Welcome to my latest queer history blog post! If you enjoy this post, then you’ll love my Historical Fiction novels. Find out more about my projects here, and sign up for my Substack here to stay in touch!
My country, the United States, celebrates its 250th year this weekend (amid, let’s be honest, dubious internal circumstances…)
At this latest milestone, there are a multitude of figures that historians might cite as foundational to our national beginning: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette among many others. Each of those individuals brings their own complicated, and in some cases deeply problematic, legacies to this country’s fraught history.
The same is true of an oft forgotten queer character in America’s founding tale: the purported gay solider made famous during the “Winter at Valley Forge”, Baron Friedrich von Steuben. A Prussian by birth, who never should have ended up anywhere near the raucous American rebels, Steuben was himself a cunning yet dubiously disgraced individual. His second act in life was nevertheless instrumental in America’s then-stumbling first act. He was also a semi-openly gay man at a time in history when his sexuality was reputationally dangerous.
The Baron Who Wasn’t
A nobleman who was only barely so, a military man bereft of martial employment, and a gentleman who cursed like a stablehand, Steuben is among the more erratic and peculiar individuals who became enmeshed in the American war for independence. How he got there is a story unto itself.
Born in September 1730, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben was the scion of a military family based in Magdeburg, a town in the then German country of Prussia.[1] He was not born into nobility, though he would attempt to claim various titles, honors and designations (with varying degrees of success) throughout his life in his successive attempts at self-promotion. At the age of just 14, Steuben stood alongside his father (an officer himself) in a Prussian siege of Prague; he would go on to enlist himself at the age of 17 and spent the next decade steadily rising through the ranks.[2] The infamous “Prussian discipline” was thus the lifeblood of the young Steuben throughout his formative years and inextricable from his soon-to-be domineering personality.
His emerging talent did not go unnoticed through regional campaigns and the onslaught of the Seven Years War (1756 – 1763), where he served the Prussian cause and was wounded for his troubles. Ironically, that conflict would play a lynchpin role in inciting the imminent American Revolution. But that war was still years away when, at the age of 32, Steuben was elevated to Captain and made an aide-de-camp to King Frederick the Great (a monarch long rumored to have been among Europe’s queer royals).[3]
Steuben’s life should have been set from this point onward: as an aide-de-camp, he enjoyed a personal relationship with his King (though how personal is impossible to determine as dozens of men would at different points have served in the same capacity) and had a top-tier military education in Europe’s finest armed forces.
But the end of the Seven Years War brought a reversal of Steuben’s fortunes. Was this outcome due to his own troubling misdeeds, or due to political rivalries?
Steuben would later blame a jealous rival for his dismissal from the Prussian Army at the war’s end, but the actual circumstances of his departure were and remain unclear.[4] Regardless, Steuben continued to prove his usefulness among the Prussian nobility at least, and passed the next 11 years somewhat quietly as a chamberlain at the court of Hohenzollern-Hechingen.[5] It was in this latter capacity that Steuben was given the honorary title Freiherr roughly translating to “Baron” – hence his later titular claim of nobility that glossed his resume, but had no bearing on his real-world political power.
Rumors
As revolution brewed in the American colonies throughout the 1770s, the imminent fight was irrelevant to the “Baron” whiling his time away in the modest German province ruled by Prince Hechingen. The Prince, alas, was running short of funds, and in 1775 gave his chamberlain the 18th century version of walking papers. In that pivotal year for the American Revolution, Steuben suddenly found himself desperately looking for a new job.
Understandably, he first turned to the military; though now in his mid-40s, Steuben’s background should have qualified him for any number of prospects throughout Europe. But his most promising lead, for an officer position with the Margrave of Baden, collapsed over a disturbing rumor.
The rumor in question is only recorded in a letter from an unnamed person at the court of Baden, asking Steuben’s former employer, the Prince Hechingen, if Steuben had been accused of “taking familiarities with young boys.”[6] The writer suggested that this accusation was supposedly well known in the Prince’s province (effectively asking the Prince to confirm this was indeed the case), had been the cause of Steuben’s departure, and that religious officials had been prepared to prosecute Steuben should he re-emerge anywhere within their influence.
