Thus far Maxwell’s men had performed well, in a manner similar to their performance at Cooch’s Bridge. The harassing American tactics, however, disgusted Ferguson, who had nothing but contempt for his opponents. “Such a set of base runaways never before presumed to disgrace a Gentlemans profession…. In the course of two hours my lads underwent the fire of 2000 men who were kind enough to fire in general in the air and run away.” Ferguson’s report doubled the size of Maxwell’s command, which once again demonstrates how the woods and walls disguised his true strength. Ferguson’s contempt was unfounded. Maxwell never intended to combat Knyphausen’s column in an open-field fight. Whether or not Ferguson respected the American light infantry was irrelevant; Maxwell was performing his intended role.22
General Knyphausen’s diversionary column had by this time been engaged in stop-and-start marching for about three full hours, much of it punctuated by sharp ambush volleys and fitful skirmishing. It had yet to see or gain the important west bank of the Brandywine.
According to Major von Baurmeister of Knyphausen’s staff, the front of the column “had arrived at a place where the road passes through some swampy land. On both sides of this lowland are hills and woods, and beyond it a road turns off to the left from the main road and runs through this lowland for about half a mile.” The Great Post Road “was enfiladed by an enemy battery situated beyond the creek.” Knyphausen’s column had reached the defile where the Great Post Road crossed Ring Run. The Hessian aide’s description was accurate, as the stream was indeed surrounded by heavy swampy terrain. The British and Hessian soldiers would need to clear the hills to their right and left before they could continue down the road. However, the closer they came to the river, the more artillery fire they received from Proctor’s Pennsylvania artillery on the hill beyond Chads’s Ferry. “Under cover of a continuous cannonade,” continued von Baurmeister, the 28th Regiment of Foot moved off to the right to push another body of patriot light infantry out of yet another of the ubiquitous gorges along the road.23
The lead elements of Knyphausen’s column arrived at this position about 8:00 a.m. after having marched and fought Maxwell’s men for nearly three hours. While the fighting up to this point had occasionally been sharp, the combat was about to significantly intensify. “Heretofore the enemy had been repulsed by our vanguard alone,” observed von Baurmeister, “but now the engagement became more serious.”24
One of the Queen’s Rangers remembered their arrival at the new American position. “[We drove the] Rebels till within a half mile of the [Brandywine] Creek,” he reported, “where they made a stand behind a breast work of some logs they had made.” The strung-out column began deploying to reduce the American strongpoint. Ferguson moved behind a house to the right of the road on the far edge of the lowland, supported by about 100 men under Capt. Le Long from the Hessian Brigade.25
Knyphausen, meanwhile, ordered some dragoons and a battalion of the 71st Highlanders deeper into the woods on the right to find and get behind the American log works. Eventually, British artillerists moved forward four guns and deployed them on a hill opposite Maxwell’s position across from the road junction. Since the Queen’s Rangers had suffered significant casualties and exhaustion pushing down the road, Knyphausen ordered Maj. Gen. James Grant’s First British Brigade forward to take its place. Grant’s command was comprised of the 4th, 23rd, 28th, and 49th Regiments of Foot, about 1,400 men. Sergeant Thomas Sullivan, who served in the latter regiment, recalled that the “much disabled” condition of the Queen’s Rangers “occasioned our Brigade, i.e., 1 st. to advance to the front, being separated (when we formed upon a little hill) by a small Creek, which ran between that & the opposite hill on which the Enemy took post.” The 28th and 49th Regiments of Foot were positioned to directly support the advanced artillery.26
With his right secure, the experienced Knyphausen ordered Grant to march the 4th Regiment of Foot to the left to cover the Brinton’s Ford Road and bolster what would otherwise have been an exposed flank. The regiment’s advance to a position directly overlooking the ford caught the attention of American division commander John Sullivan, who responded by dispatching a small force down to the ford to better cover its approaches. The pieces were in place for a sharp combat at Brinton’s Ford.27
