Hessian troops under the command of Col. Johann von Loos, including the Combined Battalion, which was composed of the remains of the regiments defeated at Trenton, were sent to Wilmington two days later to escort the wounded and many prisoners. “We started at 6 o'clock on the morning of the 14th and escorted the wounded belonging to our army and 350 prisoners to Wilmington, a beautiful little town surrounded by two rivers, the Brandywine and Christine, both of which flow into the Delaware close to this place,” a Hessian report eloquently stated.
On the march thither we destroyed a magazine belonging to the rebels containing arms, cartridge pouches, and clothing. Colonel MacDonald with 3 Battalions Scotch Highlanders had already taken possession of Wilmington; the small rebel garrison had been surprised by him in the night. In a fort in the direction of the Delaware, we found 7 guns. All the troops which were now under command of Colonel von Loos encamped on a height before the town, and fortified themselves as well as circumstances permitted, as we had not much Artillery with us.36
In one of his letters to his friend Charles Steuart in Edinburgh, James Parker compiled a remarkable list of the breakdown of American prisoners by nationality:
To give an idea of what the Rebels are Composed of please know that the 315 Rebel prisoners we sent from Dillworth to Wilmington were as follows:
English 65
Scots 9
Irish 134
German 16
Italian 3
Swiss 1
Russ 1
Gernsey 1
French 3
American 82
31537
Lord Cornwallis was sent toward Chester via Concord with the British grenadier and light infantry battalions. “The 13th Marched to Chester and on the Roade fell in With Several Out houses and Barns full of Wounded men Who tould us that If We keep on that Night We Should have put a total End to the Rebelion,” an officer of the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion wrote.38 Cornwallis rendezvoused with Grant's force at Concord and advanced to the heights of Aston, just outside Chester. Some British patrols went into Chester without opposition; this was the extent of Howe's pursuit of Washington.
Plundering once again became a serious problem, and Lord Cornwallis resorted to hanging two soldiers in the Aston camp. “A Light Infantry man of the 5th. & a Grenadier of the 28th were executed today at 11 o'clock in front of 1st Grenadiers for mauroding,” Captain-Lieutenant Peebles wrote in his diary. Significantly, he added, “The 1st. Examples made, tho often threaten'd, & many deserved it.”39 Despite the severity of the punishment, the practice persisted, though not nearly as widespread, as authorized and unauthorized foraging parties continued to scour the region.
The Gibbons farm in Westtown Township, not far from the Frazer plantation, was cleaned out of livestock by several foraging parties. Forty-one-year-old James Gibbons was a Quaker and a self-educated Renaissance man, another of the “great and strange” people of Chester County. In addition to being a farmer, he was a classical scholar who was fluent in Latin and Greek as well as French and Spanish, and a mathematician and surveyor who served as the county treasurer and as a representative in the Pennsylvania Assembly. His forty-year-old brother, Col. William Gibbons, was commander of the 7th Battalion of the Chester County Militia and was good friends with John Hannum and Thomas Cheyney.
Jane Sheward Gibbons, their seventy-five-year-old mother, was a tall and dignified Quaker widow, “the queen of the county,” as one contemporary put it. She went to Howe's headquarters to try to recover a favorite cow that had been taken and was allowed to apply to Howe in person. Howe courteously listened to her request, and then asked her to state her name.
“My name is Jane Gibbons,” she said.
“Have you not a son in the rebel army?” Howe questioned.
“I have a son in George Washington's army,” Jane replied. William's decision to take up arms had no doubt been the source of much grief to this Quaker family.
“I am afraid, madam,” Howe told “the queen of the county,” “that you love your cow better than your king!” Biting her tongue, Mrs. Gibbons quietly said, “I bid thee farewell,” and left. Shortly after, “the cow escaped from the enemy, and found her way back to her kind mistress.”
The Gibbons farm had other visits. A well-educated British officer leading one foraging party came into the Gibbons house and, seeing shelves filled with books, said to James, “You are a clergyman, I fancy?”
“No, I am not,” Gibbons replied.
“A doctor, perhaps?”
“I am not a doctor,” Gibbons answered.
“Pray, then,” the officer said, “what is your profession?”
