“But nothing could stand before our lads, they routed them from the Meadow, & all afterwards was a mere Chace, so far I saw.”1
— James Parker, September 11, 1777
The many hours of waiting in position west of Chads’s Ford along the Brandywine had taken a toll on Wilhelm von Knyphausen and some of his high ranking officers. General James Grant “expected the Action to begin about two o’clock. I had made my mind up to that, but from two to four I became anxious. The minutes were Hours, I was uneasy & impatient.”2
Indeed, Grant and his fellow officers had spent much of the day facing the bulk of the American army, hoping all the while that General Washington would not figure out that Howe had divided his command in the face of a unified enemy. If the Continentals assaulted across the various Brandywine fords before Howe completed his flanking maneuver, Washington could crush and disperse Knyphausen’s diversionary wing. Once the middle afternoon arrived, however, and the Continentals could be seen moving rapidly north, their concern shifted to Howe and his flanking column. “We began to be uneasy about General Howe,” wrote Royal Artilleryman Francis Downman, “for a great force of the rebels [Sullivan’s, Stirling’s, and Stephen’s divisions] marched from the hills and woods before us towards him…. [O]ur doubts were eased, for we heard a firing on our left, at first gentle, but in a little very heavy indeed both of cannon and musketry.”3
The firing referenced by Downman was Gen. Cornwallis’s move off Osborn Hill and the early stages of the attack against Birmingham Hill. The distant rattle of musketry and booming artillery was exactly what General Knyphausen had been waiting to hear. “[A]t 4 o’clock by uninterrupted firing of Musketry … we discovered the commander in chief’s approach,” reported the Hessian general, “whereupon I immediately formed my attack.” The time to push across Chads’s Ford had arrived. Some members of Knyphausen’s wing not only heard Cornwallis’s assault, but also saw portions of it (probably elements of the Brigade of Guards) through breaks in the otherwise heavy woods. Downman recalled watching “our brave fellows under Howe push out of the wood after the rebels. We renew our fire from the artillery to scour the woods.”4
The British plan was bold but simple: Howe would engage first, and when Knyphausen heard the fighting to the north (off his left), he would attack across Chads’s Ford. He moved as fast as possible, but forming the attack column took time. After the conclusion of the morning fighting, Knyphausen spread out his division along the west bank of the Brandywine to cover crossing points and protect his flanks, and to better shift units in and out of Washington’s view across a wide front to create the illusion Howe’s entire army was present. As a result, he was unable to launch his attack until after 5:00 p.m.—about one hour after Cornwallis opened his attack.
While Knyphausen organized his men, the Americans were busy on the east side of the river. It was around 5:00 p.m. when Washington dispatched Nathanael Greene’s division to march north to reinforce that sector as the three divisions under Sullivan were being driven from Birmingham Hill. Departing with Greene was the North Carolina brigade of Francis Nash. Greene’s departure left the Chads’s Ford front lightly defended. The only troops remaining to oppose Knyphausen’s division were the Pennsylvanians of Brig. Gen. Anthony Wayne’s division and Brig. Gen. William Maxwell’s light infantry. Colonel Thomas Proctor’s American artillery remained where it had been deployed since that morning, on the heights above the John Chads house overlooking the ferry crossing. A park of American reserve artillery was stationed farther east in reserve. The only other Americans in the area after 5:00 p.m. belonged to Maj. Gen. John Armstrong’s Pennsylvania Militia Division, positioned about mile south watching Pyle’s Ford. Knyphausen had nearly 6,700 British, Hessian, and loyalist troops to assault a force of nearly 6,000 Americans, but nearly half of the defenders were unreliable militia.5
Two considerations convinced Knyphausen to make his main push across the Brandywine at Chads’s Ferry instead of Chads’s Ford. The first was a matter of trees. The Americans had felled many and blocked Chads’s Ford, which would have made the crossing much more difficult to navigate. The second discovery that afternoon was that the American battery had a much better command of Chads’s Ford than it did of the ferry crossing because Proctor’s view of the latter was partially blocked by a tree line.6
The 4th and 5th Regiments of Foot were given the honor of leading the crossing at the ferry. When the orders arrived, the 4th Regiment was at Brinton’s Ford and had to move three-quarters of a mile south. The 5th Regiment was already opposite the ferry and had to await the arrival of the 4th Regiment before moving. The order of assault after the 4th and 5th Regiments crossed consisted of the 2nd battalion of the 71st Highlanders, Ferguson’s Riflemen, the Queen’s Rangers, and the 23rd Regiment of Foot, followed by the remainder of the regiments from the British brigades, and the light dragoon detachment, with the Hessian brigade bringing up the rear. Brigadier General Samuel Cleaveland placed two 12-pounders and two 6-pounders near the Brandywine to clear the way and cover the crossing during the advance.7