Then as now, such an accusation of sexual abuse was a serious matter and its substance merits close examination. The letter writer acknowledged that the inquiry was made as a matter of background checking after a rumor emerged, and not (insofar as the request indicates) from a specific accusation made by a potential or claimed victim. Moreover, other representations made in the letter – such as the suggestion that the Baron had been effectively run out of his former province because of these accusations – are indicated nowhere else in the historical record (as noted, it was the Prince’s financial troubles that likely caused the Baron’s undesired job search).[7]
Could such rumors, or rather their basis in truth, have had something to do with Steuben’s departure from the Prussian armed forces in 1763? This is a possibility, but an almost entirely speculative one and there is no clear connection between the two events separated by more than a decade.
William Benemann, in sifting through this sordid episode in Steuben’s life, notes that there was “[n]o evidence that he was a pedophile,” adding that “his subsequent interest seems to have been directed entirely at young men, not boys, but perhaps he felt the distinction would be difficult to explain.”[8] In other words, as a known (or rumored) gay man, Steuben may have been in a nearly impossible position to refute the accusations against him or may have suspected that any protestations would carry no weight.
The wider social context suggests why: although plenty of men, of all social strata, were homosexual during this time period in Europe, homosexual acts were the subject of intensive opprobrium and potentially capital punishment (depending on the country). In England, for example, the 18th century saw a wave of repression of queer men, usually “mollies” or male sex workers who could face the threat of the noose were they caught in flagrant acts of “buggery.”[9] In France, homosexuality would not become legal until the French Revolution produced a dramatically revised law code in 1791.[10] In Steuben’s home country of Germany, meanwhile, homosexual acts were not fully decriminalized for another two centuries until both East and West Germany finally did so simultaneously in the late 1960s.[11]
Was Steuben guilty of the crimes suggested in this anonymous letter? If and until further evidence comes to light, it will be impossible to determine either way. If he was, then such atrocious actions should indeed mar his reputation and be considered in any assessment of his character and status as a queer historical figure. It is also plausible that these accusations were leveraged to undermine a gay man an in era when queer men of every stripe were openly, and violently, persecuted for their identities.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the rumor “destroyed von Steuben’s reputation in Germany.”[12] A frustrated Steuben looked for the next best option – one which would come with a letter of recommendation from none other than Benjamin Franklin.
Coming To America
Before his prospects in Baden fell apart, Steuben had already been approached regarding a scrappier career pivot in the American colonies. The American War had kicked off in earnest after the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, 1776, but the Continental Army was ill-prepared and barely equipped for the grueling fight ahead.
Not that America’s representatives were shy in asking for help from anyone who could provide it – provided they could work on the cheap, or no pay at all.
In 1777, Steuben wound his way to France and met with two increasingly desperate American ambassadors: Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin.[13] Steuben was looking for work, preferably as a military man; Deane and Franklin were looking for experienced officers who could assist the Continentals in taking on the world-class British armed forces. But when the Americans could guarantee Steuben neither rank nor even a paycheck, Steuben had turned on his heel back for Germany.[14]
But, as we have seen, his prospects in Germany were dubious at best. Steuben (for lack of alternatives) soon returned to his new American friends and offered himself as a volunteer for the cause. The ever wily Benjamin Franklin, apparently liking what he saw in Steuben, wrote to Congress of him in glowing terms. He notably elevated Steuben’s rank to Lieutenant General, and (with some help from the Baron himself) boasted of Steuben’s accomplishments, gentility, and superb prospects throughout Europe.[15]
Nevertheless, Steuben was willing to humbly sacrifice all of this to aid the American rebels with only the vague promise of future payment at the war’s end. It was a flattering picture, sufficiently compelling that Steuben immediately impressed the literal big wigs in Congress. After all, Franklin was nothing if not persuasive.
Steuben thus left the dust of Europe behind for good and arrived in New Hampshire on December 1, 1777.[16] As the brutal cold settled in, the Baron was right on time.