Captain-Lieutenant Francis Downman of the Royal Artillery remembered that the “heavy artillery was ordered to make haste, and we galloped our horses some time, but were prevented from continuing [on] the road by reason of trees being cut down and laid across.” While the British infantry skirmished with their American counterparts, Downman and his gunners turned north off the road into the woods and, after some difficulty, reached a position “with[in] shot of the rebel batteries on the other side of the creek. We immediately began to fire upon them from our 12 pounders and howitzers, and they returned it very smartly. This continued for some time, likewise a heavy fire of infantry and artillery to our right.” The firing “on our right” referenced by Downman was the sharp fighting between Maxwell’s light infantrymen and Gen. Grant’s regiments. The maneuvering and reinforcement there triggered nothing but light skirmishing. Sometime early in the artillery action, one of the two American guns on the east side of Brinton’s ford ceased firing when British counter-battery fire exploded an ammunition wagon.28
As the fighting at Brinton’s Ford petered out, Knyphausen turned his attention south of the Great Post Road to deal with Maxwell’s reinforced position. His Second Brigade, also led by James Grant and comprised of the 4th, 10th, 27th, 40th, and 55th Regiments of Foot, moved up and took a position just south of the road. By this time Maxwell had been reinforced from the east side of the Brandywine, likely by elements of Nathanael Greene’s division. Knyphausen opened fire on the breastworks with his artillery to soften up the position, and then ordered the 28th Regiment of the First Brigade, which had been supporting the guns, to move forward. The infantry marched down the slope, crossed the small valley between the high ground, and deployed on a hill to Maxwell’s left and somewhat behind him. The tactical thrust was expertly executed and threatened to turn and crush the American position.29
With his left flank compromised, Maxwell had little choice but to withdraw from his advanced position. Some of the British battalion guns imparted a sense of urgency to the retrograde movement by lobbing shells into the retreating Americans. The Royal Artillery, recalled the 49th Regiment of Foot’s Sergeant Sullivan, “played upon them with two 6 Pounders for half an hour, and drove them out of the breastworks which was made of loose wood, upon the declivity of the hill. The 2nd Brigade British formed on another hill upon our left and played their two six pounders also upon the Enemy’s Battery at Chad’s ford. As we crossed the brook [Ring Run] they formed behind another fence at a field’s distance, from whence we soon drove ‘em, and a Battalion of Hessians which formed at the left of our Brigade, fell in with them as they retreated, taking them upon their Right flank.”30
Maxwell’s men fell back to a previously prepared breastwork—their final position west of the Brandywine. They were close to the ford now, on a low ridge running between the two roads leading down to the ford and the ferry. By this time Ferguson and the Queen’s Rangers had pushed across Ring Run, moved beyond the road fork leading to Chads’s Ford and Chads’s Ferry, and were on Maxwell’s exposed left flank. The 23rd, 28th, 40th, and 55th Regiments of Foot, along with the Leib and von Mirbach Hessian regiments, were in line of battle on the height beyond the lowland on the road to Chads’s Ford. The Combined Hessian Battalion and von Donop’s Regiment remained in column along the road. Likewise, the 5th, 27th, and 49th Regiments of Foot remained in reserve on the heights west of the lowland. The Royal Artillery units covered Knyphausen’s column as it unfolded itself, “the various pieces being mounted with all possible haste in strategic places and on high ground,” explained a British staff officer. While the Americans continued to pour fire in from across the river, and “though the balls and grapeshot were well aimed and fell right among us, this cannonoade had but little effect—partly because the battery was placed too low.”31
Believing that Maxwell had been neutralized and was perhaps falling back, the Queen’s Rangers, Ferguson’s riflemen, the 23rd Regiment of Foot, and a battalion of the 71st Highlanders moved forward toward Chads’s Ferry. The detachment of dragoons remained behind to cover the rear. Simultaneously, Maj. Gen. Johann Daniel Stirn’s Hessian Brigade, about 2,000 strong, stepped forward, picked up the detached group of 100 men at the road junction, and proceeded toward the ford. As the Hessians advanced down the road, however, Maxwell’s men opened fire from the wooded ridge to the south. The flying lead balls coursing through their ranks brought the Hessians up short. After orders were shouted, the professionals performed a wheel under fire and moved smartly off the road and up the ridge in an effort to flank the American position. While the Germans engaged, the bloodied Queen’s Rangers, with the support of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (23rd of Foot), moved off the road and against the left front of Maxwell’s reinforced position.32
