Was There Really a Mass at Valley Forge? What the Records Actually Show

Was there really a Catholic Mass at Valley Forge? The short, honest answer: no such Mass is documented — anywhere. No Catholic priest is recorded at the encampment. The Continental Army's one and only Catholic chaplain appears nowhere in the encampment's record — not one document places him at Valley Forge. The camp's great religious celebration — the French-alliance thanksgiving of May 6, 1778 — is preserved verbatim in Washington's own General Orders, and it was conducted entirely by Protestant chaplains. Even Martin I. J. Griffin, the Catholic historian who spent a career cataloguing every Catholic act of the Revolution, records no Mass at Valley Forge.

We're a Catholic brand. We would love for this story to be true. But the documented record of Washington and the Catholics of the Revolution is better than the legend — and it deserves to be told straight.

Why the records say no

• No priest in camp. Chaplaincy scholarship counts around nine chaplains documented at Valley Forge — Congregational, Baptist, Anglican. Of the 218 Revolutionary War chaplains known by name, exactly one was a Roman Catholic priest, and he wasn't there (more on him below).
• The Catholic regiments weren't there either. Hazen's 2nd Canadian Regiment — "Congress's Own," carrying the army's largest bloc of Catholic Canadians — marched into Valley Forge with the army on December 19, 1777, and marched out for Wilmington on December 21. Two days. Livingston's 1st Canadian Regiment never came at all; after Saratoga it stayed on garrison duty in upstate New York.
• The one great religious event of the encampment is fully documented — and Protestant. Washington's After Orders of May 5, 1778 directed that "the several Brigades are to be assembled… when their Chaplains will communicate the Intelligence… and offer up a thanksgiving and deliver a discourse suitable to the Occasion." Brigade chaplains, thanksgiving discourse, thirteen-gun salutes, a running feu de joie, and a gill of rum per man. No Mass appears in the orders or in the soldiers' diaries of the day.
• The Catholic historians came up empty too. Griffin's Catholics and the American Revolution — the most exhaustive documentary hunt ever made on this subject — mentions Valley Forge only in passing. His own summary points the story where it actually happened: after the French alliance, it was in Philadelphia that the Continental Congress "went to Mass."

To be fair to the legend: no one can prove a private soldier never heard a hurried, unrecorded Mass somewhere in those hills. But history runs on documents, and the documents are unanimous in their silence.

Where the legend came from

Three streams fed it. First, Parson Weems' famous "Prayer at Valley Forge" story (first published 1804) made the winter camp America's sacred stage — and modern scholars judge even that story unsupported. Second, an 1861 piece of outright fiction called "Washington's Vision," written by Philadelphia journalist Charles Wesley Alexander under a pen name and narrated by an invented veteran, put a heavenly apparition at Valley Forge; later Catholic retellings recast the vision's "singularly beautiful female" as the Blessed Virgin. Third, nineteenth-century pious histories inflated two very real Catholic Te Deums (below) by inserting Washington into them — Griffin checked the Yorktown tales — Washington and Lafayette crossing swords before the altar — and concluded bluntly that they "are all founded on the imagination." Once "Washington attended a wartime Mass" was in circulation, memory slid it to the war's most hallowed ground.

What actually happened is better

November 5, 1775: Washington kills the Pope-burning

Colonial New England celebrated "Pope's Day" every November 5 by parading and burning the pope in effigy. From headquarters at Cambridge, Washington issued a General Order that ended it in his army, in words that still land:

"…that ridiculous and childish Custom of burning the Effigy of the pope — He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers, in this army so void of common sense… At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered, or excused."

He wasn't merely being polite to Catholic Canada; he called anti-Catholic mockery monstrous, in writing, in 1775 — months before the Declaration.

October 9, 1774: "Romish Church in the Afternoon"

During the First Continental Congress, Washington's own diary reads: "Went to the Presbeterian Meeting in the forenoon and Romish Church in the Afternoon." The church was St. Mary's, Philadelphia. John Adams attended Catholic vespers there the same afternoon and wrote Abigail a dazzled, wary letter about the music, the candles, and the crucifix — confessing, "I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell." Whether the Virginian and the Braintree lawyer sat in the same pews that day isn't recorded; that both were drawn to the same chapel the same afternoon says enough.

The Catholics who were at Valley Forge

Individual Catholics absolutely stood that winter. Lieutenant Colonel John Fitzgerald — Irish-born Catholic and one of Washington's aides-de-camp — rode as the General's personal express courier out of the camp, and took a wound at Monmouth the following June. The Pennsylvania Line carried so many Irish-born soldiers it was called the "Line of Ireland" (with the honest caveat that many of the army's Irish were Ulster Presbyterians — no religious census of the Continental Army exists). And for exactly two days in December 1777, Hazen's Canadian Catholics camped on that ground before marching for Wilmington.

The army's one Catholic priest

The Continental Army's first and only Catholic chaplain was Fr. Eustache Chartier de Lotbinière — a Québécois Recollet friar carried in Congress's records as "Louis," appointed by Benedict Arnold in January 1776 to Livingston's Canadian regiment and kept in Congress's pay into 1781. His war was hard and his end poor; by 1780 he petitioned Congress from Philadelphia, warning he would be left "dead with hungry and misery in the streets." He deserves to be remembered. He does not appear in any record at Valley Forge.