Winter of Discontent
Few men would have stumbled into the camp at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in the winter of 1778 and felt any emotion but dread. The bulk of the Continental Army, huddled and freezing, was overwintering in an especially desolate and unforgiving season; its ranks and morale had been sapped by all too recent losses in the brutal fight against the British.
Nearly half of the nine thousand men were considered unfit for duty due to lack of arms, spreading illness, even insufficient clothing.[17] Entire regiments were in tatters, and desertion was rampant. One can imagine somber and dilapidated men of every age and rank scattered about, huddling near the sparse fires crackling against the bitter chill. Provisions were in short supply, and what little cohesion the Continentals had at the war’s commencement was mostly shattered after a year of profound disappointments.
But the man who General Washington met in late February 1778 was not interested in anyone’s dread or disillusionment. Rather than a tableau of shame and imminent failure, Steuben looked at Valley Forge and saw work to do.
When Washington rode out from camp to welcome him, Steuben could barely even reply to his English greeting.[18] In truth, Steuben knew few English words apart from “God damn!” which he would shout with regularity and gusto for the next few months.[19] It became clear that his lack of English would be no barrier to turning the Continental Army into a worthy fighting force, and Steuben was prepared to drag his new troops toward that end by sheer force of will.
Steuben arrived at Valley Forge with a ferocious work ethic, and a handful of trusted friends: Louis de Pontiere, his aide de camp, Pierre Ettienne Duponceau, his military secretary, and Azor, his faithful greyhound. Armstrong writes, “Steuben set out to transform a rabble into a disciplined army…this stubborn, hard-working man proved to be a whole general staff.”[20]
Steuben himself would tell General Washington that a solider trained for three months in Prussia remained a recruit, but at Valley Forge “we must make finished soldiers in two months.”[21] With the vague rank of Inspector General, and more or less carte blanche from the commander himself to do exactly as he saw fit, Steuben adopted a punishing personal regime to remake the Continental Army – overseeing everything from drill books to maneuvers to matching coats to leather for boots. Sleeping as little as possible to write new drills throughout the night, Steuben wasted no time in bringing a German efficiency to the task at hand.
One of his most crucial contributions was a “model unit” of 120 soldiers. He drilled this unit day after day until each man could march in unison, turn, load and fire his weapon at the speed and accuracy deemed acceptable by the Prussian.[22] This model cohort was then leveraged to train another cohort, and so on and so on, filtering Steuben’s hastily written drills through the ranks at an astonishing pace.
Steuben stood out from the American officers in his willingness to eat, sleep, dine with and drill his men all himself, bearing through the winter cold like every soldier who endured his relentless shouts and curses.[23] When reprimanded that such direct work was the realm of sergeants, and thus beneath his rank, Steuben shouted back, “I vass a sergeant already!”[24] Alexander Hamilton, who served on Washington’s staff throughout that winter and was an admirer of Steuben, later acknowledged that he had no notion of the power of military discipline until the Prussian had forced it upon the Continental troops.[25]
Within mere weeks, Steuben’s dedicated effort paid off: at Valley Forge, a new and reformed Continental Army emerged from the snow drifts, equipped and reorganized but also burning with confidence in its ability to face down professional armies because it had become one. All of this would have been unlikely, or perhaps impossible, apart from Steuben’s immediate and indefatigable intervention.
Right Hand Men
But while Steuben became the hardest working man at Valley Forge, he wasn’t necessarily working alone. Indeed, his aides de camp were arguably as pivotal to his success as his relentless personality; they would also be the most intense and personal relationships of his lifetime.
In considering the question of Steuben’s sexuality, two names come up repeatedly in the available record: William North and Benjamin Walker. Depending on how one interprets the evidence, these men were either close-knit friends and colleagues, or perhaps an 18th century version of a “throuple.”
