The Ghost of George Washington at Valley Forge

Record summary

A tradition associated with Valley Forge describes George Washington encountering a mysterious or angelic female figure during the Continental Army’s winter encampment, sometimes interpreted in later retellings as a supernatural warning or vision. The story is often connected to an 1862 account by Wesley Bradshaw, although the account’s provenance and relationship to Washington’s actual papers are disputed. It matters as a case where an alleged apparition entered patriotic historical memory. The episode should be studied as a contested literary and historical tradition rather than verified wartime testimony.