Published in 2023 by Harry N. Abrams.
If you are a student of the American Revolution, you know who Baron von Steuben was. His complete name was Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand Freiherr von Steuben, and the title of Baron was most likely an exaggeration.
If you are unfamiliar, he was a European military officer who was sort of bumming around Europe looking for a gig. He had been with the Prussian military for 17 years and had done well for himself, working his way up to the point where he was an aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great of Prussia. He had worked on creating a unit that might be considered a percurser to today's special forces because of its intense training.
But, court politics pushed him out.
Part of Benjamin Franklin's mission to France was to find competent military officers to come to the newly formed United States and help Washington create an army out of the volunteers. Sometimes, Franklin got swindled, but with Baron von Steuben he got an officer who was way better than anyone expected.
Baron von Steuben was the real deal. He found Washington during that horrible winter at Valley Forge and was appointed the Inspector General of the Continental Army. He went to work and helped train the men he found there into an actual respectable army. He cleaned up the camp based on what he knew from multiple campaigns as part of the Prussian army - latrines, organized cooking areas, standards for cleanliness, etc.
Then, he trained the men how to properly handle take verbal commands, march, handle their weapons, fire artillery, and more. He wrote the actual handbook that the U.S. military used, at least in part, for the nearly 70 years.
All while not speaking a word of English. Also, all while being gay.
Yes, there have been gays in the U.S. military since the beginning. Baron von Steuben and his entourage of young men (who translated for the Baron) came in and got the U.S. army straight (pun intended.)
This graphic novel biography of the Baron does a thorough job of telling the details of his life, but does not gloss over his sexuality since it is an important part of his career in the Prussian military (there were a lot of gay leaders in what was undoubtedly the most powerful military in Europe at the time) and the reason he was released from a position he held with the tiny Principality of Hohenzollern-Hechingen (they were not so fond of homosexuality) right before he headed for America.
The graphic novel often becomes an exploration of being gay in the 1700s and 1800s. At first, this irritated me a bit. I was wanting to get into the story of Baron von Steuben and the Continental Army much quicker.
But, when I looked back at it, I realized that I learned about a lot of people that I had no idea were gay and that, for some of them, this was a major news to me -a a person that has actively read history for decades. For example, young Frederick the Great of Prussia and John and Abigail Adams' son Charles. In the case of Charles. I knew that he had died at the age of 30, but what I had read described Charles as just a hopeless drunk that died from alcoholism.
This graphic novel implies that Charles Adams died from a broken heart because his father forcibly ended his relationship with the son of Hercules Mulligan (featured in the musical Hamilton) when a bit of research told me that he likely died from a lung infection like TB.
I was going to rate this graphic novel 4 stars out of 5 because it kept wandering away from the topic of Baron von Steuben. But, I learned so much when the book did this that I realized that that what I thought was an annoying waste of time was actually very educational. I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5.
This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Washingtons Gay General The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben.
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