Washington was just about to leave the Ring House and ride north to see the state of affairs there firsthand when the British artillery unleashed its fire against the Americans opposite Chads’s Ferry. “At half after four O’Clock, the Enemy attacked Genl Sullivan … and the Action has been very violent ever since,” he dictated in a message to Congress. “It still continues…. [A] very severe Cannonade has begun here too and I suppose we shall have a very hot Evening.”8
When the British assault column was spotted ready to cross at the ferry, Proctor’s guns, supported by some of Maxwell’s men, deployed closer to the water to offset the enemy artillery, raked the crossing with grapeshot. “The Rebels fired grape & exploding shells…. [O]ur battery kept a warm fire for near a half hour,” recalled a British officer. Artillery rounds pounded the eastern bank of the Brandywine. Adam Stephen’s adjutant, Joseph Clark, who for reasons unknown did not accompany his division north, witnessed the heavy barrage. “The batteries at the middle ford opened upon each other with such fury as if the elements had been in convulsions,” explained the staff officer. “[T]he valley was filled with smoke, and now I grew seriously anxious for the event: for an hour and a half, this horrid sport continued.” Sergeant Thomas Sullivan of the British 49th Regiment of Foot recalled the Americans “being posted upon a Hill on the other side of the Road, [and] plaid upon us with four Pieces of Cannon during that attack.”9
The river was 50 paces wide and half a man deep at Chads’s Ferry. The men had no choice but to carry their muskets in one hand and their ammunition in the other to keep them dry. Colonel Proctor’s gunners engaged the enemy from directly in front with deadly grape shot, while elements of Gen. Wayne’s divisional artillery fired into the right flank of the British advance. The patriot guns could not prevent a crossing, but they did exact a toll for the privilege. Sergeant Stephen Jarvis of the Queen’s Rangers remembered the artillery “playing upon us with grape shot, which did much execution. The water took us up to our breasts, and was much stained with blood.” Jarvis added, “Many poor fellows fell in the river and were swept away with the current.”10
Although bloodied in the effort, Gen. Grant personally led his 4th and 5th Regiments through the water and up the opposite bank. Once across the Brandywine, the British troops were faced with a swampy morass some 200 yards wide. Reaching the enemy line would not be easy. Royal Engineer Archibald Robertson recalled that the troops “were obliged to advance in Column along the Road on Account of the Morass on their Flanks, they were galled by Musketry from the Woods on their right and by round and grape Shot from two Pieces of Cannon and an 8 inch Howitzer from the Battery in their Front.” “The Battery in front” mentioned by the engineer was a reference to Proctor’s command, whose gunners were ensconced in an earthwork servicing their pieces as fast as possible.11
The foot soldiers advanced as fast as possible, stacked up as they were on a causeway-like road until the land was dry enough on both sides for the officers to fan out their commands in proper lines of battle. It was a long slog, recalled one soldier, who thought they were “half mile in front of the trenches” once they reached the east bank of the river. The trenches that seemed so distant were a reference to a fortified line erected by Wayne’s division beyond the swampy morass.12
While the infantrymen struggled to get across the Brandywine River, advance along the road, and then organize themselves again on dry land, the British artillery rained shells on Proctor’s position. Fortunately for the Americans, most or all of them failed to explode. “The Brittish shells that they hove from their howetors never busted, which saved a good many men,” recalled 15-year-old gunner Jacob Nagle. “One shell, while the fuse was burning, a soldier run and nocked out the tube which prevented it from bursting.”13
When he realized his artillery was not having the desired effect of silencing the enemy or driving them away, Knyphausen ordered his guns to cease fire so the infantry could storm the battery and finish the job. Once beyond the swampy terrain, the leading 4th and 5th Regiments left the road and formed into lines of battle. Proctor’s guns were to their left front on a small hill. With their orders in hand, the regiments moved at a run around the west side of the hill upon which John Chads house sat to assault the battery from the river side. Nagle, who left a graphic account of the fight at the redoubt, watched the British close the distance to the earthwork, “though our artillery made a clear lane through them as they mounted the works, but they filled up the ranks again.” One British officer mounted the works and yelled, ‘“Come on my Brittons, the day is our own!’” Just then, wrote Nagle in a clever turn of phrase, an American 9-pounder discharged and “he was no more, with a number more.”14
