Medows was not dead; the impact of the ball threw him backward and sideways to the ground with force, knocking him out cold. His friend Captain Harris, who himself had been wounded in the leg at Iron Hill, was following the army in a small carriage. “Taking a horse without a saddle, he had the honour to share in the glory of that day, but attended with the drawback of finding his gallant commander and friend most literally in the hands of the surgeon, having lost the use of both his own.” Temporarily blinded by the shock of the fall, “the Colonel had not recovered his senses when Captain Harris came to him, but looking at him some time, and knowing his voice, he attempted to put out his hand, and not being able to use either, exclaimed, ‘It's hard;’ then, quite recovering his senses,” and thinking of his sweetheart back in England, he said, “‘It's lucky, Harris, poor Fanny does not know this;’ evincing then, as in every other instance, that perfect coolness and indifference to accidents as they affected himself, and only feeling anxiety for his friends.”194 Seeing their brave commander shot off his horse no doubt added to the ardor of the grenadiers to push on with bayonets.
With the Marylanders on the American left gone, the center of the American line now began crumbling. “The Enemy Soon began to bend their principal force against the Hill & the fire was Close & heavy for a Long time & Soon became General,” Sullivan stated. “Lord Sterling & General Conway with their Aid de Camps were with me on the Hill & Exerted themselves beyond Description to keep up the Troops.”195 Lafayette, who was also there, remembered, “The general and many officers joined the central division, where M. de Lafayette was with Stirling, and where 800 men [of the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th Pennsylvania Regiments] were brilliantly commanded by M. de Conway, an Irishman who had served in the French army. By separating that division from its two wings, and advancing across an open plain, where they lost many men, the enemy was able to concentrate its fire on the center.”196
“Five times did the Enemy drive our Troops from the Hill & as often was it Regained & the Summit often disputed almost muzzle to muzzle,” Sullivan reported. “How far I had a hand in this & whether I Endured the Hottest of the Enemys Fire I Chearfully Submit to the Gentlemen who were with me.”197 A British light infantry officer pinned down on the front of the hill confirmed Sullivan's valor: “[The] enemy repeatedly attempted to come on, but were always drove back by our fire altho’ their general (Lincoln) [sic; Sullivan] very much exerted him[self]. At this time a most tremendous fire of musketry opened from both lines.”198
The four light companies were becoming desperate, having fended off five American advances at close range and suffering heavy casualties. The 4th Light Company was commanded by twenty-eight-year-old Capt. Charles Cochrane, a career soldier who had entered the army as an ensign at age thirteen. Cochrane came to America in 1774 and was active in the campaigns since Lexington and Concord, where he went out on reconnaissance the night before the war started. It was his father-in-law, Maj. John Pitcairn of the Marines, who ordered the minutemen at Lexington to lay down their arms. Cochrane fought at Bunker Hill, where Pitcairn was killed, and he served through much of the New York Campaign of 1776 as captain of the 4th Grenadier Company. He took command of the light company after his predecessor, Captain Evelyn, was killed just before the Battle of White Plains. Now, “his company in the action at Brandywine lost an officer and 11 men in forcing that part of the rebel line where their five field pieces were.”199 In the face of determined American resistance, Cochrane and his comrades were trapped.
