Just above Wayne’s position was a stone house owned by John Chads. The small community of Chads’s Ford, first settled in 1687, was named after him, and the house, situated on a knoll above the ford, was built by 1704. Chads established the ferry in 1731 and maintained and supervised the operation until his death in 1760. Even as the armies gathered and Washington’s soldiers stole her firewood and tore down her fences for more, Chads’s widow Elizabeth remained in her home, as she would throughout the ensuing combat to follow. Lord Stirling would utilize the Chads house as his headquarters on the morning of battle.
John Sullivan’s 1,800-man Third Division slid into place farther north about one-and one-half miles beyond Wayne’s right flank. Sullivan’s primary task was to guard Brinton’s Ford, though his responsibility extended well north of that location. Indeed, his division anchored the right flank of Washington’s army. There is some contemporary evidence that a temporary bridge made of wagons and fence rails spanned the Brandywine between Chads’s and Brinton’s fords, and a two-gun battery was positioned to cover this crossing. Sullivan also bore responsibility for guarding three additional fords above Brinton’s as far north as Buffington’s Ford.9
The first of these crossing points, Jones’s Ford, is about one mile north of Brinton’s Ford (where modern-day Route 926 crosses the Brandywine). Colonel David Hall’s Delaware regiment was positioned there to guard it. Hall, who became a captain in the regiment in January 1776, rose to regimental command in April 1777. Colonel Moses Hazen’s French Canadian regiment (Congress’s Own Regiment) was divided to guard the next two fords to the north. The first, Wistar’s (located at the modern-day Lenape Park), was about one and one-half miles north of Jones’s, with the second, Buffington’s, about five and one-half miles north of the Great Post Road, where the Brandywine divides into its east and west branches.10
As the right flank element of the army, Sullivan’s division was vulnerable to a turning movement. Compounding this problem were issues concerning both its deployment and division- and brigade-level leadership. On the deployment front, the division was spread thin across several miles in an effort to monitor four separate fords. Maintaining tight control over such a wide disbursement would be difficult under the best of circumstances. Leadership issues added additional questions into the mix. Sullivan’s combat ability was called into question after his performance on Long Island and during the recent operation on Staten Island. How he would perform if pressed remained to be seen. The leadership at the top of each of his two brigades was also an issue. One was led by a colonel, John Stone, because its general officer was on detached duty. The other was under the command of French-speaking Preudhomme de Borre, whom few American soldiers could understand. If Sullivan was separated from his division by way of wound, death, or capture, de Borre would assume divisional command by virtue of his rank.
The left flank of Washington’s army appeared secure at first glance, albeit manned by the men in whom he had the least faith. Washington tasked Maj. Gen. John Armstrong’s Pennsylvania Militia Division with guarding Gibson’s and Pyle’s fords about one mile south of the Great Post Road on Rocky Hill, a rugged cliff he deemed them easily capable of defending. Washington placed Armstrong’s men here, far to the south, because he didn’t trust them. He also was confident that they would not be directly tested because it was unlikely Howe would attempt to cross there. The Brandywine widened in front of Armstrong’s position, the terrain was precipitous, and there was no direct route leading eastward to the fords in front of the militia. For all intents and purposes, Washington quarantined his militia force on the left flank of his army.11
While understandable, Washington’s decision was not without its consequences. For reasons that remain obscure, Washington employed only small numbers of militia for intelligence and reconnaissance purposes. Those engaged in such endeavors were largely positioned west of Washington’s main army beyond the Brandywine with Gen. Maxwell’s light infantry, with the balance serving under Armstrong on the left flank. The result was that these potentially valuable assets were not fanned out farther north, where they could have scouted the various fords and roads on the army’s more exposed flank. As local men, they would have had some knowledge of the fords along the Brandywine, and what they did not know they could have obtained from local residents to supplement their information. The positioning and misuse of his militia, coupled with the subsequent failure of his light horsemen, left Washington unfamiliar with the roads and fords beyond his exposed right flank when the battle began.
