40. Howe's Expedition in Pennsylvania

While Gates was greatly helping to win the war in the north, Washington and Howe were seemingly competing with each other to see who could best lose the war further south. Howe had finally embarked with his huge armada on July 23. The voyage was a slow and lackadaisical one; apparently he had no intention of finishing his business at Philadelphia quickly and then racing back to New York to help Burgoyne. He first sailed up the Delaware River on July 29, this being the shortest route to Philadelphia, where he could land just south of the city. But then, worried about Washington’s nonexistent river forts near Wilmington, he turned around, sailed all the way around the peninsula and up Chesapeake Bay, to land, finally, fifty miles from Philadelphia at Head of Elk, Maryland, on August 25. A full month had been consumed in this short voyage, and, after all this time and the suffering of men and horses aboard from heat, rough seas, confinement, and shortage of supplies, the British forces found themselves considerably further from that city than they had been in New Jersey!

Washington stationed himself at Wilmington and when Howe landed, he decided to abandon the uncongenial role of guerrilla chieftain for that of orthodox general. He chose open frontal battle with a far superior British army in order to defend Philadelphia—at all costs. His best strategy would have been to abandon Philadelphia to Howe, speed north to crush Burgoyne, and then lead the victorious army southward. In any event, he should not have courted terrible defeats by trying to keep Howe from a city which would do the British little good anyway.

With 15,000 men to Washington’s 11,000, Howe’s army was superior in both firepower and manpower when the two forces met along Brandy-wine Creek, at Chad’s Ford, in Pennsylvania near the Delaware border. Howe attacked on September 11, sending Cornwallis with half the troops in a deft and silent flanking maneuver—reminiscent of Long Island—to the left to cross the stream and come behind the American right wing. General Sullivan, commanding the right wing, turned almost at the last minute to meet the assault. Cornwallis had almost broken through Sullivan, but Nathanael Greene brought two brigades from the center and raced four miles in forty-five minutes to save the American right from utter rout, and perhaps the entire army from destruction. In the meantime, Gen. Wilhelm von Knyphausen, commanding the center at Chad’s Ford, was able to crash through the American center, and Washington was forced to retreat north to Chester, where Greene brought back his brigades to join him. The American defeat had been severe indeed; Washington had lost over 1,000 casualties, while the British had lost 500. Again Howe failed to press ahead quickly and destroy the demoralized American troops, but this time there was perhaps the good excuse that the British forces were too weary.

Washington’s generalship had rarely been worse than at Brandywine. Apart from the strategic error of confronting the British in open battle, he failed to anticipate Howe’s favorite flanking maneuver with less excuse than at Long Island, and he failed to use his cavalry as scouts to find out what the British were up to. In his report on the battle to Congress, he displayed a severe lack of graciousness toward his best subordinates that was rapidly becoming characteristic, and he completely failed to mention the feat of Greene and his men in saving the American army.

Despite the severe defeat, Washington continued to be optimistic about massive encounters with the enemy. He tried a frontal attack again on September 16 at Warren Tavern west of Philadelphia, but a heavy storm halted the battle after fighting had begun.

On the night of September 20, young Gen. Anthony Wayne’s division, left behind at Paoli when Washington recrossed the Schuylkill to harass the enemy flanks, was surprised by a force under Gen. Charles Grey. The British bayonet charge, always effective against the Americans, routed Wayne’s forces and inflicted nearly 400 casualties at the expense of virtually none. In this nighttime attack, the British were aided by Wayne’s having formed his defense lines between the attacking Grey and their own campfires, the American silhouettes providing easy targets. Free of harassment, the British pushed north on September 22. In a clever maneuver, Howe seemed to be trying to trap Washington’s forces, to outflank him on the right, or to go westward to seize American stores at Warwick. In response, Washington moved north, falling for the ruse. With Washington lured to the northward, Howe quickly turned southeast, crossed the Schuylkill unopposed, and marched easily toward Philadelphia. On September 26, Cornwallis and his column took occupation of Philadelphia, while the main British army camped north of the city at Germantown.

