The American army consisted of precisely 12,161 Continental troops and
3,241 militia. This equality in point of numbers rendered it a prudent
precaution to maintain a superiority of position. As the two armies
occupied heights fronting each other neither could attack without
giving to its adversary some advantage in the ground, and this was an
advantage which neither seemed willing to relinquish.

The return of Howe to Philadelphia without bringing on an action after
marching out with the avowed intention of fighting is the best
testimony of the respect which he felt for the talents of his adversary
and the courage of the troops he was to encounter.

The cold was now becoming so intense that it was impossible for an army
neither well-clothed nor sufficiently supplied with blankets longer to
keep the field in tents. It had become necessary to place the troops in
winter quarters, but in the existing state of things the choice of
winter quarters was a subject for serious reflection. It was impossible
to place them in villages without uncovering the country or exposing
them to the hazard of being beaten in detachment.

To avoid these calamities it was determined to take a strong position
in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, equally distant from the Delaware
above and below that city, and there to construct huts in the form of a
regular encampment which might cover the army during the winter. A
strong piece of ground at Valley Forge, on the west side of the
Schuylkill between twenty and thirty miles from Philadelphia, was
selected for that purpose, and some time before day on the morning of
the 11th of December (1777) the army marched to take possession of it.
By an accidental concurrence of circumstances Lord Cornwallis had been
detached the same morning at the head of a strong corps on a foraging