Conclusion Of The Revolutionary War

after the battle,¹ on the morning of the 16th, marched towards Lancaster by the way of the Turk's Head (now West Chester), Goshen meeting-house, and the Sign of the Boot, on the Downingtown road, and at eleven o'clock made a junction with Cornwallis' division, the latter column moving in advance until it had gone about a mile and a half north of Goshen meeting-house, where, about two o'clock, the two armies confronted each other, and Wayne attacked the British right flank with so much spirit that in a few moments the action would have become general, when, doubtless, owing to the discharge of musketry, the heavy, low-hanging, scudding clouds broke into a deluge of rain, accompanied by a tempest of wind, which resulted in separating the armies immediately. So far as the American troops were concerned, they were in a few moments wet to the skin. Their ammunition was ruined, owing to their cartouch-boxes and "tumbrels" being so defectively constructed that they were no protection front the rain. About four o'clock, Washington retired to Yellow Springs, which place his army reached in the night, and the next morning the commander-in-chief retreated with the main army up the Schuylkill, crossing it at Parker's Ferry.

While the English forces lay at Birmingham, Jacob James, a loyalist of that neighborhood, recruited in Chester County a troop of light-horsemen, and when the army marched away, he and his company followed the British standard. "The Chester County dragoons, under Captain James, subsequently took part in the surprise of Col. Lacey's Militia Brigade, lying at Crooked Billett," on April 30, 1778, and in March, 1780, Capt. James was captured in North Carolina. President Reed, on April 18th of the latter year, wrote to Governor Caswell stating that James had been "a distinguished Partizan here in the Winter 1777, & particularly active in Kidnapping the Persons in the Vicinity of the City who were remarkable for their Attachment to the Cause of their Country. He was also extremely troublesome to the County by stealing & employing his Associates in stealing Horses for the British Army." President Reed therefore requested Governor Caswell "that he may not be exchanged as a common Prisoner of War, but retained in close Custody untill a favorable Opp'y shall present to bring him to this State for Tryal."² The regular British officers, however, were not overscrupulous in this matter of appropriating horses to their use, for, on Sept. 19, 1777, Lieut.-Col. Harcourt, with a party of dragoons and light infantry, came from Howe's encampment in Goshen, on the Philadelphia road, and from Newtown Square brought a hundred and fifty horses to the enemy.³

³ Penna. Mag. of History, vol. vi. p. 38.

The British not only had made these advances by land, but on September 17th Howe was notified that several of the English vessels of war had arrived in the river, "and three vituallers, one at anchor, in the Delaware off Chester."⁴ The "Roebuck," Capt. Hammond, whose presence in the river, as heretofore noticed, had made that officer familiar with the navigation of the Delaware River, at least as far as Wilmington, was one of the advanced men-of-war. Admiral Earl Howe, after the battle of Brandywine, hastened with his fleet into the river and anchored his vessels along the Delaware shore from Reedy Island to New Castle. Washington, as well as Gen. Howe, when the latter by "doubling on his tracks" had crossed the Schuylkill and captured Philadelphia, knew that the English commander must have uninterrupted water communication to maintain his army, and while the enemy were resolved to do everything they could to force the passage of the river, the American authorities were equally resolved to keep up, if possible, the obstruction. "If these can be maintained," wrote Washington to Congress, "Gen. Howe's situation will not be the most agreeable; for, if his supplies can be stopped by water, it may easily be done by land."⁵ When the city fell, on September 25th, Gen. Howe sent a messenger to notify the English fleet, then at Chester, that his had taken possession of Philadelphia. That communication by the river must be had was well understood by the English officers, for, in a letter from Lieut.-Col. William Harcourt to Earl Harcourt, dated at Philadelphia, October 26th, he remarks that "it was absolutely necessary we should open a communication with our fleet;"⁶ and in the letter he narrates the attempts, up to that time, made by the British commander to that end, the defeat of Col. Dunop at Red Bank, the attack on Fort Mifflin, the repulse of the English forces there, and the destruction of the frigate "Augusta" and sloop-of-war "Merlin," classifying them as "checks following so close upon the back of each other."

⁶ "The Evelyns in America," p. 246.

The enemy, however, had already made unwelcome visits to the section of country now Delaware County, for a resident of Philadelphia, under date of October 3d, records that "a foraging party went out last week towards Darby and brought in a great number of cattle to the great distress of the inhabitants."⁷ We also learn that on October 5th (Sunday) a captain of the Royal Artillery, with thirty men, went to Chester to bring to Philadelphia two howitzers and a large number of mortars. A battalion of Grenadiers and the Twenty-third or Welsh Fusileers accompanied them as an escort.⁸ On September 29th. Col. Stirling, with two British regiments, crossed the river from Chester, and took possession of the fortifications at Billingsport, which was manned only by militia, who,

⁸ "Journal of Capt. Montressor," Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. vi. p. 42.