At this point in the fighting, it became obvious to both sides that there was no effective way to stop the charging enemy. According to Col. James Chambers of the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment, British artillery fire allowed the 4th and 5th regiments to advance “under the thick smoke” and take “possession of the redoubt…. As there were no troops to cover the artillery in the redoubt, the enemy was within thirty yards before being discovered; our men were forced to fly, and to leave three pieces behind.” The absence of American infantry to help defend the battery all but guaranteed its capture, and the embattled artillerymen carried only a limited number of small arms for defensive purposes.15
One British sergeant recalled the final moments in the embattled American redoubt: “The Enemy’s Cannon missing fire in the Battery as they crossed, and before the Gunners could fire them off, the men of that Battalion [4th of Foot] put them to the Bayonets, and forced the Enemy from the Entrenchment.” Several of Proctor’s men fell defending the stronghold. Henry Conkle, a matross (gunner’s mate), collapsed when a howitzer round struck him in the leg. John Conrad, another matross, was shot through the left knee by a musket ball before being run over by a gun carriage. A private named David Chambers also went down during this stage of the battle with a wound. Higher ranks were not immune to the flying enemy metal. Artillery quartermaster James Livingston was killed about this time, and an enemy round killed Proctor’s mount, which the American artillery commander later described as his “best horse.” When he realized there was no hope of saving the position, Proctor ordered his men to move quickly and save themselves. The surviving gunners fled on foot, abandoning their pieces and equipment. The 4th Regiment of Foot captured three brass field pieces and a 5.5-inch howitzer at the cost of two killed and 21 wounded.16
The reason Proctor was left without infantry was because the divisions under Lord Stirling and Adam Stephen that had been protecting the artillery were pulled out of line and marched north, and were now confronting Cornwallis on Birmingham Hill. Some of Wayne’s men, probably the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment, were repositioned to protect the American artillery park, which was about one mile east of Chads’s Ford behind the hills (near the modern-day Brandywine Battlefield State Historic Site). When the British successfully crossed the river and attacked inland, Proctor ordered the reserve artillery withdrawn to avoid capture. By the time the orders arrived and the guns were beginning to roll, British troops were just west of the position and rapidly advancing toward the guns. The enemy, reported Colonel Chambers of the 1st Pennsylvania, “advanced on the hill, where our park was, and came within fifty yards of the hill above me.” Chambers shouted to his men to fire: “Two or three rounds made the lads clear the ground.”17
In their haste to escape, the withdrawing artillerymen left several pieces behind. When the Pennsylvania volleys halted the enemy advance, Chambers sent men to retrieve them. “Two field pieces went up the road protected by about sixty of my men, who had very warm work, but brought them safe,” he proudly related. “I then ordered another party to fly to the howitzer and bring it off. Captain [Thomas] Buchanan, Lt. [Michael] Simpson and Lt. [Thomas] Douglass [one of Proctor’s artillery officers] went immediately to the gun, and the men followed their example, and I covered them with the few I had remaining.”18 The opposing British troops, continued the Pennsylvania colonel with some exaggeration, “kept up the most terrible fire I suppose ever heard in America, though with very little loss on our side. I brought all the brigade artillery safely off, and I hope to see them again fired at the scoundrels.”19
While the 4th and 5th Regiments assaulted the redoubt near the Chads House, the battalion of 71st Highlanders and the Queen’s Rangers passed between the battery and the river to advance upon the American guns placed at Brinton’s Ford. The men tending them were also part of Proctor’s command. By this time, however, only one gun was still in operation and there were few gunners left to defend it. The approaching enemy troops convinced the artillerymen to flee toward a nearby buckwheat field, where they were pinned against a fence line and bayoneted. Sergeant Sullivan of the British 49th Regiment of Foot may not have witnessed the attack, but he certainly heard about it. The enemy, he recorded in his meticulous journal, “being attacked by the Rangers and 71st in a Buck Wheat field was totally scivered with the Bayonets before they could clear the fence round it.”20
