In any case, this was one fought, and fought hard, but also one in which George Washington’s forces were surprised by a British flank attack, just as they had been at Long Island the previous summer. It was a battle recorded for posterity as a defeat for the Americans…but an engagement that impressed the British—and an onlooking world—for the vigorous defense the outflanked Americans mounted. Some broke and ran as the overwhelming flood of redcoats advanced upon them…but not all.
Despite the battle’s colorful historical figures, its size, and its drama, it is not one that readily leaps to mind in quick review of the major events of the American Revolution. By reputation, it is no Yorktown, Trenton, or Bunker Hill. Certainly no Lexington or Concord.
Nonetheless, it had its significance in the progression of Revolutionary events overall…and certainly in the chain of events that unfolded just west of Philadelphia in the autumn of 1777. The Battle of the Brandywine was a dramatic prelude to the series of events that ended with Washington entering winter quarters at Valley Forge. And that crucible of suffering, in the eyes of most historians, brought forth a changed, almost professional Continental Army that soon began to turn tables on the British foe.
Perhaps that process had really begun at Brandywine in September 1777.
For the men directly under Washington, it had been almost a year since they enjoyed real battlefield success at Trenton and Princeton—mere skirmishes in scope, compared to what was looming at Brandywine Creek west of Philadelphia.
Far to the north, Horatio Gates, Benedict Arnold, and company had inflicted their stinging defeat upon Britain’s “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York, an impressive, eye-opening victory in itself…but still short of Brandywine’s magnitude in sheer numbers. What set the stage for Brandywine was Sir William Howe’s bold bid to seize the rebel capital of Philadelphia after landing his 17,000 troops on the shores of the upper Chesapeake Bay in late August. Washington hurried his 10,500 or so men over from southern New Jersey to block Howe’s advance…on the wide and placid Brandywine Creek.
Still there and on view to visitors today (Brandywine Battlefield at Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania) are the Quaker farmhouses where Washington and Lafayette quartered on the eve of the battle. The young Frenchman at this point, incidentally, was an unknown quantity to the Americans, a two-star visitor they didn’t know what to do with. Somewhere nearby, too, was a giant teenager from Virginia who, for his size and fighting abilities, would become known as a young “Hercules”—Peter Francisco.
With his troops carefully disposed and his own grand strategy in mind, Washington waited for the British attack sure to come. And on the morning of September 11, it did—a 5,000-man frontal thrust against his center, right at Chadd’s Ford. No cause for alarm…yet.
The trouble was, Sir William, thanks to his Loyalist allies in the area, had better intelligence than the rebels. He had learned of a ford on the creek they didn’t know about, and he at that moment was marching his troops in a semi-circle to cross the creek at that point in the rear and then attack the American right flank by surprise. It was exactly what he had done on Long Island the year before, only that time he had shocked the American left. The result on the Brandywine, after daylong fighting, was defeat for the Americans, although Generals John Sullivan, Adam Stephen, and “Lord” Stirling gamely fought the British outflanking their wing to the right. Anthony Wayne took over the fight at the center, to allow Nathanael Greene to rush his division to the aid of the overwhelmed right flank.
Imagine the chaos among the stunned American high command! Picture George Washington galloping from headquarters to the crisis point, jumping the neat Quaker farm fences, urging on his local guide, Joseph Brown, with the words, “Push along, old man, push along.”
Nonetheless, many of the Americans held, backed off, then held again before final retreat from the tide of redcoats flooding the American rear. In many such pockets, it was only when the issue came down to the use of the bayonet that the Americans finally retreated—since, in most cases, they simply didn’t have bayonets.
They retreated with considerable pride intact. Perhaps Captain Enoch Anderson of Delaware put his finger on the mood of Washington’s army in the immediate aftermath. “Not a despairing look,” did he see that evening, “nor did I hear a despairing word. We had our solacing words always ready for each other, ‘Come boys, we shall do better another time,’ sounded throughout our little army.”
