Opinion might and did vary concerning the responsibility of Sullivan for the defeat and for the misinterpretation of intelligence that contributed to the loss of the day, but the heaviest judgment that could be imposed on Sullivan would not exculpate his Commander-in-Chief. Washington conducted the Brandywine operation as if he had been in a daze. The General who always had stressed the necessity of procuring fullest intelligence and of analyzing it correctly had failed to do either or to employ his light horse adequately when the price of error might be the loss of Philadelphia.
Explain the Battle of the Brandywine as one might, it was a defeat that called for an immediate deep withdrawal. From Chester, Washington moved the greater part of his Army to the Schuylkill and over it to German-town, where he had the stragglers collected and the lost detachments sent back to their regiments. All the troops were given rest and such food as the feeble and disorganized Commissary could provide. In shaping his strategy anew, Washington’s deep caution reasserted itself. Speedy reenforcement of the Army was essential if even the semblance of resistance to an advance on Philadelphia was to be maintained. Trained men could come in number from one source only, Putnam’s command. In full appreciation of the risks involved in reducing the force on North River and the highlands of New York, Washington decided first that he must draw to him fifteen hundred men whom Congress had ordered Putnam to send to New Jersey. Then the Commander-in-Chief concluded that another one thousand men could be spared by ’Old Put” without excessive risk.
Washington’s plan was to harass the British with regiments still south of the Schuylkill and then, when the other Continentals had recovered from the shock of battle, leave the militia on guard at the fords towards which the British were heading. With the veteran organization, he would recross the Schuylkill and watch the enemy. This maneuver was exacting but it was attended by no widespread demoralization of the troops or of American supporters in Philadelphia. The rally was firmer and faster than Washington had thought it would be. Almost everywhere the result of the Battle of the Brandywine was accepted without flinching and in the spirit of “better next time.”
Congress’ sole openly voiced resentment, as respected the battle, was against Sullivan, who was blamed by some for the loss of the field. Washington already had been directed to hold a court of inquiry on Sullivan’s handling of the expedition against Staten Island and now was informed that Congress had recalled that officer from command until the inquiry should be completed. At Sullivan’s instance Washington attested that in all he had seen at Brandywine the accused General had behaved well. Washington asked and Congress reluctantly consented to let the Major General continue temporarily in service because Washington had so few officers of that rank.
On September 15 Washington called his still-weary soldiers to pass southward over the Schuylkill once again in an effort to prevent the entry of the British into Philadelphia or, at least, make them pay heavily for the town. On the sixteenth reports indicated that swift maneuver might give the Americans an opportunity that seldom had been theirs—the opportunity of delivering a sudden blow against the enemy while his column was in motion. Washington saw his opening near Warren Tavern, on the road from Lancaster to Philadelphia, and prepared to strike. His prospect was of the fairest when, of a sudden, he encountered something he never before had faced on like scale. The wind rose to a gale from the northeast and brought a rain that did not relent for a second. Washington’s Continentals had learned to defy the worst northeasters that swept in from the North Atlantic, but this time they were caught with forty rounds of ammunition in their cartridge boxes. The better containers turned the rain; the others proved worthless against a long-continued, searching deluge. Before the day ended, Washington was told that tens of thousands of rounds had been ruined and that many regiments could not fire a shot. It was the first time in his experience as Commander-in-Chief that “the whole safety of the Army,” as Washington later wrote the Board of War, depended in action on the “goodness” of a simple and familiar accouterment. There was no immediate hope of drying any of this ammunition, because the rain continued all night and most of the next day. Washington’s men had no shelter and little food; no less than one thousand of them were barefooted. Opposite the dripping, woebegone American columns the British, moreover, maneuvered as if they intended to envelop both flanks and gained such definite superiority of position that on the nineteenth, though the day was lovely and the wind from the northwest, Washington again decided to recross the Schuylkill by way of Parker’s Ford. He left on the British side of the stream the Brigade of Smallwood and the Division of Wayne, who then were separated but were to make common cause in harassing the enemy’s flank and rear and especially in trying to cut off the British baggage.