Walker, pardoning the pun, literally walked into Steuben’s life in the middle of a particularly tough drilling session that winter. When Steuben lacked the English words to sufficiently berate the troops who had botched a particular sequence, then-Captain Walker stepped forward to offer translation via French. Steuben said of that introduction, “[i]f I had seen an angel from heaven, I should not have more rejoiced.”[26] The purportedly handsome, articulate Walker was in his mid-20s. He was immediately appointed as the Baron’s personal aide-de-camp, but was joined in that role soon after by another captain, William North, who (like Walker) would serve the Baron through the end of the Revolutionary War.
Parsing out the exact nature of the relationships among these men is a nearly impossible task, but what does seem clear from their surviving letters is that the trio was intensely and intimately (emotionally, physically or otherwise) devoted to one another. It all may have started with Walker and North: Blakemore writes that the two captains “seem to have been involved in their own romantic relationship,” one which kicked off during their shared winter under Steuben’s tutelage at Valley Forge.[27]
Both men would, following the war, live openly with Steuben for a time and both became shared heirs to his eventual estate.[28] One of Walker’s letters to Steuben hints at the awkward dynamic: “I was exceedingly glad too to hear that North was with you again…but tell him he has another friend besides his General – as he passed on to you, he had forgot it.” Walker was likewise known to remind Steuben to reassure North “of his love” in postscripts.[29]
Benemann suggests that while Steuben likely did become physically involved with North, his relationship with Walker remained flirtatious (based on the tone and language of some of Steuben’s letters) but never progressed into a sexual affair due to the latter’s lack of interest.[30] Walker was instead content to leverage Steuben’s interest in him to secure gifts, new clothing, tokens and promotions.
Whatever the full story, the trio seemed to be eminently happy working together throughout the American Revolution. North would later write of their bond, “We love him, and he deserves it for he loves us tenderly.”[31]
That love was regularly expressed in their mutual correspondence, especially those letters from the Baron himself, which have today been characterized as “intimate and emotional,” in a stark contrast from the cursing and raging personality that Steuben used to whip the colonial troops into shape.[32] The war, in fact, may have provided the perfect socially-acceptable fig leaf for the trio’s shared affections. Their roles, in service to one another and the revolutionary cause, enabled them to live in exceptionally close physical and emotional proximity without drawing undue questions or unflattering attention.
Road to Victory
With Steuben and his aides de camp – perhaps lovers – working doggedly beside him, the Continental Army would soon put the Baron’s virulent lessons to the test at Monmouth, New Jersey. It was there that General Washington spied an opportunity to pursue, then engage, the British as they moved from their winter quarters in Philadelphia to Delaware.[33]
Once the battle ensued, a hastily conceived retreat ordered by General Charles Lee almost doomed the Americans to another defeat – until Steuben (at Washington’s express command) personally rode through the retreating brigades and regrouped them. Despite enduring “galling fire”, Steuben’s bravery in leading the Continentals forward ensured victory and provided crucial momentum for the wider army.[34] Monmouth proved that the Americans had not only taken Steuben’s discipline to heart and head, but also confirmed the regular troops’ immense trust in his leadership.
But the road ahead remained a fraught one, and the War for Independence would drag on for another three years. The Baron was there for the whole of the fight, save for a few months when he wrote the highly influential “Regulation for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States” which would remain the official US Army guidance until 1812.[35] Benjamin Walker, his perhaps or sometimes-paramour, assisted him as a translator. Steuben would serve in various roles throughout the remainder of the conflict: Chief of Staff to Washington himself, then supply officer for the southern army (where he performed many of the same tasks as he had at Valley Forge), and finally as a division commander at Yorktown itself.
