- The Yale University Art Gallery completed a ten-year renovation and reopened to the public December 2012. Founded by John Trumbull, who donated many of his own works in exchange for an annuity of $1000, the renovation links together three architecturally diverse buildings that, once inside, seem very much a whole. There is a wonderful collection of American art — one of the best in the country — including a room devoted to paintings by Trumbull (69 miniatures and iconic historical paintings are on view), as well as paintings by his contemporaries.
Yale University Art Gallery Reopened
But what set [Baron von] Steuben apart from his contemporaries was his schooling under Frederick the Great, Prince Henry, and a dozen other general officers. He had learned from the best soldiers in the world how to gather and assess intelligence, how to read and exploit terrain, how to plan marches, camps, battles and entire campaigns. He gleaned more from his seventeen years in the Prussian military than most professional soldiers would in a lifetime. In the Seven Years’ War alone, he built up a record of professional education that none of his future comrades in the Continental Army — Horatio Gates, Charles Lee, the Baron Johann de Kalb, and Lafayette included — could match.
The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army (2008)