On the evening of September 20 Wayne encamped his small Division near Paoli, about twelve miles from Philadelphia. During the night three British regiments made a skillful approach, attacked furiously and, in a short time, scattered the division. Wayne lost at least 150 killed, captured or wounded.
The disaster to Wayne cost the Army experienced troops and accelerated the disappearance of militia who, as always, quickly yielded to fear. Washington felt that he must be wary of every move of the British. In the eyes of Nathanael Greene, the Commander-in-Chief seemed to be drifting back into the hesitation of mind that had plagued him before the fall of Fort Washington. A newcomer, Gen. Johann Kalb—the Baron de Kalb he styled himself—wrote:
Washington is the most amiable, kind-hearted and upright of men; but as a General he is too slow, too indolent and far too weak; besides, he has a tinge of vanity in his composition, and overestimates himself. In my opinion, whatever success he may have will be owing to good luck and to the blunders of his adversaries, rather than to his abilities. I may even say that he does not know how to improve upon the grossest blunders of the enemy. He has not yet overcome his old prejudice against the French.
The concern of Kalb and Greene doubtless was shared by other ranking officers not quite so self-confident, but actually at this time Washington was almost as hopeful as he was cautious and apparently of doubtful mind. He believed that time would bring him reenforcements with which to meet the British, even if the enemy occupied Philadelphia. He successfully resisted an effort of Congress to take troops from him and use them in the construction of defences on Delaware River. He sought to hasten the 2500 men called from Putnam and to draw to him other contingents. Until reenforcements assembled Washington could do no more than keep vigilant, render difficult the British passage of the nearby watercourses and repair, as far as time permitted, the manifest weaknesses of his command.
The worst and most pressing of these was in the light horse. Washington had hoped that Joseph Reed would accept the command of the mounted arm, for which he had shown aptitude; but after Reed had declined in June, Washington deferred action. He gradually became convinced that if the cavalry were brought together and employed as a unit they might prove a powerful instrument. This decision had been due, in considerable measure, to the persistence of Count Casimir de Pulaski, a Polish officer who had come to Headquarters with letters from the American Commissioners in France. When Pulaski described how he had used cavalry in a Polish uprising, the American commander had concluded that the leadership of the American troopers might make that officer “extremely useful.” A letter to that effect had been written Congress in August. Pulaski most unwisely had imperiously sought rank subordinate only to that of Washington and of Lafayette. This had created a prejudice against him, but September 15 Congress created the post of “Commander of the Horse,” with rank of Brigadier, and elected Pulaski to it. If Pulaski succeeded in winning the support of the cavalry colonels, the light horse might strike many a stout blow to aid the infantry when—or did Washington have to say “if”—the footmen could find shoes for bad roads and clothing for wintry bivouacs.
That dark contingency was deepened almost immediately. The danger to Philadelphia had compelled the removal to ma
gazines in less exposed towns all stores not immediately required in the city. Ten days after the Battle of the Brandywine the Americans concluded not only that Howe had heard of this transfer but also that he knew the particular value of supplies deposited in Reading. A march begun on the twenty-first seemed to be directed straight at that new base. Washington shifted his right in the same direction, whereupon the British reversed their march, slipped back down the river and on September 26, unopposed, moved into Philadelphia with the easy air of proprietorship. The American commander had been out-maneuvered so easily that the sole immediate question became that of where he should place and how he should employ his troops now that he had lost the largest American city in a manner more humiliating, if possible, than that of his forced abandonment of New York.