When Cornwallis surrendered in 1781, Baron Steuben was among the distinguished group – riding up behind Colonel Hamilton, Lafayette and Rochambeau – who accepted his formal capitulation. Armstrong writes:
“Happiness surged over his stern, leathery face and his heart swelled with pride, for here were men he had helped to train, heroes of every state from New England to Georgia.”[36]
Not-So-Genteel Retirement
Steuben was formally decommissioned in 1784, but he devoted the remainder of his life to the emerging American military and shaping its future stability. His proposal, “Sentiments on Peace Establishment”, laid the groundwork for a professional standing army suitable to the American ethos, and would ultimately foster the first military academies.[37]
Yet despite his popularity and immense contributions to his new country (Steuben was eventually granted American citizenship), he was only modestly rewarded by Congress. A few land grants, and later a $2500 annual pension, might have been suitable recompense for a man content to live within his means. Steuben, however, still held tightly to the notion that he was a German aristocrat who could wine, dine and party as such.[38]
William North, who remained in the Baron’s service and lived with him during the immediate post-war years, complained to Benjamin Walker (then separated from his old wartime colleagues) in various letters of Steuben’s profligate spending and inability to see reason with his precarious finances.[39]
Nevertheless, Steuben’s eventual sprawling home in Manhattan became a repose for North, then Walker, and a rotating door of other former martial colleagues and collaborators who stayed with the famous Baron for varying intervals of time. For the Walker-North-Steuben triangle (or whatever it was), such repose might have briefly felt like old times. Alas, with no wartime demands to unite them, the trio could not realistically go on living together in perpetuity. Benemann writes, “no acceptable social structure…would have allowed them to retain their intimacy.”[40]
At Steuben’s urging, and with his support, both North and Walker would eventually marry (as any man of their respective ranks would have been expected to do in late 18th century America). But Steuben remained close to both throughout the remainder of his life, and “adopted” them symbolically as his children in order to name them as co-heirs in the final version of his will.[41] Even as married men, Steuben was known to stop by their familial homes and stay with them – no doubt as an honored guest – and he maintained correspondences with both for his remaining years. Blakemore argues that adoption was an oft-used tool among gay men to ensure that assets and resources could pass to those whose relationships could not be formally, legally recognized (though whether or not this was the case in Steuben’s circumstance is less clear).[42]
But even as Steuben gracefully accepted greater distance between himself and his two favored aides, another man would be his final sidekick: John Mulligan, his personal secretary, who lived with him permanently until the Baron’s death. Mulligan would only inherit Steuben’s library and a modest amount of money (by then, Steuben’s finances were perpetually in arrears), but he was purportedly the Baron’s partner for reading and regular games of chess as Steuben aged into his mid-60s.[43] This relationship may have been purely friendship, or perhaps Steuben preferred to have a companion who reminded him of Walker and North and his halcyon days with the Continental Army.
“His services were indispensable…”
Steuben and Mulligan eventually retired permanently to a quiet tract of farmland in northern New York, near the Adirondack Mountains, where the Baron passed away from a stroke in 1794. His final resting place is today marked by the Steuben Memorial State Historic Site.[44]
Although Steuben is far from a household name today, he was not forgotten by the Republic which he saved in its infancy. A bronze monument was erected to memorialize him in 1910 in front of the White House. Designed by, appropriately, a German-American sculptor named Albert Jaegers, the statue itself is ten feet tall and stands on a fifteen foot base of pink granite.[45]
A number of figures and reliefs are visible around the statue’s base, but two in particular stand out: those of his closest companions, William North and Benjamin Walker, both on the monument’s southeast side. Their inclusion begs the question of what Jaegers thought of the Baron’s identity and his relationships with the two men known to be closest to him.
But Armstrong reminds that apart from this grand piece of statuary, there is another, much more modest monument to America’s Drillmaster: a boulder, situated near Steuben’s burial site in “the Sacred Grove” at the New York memorial and historic site. The boulder’s inscription reads: “His services were indispensable to the achievement of American independence.”
There is little room to argue with that statement. But Steuben’s legacy as a queer historical personage is much more nuanced. There is no proof that Steuben’s relationships with his aides (or any other colleagues) were ever more than, well, collegial. The natures of their partnerships are inevitably based on intuition around the limited and circumstantial evidence available.
What can be said definitively is that these were profoundly important relationships for each of the men who were directly involved with Steuben; whether or not they had romantic or sexual components (which, it bears emphasis, are not the only parameters for queer intimate connection) is unlikely to ever be confirmed.
