And Then They Prayed. Barry Loudermilk
under the influence of republican virtue, to partake of all the blessings of cultivated and Christian society.
When the Convention reconvened the following week, there was a new attitude among the delegates. Franklin’s call for prayer had broken the deadlock that threatened to end the Convention, and a new air of cooperation had replaced the spirit of dissention. Jonathon Dayton recorded in his journal that, “Every unfriendly feeling had been expelled, and a spirit of conciliation had been cultivated.”
The Constitutional Convention went back to work; but this time, the debates were civil and their differences were easily worked out through negotiations. On September 17, 1787 the final vote was called, and the Constitution of the United States of America was formally adopted. This document, beginning with the words, “We the People,” not only shaped a new nation, but ultimately changed the course of history for the entire world, because of one man’s call for prayer and the miracle of cooperation that resulted.
The Constitution was not the only product that resulted from Franklin’s call for prayer. When the first Constitutional Congress of the United States convened on April 9, 1789, one of the first actions of Congress was to formally enact Benjamin Franklin’s recommendation made at the Constitutional Convention. Congress formally appointed two chaplains, one to the House and one to the Senate, and each was paid a salary from the national treasury. This tradition has continued as, still today, every session of Congress is opened in prayer.
References
Federer, William J. America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations. Coppell, TX: Fame, 1994. Print.
Flexner, James Thomas. George Washington: the Forge of Experience, 1732-1775. Boston: Little, Brown, 1965. Print.
Madison, James. Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison. New York: Norton, 1987. Print.
M’Guire, E. C. The Religious Opinions and Character of Washington. New York: Harper, 1836. Print.
Morris, B. F. Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of the Republic. Philadelphia: G.W. Childs, 1864. Print.
U. S. —Constitutional Convention. Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Which Framed the Constitution of the United States of America. Oxford Univ. Pr., 1920. Print.
The Prayer At Valley Forge
General George Washington (1777)
“And I will bring the third part through the fire, And will refine them as silver is refined, And will try them as gold is tried: They shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people:”
Zechariah 13:9
The winter of 1777 was perhaps the harshest and coldest winter the eleven thousand soldiers serving under George Washington had ever experienced. Following a devastating defeat, encountered while attempting to stop the British from taking America’s prize city of Philadelphia, General George Washington needed a place to make winter camp. Scouts were sent to search the countryside near Philadelphia for a suitable location. Finally, in December, the scouts returned to inform Washington of an acceptable site only eighteen miles northwest of Philadelphia, a forested area between Valley Creek and the Schuylkill River. In a strategic sense, the site was easily defendable and the forests would provide fuel for heat and wood for shelter; however, it would not provide their most needed resource; food. Even though there were a few farms in the area, the wheat and barley fields had either been burned by the British to keep them out of the hands of the Continental Army, or stripped clean by British patrols.
On December 19, Washington mounted his horse and led his army through a bitterly cold ice storm, to their new winter dwelling at Valley Forge. As they walked, Washington saw that very few of his soldiers had shoes that totally covered their feet, some only wore rags wrapped around their feet, and others marched barefoot through the snow and ice. Washington sorrowfully watched as his men fought the frigid temperatures and driving wind to keep moving. Ice and snow pelted their nearly naked bodies; but, as Washington noted, through all their suffering, they never murmured a complaint about their conditions. Washington, in describing their condition, stated, “No history…can furnish an instance of an army’s suffering such uncommon hardships as ours has done, and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude. To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes (for the want of which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet).”
Initially, all eleven thousand men were forced to lived in tents; but very soon after their arrival at Valley Forge, Washington ordered all able bodied men to begin constructing cabins. These cabins, which Washington had designed himself, measured fourteen feet by sixteen feet and each would house twelve men. Since the Continental Army was comprised of many farmers, trappers and experienced woodsmen, they were able to devise structures that could be built without nails, which was important since nails were a luxury the Continental Army could not acquire. Amazingly, within a month, the Army had constructed over seven hundred of these small shelters. Now they would have some protection from the heavy snow fall and, with a crude fireplace in each dwelling, they would have a little warmth.
Washington’s staff had selected a nearby farm, the home of a Quaker named Isaac Potts, to serve as the General’s headquarters. However, against the wishes of his physician and staff officers, Washington remained in his leaky cold tent, refusing to move into the house until every last soldier had access to warm quarters. His staff tried to convince him that, should he become ill or die from influenza or one of the many other illnesses that were prevalent in the camp, the fight for independence would surely die with him. But Washington insisted that his own conditions would not improve until those of his men improved. Finally, to the relief of his officers and aides, the last cabin was completed and the General moved into the Potts’ home.
Conditions at Valley Forge were desperate. Rations were low and meals consisted of barely enough nutrition to keep a healthy man alive. Disease and illness were rampant throughout the camp. Influenza, small pox, typhus, starvation, and exposure to the extreme winter conditions, were taking the lives of about twelve men per day. The camp was a despairing and deadly place, but Washington refused to be isolated from his Army. Early each morning, the General would mount his horse and make his rounds among the camp. Washington’s visits were not to inspect the neatness of the barracks or to file his men into ranks for lengthy speeches on their duties. The General was visiting and encouraging his men out of pure compassion. Washington’s physician, Doctor Thacher, said, “…his Excellency the Commander in Chief…manifested a fatherly concern and fellow-feeling for their sufferings and made every exertion in his power to remedy the evil and to administer the much desired relief.”
In February, conditions worsened as the camp was down to its last twenty-five barrels of flour, and the winter weather conditions went from bad to extreme. Around this time a Congressional Committee, sent to inspect the condition of the Army, arrived. Their report to Congress of “feet and legs froze till they became black, and it was often necessary to amputate them,” told a chilling but true story of life at Valley Forge. But through all their suffering, as Washington so often commented, his men never really complained. Washington reported that men would wander around the camp with such torn rags for clothes that they covered very little of their bodies, but there was little he could do other than grieve for his men. Washington wrote, “I am…convinced beyond a doubt that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place…this Army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things: starve, dissolve, or disperse…”
Washington realized that without an immediate and drastic change, the dream of independence would die with his Army at Valley Forge. The compassionate General Washington saw his men suffering and dying, and he must have also envisioned the widowed brides and orphaned children that would inevitably result from