Captain Wemys and the Queen’s Rangers attacked with bayonets locked. Despite their earlier exhaustion and losses, the Rangers pitched into the fight with a ferocious intensity that further thinned their ranks. This part of the fight, recalled a staff officer, “after a short but very rapid musketry-fire … quickly drove the rebels out of their woods and straight across the lowland.” James Parker remembered the Americans “formd on the declivity of a hill on clear ground & stood till Majr. Grymes Attackd them with ye Bayonets, when they broke fled to the Woods & heid…. At this time Capt. Robt. Murdon fell, & many more Wounded, but they drove them over the Creek. While this passed on our Right … [Captain] Weems with part of the Regt. drove them through the woods on the left till they crossed the Creek also, when their Canon began from a battry in our front, & I took Stations on high Commanding ground on our left.” Captain Murden’s wound proved mortal. Sergeant Stephen Jarvis remembered the attack for another reason: “My pantaloons received a wound, and I don’t hesitate to say that I should be very well pleased to have seen a little blood also.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “The enemy stood until we came near to bayonet points, then gave us a volley.”33 The successful assault pleased Knyphausen, who later reported that the Rangers attacked “with a Spirit & Steadiness I can not too highly commend – Notwithstanding the strong Fire to oppose them, they rush’d upon the Ennemy with Charged Bajonets.”34
Although successful, and while accounts made the assault sound almost a fait accompli, Ferguson remembered the difficult nature of the fighting and added additional details, including pursuit. At the head of 30 men, Ferguson struck farther to the right than did the Queen’s Rangers. His thrust hit “a breast work 100 yards in extant well lined with men whose fire they received at twelve yards and when every body thought they were all destroy’d they Scrambled into the breast work and the Dogs ran away.” However, Ferguson’s attempt to pursue the fleeing Americans was brought to a quick halt. “Stop’d from following them by a heavy flanking fire from a very extensive breast work at 80 yards distance,” he explained. “I threw my party immediately on the ground.”35 After waiting a short while listening to the Rangers fight their way over the breastworks farther to the left, Ferguson gave the order to continue advancing. “This fire continued for some minutes very heavy until we Sicken’d [of] it, after which upon the Signal to rise my Lads like Bay’s dead men Sprung up and not one hurt.” Ferguson remained unimpressed with Maxwell’s ability. The Patriot general, sneered the Loyalist officer, should start his “prencticeship as a corporall, and that their Light troops … have learnt to rely upon their heels.”36
With his right turned by the Hessians and his left collapsing, Maxwell withdrew the last of his command safely across the Brandywine. It was about 10:00 a.m. According to Knyphausen, “the Enemy were driven back over the Creek evacuating their very advantageous posts on this side. The most obstinate resistance they gave was on the road to Brandywine Creek’s Bridge [Chads’s Ford], but the gallant and Spirited Behavior of the 4th and 5th Regiment forced them to leave their Ground.” A sergeant in the 49th Regiment of Foot wrote, “After we pursued the Rebels as close as we could without being in danger of their cannon above the Ford, all the men lay upon their arms in a close valley with wood.”37
With Maxwell finally shoved back across the river, Knyphausen pushed his outposts closer to the Brandywine, spent about 30 minutes straightening his lines of battle, and presented a strong front. Once all was in good order, he sent forward a battalion of the 71st Highlanders and positioned a detachment of the 16th Light Dragoons on the height on their right flank. The baggage train with the other two battalions of the 71st remained on the heights west of the lowland, where the heavy fighting near the ford had initially erupted. It was now about 10:30 a.m. Knyphausen had thus far played his diversionary role perfectly. In keeping with Gen. Howe’s overall plan of battle, he kept up a threatening front but remained on the west side of the Brandywine awaiting word from Gen. Cornwallis’s flanking column. “[T]he musketry, he explained, “ceased entirely.”38