Then, out of the smoke and confusion, a bizarre character unexpectedly appeared, coming up the hill toward the light bobs. “Looking back to see how far the grenadier line was off from which alone we could receive immediate support, to my surprize I saw close to me Major Stuart of the 43rd, whose regt. being at Rhode island attended the army as a spectator.”200 Howe evidently did not know what to do with the hated Lord Bute's audacious and troublesome son, so Stuart seems to have gone wherever he pleased, looking for adventure. “He is very clever, exceedingly intelligent, takes great pains, and is as bold as a lion,” is how Lt. Col. Allen Maclean, an old Scottish veteran, described Stuart in early 1777. “He is a fine young fellow, and I have lost my skill if he will not be one of the best officers in the King's service.”201 Stuart himself blithely told his father, “A ball gave me a pretty severe scratch in the cheek, and another went through the crown of my hat at the Brandy-Wine, or else I have escaped full well from all the dangers we have been in.”202
“Recollecting the 43rd grenadier company was the left of their line,” the 17th officer revealed, “we persuaded Major Stuart to run down the hill and prevail on that company to hasten to our support; he did so, but before he could return, to my inexpressible joy, saw Captain Cochrane of the 4th company on my left throw up his cap and cry ‘Victory!’—and looking round saw the 43rd company hastening to our relief.” As the American line began to break under the bayonet charge of Monckton's grenadiers, the four light infantry companies rose up and charged, followed by the rest of the 1st Light Infantry. “We dashed forward and passed the five pieces of cannon which the enemy had abandoned,” the 17th officer boasted, “and made some few prisoners, the enemy running away from us, with too much speed to be overtaken.”203 Of the grenadiers, Robertson confirmed that “after crossing the Rails they immediately charged and drove the Rebels before them. At the same time the first Battn. of Light Infantry charged and took five Pieces of Cannon in their Front.”204
Opposing the attack, “our men stood firing upon them most amazingly, killing almost all before them for near an hour till they got within 6 rod [30 to 35 yards] of each other,” Lt. Ebenezer Elmer of the 3rd New Jersey wrote, referring to the British Light Infantry. Then, the British Grenadiers arrived: “A Column of the Enemy came upon our flank which Caused ’em to give way which soon extended all along ye line; we retreated & formed on ye first ground and gave ’em another fire & so continued on all ye way, but unfortunately for want of a proper Retreat 3 or 4 of our [artillery] pieces were left on ye first ground.”205
One of the first accounts of the battle read by the British public appeared in the newspapers in December, including Felix Farley's Bristol Journal. “At the battle of Brandywine we had the most dreadful fire for one hour I ever saw,” a grenadier officer wrote to a friend in Edinburgh. “I heard nothing equal to it all last war in Germany. At last we gave the rebels the bayonet, which soon dispersed them.”206
Joseph Clark of New Jersey, on General Stephen's staff, noticed, “As their number was larger than was expected they streched their Line beyond ours, & flanked our right wing shortly after the action began. This occasioned the Line to break to prevent being surrounded, tho’ the fireing while the action lasted was the warmest I believe that has been in America since the War begun.” Clark, like many others, tried to collect accounts from different officers, as he seems to have been in the headquarters area near Chads's Ford, probably as a liaison officer. Reports of heavy British casualties were told, retold, and recirculated: “As our men on the left of the Line were pretty well stationed, they swept of[f] great numbers of the Enemy before they retreated and from the best accounts I could collect from the Officers in the Action the Enemy must have suffered very much from our people before they broke.” He mentioned, significantly, “Tho’ indeed Our people suffered pretty much in this action.”207
The Chevalier Dubuysson, Lafayette's companion, was with the young Marquis and General Conway in the center. “Only the divisions of Lord Stirling and M. de Conway held out for any length of time,” the twenty-five-year-old French volunteer wrote. “The Marquis de Lafayette joined the latter, where there were some Frenchmen. He dismounted and did his utmost to make the men charge with fixed bayonets.” According to Dubuysson, “The Frenchmen personally attached their bayonets for them, and Lafayette pushed them in the back to make them charge. But the Americans are not suited for this type of combat, and never wanted to take it up…. Soon that brigade fled like the rest o
f the army.” Dubuysson also noted, “It was there that Lafayette was wounded.”208
Lafayette, writing in the third person, stated, “The confusion became extreme, and it was while M. de Lafayette was rallying the troops that a ball passed through his leg. At that moment the remaining forces gave way, and M. de Lafayette was fortunate to be able to mount a horse, thanks to Gimat, his aide-de-camp.” After three painful weeks of convalescing, Lafayette told his wife, Adrienne, in a light-hearted way, “About that particular eleventh [of September], I have a tale to tell you.” Revealing only that he was very slightly wounded, “I do not know how I received it,” he wrote, not wanting her to worry. “In truth,” he lied to her, “I did not expose myself to enemy fire. It was my first battle, so you see how rare battles are.”209 Barely out of his teens, one of the most popular and romantic American heroes thus was created in the midst of a collapsing battle line.
