Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

Baron von Steuben was born in the fortress town of Magdeburg in Prussia (now in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany), on September 17, 1730, the son of Royal Prussian Engineer Capt. Wilhelm von Steuben and his wife, Elizabeth von Jagvodin. When his father entered the service of Empress Anna of Russia, young Friedrich went with him to Crimea and then to Kronstadt, staying until the Russian war against the Turks under General Burkhard Christoph von Münnich. In 1740, Steuben's father returned to Prussia and Friedrich was educated in the garrison towns Neisse and Breslau by Jesuits. Despite his education by a Catholic order, von Steuben remained critical of Catholicism. It is said that at age 14 he served as a volunteer with his father in one of the campaigns of the War of the Austrian Succession. ==First military service==

Baron von Steuben joined the Prussian Army at age 17. He served as a second lieutenant during the Seven Years' War in 1756, and was wounded at the 1757 Battle of Prague. Upon the reduction of the army at the end of the war, in 1763, Steuben was one of many officers who found themselves unemployed. ==Service in Hohenzollern-Hechingen==

In 1765, Steuben became Hofmarschall to Fürst Josef Friedrich Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, a post he held until 1777. In 1769 the Duchess of Württemberg, niece of Frederick the Great, presented him with the Cross of the Order of De la Fidelite. In 1771 he began to use the title baron. That same year he accompanied the prince to France, hoping to borrow money. Failing to find funds, they returned to Germany in 1775, deeply in debt. After unknown events, Steuben was discharged from his position as a captain and traveled to Paris. It is speculated that he was, or was accused of being, homosexual. It is unknown whether or not this occurred, and regardless, no charges were pursued. an exaggeration of his actual credentials that appears to be based on a mistranslation of his service record. He was advanced travel funds and left Europe from Marseille on Friday, September 26, 1777, on board the frigate Flamand. ==American Revolution==

by Ralph Earl Steuben, his Italian Greyhound Azor (which he took with him everywhere), his young aide-de-camp Louis de Pontière, his military secretary Pierre-Étienne du Ponceau, and two other companions reached Portsmouth, New Hampshire on December 1, 1777. There, they were almost arrested because Steuben and his entourage were wearing red clothing similar to those worn by British troops. As he could only speak and write a small amount of English, Steuben originally wrote the drills in French, the military language of Europe at the time. His secretary, Du Ponceau, then translated the drills from French into English, with the help of John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton, two of Washington's aides-de-camp. Steuben introduced a system of progressive training, beginning with the school of the soldier, with and without arms, and going through the school of the regiment. This corrected the previous policy of simply assigning personnel to regiments. Each company commander was made responsible for the training of new men, but actual instruction was done by sergeants specifically selected for being the best obtainable. Upon Steuben's initial inspection of the camp and soldiers, he remarked that “the American soldier, never having used this arm, had no faith in it, and never used it but to roast his beefsteak." Its basis was the training plan he had devised at Valley Forge. It was used by the United States Army until 1814, After the review, about sixty generals and colonels attended a dinner hosted by Steuben in a large tent near his headquarters at the Abraham Staats House. Southern campaign In 1780, Steuben sat on the court-martial of British Major John André, captured and charged with espionage in conjunction with the defection of General Benedict Arnold. He was forced to take sick leave, rejoining the army for the final campaign at Yorktown, where his role was as commander of one of the three divisions of Washington's troops. In 1783, General Von Steuben joined General Knox at Vail's Gate, near West Point, in the fall of 1782 and in early 1783 moved to the Verplanck homestead, at Mount Gulian, across the Hudson River from Washington's headquarters in Newburgh. Steuben gave assistance to Washington in demobilizing the army in 1783 as well as aiding in the defense plan of the new nation. In May 1783, Steuben presided over the founding of the Society of the Cincinnati. He was discharged from the military with honor on March 24, 1784. ==Final years==

& his "Jersey Estate", c. 1752, enlarged 1767, in situ, at New Bridge Landing Steuben became a naturalized U.S. citizen by act of the Pennsylvania legislature in March 1784 and later by the New York authorities in July 1786. With the war over, Steuben resigned from service and first settled with his longtime companion, William North, for whom he created a special room on Manhattan Island, where he became a prominent figure and elder in the German Reformed Church. From 1785 until his death in 1794, he served as president of the German Society of the City of New York, a charitable society founded in 1784 to assist German immigrants. In 1786, during Shays's Rebellion, under the written name "Belisarius", Steuben criticized the Massachusetts government for being an oligarchy. On December 23, 1783, the state of New Jersey presented him with the use of an estate in Bergen County now known as Steuben House, which had been confiscated from Loyalist Jan Zabriskie in 1781. Located in the formerly strategic New Bridge Landing, the estate included a gristmill and about of land. Legislators initially conditioned the grant, requiring Steuben to "hold, occupy and enjoy the said estate in person, and not by tenant." General Philemon Dickinson of the New Jersey Militia informed Steuben of this gift and responded to his inquiries that Von Steuben spent considerable sums to repair wartime damages to the house and restore its commercial operations under Walker. On September 5, 1788, the New Jersey Legislature gave Baron von Steuben full title to the former Zabriskie estate. A month later, recognizing his financial embarrassment, Steuben wrote another former aide-de-camp and companion, William North, recognizing: "The Jersey Estate must and is to be sold. Walker is my administrator, all debts are to be paid out of it." On November 6, 1788, Steuben again wrote North (at his new home in Duanesburg, New York), noting "My Jersey Estate is Advertised but not yet Sold, from this Walker Shall immediately pay to you the money, you so generously lend me and all my debts in New-York will be payed. I support my present poverty with more heroism than I Expected. All Clubs and parties are renounced, I seldom leave the House." Steuben eventually sold the New Jersey property to a son of the previous owner, and it remained in the Zabriskie family until 1909. It is the only remaining eighteenth-century building that von Steuben owned. Von Steuben was present at the first inauguration of George Washington in New York in 1789. Von Steuben moved upstate and settled in Oneida County on a small estate in the vicinity of Rome, New York, on land granted to him for his military service and where he had spent summers. He was later appointed a regent for what evolved into the University of the State of New York. In 1790, Congress awarded him a pension of $2,500 a year, which he kept until his death. ==Personal life and death==

