The U.S.’s First Military Manual (opens in new tab)

When the Prussian military officer Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben arrived at General Washington’s encampment at Valley Forge, he found a Continental Army that was disorganized and poorly trained. He quickly instituted reforms to whip the American army into shape. To standardize and share these improvements, he wrote a military handbook that was published in 1779 as Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States.