By now, all of the American batteries and their gunners had either withdrawn out of harm’s way or were desperately attempting to save the guns. Continental artilleryman Jacob Nagle, who had barely escaped from the captured redoubt, remembered some of Wayne’s men (likely Chambers’s regiment) overseeing their retreat, and how they had “marsh or swampy ground to cross with the artillery to get into the road, and the horses being shot, the men could not drag the pieces out.” Three of the guns had to be spiked and abandoned. During the confused withdrawal, Nagle recalled coming across “a beautiful charger, all white, in a field next to the road with an elegant sadlle and holsters, and gold lace housing, and his bridle broke off, and his rider gone.” The teenager “made an attempt to ketch him, but he was skared, and the enemy keeping up a constant fire, I thought it best to leave him.” The well-appointed mount may have been Proctor’s reported “Portmanteau Horse taken by the Enemy.”21
The artillerymen spilled out of the redoubt and the reserve gunners withdrew above the Chads house. Many attempted to rally in an orchard on the Ring farm, where Washington’s headquarters had recently been located, and the fighting there was often “Bayonet to Bayonet.” The presence of Chambers’s 1st Pennsylvania did little to stem the tide of advancing enemy troops. The fighting, especially in and around the orchard, was hard, brutal, and short. “Many of them Ran to an Orchard to the right of the fort, from which they were Drove to a Meadow, where they made a Stand for some time in a ditch,” recalled British soldier James Parker. “But nothing could stand before our lads, they routed them from the Meadow, & all afterwards was a mere Chace, so far I saw.” General Knyphausen’s aide, von Baurmeister, agreed. After crossing the Brandywine, some of the “troops attacked them furiously, partly with the bayonet.” From the captured artillery position, Queen’s Ranger Stephen Jarvis watched “our brave comrades cutting them up in great style.” More British troops had crossed the river, formed, and were now driving inland, explained one observer, so the Americans “were obliged to retreat in the greatest confusion, leaving their Artillery & Ammunition in the Field.”22
Knyphausen summarized the fighting that swirled around Proctor’s position in his report nearly six weeks later to Lord Germain. Once across the ford, explained the Hessian general, the 4th and 5th Regiments of Foot, the battalion of the 71st Highlanders, Ferguson’s men, and the Queen’s Rangers assaulted the batteries “in such a manner as forced them to quit [them] notwithstanding the uninterrupted Fire of round & Grape Shot which continued ever [since] the Troops pass’d the Creek, & was supported by the Musketry of the [enemy] Battalions.” As more and more of his men poured across the river, the Americans retired from one hill after another, “driven by the gallant Behaviour of the Troops.”23
In the midst of the confusion and retreat, the ubiquitous Jacob Nagle experienced yet another traumatic moment. “In the heat of the action close to the orchard,” he later wrote, “I see some men burien an officer who wore the same dress that my father wore, which was green turned up with read fasings and gold lace. I was ready to faint. I run up to the officer and enquired what rigment he belonged to,” continued the teenager. “He informed me he was a colo belonging to the Virginia Line, which gave me comfort but sorrowful.”24
The fighting withdrawal of Proctor’s artillery sets the scene for yet another long-running Brandywine battle story, this one having to do with a wagon driver named Edward Hector. One version of the story has Hector, “a Negro artillerist from Pennsylvania [Proctor’s regiment]… [saving] a few wagonloads of ammunition and arms as the army withdrew.” Another version of the tale claims “Hector was a wagoneer and refused to abandon his horses and wagon. He gathered up some abandoned arms and made good his escape from the British.” The most complete and sourced account is found in Thomas McGuire’s history of the campaign, which relied upon Hector’s 1834 obituary notice, “A colored man had charge of an ammunition wagon attached to Col. Proctor’s regiment,” reported McGuire. According to the obituary, when the British overran the battery, “an order was given by the proper officers to those having charge of the wagons, to abandon them to the enemy, and save themselves by flight.” Hector replied, “The enemy shall not have my team; I will save my horses and myself…. [A]mid the confusion of the surrounding scene, he calmly gathered up a few stands of arms which had been left on the field by the retreating soldiers, and safely retired with his wagon, team and all, in face of the victorious foe.”25
The bulk of his command across the river and the threat of enemy artillery fire neutralized, Knyphausen shoved the majority of his division eastward on both sides of the Great Post Road. Wayne’s division, comprised of the brigades of Cols. Thomas Hartley and Richard Humpton, were aligned along a slight ridge facing north by northwest on the south side of the Great Post Road, with Humpton on the left and Hartley on the right. Four pieces of divisional artillery bolstered his line. The alignment of Gen. Maxwell’s light infantry remains problematic, but they were likely positioned north of the road on Wayne’s right flank in a hollow.