“I am a Chester County farmer.”
“But these are not farmer's books!” protested the officer, who was examining some of them.
“What dost thou know about them?” Mr. Gibbons asked.
“Oh,” the officer said, “they are old and familiar friends.”
The British officer and the Quaker farmer then had “a long and very pleasant conversation” on the subject of education in England and America. At the end, the British officer reached out his hand and said, “This has been the most agreeable hour I have spent in your country. I did not expect to find classical scholars in the woods of America.”40
While Howe's forces continued to sit at Dilworth and Aston, and with them no closer to Philadelphia than the outskirts of Chester, Washington decided to leave the Falls Camp on September 14 and go on the offensive. He ordered the floating bridge to be detached and pulled to the eastern side of Middle Ferry, “as the Enemy (being now advanced near Chester) will probably detach a party of light Troops to take possession of it.” Initially planning to move the army up to Swedes Ford, he instead decided to cross at Levering's Ford, about halfway between Swedes Ford and the city, and move onto the Lancaster Road, the main direct route between Philadelphia and Lancaster. This would enable the army to obstruct Howe's advance to the Schuylkill by marching up to the Great Valley toward Downingtown and taking up positions blocking the road to Swedes Ford.
French engineers headed by Col. Louis Le Bègue de Presle du Portail were sent by Washington to Gen. John Armstrong of the Pennsylvania Militia, with orders to fortify Swedes Ford with a redoubt and heavy cannon. “Colo. Du Portail and his Officers will attend you for this purpose,” Washington told the Pennsylvania general. Knowing some of the difficulties of dealing with professional military engineers, especially with the ongoing squabbles between Frenchmen, he told Armstrong, “As it is not expected that these Works will have occasion to stand a long defence, they should be as such as can with the least labour and in the shortest time be completed, only that part of them which is opposed to cannon, need be of any considerable thickness and the whole of them should be rather calculated for dispatch than any unnecessary Decorations or Regularity which Engineers are frequently too fond of.”41
Contentions between the English speakers and the French officers were one ongoing source of tension in the army; jealousies and rivalries among the French engineers concerning the Delaware River defenses at Forts Mifflin and Mercer had been growing ever more divisive. Duportail and others had been in conflict with the Chevalier de Coudray, appointed as a major general and inspector general of ordnance and military manufactories by Congress to oversee the river defenses. Phillipe Charles Jean Baptiste, Tronson de Coudray, often called du Coudray or simply Coudray, was able and well connected but also imperious. He had arrived from France with an entourage of eighteen officers and ten sergeants and was a continual source of political turmoil. “I believe M. Du Coudray has done us the most damage, because he has disgusted the whole Congress,” Dubuysson wrote. “He arrived here with the airs of a lord.” When Duportail and other engineers arrived, de Coudray “was unmasked…he reviles all the Frenchmen, even the Marquis de Lafayette, to whom he wrote a very rude letter.”42
Faced with more of the same infighting, which promised only to worsen, few were heartbroken when fate intervened.
