XXIII. 1777. Island, and about six thousand men under Sir CHAP. Henry Clinton at New York, Howe began on the fifth of July to embark the main body of his army for a joint expedition with the naval force against Philadelphia. The troops, alike foot and cavalry, waited on shipboard in the stifling heat till the twenty-third, for their indolent general. The fleet of nearly three hundred sail spent seven days in beating from Sandy Hook to the capes of Delaware. On the report that the river was obstructed, it went for the Chesapeake, laveering against the stiff southerly winds of the season. August was half gone when it turned Cape Charles; then, ascending the bay, and passing Annapolis, of which the little guard hung out its banner, on the twenty-fifth, after a voyage of thirty-three days, it anchored in Elk river, six miles below Elktown and fifty-four miles from Philadelphia. Expressing the strange judgments and opinions of many of his colleagues, John Adams could write: "We shall rake and scrape enough to do Howe's business; the continental army under Washington is more numerous by several thousands than Howe's whole force; the enemy give out that they are eighteen thousand strong, but we know better, and that they have not ten thousand. Washington is very prudent; I should put more to risk, were I in his shoes; but perhaps he is right. Gansevoort has proved that it is possible to hold a post, and Stark that it is practicable even to attack lines and posts, with militia. I wish the continental army would prove that anything can be done. I am weary with so much insipidity; I am XXIII. CHAP. sick of Fabian systems. My toast is, a short and violent war." Now at that time the army of Howe, 1777. in excellent health, counted at the lowest statements seventeen thousand one hundred and sixtyseven 1 men, beside the corps of engineers; or, according to returns in the British department of state, nineteen thousand five hundred effective men,2 and the officers amounted to at least one fifth as many more. Officers and men were soldiers by profession, selected from the best of the British empire and the best of the warlike race of Hesse, and perfectly equipped. Congress gave itself the air of efficiency by calling out the militia of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsyl vania, and New Jersey; but New Jersey had to watch the force on the Hudson; the slaveholders on the Maryland eastern shore and in the southern county of Delaware were disaffected; the new government in Pennsylvania, which possessed no store of arms and had relaxed its preparations in the confidence that the danger was past, was hateful to a great majority of the inhabitants, and continued to be split by selfish factions even in the presence of the enemy. The number of Pennsylvania militia with Washington did not exceed twelve hundred, and did not increase, beyond twenty-five hundred; Mifflin, the quartermaster-general, though a Pennsylvanian, rendered no service whatever. There was no hope of a rising of the people around; and the really 1 Münchhausen's statement, with the addition of six hundred and sixty-nine artillerists whom he omitted. MS. 2 "He [Sir William Howe] car ried with him from New York / 19,500." Sir William Howe's Army Campaign, 1777, in state-paper of fice, America and West Indies, cclxix. XXIII. effective men under Washington, including militia, CHAP. volunteers, and the division of Sullivan, were but about eleven thousand five hundred. Congress never exacted more from Washington, and never gave him less support; but he indulged in no complaint, and his cheerful courage had root in his own fortitude. His army reflected his patriotism, and the presence of enthusiasts from Europe proved to him the good-will of other nations. There the young Marquis de Lafayette, received into his family as a volunteer without command, risked life for the rights of man. The Marquis de la Rouerie, at home the victim of a misplaced love, called in America Colonel Armand, commanded an independent corps of such recruits as could not speak English. The recklessly daring Pulaski, whose eager zeal had wrought no good for his own country, an exile from Poland, now gave himself to the New World. On the twenty-fourth of August, Washington led his troops, decorated with sprays of green, through the crowded streets of Philadelphia to overawe the disaffected; the next day he reached Wilmington just as the British anchored in the Elk with the purpose of marching upon Philadelphia by an easy inland route through an open country which had no difficult passes, no rivers but fordable ones, and was inhabited chiefly by royalists and Quakers. Until Sullivan, after more than a week, brought up his division, the American army, which advanced to the highlands beyond Wilmington, was not more than half as numerous as the British; but Howe from the waste of horses by his long voyage was 1777. CHAP. compelled to inactivity till others could be seized XXIII. or purchased. 1777. On the third of September, the two divisions under Cornwallis and Knyphausen began the march towards Philadelphia; by Washington's order Maxwell and the light troops, formed by drafts of one hundred men from each brigade, occupied Iron hill, and after a sharp skirmish in the woods with a body of German yagers who were supported by light infantry, withdrew slowly and in perfect order. For two days longer Howe waited that he might transfer his wounded men to the hospital-ship of the fleet, and purchase still more means of transportation. Four miles from him Washington took post behind Red Clay creek, and invited an attack, encouraging his troops by speeches, by his own bearing, and by spirited general orders. On the eighth, Howe sent a strong column in front of the Americans to feign an attack, while his main army halted at Milltown. The British and Germans were rejoicing over the march so wisely planned, and as it was believed so secretly executed, and went to rest in full confidence of turning Washington's right on the morrow, and so cutting him off from the road to Lancaster. But at dawn on the ninth the American army was not to be seen. Washington divined his enemy's purpose, and by a masterly and really secret movement took post on the high grounds above Chad's ford on the north side of the Brandywine, directly in Howe's path. Inferior in numbers and in arms, yet bent on earnest work, Washington disembarrassed his troops of their baggage and sent it forward to Chester. XXIII. A battery of cannon with a good parapet guarded CHAP. the ford. The American left, resting on a thick, continuous forest along the Brandywine, which be- 1777. low Chad's ford becomes a rapid encumbered by rocks and shut in by abrupt, high banks, was sufficiently defended by Armstrong and the Pennsylvania militia. On the right the river was hidden by thick woods and the unevenness of the country; to Sullivan, the first in rank after the general, was assigned the duty of taking "every necessary precaution for the security of that flank," and the six brigades of his command, consisting of the divisions of Stirling, and of Stephen, and his own, were stationed in echelons along the river. 1 On the tenth the two divisions of the British army, led respectively by Knyphausen and Cornwallis, formed a junction at Kennet Square. At five the next morning more than half of Howe's army, leaving all their baggage even to their knapsacks behind them, and led by trusty guides, marched under the general and Cornwallis up the Great Valley road to cross the Brandywine at its forks. About ten o'clock, Knyphausen with his column, coming upon the river at Chad's ford, seven miles lower down, halted and began a long cannonade, manifesting no purpose of forcing the passage. Washington had "certain" information of the movement of Howe; less than half of the British army, encumbered with the baggage of the whole, was in his front, and its communication with the fleet had been given up. He, therefore, resolved to strike at once at the division with Knyphausen; if nothing 1 Sparks's Washington, v. 109, correcting Sullivan's misstatement. |