For a short while, Wayne’s men were in a position to offer some long distance enfilade fire while the enemy negotiated patches of swampy terrain on their drive eastward. Within a few minutes, however, Knyphausen’s advancing lines leveled their muskets and opened fire, the balls rattling through the American ranks and whizzing above their heads. Lieutenant Colonel Adam Hubley, of the 10th Pennsylvania Regiment of Hartley’s brigade, recalled the “Brittish Troops came on with the Greatest boldness & bravery, and began a most heavy fire on us,” but [we] “returned it a heavy.”26
Humpton’s brigade, on Wayne’s left, began taking casualties. The 8th Pennsylvania’s Sgt. Thomas Wyatt went down with a broken shoulder bone. Lieutenant Gabriel Peterson was near “[Major] Bayard … when he was struck down by a cannon ball, that broke a rifle gun of Sergt. Wyatt and his shoulder, and then struck Bayard on the head and shoulder, and tumbled him over on the ground for near two rods.” Peterson “helped him up on his feet—he was frantic, and seemed much hurt, but being much engaged at that time [he] could not render him any assistance.”27
Captain John Mears and Pvt. Patrick Martin, both of the 4th Pennsylvania, fell wounded. Colonel Francis Johnston’s men of the 5th Pennsylvania were much harder hit. A musket ball tore through Pvt. Thomas Owen’s right thigh while another round struck Cpl. Arthur Parterson in the back. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Robinson fell wounded and Capt. Joseph Potts was shot through the thigh and shoulder and captured. Corporal Christian Cowpland was hit in the left arm, Pvt. Christopher Still received an especially painful injury when a bullet shattered his right elbow joint, and Pvt. Daniel Davis was shot in the wrist and captured. Sergeant Hugh Brandley was wounded and believed to have died until he escaped from the British following the American victory at Stony Point. Continuing the 5th regiment’s losses, John Byrne watched Lt. Alexander McClintock go down with a wound (he would linger several days before dying), and Ens. Matthew Langwell killed. Byrne found himself in the thick of the fighting and “received a bayonet wound in the right side,” though somehow lived to tell the tale.28
The 11th Pennsylvania, also of Humpton’s brigade, had three men killed, nine wounded (Capt. James Calderwood mortally), and another two captured. All three of the men killed (Thomas Lucas, Peter Martin, and Alexander Carmichael) were lieutenants. The wounded included Lt. John Stotesbury, Pvt. Jacob Hartman (struck above the knee), Pvt. John Pursell (shot through the shoulder), Pvt. Samuel Smith (lost his left leg, cause unknown), Pvt. Jacob Cook (wounded in the right leg by a musket ball), Pvt. James Cain (shot in the back), and Pvt. Joseph Vanlovring (injury unknown). James Dougherty was especially unlucky when a bullet took out one of his eyes. Others, like Lt. Nathaniel Martin and Capt. William Mackay, were unwounded but not fleet of foot and captured.29
Just as Humpton’s men suffered on the left of the line, Hartley’s brigade likewise experienced heavy losses on the right. Captain Robert Hopes from Hartley’s Additional Continental Regiment was killed, as were Lts. James Lemmon and James Dill. A private, Philip Graham, was wounded. During this “most heavy fire,” Maj. Lewis Bush of Hartley’s Additional Continental Regiment had his horse killed from under him. He was in the process of remounting a different horse when he was shot, and, as Lt. Col. Hubley recalled, “fell in my Arms.” Bush’s injury proved mortal, and would earn him the unlucky distinction of being the highest-ranking American to die along the Brandywine.30
The 7th Pennsylvania, also of Humpton’s brigade, also had a number of men go down with wounds. A musket ball ripped through both of Pvt. John Brown’s legs and while he lived, Pvts. Walter Denny, John Neil, and John Wilson did not. The 10th Pennsylvania’s Lt. Peter Shiles collapsed from a wound and died on November 5; Pvts. John Groff and Leonard Weyer fell wounded, and later that evening Pvt. Samuel Lasley was injured during the retreat. The 2nd Pennsylvania, perhaps aligned on the far right side of Wayne’s front and thus less exposed, suffered lighter losses, with Pvt. Jacob Holder going down with a wound and Pvt. John Davis hit in the left leg and captured.31
