"so how well drilled?" Topic

So how well drilled were the Continentals before Von Steuben taught them? Washington, after all, had commanded the Virginia Regiment; were they not drilled? And there must surely have been other American officers who knew the manual?

And what about the performance of, say, the Marylanders on Long Island? Drilled. surely?

So what exactly were VonS's contributions? Not trying to pick a fight here, I genuinely don't know.

As I understand it, a lot of the problem was that there wasn't "the manual." Each regiment was drilled as the colonel saw fit. There were a lot of manuals in circulation, and most of them were fairly elaborate for soldiers on a series of one-year enlistments.

(Note that von Steuben had the advantage of troops often on the second year of a three-year enlistment. The soldiers of 1775 and 1776 had all gone home at the end of the year. Soldiers might reenlist, but not necessarily in the same regiment. Turnover was high. But the regiments of Brandywine and Germantown are also the regiments of Monmouth.)

Of course not all colonels were equally diligent in training. Even if they had been, it's difficult to maneuver brigades and divisions when each regiment does things in its own way.

Von Steuben wrote a single stripped down manual--the "Blue Book"--trained men from each regiment and sent them all back to see that everyone was trained to do things in the same way--and sent a cadre of inspectors out to make sure this happened. Then he held drills of steadily larger units, until he was maneuvering the entire army by I think April of 1778.

Contemporaries commented both on increased drill and on the uniformity of drill. And Alexander Hamilton wrote later that he never really understood military discipline until he saw von Steuben sorting out a mob of fleeing soldiers and turn them back into maneuverable regiments in a few minutes at Monmouth.

I think the best recent book is "The Drillmaster of Valley Forge."

RP has it right.
Von Steuben standardized the drill and enforced it.
Previously, almost every regiment believed that they were drilled, and this very much depended on the Colonel.

And it wasn't just the Americans who had deficient drill at the beginning.
The British column to Concord was composed of both light infantry and grenadiers from approximately 10 different regiments. None had drilled together before.
The column that had to fight their way back at North Bridge used different drills. Some of them knew the drill "City Fighting". Some had heard of it. Some were ignorant of it. So disaster and chaos ensued trying to cross the bridge.

Far from being "the best army in the world" the British army had approximately 100 (+/-) different regiments with independent drill. That was certainly cleaned up after Boston had been evacuated.

So, both the American and British army had regimental drill decided by the Colonels.
The British fixed that mess first. The Americans fixed it at Valley Forge.

This is not to say that the Americans were terrible. One could call them in gaming terms 2nd class. Standardizing and simplifying still helped to make Americans 1st class.

His contribution as a "drill master" was to create a standard and simplified drill for the entire army. He personally instructed train-the-trainer classes so soldiers could take their new skills back to their respective regiments and train them. After this standardization, an officer or enlisted man could serve in any regiment and understand the drill.

Steuben is considered the Father of the NCO Corps.

Thank you both,

Sorry a little late. I think we need to draw a distinction between being well drilled and being drilled to a uniform standard. By the time it marched into Valley Forge most of the Continental Army was well drilled. Steuben (and Pulaski for the horse) tried to drill them to a uniform standard. Assuming the incident at Monmouth Robert mentions actually occurred it shows an advantage of being drilled to a uniform standard. Any officer familiar with the uniform standard could give orders to any body of troops on a battlefield and know his orders were being understood.

Gotcha.

Drilling does not include marksmanship. Most civilians, none veterans. Think drills include marching and musketry.
Patriots were very limited on powder and shot. So there was little left over for musketry practice.
Drilling is viewed as uncomplicated. But as Others commented deciding on a manual to use would be key. Manuals could have been in old English or another language.
One comment on soldier quality, most enlisted were poorly educated Hardly knew letters let alone able to understand the flow, purpose, of a paragraph.

Von Steuben introduced training NCOs so they could teach more men faster. I have about dozen copies on Steuben's video on training in stock. Taking them to Nashcon. Lol

Understanding the flow, purpose, of a paragraph important.

Steuben did a video on training? Truly a man ahead of his time!

Unfortunately it did not come with subtitles.