quasi Report This Comment
Date: July 05, 2026 01:25PM

"As America celebrates its 250th birthday and another Fourth of July, it’s worth remembering that one of the men who helped win the Revolutionary War would not be welcome in Pete Hegseth's Pentagon.
Baron Friedrich von Steuben was almost certainly gay.
He also built the army that crushed the British military.
When von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge in the winter of 1778, the Continental Army was a disaster. Soldiers lacked standardized training, officers improvised, and camps were filthy while supplies often vanished. Washington had brave men, but bravery alone wasn’t going to beat the most powerful military on Earth.
Von Steuben changed that.
He drilled soldiers until every regiment fought the same way. He reorganized camp sanitation, reducing disease. He taught officers how to lead instead of simply barking orders. Then he wrote the “Blue Book,” a training manual that shaped the U.S. Army for decades after independence.
Military historians still rank him among the most important architects of the American victory.
Despite his obvious talent, several German states had quietly become uncomfortable with allegations that von Steuben had intimate relationships with other men. Whether every accusation was true is impossible to know. Eighteenth-century Europe wasn’t exactly a place where gay men left diaries labeled “My Boyfriends.” But the evidence that survives paints a familiar picture.
After the Revolution, von Steuben spent the rest of his life surrounded by younger male companions, especially William North and Benjamin Walker. They shared his household, cared for him, remained devoted to him for years, and inherited much of his estate when he died. Modern historians debate the precise nature of those relationships - because of course they do - but very few dismiss the possibility that they were romantic. Images of the two men are engraved on the statue of von Steuben in Washington, DC.
It seems that Washington and the other leaders of the Revolution didn't care much about his dalliances.
Benjamin Franklin had recommended von Steuben to Washington while tactfully glossing over the European gossip. If Washington knew the details, history leaves little sign that he cared. What mattered was whether the Baron could transform the Continental Army.
He could and he did.
So while the fireworks go off this Fourth of July to celebrate our 250th birthday, remember this: One of the men who helped secure American independence loved other men.
George Washington needed someone who could build an army, not fit into someone else’s idea of respectability. Turns out, that was enough to help change the world."

-Bill Browning