Despite the heavy close-quarter fighting and losses, Wayne’s men stood tall and temporarily checked Knyphausen’s advance. Even the generals aide von Baurmeister offered grudging admiration when recalling how “[t]hey withstood one more rather severe attack behind some houses and ditches.” By this time the sun was beginning to wane, and the shadows lengthened on the field.32
Sergeant Major Francis Thorne of the 4th Regiment of Foot recalled some momentary confusion in the gathering darkness among the hills east of the Brandywine. Having decisively dealt with Proctor, the 4th and 5th Regiments of Foot were approaching Wayne’s soldiers when some of the British mistook them for Hessians and were “sure of it. It being almost dark—the color of their cloths, blue with red & white, it was too readily believed and the regiments inclin’d to their left.” In the confusion of battle, with darkness descending and the smoke heavy, the blue coats with red facings worn by some Pennsylvanians passed for Hessian uniforms. Whether Sgt. Maj. Thorne realized it at the time or not, or was simply reiterating what others around him were advocating, it would have been impossible for Hessian troops to have gotten in front of his regiment. Thorne continued: “[O]n our moving to the left for this Purpose, the Division [Wayne’s] threw in their whole fire, on the two regiments, which fortunately being directed too high, did little execution, however this sufficiently discovered the Error, and it [musket fire] was so hotly Return’d” that Wayne’s and Maxwell’s men retreated “through the Swamp in [their] rear, and their loss was considerable.”33
By this time, the 1st Battalion of the Brigade of Guards from General Cornwallis’s flanking division had dispersed Sullivan’s unlucky division atop Birmingham Hill farther north. This body of elite British troops continued marching nearly straight south along the heights on the east side of the Brandywine, though each step widened the growing gap between their left and the right flank of their sister battalion and the British grenadiers. The Hessian grenadiers were apparently called upon to fill this growing gap, but their slow rate of march and inability to keep up with the front ranks made it impossible to accomplish that or offer any meaningful support. The Guards did receive some assistance from the squadrons of 16th Light Dragoons attached to Cornwallis’s division.
The terrain the Guards crossed was difficult to negotiate, with one high rocky climb and descent after another through woods and soggy creek bottoms emptying into the Brandywine flood plain. This was the same terrain Sullivan had crossed when heading north earlier in the day. The battalion’s move south carried them from their victorious Birmingham Hill fight into the combat swirling east of Chads’s Ford. Knyphausen referenced this in his battle report to Lord George Germain.34
While Wayne was temporarily holding Knyphausen’s heavy assault in check, the British redirected the captured, unspiked American guns to fire on his position. The abandoned artillery pieces proved a gift for Knyphausen, who could not bring his own artillery train across the river fast enough to employ. Indeed, remarked Sullivan of the 49th Foot, we “had no Cannon to play upon the Enemy’s line, except one of the Pieces left in the Battery, which we turned upon them.” It was about at this point in the fighting, when American guns were unleashing fire against Wayne’s embattled line and musket balls and bayonet thrusts were taking their toll, that the Guards battalion appeared on the hill to Wayne’s right front. The Guards’ march carried them behind Proctor’s abandoned artillery lunette.35
Worried that his avenue of retreat was rapidly closing, and during an apparent lull in the fighting, Wayne skillfully disengaged his division and moved his men eastward toward Ring Road. Wayne may have also sent orders for Maj. Gen. John Armstrong to withdraw his Pennsylvania Militia Division from its position farther south along the Brandywine protecting Pyle’s Ford. Wayne’s disengagement was not without cost. Once his troops entered the Great Post Road, the British followed up as professionals would, pressing hard and inflicting more casualties.
