The memorial arch honors the arrival of General George Washington and the Continental Army at Valley Forge, which was the site of their military camp during the winter of 1777–78.

The Arch is situated at the top of a hill at the intersection of Gulph Road and Outer Line Drive in Valley Forge National Historical Park.

[1] Paul Philippe Cret was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and was originally from France, studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

A train of Pullman cars brought members of Congress to Valley Forge on the day of the ceremony, where they sat upon platforms decorated with red-white-and-blue bunting in a celebration of patriotism.

The Valley Forge Historical Park attracts one million yearly visitors, and the National Memorial Arch draws about 300,000 of these.

Naked and starving as they are We cannot enough admire The incomparable Patience and Fidelity of the Soldiery Located within the arch of the monument is a quotation from a speech given by Henry Armitt Brown, an American writer and orator.

And here in this place of sacrifice, in this vale of humiliation, in this valley of the shadow, of that death out of which the life of America rose, regenerate and free, let us believe, with an abiding faith, that to them, union will seem as dear, and liberty as sweet, and progress as glorious, they were to our fathers, and are to you and me, and that the institutions which have made us happy, preserved by the virtue of our children, shall bless the remotest generation to the time to come Also located on the back of the monument are the last names of the American generals during the Revolutionary War: Commander in Chief George Washington Major Generals De Kalb        Mifflin Greene        Steuben Lafayette     Stirling Lee              Sullivan Brigadier Generals Armstrong      Patterson Duportail       Poor Glover            Scott Huntington     Smallwood Knox              Varnum Learned         Wayne McIntosh         Weedon Maxwell         Woodford Muhlenberg   Pulaski