While most of his army was taking up key positions east of the river, Washington positioned Brig. Gen. William Maxwell’s Light Infantry Brigade (about 1,000 men according to Lafayette) in front of Chads’s Ford west of the Brandywine. Maxwell spread his men out in ambush positions spanning the Great Post Road between Kennett Meetinghouse, three miles from the river, and Chads’s Ford. Just west of the ford, a log and earth battery and a breastwork of fence rails commanded the main approach to the river. General Washington, an unimpressed Lafayette would later write, “detached a thousand men under Maxwell, the senior but also the most inept brigadier general in the army.” Like Sullivan, Maxwell’s abilities had also been called into question.12
The remaining elements of Washington’s army were located in reserve behind the divisions guarding the Brandywine crossings. The Second Division under Maj. Gen. Adam Stephen was placed behind Wayne’s position at Chads’s Ford. Located on the right of Stephen’s position about 800 to 1,000 yards behind Sullivan’s division was the Fifth Division under Maj. Gen. William Alexander (Lord Stirling). The recently arrived North Carolina brigade under Brig. Gen. Francis Nash was also deployed behind Wayne. With the exception of small detachments to the various divisional headquarters, most of the approximately 600 dragoons with the army were stationed near Washington’s headquarters one mile east of Chads’s Ford.13
How and where Washington deployed his field artillery remains something of a mystery because the primary sources are woefully incomplete on this important issue. With the exception of Col. Thomas Proctor’s Pennsylvania artillery regiment, most of the army’s guns seem to have been held in reserve. Proctor’s 250 gunners deployed their pieces on the heights running along the east side of the Brandywine north of the Great Post Road, where they threw up earthworks and redoubts for added protection, including a four-gun earth-and-log lunette on a knoll above the Chads House. Proctor’s ordnance consisted of a Hessian 3-pounder re-bored to a 6-pounder after its capture at Trenton, two long range French 4-pounders, and an 8-inch howitzer capable of firing exploding shells made in Philadelphia. Opposite Brinton’s Ford was another American battery that initially consisted of a pair of guns.14
Well beyond his right flank, however, Washington left three additional fords (Trimble’s, Jeffries’s, and Taylor’s) completely uncovered. Trimble’s was on the west branch of the Brandywine and Jeffries’s on the east branch. Each of these fording points was more than one mile north of Moses Hazen’s northernmost position at Buffington’s Ford. Taylor’s Ford was north of Jeffries’s Ford, where the Old Lancaster Road (modern-day U.S. Route 30) crossed the east branch of the Brandywine. There is a possibility that Washington was unaware of these three fords, or that he knew of them but did not believe it necessary to guard them because they were so far removed from Chads’s Ford. As he later explained it, “we were led to believe, by those whom we had reason to think well acquainted with the Country, that no ford above our picquets could be passed, without making a very circuitous march.”15
One of the most interesting stories about events the evening before the battle revolves around a sermon supposedly delivered by Rev. Jacob Trout to the Continental Army. Writer John Reed left a fanciful description of the event in his 1965 history of the campaign: “The camp appeared serene as the sun lipped the western hills of Chester County and readied to set. The serenity, however, was tense, as chaplains solaced the souls of the men who were about to enter battle. The Reverend Joab [Jacob] Trout gathered a number of the troops about him and led them in their devotions.” A more recent study provides yet another description of the Trout sermon with some additional embellishments: “As the American army prepared for a night’s rest, the Reverend Jacob Trout offered a sermon to the troops he gathered about him near Washington’s headquarters, promising that the ‘doom of the British is near.’ The sermon was meant to ready the soldiers for the coming battle and possible death, to remind them of the atrocities of the British and their allies, and to remind them that their families were counting on their bravery. The new American flag was also used as inspiration for the troops.”16
While these two accounts weave a heartwarming picture of the brave Continentals receiving spiritual guidance the night before one of the largest battles of the American Revolution, there is not a single contemporary soldier’s account corroborating the event. More than 55 accounts of Americans who participated in Brandywine combat have come to light, and not one mentions the sermon. In fact, the earliest known account of the Trout sermon appeared more than a century after the battle in the Magazine of American History in 1885. One modern telling even claims Trout preached near Washington’s headquarters. If that had been the case, it is reasonable to assume that at least one of the eight known accounts from Washington and members of his staff would have mentioned such an inspiring event.17