The untried newcomer, Lafayette, had proven his leadership ability in all the tumult, rallying and directing his new comrades despite a leg wound. The young giant Peter Francisco was wounded, but he would live to fight another day.
The same could be said for Washington’s small army itself—wounded, but still able to rise and fight yet again. In just days, the same Continental Army would see Howe occupy Philadelphia, weather a stinging British raid on Wayne’s troops at Paoli, mount a major attack of its own at Germantown (eventually repulsed), frighten off a Howe probe at Whitemarsh, and then head for winter quarters at Valley Forge—there to complete the wintertime metamorphosis producing a greatly toughened, professional army quite ready to take on the far more experienced British.
Still there to see, incidentally, are the very sites where these historic events took place—Brandywine Battlefield at Chadd’s Ford, Cliveden House at Germantown (centerpoint of that battle), and the nearby Valley Forge National Historical Park.
Log Hut City
“WE ARE ALL GOING INTO LOG HUTS,” WROTE THE GENERAL TO A BROTHER, “A sweet life after a most fatiguing campaign.”
As Nathanael informed his brother Jacob, it indeed had been a tough, wearing campaign against the British, but now, in the latter half of December, it was time to go into winter quarters. The order of the day was to build log huts. Hundreds of them—a virtual city of log huts, all by the commander’s exact specifications. They were to build an eighteenth-century Levittown of neat, lookalike structures!
Also by the commander’s order, the army was to be broken up into squads of twelve men each. Each squad would build a log hut 16 feet deep, 14 feet wide, and 6½ feet high, to hold its twelve members. There would be a front door, but no windows. A fireplace and chimney would be placed in the rear wall for heat. Gaps in the log walls would be chinked—filled in—with clay as mortar. The roofs would be made of crude shingles when possible, wood slabs, boards, even dirt supported by sticks, saplings…whatever could be found. The front door opening would be covered by primitive wooden slabs or boards, as well. Inside would be twelve bunks, six to a side wall, upper and lower. The bedding would be straw spread on wooden slats.
The army began trailing into its valley on December 19, and in one month’s time, nearly one thousand log huts had been constructed. All told, about twelve thousand men were housed against the winter elements in their city of log cabins, after a historic explosion in log cabin construction for one place, at one time.
Historic, yes, but not for that reason alone. Much better known is another historical context entirely. Better known because it was General Nathanael Greene who wrote his brother Jacob in January of 1778.
Because it was a commander named George Washington who issued the orders to build those huts and bed down in them. Because the valley chosen for his army’s winter quarters in 1777–1778 was Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
The men and officers wearily marching into Valley Forge were at yet another nadir in the fortunes of their rebellion against the British Crown. They were at the bottom of their hopes, and they could soon thank their lucky stars for those stout huts George Washington ordered them to start building right away.
They probably needed little urging, since the day chosen for the march to Valley Forge was dismal and bleak—cold, dark, windy, icy underfoot and, by evening, gritty with snow blowing into their faces. Just behind Washington’s tattered army—at that moment only about eleven thousand strong—was a string of disappointing engagements with the British. Technical defeats,
most of them, and yet examples of unexpected stubbornness shown by Washington’s raggedy Continentals.
They came, historians say, shuffling along single file, some in bare feet. It took six hours for the whole column to pass any one spot on the trail. They came to a natural valley only eighteen miles northwest of Philadelphia, revolutionary America’s capital city…but now newly occupied by the British.
Encompassing about two thousand acres, the triangle-shaped scoop in the Pennsylvania terrain was bounded on the north by the Schuylkill River, on the west by Valley Creek, on the southeast by a low ridge and, beyond that, on the east, by Trout Creek. This had been the home of an ironworks once known as the Mt. Joy Forge, but most recently called the “Valley Forge.” As a supplier for the rebels, it had already attracted unwelcome British attention—in September of 1777 they raided the undefended valley and destroyed both the forge and a nearby sawmill, all belonging to Isaac Potts and his brother-in-law, William Dewees. With winter snows blowing now, though, the valley would be a safe refuge for Washington and his men. It was just far enough from the British to avoid surprise attack, yet close enough to harass their foragers and keep an eye on them—and it was defensible.