As the fighting fell into silence, Knyphausen’s force remained positioned essentially where it had stopped fighting. Opposite Chads’s Ferry were the First British Brigade (minus the 4th Regiment of Foot), the Queen’s Rangers, Ferguson’s Riflemen, and a battalion of the 71st Highlanders. General Stirn’s Hessian Brigade was positioned a short distance west of Chads’s Ford. The front between that ford and Brinton’s Ford farther north was held by the Second British Brigade. The 4th Regiment of Foot remained watching Brinton’s Ford. Knyphausen kept in reserve the dragoons, the army’s baggage, and the other battalions of the 71st Highlanders. Two heavy and two light 12-pounders sat atop a hill across the river from Proctor’s American guns, and two 6-pounders were positioned farther south below the Great Post Road where the 27th Regiment of Foot provided support. The 28th Regiment of Foot held the far right flank on yet another piece of high ground.39
While no one faulted Knyphausen’s performance, that was not the case with Maxwell. The officer Lafayette had labeled “the most inept brigadier general in the army” guided his riflemen in an hours-long harassment that slowed down a strong column of professional enemy soldiers. Ferguson’s contempt notwithstanding, the defensive effort inflicted significant casualties. “[O]ur loss in the above action,” boasted Lt. Col. William Heth of the 3rd Virginia Regiment, “was very inconsiderable in comparison with the Enemys.” Indeed, one of Gen. Greene’s brigade commanders, George Weedon, proudly recalled that his command was “spectators of the gallantry of this little Corps.”40
Maxwell’s force had arguably done well, especially for an organization in its infancy, but once all was said and done Heth strenuously argued otherwise in language that left no room for misunderstanding. “We had opportunities,” he complained, “and any body but an old-woman, would have availd themselves of them.” Maxwell had not seized such opportunities, continued Heth, because he was “a Damnd bitch of a General.” Ferguson would have agreed with Heth’s conclusion. The terrain, argued the Loyalist, was very favorable to the Americans, and they should have had “no difficulty in interrupting our march had they shewn firmness equal to the ingenuity of their dispositions.” Ferguson continued his unfavorable judgment by concluding that Maxwell’s men were only capable of two things: “discharging their pieces in the air and running in a direct line behind them.”41
Many in the Queen’s Rangers, which had been particularly hard hit, may well have disagreed with Ferguson’s assessment. One of Maxwell’s officers, William Heth, was correct when he wrote that “a great proportion of British Officers fell.” Howe would later report that the Queen’s Rangers suffered 14 killed and 57 wounded, and that Ferguson’s Riflemen suffered 10 casualties— two killed and eight wounded. Ferguson explained why his casualties were relatively light: “Such is the great advantage of an arm that will admit of being loaded and fired on the ground without exposing my men that I threw my people on the ground without exposing my men under pretty Smart firing six times that morning without losing a man, although I had ¼ part of those afterward kill’d or wounded.” As for the loss to Maxwell’s unit, Washington reported to Congress that “it does not exceed fifty in the whole.”42
Whether he had fought well or otherwise, because Maxwell’s men were now on the east side of the Brandywine, the British and Hessian infantry could finally rest. “[A]fter the most advanced troops captured one height after another with great difficulty and heavy losses,” Carl Rueffer, a Hessian ensign, recalled, “we received orders not to advance any farther and we lay on the heights at Chads Ford.”43
The action during the remainder of the morning and during the early afternoon around Chads’s Ford consisted of fitful skirmishing by light infantry elements, punctuated with bouts of artillery fire. According to Joseph Clark, Adam Stephen’s adjutant, “The valley was filled with smoke…. [T]here was nothing for the men on either side to do but to find as much cover as possible until the heavy cannonade ceased.” Knyphausen’s artillery was situated almost directly opposite the American batteries. James Parker of the Queen’s Rangers recalled that “the hill on which our artillery was commanded a Very fine prospect of the Rebels ground, to this place the Genls. Kniphausen & Grant came.”44