May 6, 1778: thanking God for a Catholic king

Here is the genuine irony the legend papers over. When France entered the war, Washington ordered a day of thanksgiving at Valley Forge "gratefully acknowledging the divine Goodness" for "raising us up a powerful Friend among the Princes of the Earth." The army fired its thirteen guns and shouted the ordered huzza: "Long Live the King of France." An army raised in a culture that burned the pope in effigy now thanked God — in Protestant services — for alliance with His Most Christian Majesty, the Catholic King of France. That reversal is the real Valley Forge religion story.

1779 and 1781: Congress goes to the Te Deum

The Masses the legend reaches for did happen — in Philadelphia. On July 4, 1779, at the French minister's invitation, the President and members of Congress attended a Te Deum at St. Mary's for the anniversary of Independence; the minister reported home, "It is the first ceremony of the kind in the thirteen States." On November 4, 1781, at the French minister's invitation, Congress returned to St. Mary's for the Yorktown thanksgiving. Washington attended neither — the record places him at New Windsor for the first and in Virginia (where his stepson lay dying) for the second — which is exactly the kind of detail the embellishers skipped and the honest record keeps.

Washington at Catholic worship, in his own hand

He didn't need the invented stories. In April 1780, when the Spanish agent Don Juan de Miralles died at Washington's Morristown headquarters, the General walked among the chief mourners while "a Spanish priest performed service at the grave, in the Roman Catholic form" — an eyewitness surgeon recorded it. And during the Constitutional Convention, his diary for May 27, 1787 reads, in full: "Sunday 27th. Went to the Romish Church — to high Mass. Dined, drank Tea, and spent the evening at my lodgings."

1790: the letter that finished the arc

When America's Catholics — John Carroll — chosen months earlier as America's first Catholic bishop — and lay leaders including Charles Carroll of Carrollton — addressed the new President, Washington answered in words every Catholic American should know:

"…all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the Community are equally entitled to the protection of civil Government… And I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution… or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed."

The takeaway

In fifteen years, the Revolution's army went from burning the pope in effigy to its Commander-in-Chief banning the custom as "monstrous"; from a lone Québécois chaplain begging Congress for his back pay to the Congress of the United States seated at a Te Deum in St. Mary's; from Guy Fawkes bonfires to the President's written pledge that Catholics stand "equally entitled" in the Republic they helped win. No invented Mass at Valley Forge honors the Faith half as much as what the documents actually show: the truth was the miracle.

That documented arc — God and country as one allegiance, earned in the founding itself — is the whole reason this brand exists. It's why we print the Appeal to Heaven pine Washington's own ships flew, and why the Catholic side of the 1765 line — the Patroness of America among them — stands beside the founding-era marks in our Semiquincentennial collection. History doesn't need embellishing. It needs wearing.

Frequently asked questions

Was a Catholic Mass celebrated at Valley Forge?

There is no documentary evidence of any Mass at the Valley Forge encampment (1777–78). No Catholic priest is recorded in camp, no document places the army's one Catholic chaplain there, and the camp's documented religious celebration of May 6, 1778 was conducted by Protestant brigade chaplains. Even the great Catholic documentary historian Martin I. J. Griffin recorded no Valley Forge Mass.

Did George Washington ever attend a Catholic Mass?

Yes — by his own diary. He attended a Catholic service at St. Mary's, Philadelphia on October 9, 1774 ("Romish Church in the Afternoon") and high Mass during the Constitutional Convention on May 27, 1787. In 1780 he walked among the chief mourners at the Catholic graveside rites of Don Juan de Miralles. He is not documented at either wartime Te Deum in Philadelphia.

Did Washington really ban anti-Catholic celebrations in the army?

Yes. His General Orders of November 5, 1775 condemned the "ridiculous and childish Custom of burning the Effigy of the pope" and called insulting Catholics' religion "so monstrous, as not to be suffered, or excused." The order effectively ended Pope's Day observance in the Continental Army.

Were there Catholic soldiers in the Continental Army?

Yes — though no religious census exists. The army included two heavily Catholic Canadian regiments, large numbers of Irish-born soldiers (the Pennsylvania Line was nicknamed the "Line of Ireland"), Catholic officers close to Washington such as aide-de-camp John Fitzgerald, Colonel Stephen Moylan, and naval captain John Barry, and exactly one Catholic chaplain, Fr. Eustache (Louis) Chartier de Lotbinière.

What is "Washington's Vision" at Valley Forge?

A work of fiction. It was written in 1861 by Philadelphia journalist Charles Wesley Alexander under the pen name "Wesley Bradshaw," narrated by an invented veteran. Later retellings gave it a Marian cast, which helped attach miraculous religious events to Valley Forge. It has no historical basis.

Primary sources for this article include Washington's General Orders and diaries and the Adams papers at the National Archives' Founders Online, the Valley Forge Muster Roll Project, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, and Martin I. J. Griffin's Catholics and the American Revolution (1907–11). Last verified July 2026. If you can document a Mass at the Valley Forge encampment, our contact page is open — we will print the correction with gratitude.