Across the field, Capt. William Dansey, commanding the 33rd Light Company in the 1st Light Infantry, was lightly wounded but in great pain. Terrified, he and his light bobs took cover under the showers of musket balls and grapeshot ripping up the ground and fences and comrades nearby. “I don't know how I shall end this Letter or when,” he told his mother and girlfriend a month later. “I write to you and Miss Malit as soon as I was able to handle a Pen which I do now in Pain and can not bear to write long at a time, owing to a slight Wound I received…. I was shot thro’ the joint of my right Thumb, which did not make me quit the Field or my Duty afterwards,” he quickly reassured them. Reflecting on the danger of battle, he added, “You will be thankful with me that's no worse for where I expected to have lost my head I had liked to have lost my Thumb.” The trauma of the experience was evident, both in this letter and the next, where he gave yet another indication of the sheer volume of gunfire. “Thank God it is no worse,” he wrote a few days later. “I wou'd have given half a Dozen Thumbs to have been assured Life and Limb at the Time.”210
It could have been much worse. Across the field in Stirling's New Jersey Line, Lt. John Shreve watched as “a cannon-ball went through Captain Stout and through a sergeant that stood behind him, and killed them both.”211 Coming up the slope, the 1st Light Infantry, now supported by the 2nd Grenadier Battalion, hit Conway's 3rd Pennsylvania Brigade on Stirling's right flank hard, and the momentum caused Stirling's line to unravel. “At the same time we were attacked on the right, another attack was made on the left, where our people fought them, retreating in good order,” Dr. Howell of the 2nd New Jersey Regiment wrote. With Sullivan's Division gone in chaos, the 1st Grenadier Battalion was able to advance quickly toward Stirling's exposed left flank, forcing the New Jersey Brigade to pull back or face annihilation. “Our people at last gave way, not being supported, with the loss of very few wounded and killed, not exceeding twelve,” the surgeon continued. “Colonel Shreve in that action was wounded in the thigh, but not mortally. Captain Stout was killed, and one sergeant. These are the only killed in our regiment.” As for himself, Dr. Howell reported, “I shall inform you of my escape from the enemy, after having been among them, with the loss of my mare, saddle and bridle, and great coat and hat. With all my misfortunes I think myself happy, not to be taken prisoner.”212
“I beleive before G. S. D. [General Sullivan's Division] was formed as they changed their ground on which they first draw up, a number of them was marching past my Regiment when the first fire began,” recalled Col. Elias Dayton of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment, holding the center of Stirling's line. “Consequently I belive [they] never fired a gun, in half an hour at furtherst the whole of our men gave wey. The Enemy pursued briskly by which means A number of our wounded as allso some well men fell into their hands.”213
With Stirling dislodged, the 2nd Light Infantry began to advance. Five companies managed to move up the hill across open ground toward Scott's Brigade on Stephen's left flank, which was uncovered by Stirling's withdrawal. Then Gen. James Agnew's 4th Brigade, four regiments of British regulars following the light infantry battalions, came up in support behind the 1st Light Infantry. The 4th Brigade had advanced in a column of battalions, with the 800 men of the 37th and 64th Regiments in front, followed by the 33rd and 46th, another 700. In mapping this intricate maneuver, Captain Robertson of the Engineers noted, “When the 4th Brigade which followed the Rear of the first Battalion Light Infantry gained the Hill” from which the five American guns had been firing, “the two Rear Battalions—the 33rd and 46th—filed off to their left in the Rear of the 5 Companies of the 2nd Battalion of Light Infantry, who by that time had got upon the Flank of the Rebels.” The five companies got up to the Birmingham Road and moved in a column under trees through Sandy Hollow itself, where there was a gap of nearly 300 yards between Stirling's right and Stephen's left, probably caused by the earlier “Sullivan shift” and the terrain. Now, with support from the 33rd and 46th Regiments, they “facilitated the Charge made by the remainder of the 2nd Battalion of Light Infantry and Chasseurs [Jägers] across the Field” at Sandy Hollow.214