On the morning of September 16, “Cloudy and some Rain, about 11 oClock General Coutree [de Coudray] set off with Nine French officers towards the Camp, over Schuylkill,” Jacob Hiltzheimer wrote in his diary, “but he the Said French Genl. Kep on his Horse, in the Boat Crossing. His Horse Leped over board, and thereby Drowned the General. In the Evening went to Schuylkill and Seen Said Genl. Taken up out of the water.”43 The controversial Frenchman had foolishly decided to ride his horse onto the ferryboat at the Lower Ferry. The high-spirited animal kept going, taking the high-spirited general with him. Though he managed to get free from his stirrups, his aides were unable to rescue him. “This Morning, Genl. De Coudray, in attempting to cross the Schuylkill, was unfortunately drowned,” Hancock wrote to Washington, “and was this Afternoon interred at the public Expence.”44 Lafayette remarked, “The loss of this muddle-headed man was perhaps a happy accident.”45
Washington's army recrossed the Schuylkill at Levering's Ford to head back into Chester County, “the water being nearly up to the waist,” Timothy Pickering wrote. “We lost here much time, by reason of mens stripping off their stocking & shoes & some of them their breeches,” he grumbled. “It was a pleasant day, & had the men marched directly over by platoons without stripping, no harm could have ensued, their cloaths would have dried by night on their march, & the bottom would not have hurt their feet.” The adjutant general was extremely annoyed by a poor display of leadership, for “the officers too discovered a delicacy quite unbecoming soldiers; quitting their platoons, & some getting horses of their acquaintences to ride over, and others getting over in a canoe. They would have better done their duty had they kept to their platoons & led in their men.”46
The Continentals “proceeded on—passed till we came to Merion Meeting House,” Sgt. John Hawkins of Congress's Own Regiment wrote, “where we turned into the Lancaster Road” near the eighth milestone “and kept on till we came near the Eleventh Mile Stone where we halted in the Woods and rested this night.”47 The Sign of the Buck, or Widow Miller's Tavern, eleven miles from Philadelphia, became general headquarters. The front of the army continued as far as Radnor Meeting at the fourteenth milestone, where Anthony Wayne wrote to Gen. Thomas Mifflin, “The Enemy, sore from the Others days Action lay in a Supine State—part at Dilworths, part at Chads's ford, & the Remainder Advance at Concord. We Intend to push for the White Horse,” a tavern in the Great Valley a dozen or so miles ahead, near where the Swedes Ford Road connects with the Lancaster Road.
Wayne had a rhetorical question for Mifflin about Howe's forces: “May they not steal a March and pass the fords in the Vicinity of the Falls unless we immediately March down and Give them Battle?” he asked in his usual bellicose style. “Come then and push the Matter and take your fate with your most humble and very obedient servant, Anty. Wayne.”48
From the Buck that evening, Washington wrote to Gen. William Smallwood, who was supposed to have brought the Maryland Militia up to the main army several days before. Smallwood faced more problems than anyone could imagine: no food, few weapons, badly made ammunition, no tents or blankets—not even officers’ commissions or regulations for the Marylanders. Hundreds of those who initially turned out went home, and dozens were leaving hourly. He wrote repeatedly to those in authority—Gov. Thomas Johnson, Congressman Samuel Chase, William Paca, and Washington—describing the chaos. Yet from the Buck, he received a letter that said, “His Excellency begs you will push on as expeditiously as possible with what troops you now have, leaving those in your rear to follow, and that you will either annoy or harass the Enemy on their Flank or Rear.”49
Smallwood received this letter at Oxford Meeting House in southern Chester County, more than fifty miles away, the following day. His militia force of 1,400 was only half armed, with no artillery, little ammunition, and no training. Worse yet, they had to forage every day for provisions, as the Commissary Department had failed them every step of the way. “I will do all in my Power to comply with our Instructions,” he replied, “but the Condition of my Troops, their Number, the state of their arms, Discipline and Military Stores, I am Apprehensive will not enable me to render that essential Service.” The Maryland general feared that Howe's army, less than thirty miles away, “may detach a Body of Infantry with their light Horse to Attack and disperse the Militia.” He reminded Washington, “Your Excelly. Is too well acquainted with Militia to place much Dependence in them when opposed to regular and veteran Troops, without Regular Forces to support them.” Besides, under the circumstances, “it will not be in my Power to bring these Troops for these three Days to come on the Enemy's Rear.” Smallwood added, “Your Excy. will excuse the freedom I have taken in offering my sentiments.”50
Washington had a number of other immediate problems to deal with as far as generals were concerned. Congress voted to recall Sullivan from active field command on September 14, pending an inquiry into his performance at Brandywine; this was on top of the Staten Island fiasco, which inquiry was also pending. Gen. Preudhomme de Borre, insulted that he too was going to be the subject of an investigation, submitted his resignation. No tears were shed at de Borre's departure; however, the Maryland Line was now in a serious managerial crisis. “Tho’ I would willingly pay every attention to the Resolutions of Congress, yet in the late instance respecting the recall of Genl. Sullivan, I must defer giving any order about it,” Washington told John Hancock. “Our Situation at this time is critical and delicate…to derange the Army by withdrawing so many General Officers from it, may and must be attended with many disagreeable, if not ruinous, Consequences.” Recalling Sullivan would leave the entire Maryland Division without a single general officer. Washington went on to say, “I cannot be answerable for the consequences which may arise from a want of Officers to assist me.”51 Congress reluctantly agreed, and Sullivan's inquiries were put off until the campaign slowed down.