As he waited about six miles north of Parker’s Ford on the Schuylkill for reenforcements, Washington and his senior officers had an astonishing experience: they found that British capture of the city meant little compared with what they had feared in the autumn of 1776 the fall of Philadelphia would involve. Now that the calamity had fallen, it was manifest that the course of the campaign had lessened the importance of Philadelphia. The British found there virtually no public property of value. The city was a shell. To some it might be a symbol, but it no longer contained the living organism of independence. Washington’s soldiers had come to regard the fall of Philadelphia as inevitable and they did not permit it to dampen a spirit that was rising again now that tired men were rested. A weightier reason was the joyous certainty that the darkest cloud of the war was losing its blackness. The strategical danger that Washington had dreaded most was being dissipated. On September 19, at Freeman’s Farm, north of Albany, Gates had worsted his opponent so thoroughly that the Commander-in-Chief felt the Americans could “count on the total ruin of Burgoyne.” Unless there was an incredible reversal of fortune, the Hudson no longer would have to be shielded, hourly and vigilantly, as the jugular of America, the severance of which meant death.
Washington’s Army was reenforced at the same time it was reanimated. McDougall’s Brigade arrived about September 27. Other troops were close at hand in numbers estimated to raise the total strength of the Army to eight thousand Continentals and three thousand militia. “I am in hopes,” Washington wrote Heath, “it will not be long before we are in a situation to repair the consequences of our late ill success. . . .” He moved forward to within about twelve miles of the British to await either an advantageous opening or additional men.
Opportunity outmarched militia. At the beginning of October Washington received two intercepted letters which mentioned the detachment of a British force to proceed against Billingsport to aid there in the attempt of the British navy to open the Delaware River. Other intelligence reports showed that the main army of Howe was encamped at and near German-town, a handsome, sprawling village five miles northwest of Philadelphia. When Washington communicated this information to his general officers, they were unanimous in advising attack at Germantown. The Commander-in-Chief now marched into Worcester Township and made camp.
This advance put the Army fifteen miles from Germantown—as close as Washington dared advance in daylight because he hoped to surprise the enemy by attacking at dawn over roads that seemed to form an ideal stage for surprise. The road from Reading and the Shippack Road ran parallel to each other until about four miles from the centre of Germantown. Then they met at Chestnut Hill and ran southward together as the “Main Street.” The course of the two roads would facilitate a deployment at Chestnut Hill or south of it. Moreover, northeast of the Shippack Road was the Lime Kiln Road which came into Germantown from the east. West and southwest of the Main Street and connected easily with it was the Manatawny Road. Washington could advance on three or even on four roads and assail simultaneously the front and flanks of the British.
Into a detailed battle order Washington put what appeared to be the essentials of coordinated attack. Once only before in his three years and more of command of the Army had Washington drafted and executed a General Order for offensive action by the whole of his infantry. That had been for the advance on Trenton December 25-26, 1776. This new order was more elaborate. Reading it, critics in the Army who sometimes accused Washington of overcaution must have been silenced for the moment: Trained reenforcements had not begun to arrive until September 27. One week later the “American Fabius” was to take the offensive.
The Army started its march on the evening of October 3. Probably to avert further criticism of Sullivan, the Commander-in-Chief decided to re main on the right with that officer and entrust management of the left wing to Greene. The longer road was Greene’s by as much as four miles, because a part of his route was circuitous. The night wore dismally on, but by 3 a.m. on the fourth Washington, riding near the head of Sullivan’s column, was inside the area covered by the British patrols. No alarm was audible; the troops continued quietly on their way towards the known picket posts of the enemy. Washington had given instructions that the pickets should be seized or bayonetted before they could make an outcry. The weather during the night had not been unpromising, but as morning approached the advance of the Army ran into fog, which limited vision, distorted the appearance of landmarks and confused every sound.
A bad setting did not balk a good beginning. Unchallenged, Sullivan’s men tramped down the main road; Conway’s Brigade shifted towards the right across the fields. About dawn, Washington heard the rattle of a few muskets, contrary to orders. Evidently the British pickets had been reached, but they had not been surprised altogether. After that, in less time than should have been required for these men to fall back on the first line, the roll of a British volley reached Washington’s ears. The pickets, Sullivan explained later, “were suddenly reenforced by all their Light Infantry,” who seemed to be drawn up in an orchard, unprotected by trenches or redoubts. Gen. Thomas Conway had to halt his flank march and form his brigade in line: soon Washington learned that the enemy was advancing.