The long range counter-battery fire did little damage, but Knyphausen had another purpose in mind. “Our cannon fired from time to time,” explained his staffer, Carl von Baurmeister, “each shot being answered by the enemy; but the purpose of our gunfire was only to advise the second column [Cornwallis] of our position.” Knyphausen’s quartermaster, Johann Ludwig von Cochenhausen, remembered the Royal Artillery giving the Americans “a fairly fresh cannonade, which was only answered occasionally to save powder, since it was of no particular effect.” James Parker of the Queen’s Rangers also recalled and wrote about the gunfire: “a Cannonade Continued for Some time, I believe without doing much damage on either side.”45
Several area inhabitants opted to stay in their homes that morning instead of fleeing for safer locales. William Harvey’s stone home on the west side of the Brandywine was directly in the line of fire of Proctor’s guns. Built early in the century, the modest dwelling housed William’s worldly belongings, and he intended to protect them. Neighbor Jacob Way pleaded with William to leave, to no avail. According to a postwar account, the men were exchanging words when “a twelve-pound cannon-ball came from Proctor’s battery directly for the house, passed through both walls of the kitchen and plunged along the piazza floor, tearing up the boards and barely avoiding William’s legs, until, a little farther on, it buried itself six feet deep in the earth.” Proctor’s battery did not contain a 12-pounder, but the civilian may have exaggerated or misjudged the size of the ball. After that close call, Harvey wisely opted to leave. His home was later ransacked by the British.46
Jacob Nagle was an American soldier serving with Proctor’s Pennsylvania artillery. Like so many others that day, the 15-year-old was hungry that morning and looking forward to a late breakfast. “The provision wagons being sent a way, we ware three day without provisions excepting what the farmers brought in to sell in their wagons and what the soldiers could plunder from the farmers,” he scribbled into his journal. “I went to my father, his rigment being on our right, and received a neats tounge from him…. Mr. Hosner bought some potatoes and butter the evening before the British arrived, and we concluded to have a glorious mess from breakfast. Mr. Hosner gave it to one of the soldiers wives that remained with the army to cook for us in the morning.” Fondly anticipating his meal, Nagle and other American soldiers were marking time on the east bank of the Brandywine when enemy artillery rounds began landing on their side of the river. “Early in the morning, she had the camp kittle on a small fire about 100 yards in the rear of the Grand Artilery, with all our delicious meal, which we expected to enjoy,” the teenager continued. “The Brittish at this time hoisted the red flag on the top of the farm house on the rige of the hill abreast of us, and their artillery advancing towards us down the ploughed field, we then begin a cannonading.” What followed was one of the worst things that could happen to any hungry soldier throughout history: “Unfortunately one of the enemies shot dismounted the poor camp kettle with the fire and all its contents away with it. The woman informed Mr. Folkner. He replied, ‘Never mind, we have no time to eat now.’ Therefore we made another fast day.”47
Infantrymen also exchanged shots across the river. The adjutant of Proctor’s artillery, added Nagle, “rode down to the ford to water his horse…. [A] Hessian laying in the brush fired at him and missed him but wounded the horse in the right shoulder. The horse staggered, the adjutant jumped off with his pistols in hand and run up to the spot, which was not more than 15 yards from him, and several of the artillery run down to him, but the Hessian could not be found.” Nagle mistook Ferguson’s green-uniformed men as jaegers. This was the first of many recorded instances of mistaken identity that day.48
Nagle also remembered one of Maxwell’s riflemen lying on his back to load before rolling over to assume a firing position and squeeze his trigger in the direction of Ferguson’s men on the far bank. “I took notice of one in a white frock laying on his back to lead his gun…. On the edge of the wood next to the road was some trees cut down, and the Hessions got amongst them; this riffelman fired 7 or 8 shots at them as fast as they came there. The buckwheat being in bloom, they could not see him, but we ware on the highth over him. At length finding no more coming, he crawled on his hands and knees to the fence where he fell in with six more. They all rise and crossed the ford and went to the place he had been firing at them, as we supposed to overhall them.”49