Other events of that evening, however, rest on a firmer foundation. Well aware that Howe’s army was close by and that he would likely initiate battle the next day, Washington began issuing orders for men to prepare for an engagement. “No baggage is to be kept upon this ground that can possibly be dispensed with; and what cannot is to be loaded an hour before day and in readiness to remove,” he instructed. “The men are to be provided with cooked provisions, for to morrow at least; for two days would be still better; if they can get such kinds that will keep.” Washington went on to order that “[a] total stop is to be put to all loose, disorderly firing in camp, as otherwise it will be impossible to distinguish guns fired for an alarm.” The importance of maintaining fire discipline to avoid confusion made itself evident just that morning when Hessian Gen. Wilhem von Knyphausen’s division inched east of Kennett Square. “The alarm Guns were fir’d and the whole Army got Under Arms,” recorded one officer in his journal. “However, the Enemy did not Approach.”18
Even in the midst of preparations for a major battle, Washington evinced concern over the wanton destruction of personal property. “It being with much concern that the General hears the frequent complaints of the farmers, on account of the destruction of their fences &c. by which means their fields of grain and grass are exposed to devastation and ruin,” chastised the frustrated army leader. “He wishes, that officers of every rank, for the sake of Justice and reputation of the American Arms, would exert themselves, to correct this species of abuse.”19
Prior to bedding down for the night, Washington reported the situation to John Hancock, the president of Congress. “The Enemy are now lying near Kennets Square and in a tolerably compact body,” he explained. “They have parties advanced on the Lancaster Road and on those leading over this [Chads’s] Ford & to Wilmington. Manuvring appears to be their plan; I hope, notwithstanding, that we shall be able to find out their real—intended route & to defeat their purposes. By Light Horsemen this instant come in,” he concluded, “the Enemy are in motion, & appear to be advancing towards us.”20
Washington learned a valuable lesson earlier in the war that “we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn.” In September 1777, however, Washington’s Continental Army had been maneuvered into a position that necessitated a pitched battle. Leaving Philadelphia to fall to the British without a fight was unthinkable. Washington ended his long evening with a note to Gen. Israel Putnam, who was in command farther north in the Hudson Highlands. “We are preparing to receive ‘em & should they come on, I trust under the smiles of providence & through our own conduct, that we shall give ‘em a repulse or at the most, that they will have to enjoy a painful & dear bought victory.”21
While Washington deployed his army into defensive positions behind the Brandywine, William Howe’s 15,200 men rested in and around Kennett Square three miles west. Howe made his headquarters in a tavern where he formulated his plans with the help of Joseph Galloway and a local Quaker named Parker. The British army commander spent most of September 10 studying the road network and terrain in the area to help him develop a plan of battle to engage and defeat Washington the next day. Howe’s impatience had nearly gotten the better of him that morning. When he arrived at Kennett Square earlier in the day he wanted to immediately pitch into the Americans. Immediate battle, his staff officers informed him, was “impossible, since the men, and even more the horses, were completely exhausted. Counter orders, were therefore given, calling for a march [the following] morning.” Howe prudently followed their advice.22
During the night of September 10, Howe developed his plan of attack. With his enemy posted on the far side of the river, Howe’s options were limited. He could launch a direct attack in an effort to cross the fords and defeat or dislodge them, find a way to turn one or both flanks, or some combination of attacking and flanking. As one historian observed, “because [British] commanders did not covet the ground beneath the rebels’ feet, they usually proved reluctant to dash their forces obligingly against the enemy position when it appeared too strong to carry without heavy losses.” Howe’s own experiences confirmed this observation.23