Was this the first act of familiar tragedy all over again—a repulse and then a rout? The answer was reassuring for the moment: The British musketry was no nearer; the American line must be standing firm. Perhaps that fog drowned the sound of Greene’s advance. Nothing had come from him, neither a messenger nor the roll of a single volley: he might be succeeding so well that he did not have to use small arms, but it was possible that Greene had lost his way or had met some overpowering obstacle. Why did Gen. John Armstrong and his Pennsylvania militia on the extreme right withhold their fire? It looked as if Sullivan’s Division might have to fight the battle alone. Sullivan ordered Wayne to form on his left where Greene’s troops were to have taken position, started two regiments in the direction of Armstrong’s advance and dispatched Moylan’s light horse to aid the infantry. By these dispositions, Sullivan sought to secure his flanks as well as possible, though he might be compelled to pull both of them back.
About the time this was done the snatches of information that came to Washington indicated that the attack of the British light infantry had been beaten off. The initiative had passed to Sullivan, whose men began to push forward again across fields planted in buckwheat. Troops found this slow work and doubly dangerous, because they might encounter the enemy behind any fence or hedge and in the enclosure of any residence. Fog, now thick with mingled smoke, made the Americans’ pursuit a grope, but it blinded the British and at some points cut visibility to thirty yards. The fog was more protection to the troops on Main Street than they or their officers realized. When the Continentals drove the enemy from one fence line, they did not hesitate to run to the next and then to the next. Soon the troops were far in front of the Commander-in-Chief and were firing furiously. Verbal confirmation came from Sullivan of what the firing already told: the enemy was giving way, Sullivan said; Wayne should push on. Washington agreed. What was more, he ordered Gens. Maxwell and Francis Nash, leaders of the reserve brigades, to put their troops on the flanks of the advancing lin
e.
As Maxwell’s Brigade moved up to support Sullivan it ran into considerable musketry from the windows of a large stone residence, which natives called the Chew House. From second-story windows, which had stout and heavy shutters, Redcoats delivered a sharp fire. An American battery was brought up, but the cannon were placed at an angle to the structure and struck only glancing blows. When the reserve was instructed to keep out of range of the Chew House and otherwise to disregard it, half an hour had been lost, but Sullivan apparently had not been hampered by the delay. His men were pressing gallantly on through blinding, choking smoke and fog. Wayne’s troops were equally aggressive in their resolution to get revenge for the slaughter at Paoli. It was in vain that officers tried to protect the British wounded or the occasional Redcoat who was captured unhurt. All these were bayonetted. Washington pressed so far to the front that Sullivan had to ask him to retire—a request he heeded for a few minutes but then forgot as his soldiers kept their pace.
All this time there had been intense concern over the lack of any news from Greene, but anxiety was relieved. Adam Stephen’s men appeared on the left of Wayne; from the countryside beyond came the bark of cannon and the rattle of small arms. Greene apparently was in position and driving the British. Victory appeared closer: Defeat of Howe when disaster was about to overwhelm Burgoyne might mean the end of the war! Washington was about to give the order for a general advance towards Philadelphia, when something happened. On the left, there was confused firing. Shouts were heard and were answered from a greater distance. On Sullivan’s front a loud volley shook the ground but provoked an uneven answer. Out of the fog men came back on the run, some frantic with fear, some able to gasp a few words—that the enemy was in the rear, that the flank had been turned, that friends had been mistaken for foes, that orders to retreat had been shouted. Presently the artillery galloped past and took the road to the rear. Officers swinging their swords and swearing or pleading, tried to stop what in the course of a few minutes became a mad panic. It was as if they were shouting to the fog to dissipate itself. By ten o’clock, incredibly, the action was over. Two hours and forty minutes had sufficed to see a victory won, as the Americans believed, and then thrown away. Washington could do no less than order the retreat continued till pursuit was shaken off. With intervals of rest for the men who remained together, the backward march dragged for twenty miles and more, until the Army was at Pennypacker’s Mill.
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