Although Ferguson had nothing but contempt for his opponents, he let slip a few words that confirmed the abilities of the American riflemen. “Whilst Knyphausen was forming the Line within a Mile of the Rebell Camp to wait for G. Howe’s attack,” reported the British officer, “their Rifle men were picking off our men very fast by random shots from a wood some hundred yards in front as it is easy execution upon such large objects.” He continued: “I had only 28 men with me (a few having been disabled by the Enemy the rest from Fatigue) who however proved Sufficient, for my Lads first dislodged them from the skirts of the Wood, then Drove them from a breast work within it, after which our purpose being answered we lay down at the furthest skirt of the wood—not necessarily to provock an attack, being so few without Support.”50
At times, the skirmishing along the river escalated into more substantial fighting that sucked in more than just a few troops, as future jurist John Marshall recorded:
A skirt of woods, with the river, divided him [Knyphausen] from Maxwell’s corps, small parties of whom occasionally crossed over, and kept up a scattering fire, by which not much execution was done. At length one of these parties, led by Captain [Andrew] Waggoner [12th Virginia Regiment] and Porterfield, engaged the British flank guard very closely, killed a captain with ten or fifteen privates, drove them out of the wood, and were on the point of taking a field piece. The sharpness of the skirmish soon drew a large body of the British to that quarter, and the Americans were again driven over the Brandywine.51
The body of troops the British sent across to deal with the threat included the 10th and 40th Regiments of Foot. Sergeant Thomas Sullivan, the reliable scribe of the 49th Regiment of Foot, also described the escalating fire fight. “A Company of the 28th and a Company of our Regiment advanced upon the Hill to the right of the ford, and in front of the Enemy’s left flank, in order to divert them, who were posted at 100 Yards distance in their front, behind trees, to the amount of 500, all chosen marksmen,” recalled the sergeant. “A smart fire was maintained by both sides for two hours, without either party’s quitting their Posts. Out of the two Companies there were about 20 men killed and wounded during that time.”52
“[T]wo 6 Pounders [commanded by Lt. George Wilson of the Royal Artillery] were ordered up the hill to dislodge the Enemy if possible and assist the part engaged,” Sgt. Sullivan continued. “Those guns played upon them for some time, but they were so concealed under the cover of the Trees, that it was to no purpose to endeavor to bring the Cannon to do any execution: In the mean time, by our Guns being in an open field, there was one man killed, and a horse wounded.” Lieutenant Colonel Robert Donkin of the 44th Regiment of Foot remembered that Lt. Wilson “was ordered with two Guns to support a Party of the 49th Regt & that he silenced the Enemy’s fire for some time & behaved extremely well in general.” Wilson was initially hesitant to move his guns up. “Lt. Wilson was attached to the 40th Regt. with two 3 pounders…. [U]pon the Brigade being ordered to form, there was a Wood thro’ which he thought it might be difficult for the Guns to pass, he therefore ordered them to wait, but Lt. Wilson soon after brought them up, before he [Lt. Col. Thomas Musgrave] sent for them.” Captain James Wilson of the 49th Regiment of Foot also left an account of the two British guns. “Lt. Wilson was ordered with two Guns to support his Company which was then engaged, and was the principal means of first driving back the Enemy, & that he did not see any appearance of fear in Lt. Wilson’s behavior that day; that one of his Men were killed, and another wounded, & a horse in the Ammunition Waggon also wounded.”53
These British artillery pieces annoyed the Americans to no end. “About this time General Washington came riding up to Col Procter with his Life Guards with him and enquired how we came on,” recalled teenage gunner Nagle. “He informed the general that there was two field pieces on our left wing behind the wood which annoyed us very much and could not be seen except by the flash of the guns.” Washington ordered Proctor to turn four field pieces against the enemy guns. “Accordingly they aimed for the flash of the guns, so direct, though they could not see the guns, that in 15 or 20 minutes we received no more shot from that quarter,” confirmed Nagle. “Their guns were either dismounted, or otherwise it was two hot to remain there any longer.”54
