NEW YORK, NY.- Fraunces Tavern Museum’s permanent collection holds numerous treasures of the American Revolutionary era that bring the stories of those who helped achieve American Independence to life. The Museum showcases a carefully curated selection of those treasures in its newest exhibition, Path to Liberty: Orders, Discipline and Daily Life, in the Adeline Moses Loeb Gallery. This exhibition includes orderly books that detail how officers used daily orders to train, manage, and discipline soldiers, turning ordinary colonists into a trained force capable of challenging the world’s most powerful army.

Orderly books were typically maintained by officers of a military unit. Entries included directives from Congress, correspondence between officers, and reports on soldiers’ behavior. They also contained instructions on everything from marching drills and guard duty to cleanliness, church attendance, and bans on drinking and swearing. Officers were expected to read these orders aloud to their troops and ensure they were followed.

One orderly book featured in the exhibition was kept by Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge (1754 –1835), best known for his leadership of the Culper Spy Ring during the American Revolutionary War. While stationed in New York in the summer of 1776, he expresses concern over his soldiers’ mistreatment of local townspeople near the market that supplied their camp, and fears that it would undermine civilian cooperation and jeopardize his soldiers’ health.

Another orderly book was kept by an unknown officer stationed at Verplanck’s Point, New York, a major crossing point on the Hudson River and a site for the Continental Army's encampment in 1782, near the end of the war. In this book we see that the officer praised his troops’ behavior during a march. This increased professionalism of the Continental Army was due in large part to Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Von Steuben, a Prussian-born Major General in the Continental Army. Von Steuben introduced formal drills, standardized commands, and strict codes of conduct that brought discipline, order, and efficiency across the ranks of the Continental Army.

This exhibition also includes a British orderly book used by multiple officers. Entries are written in both English and French. The book contains familiar military routines, troop movements, guard rotations, and rules of conduct for British soldiers. Examining both the American and British books together reflect differences in military discipline with the British employing a much harsher system of punishment.

L. Goulet, Collections Manager of Fraunces Tavern Museum, states, “Orderly books are a fascinating window into the lived experience of the Revolutionary War. As both historical records and personal objects, these books give us a greater sense of what camp life was like for the many thousands of soldiers who fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War.”

Path to Liberty: Orders, Discipline and Daily Life is a new special exhibition in the Museum’s Path to Liberty series that already includes Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation and Path to Liberty: The War Reimagined. Path to Liberty is a chronological, multi-year, multi-installment, multi-gallery special exhibition featuring communications documents, artifacts, and works of art from the Museum’s permanent collection telling the history of the American Revolution from 1775 to 1783, with a distinctive focus on what occurred in New York and the surrounding areas. The exhibitions are part of the Museum’s broader Liberty 250® program that commemorates the 250th anniversaries of our Nation’s founding through exhibitions, lectures, programs, and commemorative events. Liberty 250® launched in April 2025 with the commemoration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the opening of our Path to Liberty series.