Lafayette recalled the “confusion became extreme.” Some of Conway’s men began slipping away from the front and down the southern slope of the hill. The French general was working to rally the troops when a musket ball “passed through his leg.” It was at that moment, he later wrote, “the remaining forces gave way, and [I] was fortunate to be able to mount a horse, thanks to Gimat, [my] aide-de-camp.” Conway’s now completely broken brigade streamed southeast for Dilworth.13

Captain-Lieutenant John Peebles of the 42nd Grenadiers also remembered the fighting, though from the opposite perspective: “after giving them a few rounds charged … with such spirit that they immediately fled in confusion.” Lieutenant Henry Stirke of the 10th Regiment of Foot’s light company was attacking farther east that day against Stirling’s right flank. “Our men,” he remembered, advanced “under a heavy fire both of Cannon and small arms, notwithstanding which, and the difficulty of the ground we had to march over, we push’d the Rebels from ye heights, in about 15 minutes, with great loss.” Captain Archibald Robertson, a member of the Royal Engineers, would spend several days after the Brandywine fighting preparing a map and narrative key for Gen. Howe. “The Rebels were Drawn up upon very Strong ground and seem’d determin’d to stand,” he observed, “but the impetuosity of our Troops was irresistable.” Another engineering officer, Capt. John Montresor, described the final moments of the assault that cracked open the American line: “The British Grenadiers and Guards at the same time labouring under a smart and incessant fire from the Rebels out of a wood and above them, most nobly charged them without firing a shot and drove them before them.”14

Despite their best efforts and favorable ground, Stirling’s men were unable to survive the rout of Sullivan’s division on the left, withstand the heavy firing in front, and repulse the grenadiers’ bayonet charge. After a defensive effort perhaps best described as stout and short, Stirling’s men fell back down the southern slope of Birmingham Hill. Somehow, despite the proximity of the enemy, his regiments retreated in better order than did Sullivan’s.¹⁵

As Stirling’s men began melting away, and the American gunners abandoned their pieces that had inflicted substantial carnage, the four light infantry companies pinned down near the crest, together with the rest of the 1st Light Infantry Battalion farther to the east, rose up and added their weight to the charge. Captain William Scott of the 17th Regiment of Foot recalled the moment of victory, as he lay pinned down with the advanced light infantry companies. “[I] saw Captain Cochrane of the 4th company on my left throw up his cap and cry “Victory!”; and, looking round,” reported the officer, “saw the 43rd [grenadier] company hastening to our relief.” When orders to advance rang out, the isolated companies “dashed forward, passed the five pieces of cannon which the enemy had abandoned, and made some few prisoners, the enemy running away from us, with too much speed to be overtaken.” Ensign George Ewing of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment, part of Stirling’s command, recalled “being over-powered, we were obliged to retire and leave them [the British] master of the field.” Surgeon Richard Howell, also of New Jersey, barely escaped. “After having been among them, with the loss of my mare, saddle and bridle, and great coat and hat,” he wrote, “with all my misfortunes I think myself happy, not to be taken prisoner.” Not everyone was so fortunate. In addition to the five artillery pieces that had formed the main patriot battery, the British captured a sizeable number of prisoners.16

Lieutenant George Duke of the 33rd’s grenadier company believed the British went into the fight with “more spirit and determined resolution than [the Americans] did, to drive them out of the field where the rebels were posted on the most advantageous ground that they could wish.” Had the Americans behaved like soldiers, Duke added, nothing could have pushed them off the hill, “but they showed themselves just what they are, nothing but a rebel banditti.”¹⁷

In the days and weeks following the battle, some participants came to believe they had in fact emerged from the fighting having inflicted a more damaging blow to the British than they had themselves suffered. “When we found the right and left oppressed by numbers and giving way on all quarters, we were obliged to abandon the hill we had so long contended for,” Gen. Sullivan explained in a report to Congress, “but not till we had almost covered the ground between that and Birmingham meetinghouse with the dead bodies of the enemy.” There were not enough British casualties to “cover the ground,” but there is a reasonable explanation why Sullivan left that description: Gen. Howe had trained his soldiers to drop to the ground when the rebels fired upon them. He instilled some light infantry tactics in all of his troops prior to the 1776 New York campaign, and many of the army’s regiments were still following this practice. In the smoke and confusion of battle, men deliberately lying on the ground were easily confused with casualties.¹⁸