Not only did its monumental size dwarf all the other relics in the room, but its very presence could be mesmerizing as visitors imagined Washington huddled inside with his advisers during the harsh Valley Forge winter.

"I would compare it to standing in the room at Independence Hall where they drafted the Declaration of Independence," said Don Naimoli, president of the Friends of Valley Forge Park. "It has that same aura."

A description written in 2002 by the park and the American Revolution Center says: "In the sleeping tent on exhibit at Valley Forge, Washington met with significant figures from the American Revolution and issued orders which changed the course of the nation."

But some historians now suspect that this tent - actually the 21-by-13-foot roof and one side panel - was not the one that sheltered Washington in Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78. Instead, they say, it is one he picked up shortly after leaving the encampment that June.

Evidence uncovered during preservation work on the tent strongly suggests that is the case, said Dona McDermott, a National Park Service archivist who works at Valley Forge.

According to a bill from Philadelphia merchant Plunket Fleeson, the material for a set of tents made for Washington in 1775 was red-striped ticking, linen fabric with a distinctive weave, McDermott said. The "stripes" are faint red lines in the weave, she said.

It was assumed that a Fleeson-made tent was displayed at Valley Forge, but the forensic work showed that the fabric had thin blue lines.

The order for that tent was placed only during the winter encampment, according to a letter book belonging to James Abeel, who was in charge of all camp equipment and quartermaster stores at Valley Forge. Abeel's letter book and Fleeson's invoice are in the Library of Congress, McDermott said. That tent, and others ordered at the same time, were delivered in June 1778, according to Abeel's records.

"It is clear that the surviving pieces were not the ones used at Valley Forge during the encampment," McDermott said.

Not so fast, said R. Scott Stephenson, curator of the collection owned by the American Revolution Center, which includes the tent.

"The research is very much a work in progress," he said. "It suggests that it may have been constructed during the encampment winter, but this is all very tentative. It is very early to be making definitive statements."

Stephenson compared the issue to five blindfolded people putting their hands on an elephant and then trying to describe the creature.

"It is a very complex process," he said. "Some take a little bit and run with it. I say wait until the jury's in." He wants more sophisticated testing done on the tent material.

McDermott said Washington used the tent in 1781 at Yorktown, Va., where the British surrender effectively ended the war.

Not in dispute is the chain of ownership of the tent. After the war ended in 1783, the tents were stored at Washington's home at Mount Vernon. They then descended through the family of Martha Washington to her grandson George Washington Parke Custis, who bought them after her death and took them to his home at Arlington, Va.

In 1824-25, the tents were again set up at Yorktown and Baltimore to celebrate the return of the Marquis de Lafayette. Eventually, they went to Custis' daughter, Mary Custis Lee, the wife of Civil War Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Included were the sleeping tent, also known as the "marquee"; an inner chamber; and a dining tent.

During the Civil War, Mrs. Lee left her home, and the tents and other relics were sent to Washington for safekeeping. When the war was over, she asked President Andrew Johnson to return them, but some Republicans in Congress thought it was inappropriate to return them to a Confederate general's wife.

In 1901, President William McKinley intervened and ordered them returned. And in 1907, her daughter sold the outer part of the sleeping tent for $5,000 to the Rev. W. Herbert Burk, who bought it on behalf of the Valley Forge Historical Society.

Later, the inner sleeping tent went to Colonial National Historical Park, which includes Yorktown, and the exterior of the dining tent went to the Smithsonian Institution.

The American Revolution Center assumed ownership of the tent when it acquired the society's collection in 2003. That October, the tent was carefully dismantled, removed from the park, and taken to Williamsburg, Va., for the conservation work.

Today, it remains in storage with the rest of ARC's collection, carefully wrapped and boxed until it can be displayed again. It is expected to be the centerpiece of the museum ARC is proposing to build in Lower Providence.

That project, on privately owned land within the congressional boundaries of Valley Forge National Historical Park, is being challenged by several residents and the National Parks Conservation Association.

For Naimoli, the tent turns the mythical Washington, father of the country, into a real human being.

"To see that tent grounds him," he said. "To look at this and imagine George Washington actually used it, I think that's impressive. I don't care where it was used. It was Washington's."