Immigrant Patriots of the American Revolution

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we are featuring foreign-born patriots of the American cause.  Today, we honor General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben.

Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Louis Freiherr von Steuben was born on September 17, 1730, to a military family in Magdeburg, Prussia. As a young man, he saw his first taste of war, accompanying his father during the siege of Prague in 1742. Soon after, he enlisted in the famously trained and disciplined Prussian Army and served for 17 years. During his tenure, he fought in the Seven Years’ War, was injured in battle twice, and was captured by enemy forces. He ultimately served as King Frederick II of Prussia’s aide-de-camp.

After leaving the army, he served the court of the prince, Josef Friedrich Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, where he was given the title of “Baron”.  Leaving the court in 1777, he moved to Paris, where he was recruited by Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane. With a letter of introduction from them to George Washington in hand, he sailed to the New World.

Baron von Steuben presented his credentials to Washington during the infamous winter at Valley Forge. It was here that he was challenged to drill and discipline the famously undisciplined army. Not a speaker of English, the baron taught, ordered, cursed, and berated his new charges in German and French, with translation provided by multilingual American officers.

During that winter, Von Steuben wrote Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, which taught the soldiers the manual of arms, firing drills, close order drill, and tactics, which made them a faster-moving and more effective fighting force on the battlefield; this became the standard guide for American Army training until 1812.

In 1778, Congress promoted him to the rank of major general and asked him to serve as the inspector general of the Continental Army. In 1780, Von Steuben was given a field command of a division in Virginia. He later led those troops at the siege of Yorktown, where he was responsible for the artillery barrage that helped secure the American victory.

After the Revolutionary War, Baron von Steuben aided General Washington in demobilizing the Army and organizing the post-war defense of the new United States of America.

Upon his discharge, he became a citizen in 1784 and retired to New York.

After what was described as suffering an attack of apoplexy (likely a stroke or heart attack) on November 28, 1794, Baron von Steuben died on his Remsen, New York farm in Oneida County.