Discharge of Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin
- When
- 1778
- Where
- Continental Army winter quarters where the court-martial occurred
- Episodes
- 1
In March 1778, while the Continental Army wintered at Valley Forge, Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin was tried by general court-martial for attempting to commit sodomy with a soldier. George Washington, as commander-in-chief, approved a sentence of dishonorable discharge. Lieutenant James McMichael's diary records the sentence being carried out on 15 March 1778; the legacy March 10 approval date is not confirmed by supplied passages.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. Frederick Gotthold Enslin joined the Continental Army in March 1777, serving in an independent company attached first to the 6th Virginia Regiment and later to Malcolm's Additional Continental Regiment. He was a Continental Army officer and the focus of one of three possible cases of sodomy documented in the army under General George Washington.
Context at Valley Forge. Washington and his army of 11,000 men went into winter quarters at Valley Forge north of Philadelphia in December 1777. In February 1778, Ensign Anthony Maxwell was brought before a brigade court-martial charged with propagating a scandalous report prejudicial to the character of Lieutenant Enslin, preceding the later proceedings.
Trial and Sentence. In March 1778, Enslin was brought to trial before a general court-martial for attempting to commit sodomy. Washington's secretary recorded that His Excellency the Commander in Chief approved the sentence and, with abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes, ordered the lieutenant's dismissal.
People involved
- George Washington · Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army who approved the court-martial sentence
- Frederick Gotthold Enslin · Continental Army lieutenant tried by general court-martial and dishonorably discharged
- Anthony Maxwell · Ensign brought before a brigade court-martial in February 1778 over a report concerning Enslin
- James McMichael · Lieutenant whose diary records the sentence being carried out on 15 March 1778
Sources
- Frederick Gotthold Enslin Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-11
- George Washington Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.