The general now confronting Washington along the Brandywine assumed command of the British forces in North America in 1775 after London recalled Thomas Gage following the disastrous early efforts at Lexington, Concord, and Breed’s (Bunker) Hill. It was Howe who had commanded the bloody British assault at Breed’s Hill on June 17, 1775, where he witnessed what a well-entrenched ragtag patriot force could do to British Regulars. The experience shattered European military tradition. A bayonet charge by well-disciplined infantry had rarely failed European armies. Although the attack eventually succeeded at Breed’s Hill, final victory only arrived after the entrenched patriots ran out of ammunition and lost the ability to fight back. Howe’s June 17 plan of battle called for cutting off the redoubt by pinning down its defenders with a frontal attack while sending a flanking column up the shore of the Mystic River to gain the rear of the fort. However, the flanking column never fulfilled its mission because it was stopped by patriots sent to defend that exposed corridor. “Howe’s memory of the slaughter on Breed’s Hill had instilled in him a fatal caution which he carried with him for the rest of the war,” argued one historian. Another historian agreed, writing that for Howe, Breed’s Hill “left a deep impression and for the remainder of the war he shrank from frontal assaults whenever possible.”24
For reasons discussed in previous chapters, but especially due to the difficulties of receiving reinforcements, it was not uncommon for British commanders in North America to avoid conducting frontal assaults. As a result, concentrating a strong force on the flank or flanks of an enemy position became the common tactic. One of the chief advantages of a flank attack was its psychological effect upon the troops being flanked, which “was vastly out of proportion to the physical force involved.” Another advantage to a flank attack was that it gave a commander local superiority, even if he was outnumbered. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, flank attacks allowed the British to achieve conservation of force. The troops engaged to distract the enemy in front usually sustained light casualties because “they only pushed their attacks in earnest once the enemy army was already starting to crumble under the pressure of the flanking attack.”25
The first opportunity for Howe to use his favorite tactic after Breed’s Hill arrived on Long Island in the battle for Brooklyn Heights in the summer of 1776. There, Howe held Washington’s army in place with a frontal diversionary attack and flanked it through the Jamaica Hills on its left with a powerful column. As Piers Mackesy phrased it, “Howe had begun the game like a skilled tactician. He had inflicted 2,000 casualties at the cost of 300, and driven the Americans back against the East River.” Washington was barely able to retreat with what was left of his army across the East River to Manhattan Island, where he fortified Harlem Heights. Howe quickly outflanked this position as well, this time by conducting an amphibious landing to its rear. Following another retreat onto the mainland of southeastern New York, Washington settled into the White Plains area. The battle that unfolded there once again witnessed Howe conducting a flanking maneuver. There was an obvious pattern to the Birtish commander’s victorious battlefield style.26
As the 1777 campaign season began in northern New Jersey, the engagement at Short Hills, New Jersey, once again witnessed the British using a flanking tactic. Charles Cornwallis led the flanking column intended to cut Lord Stirling’s patriot division off from the mountain passes while another column under John Vaughan, along with Howe, moved directly against Stirling’s position. As Thomas McGuire rightly believed, “The strategy was a replay of the Battle of Long Island, where Howe had masterfully outflanked and nearly annihilated Washington the previous year.” Despite his success at Short Hills, Howe was unable to convince Washington to come out of the mountainous terrain in northern New Jersey. The disappointed British leader pulled his troops out of New Jersey, placed them on troop transports, and eventually landed in northeastern Maryland.27
Once Howe began maneuvering in Maryland, flanking maneuvers again came into play. Rather than marching directly against Cooch’s Bridge, he took a roundabout route through Aiken’s Tavern to outflank Maxwell’s American light infantry. Likewise, the British movement into Pennsylvania was a classic Howe flanking movement. Washington, despite what was now a pattern of previous moves by Howe, convinced himself that Howe would drive straight toward Philadelphia using the King’s Road through Wilmington, Delaware, from Cooch’s Bridge. Instead, a portion of the British Army marched to within two miles of Washington’s position, supposedly to attack, but in reality to cover the movement of the main army through Newark toward Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. As he had done in the past, Howe’s move was a diversionary one so he could slip around Washington’s right flank.