The easy taking of Philadelphia, coming after his string of victories, caused Howe to grow overconfident. He scornfully refused to build entrenchments at his camp at Germantown, and split his army by stationing considerable troops in Philadelphia and across the river in New Jersey to capture the fort at Billingsport. This left only 9,000 men in Howe’s force at Germantown; in response, the Americans decided to attack from their positions to the north.

In emulation of such ancient strategists as Hannibal and Scipio, Washington launched a concerted multipronged surprise bayonet attack on the night of October 3. But, in contrast to Hannibal and Scipio, Washington made several grievous tactical mistakes. He placed the bulk of his army in the center and weak militia columns on the flanks, while his ancient models had placed their strongest forces on the sides; he failed to realize there was a lack of communications between the four widely separated forces launching the simultaneous attack; and he ignored the roughness of the terrain, which was not conducive to bayonet charges.

Despite these errors, however, the Americans almost won. Sullivan’s column at right center was the first to engage the enemy on the morning of October 4. Greene took his force, including two-thirds of the army at left center, swiftly south and southwest to join Sullivan. Together the two, aided by the bayonet charge of Col. Peter Muhlenberg, broke through British lines and were on the point of victory. But fog was thickening rapidly, and soon the divisions could not see what was going on. A series of tragicomic errors ensued. Colonel Henry Knox, inspired by classical military lore, persuaded Washington to waste precious time trying—unsuccessfully—to level Justice Benjamin Chew’s house on the battlefield (several British companies were using it as a fortress) instead of pressing his advantage in the battle. Moreover, Gen. Adam Stephen detached himself from Greene’s column to bombard the house, gravely weakening Greene’s forces. As the fog thickened, Wayne got the idea that Sullivan, at his rear, was in trouble, and he abandoned the spearhead of the advance to effect a “rescue.” The two American divisions (Wayne and Stephen) thereupon fired upon each other, and both fled. Sullivan’s troops, remaining in right center, began to run short of ammunition, and fearing imminent encirclement, they too broke and ran. As for the American forces on the wings, Maj. John Armstrong’s column on the extreme right was repulsed, and Gen. William Smallwood’s force arrived on the scene after the battle was over. Neither man pursued his task very energetically.

Greene had been left to fight the British all alone, and he was trapped. Muhlenberg’s bayonet brigade was already far ahead of him, but they wheeled back, charged, and joined him. In the course of this, an entire regiment was captured. Greene’s troops retreated and soon the entire American army was in a rout. In this Battle of Germantown—the final pitched battle of the Philadelphia campaign—the British had lost over 500 casualties; but the Americans had suffered the staggering total of almost 1,200 men. In the three battles, Washington’s forces had lost over 2,200 men.

The most astute comment on the Battle of Germantown—indeed it could well apply to the entire two years of campaigning between Howe and Washington—appeared in a London newspaper: “Any other general in the world than General Howe should have beaten General Washington, and any other general in the world than General Washington would have beaten General Howe.”

To hold Philadelphia, the British had to be able to supply it by sea, and now at last Admiral Howe sailed up the Delaware to reduce the forts above Chester in American hands. The fort at Billingsport fell quickly, but Fort Mercer, at Red Bank on the Jersey shore, repulsed a massive Hessian assault on October 22, inflicting nearly 400 losses. But when the Americans foolishly tried to hold the indefensible Fort Mifflin, on Hog Island in the Delaware, fierce British bombardment reduced it to rubble, killing or wounding 250 of the American garrison in the process. The British took the fort on November 15, and from there were able to go back and capture Mercer. The Delaware was now clear and in British hands.

Meanwhile, Washington wandered around aimlessly, moving his camp to and fro without purpose. Howe withdrew from Germantown to Philadelphia and constructed fortifications. Washington toyed with the totally disastrous idea of a frontal assault on fortified Philadelphia, and was supported in this by General Wayne, but the leading officers, including Greene, Knox, and Sullivan, rejected the scheme. Howe tried once again to bring on a final battle with Washington, and marched out in dead of night on December 4 against Washington’s camp at Whitemarsh. But Washington was well prepared, and the brilliant American partisan leader Capt. Allen McLane charged and harassed the British line. Apart from a few skirmishes on December 7, nothing else could be done, and Howe returned to Philadelphia.