Actually Nagle was wrong on both counts. Proctor’s guns had not dismounted or driven away their crews. They were withdrawn for a particular purpose. “The Guns were ordered back and also the two Companies,” explained Sergeant Sullivan, “in order to draw the Enemy after them from the trees, which scheme had the desired effect, for they quitted their post and advanced to the top of the hill, where they were attacked by four Companies of the 10th Battalion, in front, while the 40th made a charge upon their left flank, by going round the hill, and put them to an immediate rout.”55
Sometime during this phase of the fighting, one of the most famous (and potentially momentous) events of the entire battle of Brandywine transpired: Ferguson locked Gen. Washington in his gun sights—but did not pull the trigger. “[A] Rebell Officer remarkable by a Huzzar [Hussar] Dress passed towards our army within 100 yards of my right flank, not perceiving us—he was followed by another dressed in Dark Green or blue mounted on a very good bay horse with a remarkable large high cocked hat,” wrote Ferguson following the battle. “I ordered three good shots to steal near them and fire at them but the idea disgusted me and I recalled them.” The two American riders, however, did not leave the area. “The Huzzar in returning made a circuit but the other passed within 100 yards of us upon which I advanced from the wood towards him, upon my calling he stopd but after looking at me proceeded. I again drew his attention, and made signs to him to stop leveling my piece at him, but he slowly continued his way. As I was within that distance at which in the quickest firing I have seldom missed a sheet of paper and could have lodged a half dozen of balls in or about him before he was out of my reach I had only to determine but it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an unoffending individual who was acquitting himself very coolly of his duty so I let him alone.”56
Not long after this remarkable incident, a bullet shattered Ferguson’s right elbow. It would take more than a year for the painful wound to heal. Ferguson was lying in a hospital the day after the battle, beginning what would be a long recovery, when a surgeon told him that “Genl. Washington was all the morning with the Light Troops generally in their front and only attended by a French Officer in a huzzar Dress he himself mounted and dressed as above described,” wrote the wounded officer. It was “the oddness of their dress [that] had puzzled me and made me take notice of it.” Now having learned the likely identity of the man he could have easily killed, Ferguson claimed he was not “sorry that I did not know all the time who it was.”57
The surgeon was right: Washington was at the front that morning, riding the length of his lines to observe the enemy and encourage his men. “General Washington walked the length of his two lines, and was received with acclamations that should have promised victory,” wrote Lafayette. Ferguson believed the man accompanying Washington was a French officer. While he could have been one of the officers in Lafayette’s entourage, the man in Hussar dress was more likely Casimir Pulaski, who wore such a uniform at this point of the war and was serving, unattached, on Washington’s staff during the battle.
As the hours passed, the fighting along this portion of the Brandywine fell away into an infrequent artillery duel accented with occasional sharpshooter activity. “The Brittish being in the open ploughed field, we could perceive when they saw the flash of our guns they would leave the gun 2 or 3 yards till the shot struck and then close,” recorded Nagle. “We then ceased about an hour, excepting a few shot at different times.”58
While the artillery exchanged rounds across the Brandywine, Knyphausen did his best to convince Washington that he was opposing Howe’s entire army. The Hessian general could not risk bringing on a general engagement, however, because Washington outnumbered his division about two to one. To accomplish his diversionary mission, Knyphausen marched his various units one way and then back again, using the hills and swales to show them or hide them as he saw fit, all in an effort to artificially swell his numbers. Knyphausen, reported Howe, “kept the enemy amused in the course of the day with cannon, and the appearance of forcing the ford, without intending to pass it, until the attack upon the enemy’s right should take place.”59
The next several hours would determine the effectiveness of Knyphausen’s ruse and thus the fate of both armies. On the east side of the river, Washington sorted through verbal reports in an effort to determine who, exactly, Maxwell had spent the morning fighting. Did his light infantry harass and fall back in the face of Howe’s entire army? If not, then a large portion of Howe’s command was no longer in his front.60