The British, too, had gone into winter quarters…but with the city of Philadelphia to pull down about their ears. Their commander, Sir William Howe, could be well satisfied with his achievements of recent weeks. He had sailed into the upper Chesapeake Bay, landed his men at Head of Elk, Maryland; skirted the Americans at Newport, Delaware; defeated them in the Battle of the Brandywine at Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania; ambushed Anthony Wayne at Paoli (the Paoli “massacre”); raided Valley Forge; slipped between Washington and Philadelphia; and repulsed a subsequent American attack at Germantown. Now occupying Philadelphia, the British drove the rebels out of nearby Fort Mercer and Fort Mifflin south of the city and briefly engaged Washington again at Whitemarsh to the north.
None of the foregoing was a real knockout blow for the Continentals, but it certainly was a bedraggled lot now filing into the valley that Washington had chosen as a winter quarters. The sick were sent to Reading, Pennsylvania, just beforehand…but with two thousand men marching shoeless and all the rest exhausted and now exposed to the elements, it wouldn’t be long before many more would turn up ill.
They arrived at nightfall December 19, with only a light snow blowing. Christmas Day would bring heavy snow—four inches. Another four inches would fall December 28, and still more the next day. Obviously, from the very first moments at Valley Forge, shelter and food were needs that had to be met.
With Washington’s log huts the shelters of choice, the men of his army fell to their mammoth construction project right away—“like a family of beavers,” said the revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine after a brief visit.
Even so, it would be more than a month before all were securely “hutted.” Nor was it an easy task to build the huts. There were plenty of trees to chop down, but tools, even nails, were in short supply. So were draft animals—the men had to bend their own backs hauling the logs to their hut sites. The sites, by the way, were arranged on “streets” organized by military company, by enlisted men’s quarters, and by officers’ quarters. Which is not to say, as events turned out, that all the log huts were built exactly to Washington’s prescription. The tired troops in many cases preferred to excavate a dirt flooring two feet below the ground to save a few logs in the walls above, even though that meant added dampness inside. In some cases also, the dimensions of the huts were a bit smaller than called for, or the fireplaces were placed in a different spot.
The most common variation may have been in the roofing materials, since wooden boards or shingles were not easily found. At least one squad used evergreen boughs, it appears, while others resorted to tent cloth as a temporary expedient. The roofing problem was so vexing that Washington offered $100, a goodly sum in those days, for the best suggested substitute for wooden boards.
By February 8, 1778, however, Washington was able to report “most of the men are now in tolerable good Hutts.”
Obviously lacking in each case, of course, were toilet facilities—the so-called “necessaries” were located some distance away, and often, too often at that, the men used nearby ground rather than walk to the common toilet facilities. Sanitation problems and concomitant disease sickened about two thousand of Washington’s men that winter and spring, not strictly because of cold weather, but more likely due to the warm-weather interludes that allowed bacteria to grow. More men from the Valley Forge encampment, in fact, died in the month of May 1778 than in any other month.
The rest, however, survived…to form the nucleus of a toughened, more tightly disciplined, better-trained Continental Army that went on to secure victory in the Revolutionary War. The majority survived that winter in large part because their need for shelter had been met almost from the start in the form of their log huts.
With the advent of warm weather in spring of 1778, the men were ordered to punch windows into their often smoky, poorly ventilated log structures, and to remove the clay chinking between the logs. Once the men marched out—in pursuit of the British after they left Philadelphia—the weakened log huts didn’t last long. Indeed, none survived the two-plus centuries since, but if you visit the Valley Forge National Historical Park today, you will see life-size replicas on view at the ridgetop site where Patriot General Peter Muhlenberg’s brigade once was encamped.
