On the tenth the two divisions of the British, led respectively by Knyphausen and Cornwallis, formed a junction at Kennet Square. At five the next morning more than half of Howe's forces, leaving 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, and resolved to strike at once at the division in his front, which was less than half of the British army, and was encumbered with the baggage of the whole. As Washington rode up and down his lines the shouts of his men witnessed their confidence, and as he spoke to them in cheering words they clamored for battle. Sending orders to Sullivan to cross the Brandywine at a higher ford, prevent the hasty return of the body with Howe and Cornwallis, and threaten the left flank of Knyphausen, Washington put his troops in motion. Greene with the advance was at the river's edge and about to begin the attack, when a message came from Sullivan announcing that he had disobeyed his orders, that the "information on which these orders were founded must be wrong."

The information on which they rested was precisely correct; but the failure of Sullivan overthrew the design, which for success required swiftness of execution. After the loss of two hours, word was brought that the division of Cornwallis had passed the forks and was coming down with the intent to turn the American right. On the instant Sullivan was ordered to confront the advance. Lord Stirling and Stephen posted their troops in two lines on a rounded eminence south-west of Birmingham meeting-house, while Sullivan, who should have gone to their right, marched his division beyond their extreme left, leaving a gap of a half-mile between them, so that he could render no service, and was exposed to be cut off. The general officers, whom he "rode on to consult," explained to him that the right of his wing was unprotected. Upon this, he began to march his division to his proper place. The Brit

ish 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 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 showed personal courage; Lafayette, present as a volunteer, 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 were turned and half its officers and one third its men were killed or wounded.

Howe seemed likely to get in the rear of the continental army and complete its overthrow. But, at the sound of the cannon on the right, Washington, taking with him Greene and the two brigades of Muhlenburg and Weedon, which lay nearest the scene of action, moved 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 arrangement of his forces, Howe again pushed forward, driving the party with Greene till they came upon a strong position, 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 the close of the day, a strong detachment threatened their rear, they made a well-ordered retreat, and were not pursued.

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 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 field-pieces 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 Washington said to the surgeon: "Take care of him as though he were my son." Pulaski the 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 seventy-nine, 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 under fire; but nightfall, the want of cavalry, and the extreme fatigue of his army, forbade pursuit.

When congress heard of the defeat at the Brandywine, it directed Putnam to send fifteen hundred continental troops to the commander-in-chief with all possible expedition, and summoned continental troops and militia from Maryland and Virginia. The militia of New Jersey were kept at home by a triple raid of Sir Henry Clinton. The assembly of Pennsylvania, rent by faction, chose this moment to change nearly all its delegates in congress. The people along Howe's route,

being largely Quakers, were friendly or passive. Negro slaves prayed for his success, hoping "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 cartridges, 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 marched toward Goshen. On the sixteenth, Donop and his yagers, who pressed forward too rapidly, were encountered by Wayne; but, before the battle became general, a furious rain set in, which continued all the next night; and the American army, as, from the poor quality of their accoutrements, their cartridges were drenched, were obliged to retire to replenish their ammunition.

It was next the purpose of the British to turn Washington's right, so as to 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 ordered to Philadelphia to secure military stores, gave congress notice of immediate danger; and its members, few in number, fled in the night to meet at Lancaster.

When, on the nineteenth, the American army passed through the Schuylkill at Parker's ford, Wayne was left with a large body of troops to fall upon any detached party of Howe's army. On the night following the twentieth, just as he had called up his men to make a junction with another American party, Major-General Grey of the British army, with three regiments, broke in upon them by surprise, and, using the bayonet only, killed, wounded, or took at least three hundred. Darkness and Wayne's presence of mind saved his cannon and the rest of his troops.

The loss opened the way to Philadelphia. John Adams, the head of the board of war, blamed Washington without stint for having crossed to the eastern side of the Schuylkill: "If he had sent one brigade of his regular troops to have headed the militia, he might have cut to pieces Howe's army in attempting to cross any of the fords. Howe will wait for his fleet in Delaware river. Heaven grant us one great soul!

One leading mind would extricate the best cause from that ruin which seems to await it."

While John Adams was writing, Howe moved down the valley and encamped along the Schuylkill from Valley Forge to French creek. There were many fords on the rapid river, which in those days flowed at its will. On the twenty-second a small party of Howe's army forced the passage at Gordon's ford. The following night and morning the main body of the British army crossed at Fatland ford near Valley Forge, and encamped with its left to the Schuylkill. Congress disguised its impotence by voting Washington power to change officers under brigadiers, and by inviting him to support his army upon the country around him. He could not by swift marches hang on his enemy's rear, for more than a thousand of his men were barefoot. Rejoined by Wayne, and strengthened by a thousand Marylanders under Smallwood, he sent a peremptory order to Putnam, who was wildly planning attacks on Staten Island, Paulus Hook, New York, and Long Island, to forward a detachment of twenty-five hundred men “with the least possible delay," and to draw his remaining forces together, so that with aid from the militia of New York and Connecticut "the passes in the Highlands might be perfectly secure." He requested Gates to return the corps of Morgan, being resolved, if he could but be seconded, to force the army of Howe to retreat or capitulate before winter.

On the twenty-fifth that army encamped at Germantown; and the next morning Cornwallis, with the grenadiers, after thirty days had been consumed in a march of fifty-four miles, entered Philadelphia. But it was too late for Howe to send aid to Burgoyne.

On the nineteenth of August, Gates assumed the command of the northern army, which lay nine miles above Albany, near the mouths of the Mohawk. After the return of the battalions with Arnold and the arrival of the corps of Morgan, his continental troops, apart from continental accessions of militia, outnumbered the British and German regulars whom he was to meet. Artillery and small arms from France arrived through Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and New York brought out its resources with exhaustive patriotism.