Karen Cummings, a Travelers United Plus writer, recently visited Valley Forge National Historical Park and was surprised by how much she didn’t remember from her history lessons at school.

“I realized I must have been sleeping or not paying attention when the Valley Forge, part of the Revolutionary War, was covered in whatever grade we studied it,” she wrote.

After her recent visit, she said she came away “with a far different picture of the famed winter encampment”.

She wrote that the friendly and knowledgeable rangers at the park’s visitor center gave her a richer sense of what the winter of 1777 was like for General George Washington and the Continental Army.

She explained that her image of “a ragtag group of men barely surviving a miserable winter in a cold, muddy valley encampment,” didn’t cover exactly what life was like that winter at Valley Forge.

Taking the downloadable tour the park offers, she learned how when the army was first encamped, they were made up of separate state militias, but that by the end of the winter, they worked together as one unified army.

And besides the almost 12,000 soldiers the encampment includes 400 women and children.

Read more about how history comes to life at Valley Forge National Historical Park at Travelers United Plus.

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