The Continental Army continued its march up the Lancaster Road on September 15. The day dawned with gray skies, and the atmosphere became more unsettled as a major Nor'easter made its way slowly up the coast. The troops marched about twelve miles, and Washington took up quarters in the Malin House in East Whiteland Township, where the Swedes Ford Road and Lancaster Road intersect. Three miles farther west, advance parties of the army moved to the vicinity of the White Horse Tavern, while the rear of the army stretched three miles back from Malin's to the General Paoli Tavern in Tredyffrin Township.
“At 6 AM we marched to the Sorrel Horse, the Spread Eagle, and to Paoli, where we encamped,” Lt. James McMichael of the Pennsylvania State Regiment wrote in his diary on September 15, naming some of the taverns they passed on the way.52 The Paoli Tavern was named in honor of Gen. Pasquale Paoli, a Corsican patriot who had fought for Corsica's independence and was the hero of the Whigs, both in England and America. In between general headquarters at Malin's and the Paoli Tavern was the Adm. Warren Tavern, named for the British naval hero Sir Peter Warren. “Marchd to the Warren on Lancaster road,” Ens. George Ewing of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment wrote in his journal, noting where Stirling's Division encamped.
The army was about to enter a phase of campaigning that would try the men to their limits of physical endurance in the defense of Philadelphia. “Were I to describe the hardships and difficulties we underwent from this time untill the 4 of October no person but those who were with us would credit my relation,” Ewing observed. “Therefore I chuse to pass it over in silence rather than those who should se this work should think me guilty of an Hyperbole.”53
The Crown Forces remained encamped in the vicinity of Dilworth and Aston until the night of September 15. “At 4 o'clock P. M. learnt that the rebel army which had crossed the Schuylkill at Philadelphia had repassed it to this side of Levering's Ford and were pursuing the road to Lancaster,” Montrésor wrote. Howe decided that this would be the time to move, and he ordered Lord Cornwallis to march from the “Ashtown Camp” toward the Great Valley by way of Goshen Friends Meeting, where the two columns would rend
ezvous. Montrésor noted, “This night at 8, the body with Lord Cornwallis moved from near Chester towards the Lancaster Road.”54
Cornwallis had both grenadier and both light infantry battalions with him at Aston, near Chester, along with Grant's two brigades, and he began advancing up the Edgemont Road toward the rendezvous at Goshen Meeting. “We turn'd off at the sign of the 7 stars into the Lancaster road”—actually the Edgemont Road, which led to the Lancaster Road—“& march'd about 2 miles over very rough road & halted till day light, ye 16th” wrote Captain-Lieutenant Peebles, “when we moved on for 9 or 10 miles & made a halt.”55 The weather was turning stormy and the roads were rutted, churned into a dense paste by the movement of thousands of feet.
American scouts were on the lookout for British activity in this area. Lt. Col. Persifor Frazer and Maj. John Harper of the 2nd Pennsylvania Brigade, who was a neighbor, along with Frazer's brother-in-law Jacob Vernon, were on the Edgemont Road not far from the Frazer farm. Stopping at the Blue Ball Tavern for refreshments, “Major Harper looking from the window saw a number of horsemen coming up the road who from their uniform he supposed were part of a company of Virginia Light horse.” Some troopers of Moylan's 4th Continental Light Dragoons wore captured uniforms of the 8th and 24th Regiments, both royal regiments, with blue facings. They were constantly causing confusion and alarm; Washington at one point had ordered the men to wear linen hunting shirts over the coats.56 But evidently Harper now presumed that dragoons in red coats faced with blue were Virginians and not the 16th Queen's Own Light Dragoons—who also wore red coats faced with blue. “When the mistake was discovered Uncle Jacob Vernon jumped out of a window…. The others attempting to do so, were fired upon, the house surrounded and they captured, their swords and horses taken from them and themselves compelled to proceed with their captors.”57
The Philadelphia Campaign Page 36