He was a fraud, an exile, and America's last hope. Baron von Steuben's title was a carefully crafted lie , his prestigious rank an exaggeration , and his flight from Europe a desperate escape from a career-ending scandal. He was exactly the kind of European adventurer the Continental Congress had learned to mistrust. But he was also the only man who could save their dying army. At Valley Forge, he found not soldiers, but ghosts—a starving, shoeless mob on the verge of dissolution. Armed with a fraudulent identity, a core of authentic genius, and a multilingual talent for profanity, Steuben began the impossible task of teaching democracy to march. He battled not only the enemy but the stubborn pride of American officers, the deadly incompetence of the latrine diggers, and the ghosts of his own past. The Baron's Gambit is the epic story of a man who transformed a nation's destiny by first transforming himself. It is a tale of how discipline can forge freedom, how a chosen family can redeem a broken past, and how sometimes, the most necessary truths are built upon a foundation of brilliant lies.