The Battle of Brandywine

from the State of Delaware. The banks of the creek were steep, uneven, and covered with a heavy growth of forest trees at the period of which I am writing, and for the accommodation of public travel, roads had been cut and graded at convenient points to reach the fords of the Brandywine; that most generally used being on the direct road to Philadelphia and known as Chad's Ford. The topography of that section, in a military aspect, impressed the English chief of engineers as "an amazing strong country, being a succession of large hills, rather sudden with narrow vales, in short an entire defile."¹

Washington, as before stated, at Chad's Ford, the centre of his position, where he anticipated the principal attack would be made, had stationed the main body of his army under command of Maj. Gen. Greene, and comprising the brigades of Gens. Wayne, Weedon, Muhlenberg, and Maxwell's Light Infantry. Slight earthworks and a redoubt had been constructed, and Col. Proctor, with his Pennsylvania Artillerists, was in charge of the battery of six guns, which commanded the usual crossing of the stream at that place. Wayne's brigade, with Proctor's men, occupied the intrenchments, while Weedon's and Muhlenberg's brigades of Virginia troops were stationed some distance in the rear as a reserve. The Pennsylvania militia, under Gen. John Armstrong, constituted the left-wing and extended through the rough ground - then known as Rocky Field - to Pyle's Ford, two miles below Chad's, and there Col. Jehu Eyre, with Capt. Massey's and McCullough's companies of the artillery militia of Philadelphia, had placed his cannons so as to prevent the crossing of the stream at that point by the enemy. The right wing of the American army was composed of six brigades, in three divisions, that of Gen. Sullivan's on the left, Gen. Lord Stirling on the right, and Gen. Stephens in the centre, reaching about two miles up the creek beyond Washington's headquarters, while the pickets were extended well up the stream, Maj. Spear being stationed at Buffington's Ford, now Brinton's, five miles beyond Chad's Ford.

On the evening of the 9th of September the two divisions of the British army under Lord Cornwallis and Maj.-Gen. Grant marched from Howe's headquarters, in Mill Creek Hundred, Del., to Hock Hossing Meeting-House, and the following morning moved to Kennett Square, reaching that place about noon, where Lieut.-Gen. Knyphausen's division was already encamped.

At daybreak next morning, the 11th of September, 1777, Gen. Howe marched his army in two columns against the American forces. The left wing, consisting of mounted and dismounted chasseurs, the first and second battalions of grenadiers, the guards, two squadrons of the Queen's Light Dragoons mounted, and two squadrons dismounted, and four brigades of infantry, comprising, according to English reports, seven thousand men, commanded by Lord Cornwallis and accompanied by Howe himself, who, on that occasion, we are told by Joseph Townsend, rode a "large English horse, much reduced in flesh," the result of the long voyage from New York and the scarcity of provender on shipboard. The American accounts, on the other hand, insist that this column amounted to thirteen thousand men. On that sultry autumn morning a thick fog hung like a curtain shutting out this movement from the eyes of the Continental scouts, and for miles the British troops, in light marching order, even their knapsacks laid aside, threaded their way along the road that ran northward almost parallel with the Brandywine for several miles without a whisper of their coming being borne to the ears of the American generals.

The column under Cornwallis having marched away, Knyphausen was not hurried in his movement, as his purpose was merely to amuse the Continental force in front of him until the left wing of the British army should have time to gain their right flank and rear. Hence it was about nine o'clock, four hours after Cornwallis had gone, that the Hessian general began to advance on the direct road to Chad's Ford. Early, on the morning of the day of battle, Gen. Maxwell crossed at Chad's Ford, and with his riflemen had gone as far as Kennett Meeting-House to feel the British force, while small scouting-parties were extended even beyond that place. A graceful historical writer tells us that, as tradition has preserved the incident, a party of scouts had ventured to John Welsh's tavern, within the very clutches of Knyphausen, and there hitched their horses at the front of the inn, while they comfortably sampled the New England rum and apple whiskey in the barroom. The Hessians, who "wore their beards on their upper lip, which was a novelty in that part of the country," advancing, cut off the retreat of the American party by the front of the house, so that, abandoning their horses, they ran from the back door, turning, however, as they "fled, to discharge a spluttering volley that wounded one of their own horses left in the hands of the enemy."²

The riflemen began to harass the advancing troops, and, by resorting to trees, fences, and every available shelter, Maxwell thus maintained an efficient skirmish, sustaining himself well as he retired slowly before the heavy column moving against him. From behind the building and graveyard walls at Kennett Meeting-House a number of the sharpshooters inflicted much loss on the British troops, but were compelled to retreat before the overwhelming body arrayed against them. By ten o'clock Maxwell had by the pressure of superior numbers been forced back-