New Windsor: Where the Purple Heart Was Born
New York
From June of seventeen eighty-two to October of seventeen eighty-three, seven thousand Continental Army soldiers lived in six hundred log huts spread across sixteen hundred acres here in New Windsor. The war was effectively over after Yorktown, but the British still occupied New York City, and Washington kept his army in place as insurance. It was here that Washington created the Badge of Military Merit, the purple heart-shaped cloth decoration awarded to common soldiers for valor, an almost unprecedented honor in an era when only officers received formal recognition.
The badge was eventually discontinued, but revived in nineteen thirty-two as the Purple Heart medal we know today. The reconstructed cantonment now sits beside the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor, opened in two thousand six: the last camp of the Continental Army, and the birthplace of America's oldest military decoration.
