please do make a real post about how much you love baron von steuben
ok here’s some facts about my guy baron von steuben
very dubious claims of nobility. i’m too drunk and lazy to look it up right now but i’m pretty sure he shouldn’t have actually been called a baron
anyway he served in the prussian army under frederick the great but he was discharged because of some big gay sex scandal
he spent a while in germany but - you guessed it - got into another big gay sex scandal
eventually he realized his best option, to avoid prosecution for all these big gay sex scandals, was to leave europe entirely and go to america where they had way bigger fish to fry at the moment
so he’s recruited by the continental army, with the assistance of a letter of recommendation from ben franklin that HUGELY exaggerates his experience, probably unintentionally (the french title “Lieutenant General Quarters Maitre” was mistranslated as “lieutenant general” even though it really meant “deputy quartermaster”)
so he rolls into america - first of all, he’s arrested at the dock because he accidentally dressed himself and all his men in red coats and everyone thought they were british soliders. awkward
so once that’s all worked out, he rolls into valley forge with his whole crew - like, several aides, a chef, his dog, the whole shebang, and he’s greeted by an army of dudes who don’t even have matching coats and haven’t showered in 10 years. these guys are literally using their bayonets as cooking skewers, that’s how piss-poor an army they are. steub is like “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” he is so disgusted with them
so the steub starts devising a bunch of drills for them to kick their ass into shape. the problem here is, he doesn’t speak a word of english, so he generally conducts drills by cursing at the soldiers in an incomprehensible mix of german, french, and english, leaving his french-speaking aides (alexander hamilton and john laurens among them) to translate for him
language barrier aside, everyone absolutely loves him. he’s such a dude. at one point in the war he holds a pantsless party, like, where you’re only allowed into the tent if you’re not wearing pants? flaming shots were served. this really happened i can source it if you want
literally america would not exist without this guy. the army was a fucking DISASTER before he showed up and taught them how to fight
anYywaY after the war he moves in with two of his aides/sugar babies, future senator william north and future state representative benjamin walker. the actual situation among these housemates is unclear but some of them were definitely banging each other. anyway, later in life he legally ADOPTS these two guys because he’s such a dedicated sugar daddy
he takes in a whole harem of hot young twinks including, at one point, john adams’ son and hercules mulligan’s son after the adamses try to break the two lovebirds up
he had no idea how to handle money and poor alexander hamilton had to manage all his finances and save him from bankruptcy lmao
i love him though we didn’t deserve him
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
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