Mills area, in a place named Rebel Hill, in honor of the American encampment there. Having read the sign marking the site, Vance was long fascinated by the history of the region and, thanks to her tireless research, is now sharing it with the rest of us, just in time for the United States’ Semiquincentennial, in 2026.”–M. Denise Dennis, a seventh-generation Pennsylvanian, is Chairwoman & CEO of The Dennis Farm Charitable Land Trust and author of Bristol Budd Sampson: Patriot of the American Revolution and Abel Benson: Patriot of the American Revolution. The Historic Dennis Farm received America250PA’s first Semiquincentennial Bell, in recognition of the Farm’s history and the American Revolutionary War veterans interred in the family cemetery on the site.