Was von steuben gay

As historian William E. Benemann notes, there’s no historical evidence that von Steuben was a pedophile. But he was gay, and homosexuality was viewed as a criminal aberration by many of his. Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben was a Prussian military officer who was openly gay.

baron von steuben family

He is credited with turning the Continental Army into a professional fighting force during the American Revolutionary War. If George Washington was the father of the nation, then von Steuben, a gay man, was the father of the United States military. This article was originally published on Bilerico in Interestingly enough, school texts on the American Revolution leave out a notion shared my most modern scholars of American history: Von Steuben was gay, a fact he never denied throughout his life.

Von Steuben served in the Prussian military for years before he was dismissed from the army due to rumors of homosexuality. After he was fired, he bounced from job to job, eventually accepting an offer from Benjamin Franklin to help the Continental army. Think back to your history classes for some of you this might be further back in time than others. In my U. German-Americans celebrate von Steuben Day every year.

A host of cities and counties around the U. There are statues in his honor at Valley Forge and in Washington D. His Blue Book was the standard training manual for the U. Nevertheless, memories of von Steuben among average Americans remain fuzzy. This page book is a great expansion on that earlier story.

Von Steuben was born in Prussia and joined the military at the tender age of fourteen. His boundless ambition allowed him to rise through the ranks of Prussian society until he gained the title Baron. Ben Franklin fudged his credentials to convince the Continental Congress to give him a role training the early U. Despite the vital role Baron von Steuben played in the victory of the colonists against the British, his later life was fraught with difficulty.

He waited years until he received his deferred pay and he was turned down from positions due to his nationality. Inspector General. They remark on how many stories of queer individuals have been erased or are being erased. An early section dealing with this topic is accompanied by a ghostly image of von Steuben. His queer identity is much the same way. I was disappointed as someone who is less than knowledgeable about this period in history that there were no suggestions on where to go to learn more.

It also makes me wonder about the sources of information that Trujilo and Hastings are pulling from. The text mentions he had a fatal stroke at 84, but actually he passed at Hopefully any new printings fix this error.

He owned slaves. Some of his relationships were with men boys, really as young as seventeen. The reality of slavery is also addressed. The text mentions that more slaves fought for the British empire than for the U. It deserves discussion not just among queer people but among all who live in the U. Yet, a discussion is only possible if the truth of his life and legacy is known. Buy the latest issue of The Comics Journal magazine.