Howe discussed his decision-making during his 1776 battles when he returned to London in 1779 and testified to a Committee of the House of Commons. “I do not hesitate to confess,” he admitted, “that if I could by any maneuver remove an enemy from a very advantageous position, without hazarding the consequences of an attack, where the point to be carried was not adequate to the loss of men to be expected from the enterprise, I should certainly adopt that cautionary conduct, in the hopes of meeting my adversary upon more equal terms.”28
Howe shied away from direct assaults and instead employed what would become his favorite battlefield maneuver: Push forward a diversionary force against the main enemy position while a strong column turned a flank. Despite Howe’s repeated use of this combination, Washington seems not to have discerned this pattern from past encounters and was always unprepared for what had become a predictable offensive tactic.
Howe’s operation to this point in the campaign positioned his army in Pennsylvania just west of the Brandywine River. Both armies were locked in place for a set-piece battle. Howe settled upon his plan of attack before the night of September 10 ended. There was nothing new in his tactical playbook. A diversionary force under Gen. Wilhelm von Knyphausen would march directly east along the Great Post Road against Washington’s front, while Gen. Charles Cornwallis, whose column Howe would accompany, led the remainder of the army on a long northward flank march to cross the Brandywine River at an unguarded ford beyond the American right and then march into Washington’s rear. Howe’s simple but effective plan reflected his now-established preference for a strong demonstration against the center and a heavy attack on an enemy flank. John Reed, noted historian of the Philadelphia campaign, described the plan as “a holding action by Knyphausen … while Howe himself, with Cornwallis, made a grand flanking movement similar to … Long Island the year before, but in reverse.”29
Unlike Washington, Howe was well-provided by area residents with information about the roads and terrain, so by the morning of the battle he was quite knowledgeable about the region. Prominent local Joseph Galloway had been with Howe since the army left New York, aided Howe before the battle, and eventually rode with him during the combat. Two other area residents who guided the British columns the next day were Curtis Lewis and John Jackson. Lewis lived in Chester County with his wife, joined Howe’s army at Head of Elk, and had been acting as a guide ever since. John Jackson later recalled that the “day before Brandywine [he] was desired by [Joseph] Galloway to reconnoiter and offered 60 guineas for it.” Jackson “would not do it for sake of Reward. Took one Curtis Lewis with him and reconnoitered the Enemy and brought back an account to General Howe a little before day…. Received 20 Guineas for this Service.”30
If Howe had any doubt whether Washington would stand and fight, it vanished during September 10 when word arrived that Washington had “sent back his whole baggage to Chester.” Unless something completely unforeseen intervened, the stage was set for one of the largest battles of the American Revolution. Nearly 30,000 troops were within a few miles of one another, prepared for action, and under orders to engage the enemy on the morrow. Howe ordered 20 empty wagons to accompany each battalion of grenadiers and light infantry for carrying the wounded.31
The lack of mobility made it difficult for British armies to force a battle in North America advantageous to themselves. If Washington or any other American leader on the defensive believed the conditions under which he would fight were unfavorable, it was usually simply a matter of refusing battle by retreating out of range. Contrarily, if Howe or another British commander thought his enemy held the defensive advantage, he did not have to assume the offensive and oblige his opponent with a direct attack.
At the Brandywine, Washington not only believed he had to fight to hold Philadelphia, but that he held the advantage with the river in his front. Howe, however, had no intention of fighting the battle on Washington’s terms. Dividing his army in the face of a large enemy force was a risk, but it was a risk Howe was more than willing to take. Washington had yet to prove his Continental Army was anything to be seriously feared. Although the ragtag American force had been lucky enough to score a pair of sharp successes at Trenton and Princeton, Howe had not been in direct command of those operations. Washington was confident he could win defending the important fords along the Brandywine. Howe, on the other hand, believed in his professional army and that his time-tested offensive tactics would win a potentially decisive victory and hand him the campaign’s prize: Philadelphia.32
Only one of them could be right.