Early Years
Friedrich von Steuben was born in Magdeburg, Duchy of Sachsen-Anhalt, within today's Germany, the son of Wilhelm Augustin von Steuben (1699–1793), a lieutenant of engineers. His mother was Elizabeth von Jagvodin. Von Steuben accompanied his father to the Russian Empire when Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg, ordered the senior Wilhelm into the service of Czarina Anna. The family returned to Prussia after the accession of Frederick the Great to the throne in 1740.
Steuben was schooled in Breslau by Jesuits and, by the age of 16, was an officer in the Prussian military. During the Seven Years' War he was a member of an infantry unit but served primarily as a staff officer. By 1761 he had risen to the rank of captain and was serving in the Prussian general headquarters as aide-de-camp of the king. Captain Steuben was granted a canonry in Havelberg Cathedral, paying an annual stipend of 1,200 German florins. In 1762 he was selected as one of thirteen members of the "special class for the art of war" (Spezialklasse der Kriegskunst). Headmaster of this class was the king himself. The army was greatly reduced in size at the end of the war, and Steuben was one of many Prussian officers suddenly without work. His Prussian military career would later be exaggerated—he was not one of Frederick the Great's generals—but his experience on a professional general staff, an agency then practically unknown outside of Prussia, would prove to be valuable in his American career.
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