Deliverance by a Prussian Gentleman
AT THE DREARY CAMPSITE OF GENERAL WASHINGTON AND HIS BEDRAGGLED army the winter of 1778, there appeared an unlikely apparition of sorts fresh “off the boat.” He rode into Valley Forge from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, late one day in February. He was an unprepossessing fellow, nearly comical in his uniform of blue. Middle-aged, a bit stout, long-nosed and balding, he was given to expostulation, but never in English, since he could not speak a word of it.
But he was full of energy and enthusiasm for the Cause. And he carried credentials and he had recommendations (from no less than Ben Franklin in France, for one) that made him appear to be, if not exactly the right hand of Frederick the Great, at the very least a veteran lieutenant general who had served with the famous military leader and king of Prussia.
That the newcomer was not really a lieutenant general, but rather a mere captain—an unemployed, impoverished one at that—did not immediately come to light. Nor was it clear—for that matter, nor is it clear even today—exactly how Baron von Steuben came by his title.
What is clear is that the plump and jovial Prussian (with an Italian greyhound by his side) became, nearly by himself, the salvation of the ragtag army’s morale and efficiency in the very winter of its composite soul. Beset, challenged, and questioned from all sides, saddened by the plight of his suffering men, facing another summer of battle with the well-stocked British, George Washington had found himself an angel of deliverance.
Previously stung by the smug posturing of earlier, self-appointed recruits, Washington did entertain some caution in greeting the latest volunteer. And it was a time of low ebb in American fortunes, perhaps even of disillusionment, with the Patriot constituency. While the British sat snugly in Philadelphia, both warm and well fed, or at least well enough fed, Washington’s men huddled in their log huts, left bloody markings on their shoeless marches, and grew thin for lack of real food.
Around the destitute army, few of the citizenry seemed to rally. Counterfeiters, report George F. Scheer and Hugh Rankin in their 1957 book Rebels & Redcoats, were issuing better-quality thirty-dollar bills than was the American Congress. Farmers around Valley Forge sent their provisions to the British in Philadelphia for the reliable English pound, rather than feed their own suffering army at Valley Forge.
But now arrived Steuben with his glowing recommendations from Ben Franklin and Silas Deane in France—the sort of high praise Washington had heard before, only to be disillusioned with its subject. The Virginian was taken, though, by Steuben’s own cover letter t
hat had come in advance of the Prussian’s arrival. In it, Steuben had proclaimed his greatest ambition was “to render your country all the services in my power and to deserve the title of a citizen of America by fighting for the cause of your liberty.”
Washington didn’t yet know that Steuben was no lieutenant general or that he had not served for twenty-two years under Frederick the Great, as claimed. But Washington saw some hope in the baron’s simple request, and Steuben in fact had served in Frederick’s army, knew his military lessons, and once had been among thirteen officers the great Frederick personally chose for his own instruction in general staff work.
Baron von Steuben thus qualified for a tryout at drilling and training the wintering Americans while Washington kept close eye on the proceedings. That Steuben was successful with the first hundred men placed in his charge as a “test case,” and later with thousands more, is history.
As history also records, Steuben wrought a cohesive magic for Washington’s citizen army, which soon sallied forth from Valley Forge to sting the British at Monmouth Court House, New Jersey. He first became inspector general, then served well and faithfully throughout the Revolutionary War in various capacities—and, indeed, by the act of a grateful Pennsylvania legislature, did become an American citizen.
Lifted the Horse
A COLORFUL FIGURE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, TEENAGE SOLDIER PETER Francisco was a giant in stature and strength. Appearing in ten engagements with the British from New York to the Carolinas and five times wounded, the young Virginian became the subject of many a Bunyanesque tale told and retold at Patriot campfires.
By one such legend, he slew eleven redcoats at Guilford Court House, North Carolina, with his fearsome, extra-long broadsword.
Best Little Stories from the American Revolution Page 28