Smithfield UCC - Pittsburgh's history in stained glass: George Washington and Baron Von Steuben

"Washington and Von Steuben 1778"

Friedrich von Steuben was discharged as a captain from the Prussian army in 1763. By 1775, after more than a decade of difficult years in France, he returned to Germany deeply in debt and began seeking employment with foreign armies. With the coming of the American Revolution he thought to offer his services to the Continental Army. In 1777 he traveled to Paris where with the help of the French minister of war, Count Claude Louis de Saint-Germain and Beaumarchais, a strong supporter of the American Revolution, Steuben gained an introduction to the American commissioners Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane.

Though Steuben had never held rank higher than captain, it was agreed that he would be represented to the Continental Congress as a former lieutenant general in service to the king of Prussia (at some point picking up also the "von"). In January 1778 he was received by the Continental Congress, then meeting at York, Pennsylvania, and directed to report to General George Washington at Valley Forge. Washington assigned Steuben to training the troops, a task he performed so well that by May of that year he was promoted to the rank of major general. His "Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States" (1780) became – and remained for over three decades – the army's standard drill manual.