Von Steuben died on November 28, 1794, at his estate in Oneida County, and was buried in a grove at what became the Steuben Memorial State Historic Site. The estate became part of the town of Steuben, New York, which was named for him. Von Steuben is believed by some historical journalists to have been gay. Von Steuben had arrived in the United States with his 17-year-old secretary and (then speculated to be) lover, Peter Stephen Du Ponceau. In Prussia, he may have had numerous relationships with young soldiers, and also with Prince Henry of Prussia and Frederick the Great. Von Steuben formally adopted Walker and North and made them his heirs. Some consider this action an indication of Von Steuben's homosexuality, as some gay men of the time period would use adoption as a substitution for marriage, to establish a recognized legal relationship and a legal connection to heirs. He never married and had no children, and he did not care much for his European relatives. A third young man, John W. Mulligan (1774–1862), the son of Hercules Mulligan, who also considered himself one of von Steuben's "sons", inherited his vast library, collection of maps and $2500 in cash (). In his 1781 will, he left the majority of his estate to his nephew, as long as he would move permanently to the United States and reject the title of baron or any other title of nobility. (From Paul Lockhart's book.) ==Legacy==

Generally, Von Steuben Day takes place in September in many cities throughout the United States. It is often considered the German American event of the year. Participants march, dance, wear German costumes and play German music, and the event is attended by millions of people. The German-American Steuben Parade is held annually in September in New York City. It is one of the largest parades in the city and is traditionally followed by an Oktoberfest in Central Park as well as celebrations in Yorkville, Manhattan, a historically German section of New York City. The German-American Steuben Parade has been taking place since 1958. Chicago hosts a von Steuben Day parade, which is featured in the U.S. film ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off''. Philadelphia hosts a smaller Steuben Parade in the Northeast section of the city. The Steuben Society was founded in 1919 as "an educational, fraternal, and patriotic organization of American citizens of German background". In the difficult post-World War I years the Society helped the German-American community to reorganize. It is now one of the largest organizations for Americans of German descent. A warship, a submarine, and an ocean liner (later pressed into military service) were named in von Steuben's honor. In World War I, the captured German ship was renamed as USS Von Steuben. In World War II there was the Dampfschiff General von Steuben, an ill-fated German luxury passenger ship which was turned into an armed transport ship during the war. During the Cold War, the U.S. Navy submarine was named for him. Several locations in the United States are named Steuben, most of them in his honor. Examples include Steuben County, New York, Steuben County, Indiana, and the city of Steubenville, Ohio. Steuben Hill is named after him. Several buildings are named for Steuben, among them Von Steuben Metropolitan High School in Chicago, Illinois, and one of the cadet barracks buildings at Valley Forge Military College. Von Steuben was one of four European military leaders who assisted the U.S. cause during the Revolution and was honored with a statue in Lafayette Square, just north of the White House, in Washington, D.C. The statue by Albert Jaegers was dedicated in 1910. A copy was dedicated in Potsdam, Germany, in 1911, and destroyed during World War II. A new cast was given in honor of German-American friendship in 1987, and to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin. It was installed in the Dahlem district, in what had been the U.S. sector of the formerly divided city. A cast is in Steuben's home town of Magdeburg. Statues of Steuben by J. Otto Schweizer can be found in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Utica, New York, in addition to an equestrian statue by Schweizer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A bust of Steuben is in the garden of the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in December 1970, for its significance in architecture and military history. The Hotel von Steuben was a United States Armed Forces Recreation Center (AFRC) Europe hotel located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany. The property entered U.S. military use in 1954 and served as a holiday and rest facility for members of the U.S. Armed Forces, before closing in 2004 following the opening of the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort. Franciscan University of Steubenville honors their city's namesake by having The Barons as their moniker and mascot. Other tributes include Steuben Field, the stadium of the Hamilton College football team. Von Steuben, acting as Alexander Hamilton's surrogate, laid the cornerstone of the school. Depictions of Steuben in popular U.S. media include portrayals by Nehemiah Persoff in the 1979 U.S. TV miniseries The Rebels, Kurt Knudson in the 1984 TV miniseries George Washington, being voiced by Austrian-American Arnold Schwarzenegger in the animated series ''Liberty's Kids, and by David Cross on the "Philadelphia" episode of Drunk History''. In 2007, a popular documentary DVD was released by LionHeart FilmWorks and director Kevin Hershberger titled ''Von Steuben's Continentals: The First American Army''. The 60-minute, live-action documentary details the uniforms, camp life, food, weapons, equipment, and drill of the Continental soldier from 1775 to 1781, as taught and developed by Baron von Steuben. File:Baron von Steuben Monumental Tomb Jul 10.jpg|Steuben's grave, Steuben, New York File:Von Steuben Statue (Washington, D.C.).jpg|Baron von Steuben (1910), Albert Jaegers, sculptor, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. File:Monument to Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben in Utica, New York.jpg|Baron von Steuben (1914), J. Otto Schweizer, sculptor, Memorial Parkway, Utica, New York. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10122, Potsdam, Kundgebung der Steubengesellschaft.jpg|Steubendenkmal (1911), Steubenplatz, Potsdam, Germany. A replica of the 1910 Washington, D.C. statue. ==See also==