Evidence From the Revolution
D2.His.16.3-5
Read each source, then answer the questions.
James Armistead Lafayette, Spy
An information text written for this worksheet. James Armistead was an enslaved man in Virginia. In 1781 he volunteered to serve under the Marquis de Lafayette, a French general fighting for the Americans. Pretending to be a runaway, he worked in the camp of the British general Cornwallis and sent back reports on British plans. His reports helped Washington and Lafayette trap the British army at Yorktown in October 1781. After the war he was still enslaved, because Virginia freed enslaved soldiers but not spies. In 1787, after Lafayette wrote a letter praising his service, the Virginia legislature freed him. He took the name James Armistead Lafayette.
- 1. What does this text not tell you about his life after 1787?
- 2. Whose camp did James Armistead work in as a spy?
- 3. Where did his reports help trap the British army?
Winter at Valley Forge
An information text written for this worksheet. In December 1777 George Washington's Continental Army camped for the winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The soldiers built more than 1,500 log huts. Many of them had no shoes, few blankets and too little food. Nearly 2,000 soldiers died that winter, most of them from disease. In February 1778 Friedrich von Steuben, an officer from Prussia, arrived and soon began drilling the soldiers to march and fight together. In June 1778 the army marched out of Valley Forge better trained than when it arrived.
- 1. Why did so many soldiers suffer that winter?
- 2. What did Friedrich von Steuben do?
- 3. What killed most of the soldiers who died that winter?
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