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This article is about the American Revolutionary officer. For ships of the same name, please see the Von Steuben disambiguation page

Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Steuben, Baron von Steuben (September 17, 1730 – November 28, 1794) was a German-Prussian General who served with George Washington in the American Revolutionary War and is credited with teaching the Continental Army the essentials of military drill and discipline. He reorganized the Continental Army and guided it to victory.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Looking for work 3 Namesakes, honors, and trivia 4 References 5 External links

Steuben was born at Magdeburg, Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the son of Wilhelm Augustin Steuben (1699-1783), a lieutenant of engineers. His mother was Elizabeth von Jagvodin. Steuben accompanied his father to the Russian Empire when Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg, ordered Wilhelm into the service of Czarina Anna I. The family returned to Prussia after the accession of Friedrich II to the throne in 1740.

Steuben was schooled in Breslau by Jesuits and by the age of 17 was a Prussian officer in the military. He was a member of an infantry unit and a staff officer in the Seven Years' War, and was later made a member of the General Staff, serving periodically in Russia. His service was commendable, and he was eventually given an assignment with Frederick the Great's headquarters. His experiences as a General Staff member in the Prussian Army gave him a wealth of knowledge. His training would eventually bring to the American soldiers the technical knowledge necessary to create an army.

At the age of 33, in 1763, Steuben was discharged as a captain from the army, for reasons that are only speculative. The following year he received the title Freiherr when he became chamberlain at the Petty Court of Hohenzollern-Hechingen. He was the only courtier to accompany his incognito prince to France in 1771, hoping to borrow money. Failing to find funds, they returned to Germany in 1775, deeply in debt. Looking for work to reverse his fortunes, Steuben tried employment in several foreign armies including Austria, Baden, and France. He discovered that Benjamin Franklin was in Paris and that possibly he could find work with the Continental Army in America.

Steuben traveled to Paris in the summer of 1777. As luck would have it, he was endorsed for service by the French Minister of War, Claude Louis, Comte de Saint-Germain, who fully realized the potential of an officer with Prussian General Staff training. Steuben was introduced to George Washington by means of a letter from Franklin as a "Lieutenant General in the King of Prussia's service," a certain exaggeration of his actual credentials. He was advanced travel funds and left Europe from Marseilles. On September 26, 1777, he reached Portsmouth, New Hampshire and by December 1, was being extravagantly entertained in Boston. Congress was in York, Pennsylvania, after being ousted from Philadelphia for the winter and on February 5, 1778, Steuben was with them. They accepted his offer to volunteer, without pay for the time, and on the 23rd of the same month, Steuben was reporting for duty to Washington at Valley Forge. Steuben did not speak English, but his French was such that he could communicate with some of the officers. Alexander Hamilton and Nathanael Greene were of great help in this area. The two men assisted Steuben in drafting a training program for the soldiers which found approval with the Commander-in-Chief in March.

In 1780 Steuben sat on the court-martial of the British Army officer Major John André, who was charged with espionage. The next year he took part, as a major general, in the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia. After the war he received grants of land from several states, and finally Congress voted him a pension of $2,500. He became an American citizen in 1783.

• Von Steuben has a holiday which takes place in September in the United States. It is often considered the German-American event of the year. Participants march, dance, wear Germanic costumes and play Germanic music, and the event is attended by millions of people. The largest event is the Annual German-American Steuben Parade in New York City, which is traditionally followed by a Volksfest (People's Festival) in Central Park. The German-American Steuben Parade has been taking place since 1957. Chicago's von Steuben Day parade is featured in the American movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Philadelphia is also known to host a very large von Steuben Parade that runs throughout the Northeast of the city.

• The post-World War I years were difficult times for the German-American community during which they reorganized their main association into the Steuben Society, now the largest organization for Americans of German extraction.

• 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 Kronprinz Wilhelm was renamed as the USS Baron von Steuben, and in World War II there was the Dampfschiff (DS) 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, a US Navy submarine was named for him, the USS Von Steuben.

• 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.

• Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center is a public high school in Chicago, Illinois.

• Steuben is one of four German-American military leaders who assisted the American cause during the Revolution honored with a statue in Lafayette Square just north of The White House in Washington, DC.

• A Steuben House presented to Steuben as a gift for his services in the Continental Army is located in River Edge, New Jersey. Originally belonging to a Loyalist family, the house and surrounding farmland were seized in 1781. It was bought by the county of Bergen in 1928 for $9,000 and preserved as a national monument and public museum. The area around the house is used for both Revolutionary and Civil War re-enactments.

• The Hamilton College football team plays on Steuben Field constructed in 1897, one of the top ten oldest collegiate football fields in the United States.^[1] The field is named for Baron von Steuben who laid the cornerstone of the school acting as Alexander Hamilton's surrogate. Upon graduating, all Hamilton seniors receive a cane as a gift from the college. The cane's design features a tri-corn hat at the top of the cane to honor von Steuben.

• The various depictions of Steuben in popular (American) media include portrayals by Nehemiah Persoff in the 1979 U.S. TV Miniseries The Rebels, Kurt Knudson in the 1984 TV miniseries George Washington, and being voiced by Austrian-American Arnold Schwarzenegger in the animated series Liberty's Kids.

• Steuben has been cited (most notably by Randy Shilts in his book Conduct Unbecoming) as an early example of a gay man in the military, but the evidence in this matter is inconclusive.^[2]

1. ^ NESCAC Football Record Book
2. ^ Uniform Discrimination. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved on 2007-09-18.

• Baron Von Steuben: An account of a 19th century visit to America by his German relatives