("Yankee Doodle") - [Narrator] The legend of the winter at Valley Forge is one of downtrodden soldiers, battered, bleeding, and starving, without proper clothes, but this six-month stint in an almost nine-year war was not the army's lowest moment.

Valley Forge became a training ground, where a cluster of colonial militias transformed into one professional army.

About 12,000 built what became the fourth-largest settlement in the colonies.

The harsh Pennsylvania winter made the elevated encampment easy to defend, but it also made it difficult to receive meat and clothing at times.

The true killers of Valley Forge were influenza, typhus, typhoid, and dysentery, killing around 2,000 settlers.

Today, many regard this historic moment as the birthplace of the American Army.