American school children are taught to revere the sacrifice made
by soldiers in the Continental Army, during the winter of
1777-78, at Valley Forge. Most don’t realize that the following
winter, outside Morristown, New Jersey, was even worse. Here’s a
soldier’s description, from Thomas S. Kidd’s God of Liberty: A
Religious History of the American Revolution (2010): “We were
absolutely, literally starved — I do solemnly declare that I did
not put a single morsel of victuals into my mouth for four days
and as many nights, except a little black birch bark, which I
gnawed off a stick of wood, if that can be called victuals. I
saw several of the men roast their old shoes and eat them”
(210). Only a few years after the revolution, virtually all
Americans came to realize that our collective, national
prosperity required a strong central government. Soldiers
starved during the revolution because there was no national
authority that could compel citizens or states to meet their
needs. As this Fortnight of Freedom  occ