National Memorial Arch

Standing at the heart of Valley Forge, the National Memorial Arch was authorized by Congress in nineteen ten to honor the Continental Army's grueling winter encampment of seventeen seventy-seven to seventeen seventy-eight. Philadelphia architect Paul Philippe Cret modeled it on the Arch of Titus in Rome, though with a spare American restraint. Construction began in nineteen fourteen and the arch was formally dedicated on June nineteenth, nineteen seventeen, the same day the encampment had ended one hundred thirty-nine years earlier.

Speaker of the House Champ Clark presented it to Pennsylvania that day. The inscription reads simply: to the officers and private soldiers of the Continental Army, December nineteenth, seventeen seventy-seven, to June nineteenth, seventeen seventy-eight. About eleven thousand men entered that camp.

Roughly two thousand died there, mostly from disease, before emerging in the spring as a trained fighting force.