A quarter mile away on the far left of the British line, von Wurmb's Jägers were still bogged down in the ravine below Sandy Hollow by the fire from Woodford's Brigade. “By six o'clock our left wing still had not been able to advance,” von Münchhausen stated. “Here the rebels fought very bravely and did not retreat until they heard in their rear General Knyphausen's fire coming nearer.”215 Lieutenant von Feilitzsch of the Anspach Jägers wrote, “The small arms fire was terrible, the counter-fire from the enemy, especially against us, was the most concentrated.”216
Capt. Carl von Wreden, commanding the Hessian Jäger company on the left flank, decided on a daring solution that required bravery and skill. A squad of six marksmen led by a sergeant was sent to swing out wide around Woodford's right. “Sergeant Bickell of Captain Wreden's Company, who had the flanking battalion, moved left to a hill,” Colonel von Wurmb reported to his superiors in Hesse-Cassel, “where he disrupted the enemy for a half hour.”217
Sgt. Alexander Wilhelm Bickell was a twenty-five-year-old forester from the village of Bischhausen, near Eschwege in Hesse. He had volunteered for service in the Hessian Leib-Jäger Corps in 1772 and rose to the rank of sergeant by 1777. His portrait shows a handsome soldier with “an oval face, a strong-minted nose, light blue eyes,” and though he had been clean-shaven, “a fast-growing beard, shown as a shadow.”218
Taking six Jägers around Stephen's right flank, Bickell helped break the stubborn American defense with rifle fire from behind. The sharpshooters wrought havoc by steady, accurate harassing fire at long range. “During the action Colonel Wurmb fell on the flank of the enemy, and Sergeant Bickell with six jägers moved to his rear,” Capt. Johann Ewald said, detailing the straw that broke the camel's back of Sullivan's last defense, “whereupon the entire right wing of the enemy fled to Dilworthtown.”219 For his valor, Bickell was rewarded with the rank of second lieutenant, a rare promotion of a soldier from the ranks to the officer corps.
“Then we heard the firing to our right become lively and detected movements among the enemy,” von Wurmb reported, describing the momentum caused by the British bayonet charge at the other end of the line, “whereupon we attacked them in God's Name and drove them from their post.”220 Over the deafening roar of gunfire, the charge was sounded by the shrill piping of whistles, the long roll of beating drums, and the brassy wail of half-moon horns. “Lieutenant Colonel von Wurmb heard that the right wing was advancing,” the Hessian Jäger Corps journal recorded. “Therefore, he had the call to attack sounded on the half moon, and the Jägers and the battalion of Light Infantry stormed up the height.” The throaty battle cries of the men roared out also. British and American troops traditionally shouted, “Huzza!” (“huh-ZAH!”); the Germans, especially the Jägers, often used “the favorite cry of Frederick the Great—‘ALLONS! ALLONS!’ [“Let's go! Let's go!”].” The journal continued, “The enemy retreated in confusion, abandoning two cannons and an ammunition wagon, which the Li
ght Infantry, because they had attacked on the less steep slope of the height, took possession of.”221
As the whole British left swept forward, Lt. Martin Hunter of the 2nd Light Infantry also recognized the bravery of his opponents, Scott's and Woodford's Virginians. “They stood the charge till we came to the last paling. Their line then began to break, and a general retreat took place soon after, except from their guns, many of which were defended to the last; indeed, several officers were cut down at the guns.” With the perspective of having been in the campaigns since Bunker Hill in 1775, Hunter added, “The Americans never fought so well before, and they fought to great advantage.”222 General Woodford himself was wounded, shot through the hand.
“As we were going up the hill, the English light infantry moved in 10 paces ahead of us and used the cannon, since we were very fatigued from the long march,” Colonel von Wurmb observed somewhat ruefully. Arriving at the summit, the Jäger commander noted, “Many dead lay to our front,” mostly from Woodford's Brigade.223
“The enemy had made a good disposition with one height after the other to his rear,” Lieutenant von Feilitzsch confirmed, writing with slight hyperbole, “He stood fast and was certainly four times as strong as we were. However, all the English and Hessians conducted themselves as they are well-known to do. They attacked with great strength and with the bayonet.” Jäger casualties were relatively light: Among the Anspachers, the lieutenant reported, “Our company suffered four wounded and five dead, including one officer,” Lt. Carl von Forstner, “who will surely die later.” Total Jäger casualties amounted to two officers and six men dead, and three sergeants and thirty-five men severely wounded. Von Feilitzsch piously added, “Once again, God has helped us.”224
The Philadelphia Campaign Page 30