Claiming Steuben as one of America’s LGBT+ icons thus boils down to one’s own interpretations. To be sure, there is an irony in falling back on the “lifelong bachelor and his male companions living together were just very good friends.” Perhaps even Steuben himself would have said – arguably did say in his own writings – that Walker and North were far more than that to him and to each other.
If we adopt the affirmative view, that Steuben and his partnerships were queer in some recognizable manner, then queer leadership was inherent to the American experiment even at the moment of the nation’s founding. But of course – it already was, well before European colonizers ever arrived. Moreover, it will be for the duration of American history as queer Americans make our own history every day.
Today, Washington D.C. has the highest percentage of identifying LGBT+ residents of any US state.[46] The importance, contributions and vibrance of the city’s queer community is unmistakable in the modern capital of the United States. Baron von Steuben’s statue thus stands guard over a city where he might have felt more at home, were he alive today, than perhaps any other part of our vast, wildly expanded country.
[1] National Park Service, “Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben,” accessed June 21, 2026, https://www.nps.gov/people/general-von-steuben.htm.
[2] Erick Trickey, “The Prussian Nobleman Who Helped Save the American Revolution,” Smithsonian Magazine, April 26, 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/baron-von-steuben-180963048/.
[3] National Park Service, ibid.
[4] Erin Blakemore, “The Revolutionary War Hero Who Was Openly Gay,” History, updated January 31, 2025, https://www.history.com/articles/openly-gay-revolutionary-war-hero-friedrich-von-steuben.
[5] Trickey, ibid.
[6] William E. Benemann, “Gone for a Soldier,” in Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships, (Routledge, 2014) pg. 97.
[7] Trickey, ibid.
[8] Benemann, pg. 97.
[9] For more on this subject, I recommend one of my older posts here: https://andreamariana.com/?p=662.
[10] Jean-François Mignot, “Decriminalization of homosexuality since the 18th century,” International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, April 29, 2024, https://www.niussp.org/gender-issues/decriminalization-of-homosexuality-since-the-18th-century/.
[11] Fatemah Roshan, “A Visual Timeline of LGBTQ+ History in Germany,” The Game Magazine, June 10, 2024, https://the-game.imago-images.com/articles/visual-stories/a-visual-timeline-of-lgbtq-progress-in-germany/.
[12] Trickey, ibid.
[13] National Park Service, ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Benemann, pg. 98 – 99.
[16] Trickey, ibid.
[17] Dana W. Bigelow, “BARON STEUBEN, AT HOME, AT REST, IN ONEIDA COUNTY,” Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association 14 (1915), pg. 94, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42890034.
[18] O. K. Armstrong, “He Transformed a Rabble Into an Army,” Prairie Schooner 21, no. 4 (1947), pg. 381, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40623911.
[19] Trickey, ibid.
[20] Armstrong, pg. 381.
[21] Ibid.
[22] National Park Service, ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Armstrong, pg. 381.
[25] Bigelow, pg. 95.
[26] Benemann, pg. 102.
[27] Blakemore, ibid.
[28] Museum of the American Revolution, “Now on View: New Case Explores the Life of Baron von Steuben,” May 31, 2024, https://www.amrevmuseum.org/news/now-on-view-new-case-explores-the-life-of-baron-von-steuben.
[29] Benemann, pg. 108.
[30] Benemann, pg. 103.
[31] Blakemore, ibid.
[32] Museum of the American Revolution, ibid.
[33] Armstrong, pg. 382.
[34] Bigelow, pg. 94.
[35] National Park Service, ibid.
[36] Armstrong, pg. 384.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Museum of the American Revolution, ibid.
[39] Benemann, pg. 109.
[40] Ibid, pg. 111.
[41] Museum of the American Revolution, ibid.
[42] Blakemore, ibid.
[43] Museum of the American Revolution, ibid.
[44] National Park Service, ibid.
[45] National Park Service, “General Von Steuben Statue,” last updated May 21, 2025, https://www.nps.gov/places/000/general-von-steuben-statue.htm.
[46] Data from the Williams Institute School of Law at UCLA (link: https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/LGBT-Adult-US-Pop-Dec-2023.pdf.)