XXIII. him the faultiness 1777. right of his wing Sullivan undertook he could render no service, and was exposed to be CHAP. cut off. The other general officers, whom he "rode on to consult," explained to of his position, by which the was unprotected. Upon this, to march his division from a half-mile beyond the left' to his proper place on the right. The British troops, which beheld this movement as they lay at rest for a full hour after their long march in the hot day, were led to the attack before he could. form his line. His division, badly conducted, fled without their artillery, and could not be rallied. Their flight exposed the flank of Stirling and Stephen. These two divisions, only half as numerous as their assailants, in spite of the "unofficerlike behavior" of Stephen, fought in good earnest, using their artillery from a distance, their muskets only when their enemy was within forty paces; but under the vigorous charge of the Hessians and British grenadiers, who vied with each other in fury as they ran forward with the bayonet, the American line continued to break from the right. Conway's brigade resisted well; Sullivan, so worthless as a general, showed personal courage; Lafayette, present as a volunteer, braved danger, and though wounded in the leg while rallying the fugitives, bound up the wound as he could, and kept the field till the close of the battle. The third Virginia regiment, commanded by Marshall and stationed apart in a wood, held out till both its flanks 1 Sullivan to Congress, 27 Sept. 1777, in Farmer and Moore's Collections, ii. 210. This letter of Sullivan's is not in Sparks, but is essen VOL. IX. 34 tial to a correct understanding of the 2 Washington's charge against CHAP. were turned and half its officers and one third its men were killed or wounded. XXIII. 1777. Howe seemed likely to get in the rear of the 1 continental army and complete its overthrow. But at the sound of the cannon on the right, taking with him Greene and the two brigades of Muhlenberg and Weedon, which lay nearest the scene of action, Washington marched swiftly to the support of the wing that had been confided to Sullivan, and in about forty minutes met them in full retreat. His approach checked the pursuit. Cautiously making a new disposition of his forces, Howe again pushed forward, driving the party with Greene till they came upon a strong posi tion, chosen by Washington, which completely commanded the road, and which a regiment of Virginians under Stevens and another of Pennsylvanians under Stewart were able to hold till nightfall. In the heat of the engagement the division with Knyphausen crossed the Brandywine in one body at Chad's ford. The left wing of the Americans, under the command of Wayne, defended their intrenchments against an attack in front; but when, near 1 "Four miles in forty minutes." Muhlenberg's Muhlenberg, 94. "In forty-two minutes near four miles." Gordon, ii. 511. "Between three and four miles in forty-five minutes." Greene to Henry Marchant, 25 July, 1778. "At least four miles in fortynine minutes." Johnson's Greene, i. 76. "Five miles in less than fifty minutes." Irving's Washington, iii. 207. In company with my classmate Arthur Langdon Elwyn of Philadelphia, I passed a day on the ground of the Brandywine battle; my friend Henry D. Gilpin was my guide from Wilmington up the river. Perhaps this rapid march was less than three miles. The difficulty of fixing the distance exactly grows out of the uncertainty of the spot whence Washington took the brigades, which at any rate were nearest to his right wing, of the spot where he met the fugitives, and of his line of march, whether round about by the road or across the woods and fields. I think the former surveyor of wild lands did not go so much round about as a poorer woodsman might have done. XXIII. the close of the day, a strong detachment threat- CHAP. ened their rear, they made a well-ordered retreat, and were not pursued. The battle seemed to be over. Night was falling, when two battalions of British grenadiers under Meadow and Monckton received orders to occupy a cluster of houses on a hill beyond Dilworth. They marched carelessly, the officers with sheathed swords. At fifty paces from the first house they were surprised by a deadly fire from Maxwell's corps, which lay in ambush to cover the American retreat. The British officers sent for help, but were nearly routed before General Agnew could bring up a sufficient force to their relief. The Americans then withdrew, and darkness ended the contest. At midnight Washington from Chester seized the first moment of respite to report to congress his defeat, making no excuses, casting blame on no one, not even alluding to the disparity of forces, but closing with cheering words. His losses, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, were about one thousand, less rather than more. Except the severely wounded, few prisoners were taken. A howitzer and ten cannon, among them two Hessian fieldpieces captured at Trenton, were left on the field. Several of the French officers behaved with great gallantry Mauduit Duplessis ; Lewis de Fleury, whose horse was shot under him and whose merit congress recognised by vote; Lafayette, of whom 1 Ewald's Beyspiele Grosser Helden, ii. 337-340. Ewald was an eye-witness. 2 Münchhausen reports: "We took few prisoners in the battle." 1777 XXIII. CHAP. Washington said to the surgeon: "Take care of him as though he were my son." Pulaski the 1777. Pole, who on that day showed the daring of adventure rather than the qualities of a commander, was created a brigadier of cavalry. The loss of the British army in killed and wounded was at least five hundred and seventynine, of whom fifty-eight were officers. Of the Hessian officers, Ewald and Wreden received from the elector a military order. Howe showed his usual courage, pressing fearlessly through fire of musketry and cannon. His plan was with his right to employ Washington's left wing, while he should in person turn the American right wing, hurl it down upon the Brandywine, and crush the whole army between his own two divisions. In this he failed. He won the field of battle; but nightfall, the want of cavalry, and the extreme fatigue of his army forbade pursuit.1 When congress heard of the defeat at the Brandywine, it directed Putnam to send forward fifteen hundred continental troops with all possible expedition, and summoned continental troops and militia from Maryland and Virginia. It desired the militia of New Jersey to lend their aid, but they were kept at home by a triple raid of Sir Henry Clinton for cattle. The assembly of Pennsylvania 1 Lafayette describes the failure to pursue that night as the greatest fault of the war. But Howe could not have pursued except at a great risk. The larger part of his army was worn out with fatigue; and had Knyphausen been sent in the night with the Hessians, Washington could have mustered trusty troops enough to have turned and attacked them. Lafayette's statement of the confusion of the retreat is but a reminiscence; the troops of Wayne, Greene, Armstrong, Maxey, retreated without disorder, and Ewald's account proves that the retreat was well guarded. But compare Du Portail in Mahon's England, vii. App. xxvii. did little, for it was rent by faction; and it chose CHAP. this moment to supersede nearly all its delegates XXIII. in congress by new appointments. The people 1777. along Howe's route adhered to the king or were passive. Negro slaves uttered prayers for his success, for the opinion among them was "general that if the British power should be victorious all the negro slaves would become free." Washington, who had marched from Chester to Germantown, after having supplied his men with provisions and forty rounds of cartridge, recrossed the Schuylkill to confront once more the army of Howe, who had been detained near the Brandywine till he could send his wounded to Wilmington. The two chiefs, equally eager for battle, marched toward Goshen. On the sixteenth, Donop and his yagers, who pressed forward too rapidly, was encountered by Wayne, and narrowly escaped being cut off; but before the battle became general a furious rain set in, which continued all the next night; and the American army, from the poor quality of their accoutrements, had their cartridges drenched, so that Washington was obliged to retire to replenish his ammunition. It was next the purpose of the British to turn Washington's right, so as to cut off his connections and shut him up between the rivers; but he took care to hold the roads to the south as well as to the north and west. Late on the eighteenth, Alexander Hamilton, who was sent to Philadelphia to secure military stores in public and in private warehouses, gave congress a false alarm; and its members, now few in number, rose from |