Colonel James Chambers’s 1st Pennsylvania Regiment suffered serious losses, although like most of the other men who fell that day, the stage of the fighting during which they were shot down is not known. Chambers was among the wounded, hit by a musket ball in his right side. Although he would survive, the wound would bother him for the rest of his life. Eleven other members of the 1st Pennsylvania also fell. Sergeant John Maloney was wounded when a cannon ball struck a fence rail that flew through the air, struck his right thigh, and dislocated his knee. Private Archibald McClane was wounded in the left arm and right thigh, Pvt. Isaiah McCord was hit in the right shoulder and arm, and Capt. Charles Craig and Pvt. John Malone also went down, as did Sgt. Alexander Simonton. An enemy bullet struck Nicholas Nail in the right hand and clipped off the tips of two of his fingers. Ensign James Holliday was killed, Sgt. Benjamin Carson was hit in the right thigh, and Cpl. John Cavanagh took a bullet in the left shoulder. Private James Dougherty left the field with but one eye.36
If Wayne was hoping for substantial assistance from Armstrong’s militia, he was sorely disappointed. In fact, if Wayne had time to even think about it, it must have appeared to the general as if the militia division had simply vanished. The exact role played by Armstrong’s Pennsylvania militia that late September afternoon and early evening remains yet another mystery of the complex Brandywine battle. At some point Armstrong pulled his militia back from Pyle’s Ford. Perhaps the heavy firing farther north at Chads’s Ford, coupled with the initial British thrust across the river, unnerved the part-time soldiers and their leaders.
A surprising number of the militiamen, however, remained on the field in an effort to do their duty. Most of these men participated in the fighting during the closing stages of the battle (though the role of the militia commanders is unclear). One member named James Johnston claimed militia brigade leader Brig. Gen. James Potter “had no active part in the conflict of that day.” Whether he did or not remains open to question, but after the war many former militiamen left vivid recollections about their own experiences at the Brandywine. Numerous accounts describe the wholesale retreating of entire militia units. After it fell back from Pyle’s Ford, Jacob Ritter’s battalion was ordered forward “over the dead and dying, and I saw many bodies crushed to pieces beneath the wagons, and we were bespattered with blood. But no orders were given to use our small arms…. As we marched directly under the English cannon which kept up a continual fire, the destruction of our men was very great.”37
John Kuntz, another member of the Pennsylvania militia, claimed in his pension application that he was wounded in the breast by a musket ball. Alexander Beggs’s day started off well enough before he was caught up in Knyphausen’s attack. Beggs “& some others were sent, in the morning before the battle, to fell trees in the road for the purpose of obstructing the march of the enemy.” That afternoon, however, Beggs was captured when Knyphausen’s division overran the American left flank. He managed to escape that night and make his way back to the army.38
While some of these militiamen stood firm, the vast majority vacated the battlefield when they got the chance. Borick Bechtel recollected “on this day, they were once fired upon by the British artillery, when he is very positive the whole regiment ran.” Neal McKay recalled that “when the British troops came up about one half of our Brigade retreated…. Genl Potter,” he added, contradicting James Johnston’s recollection of the same officer, “was much agitated and became almost furious at the desertion of his men.” Disgusted by the actions of the militia, Samuel Hay, a major in the 7th Pennsylvania Regiment, part of Col. Hartley’s brigade, scoffed that “they may as well stay at home for not one fourth of them are of any use—about three fourths of them run off at the first fire, their officers foremost…. There is no more regulation amongst what I have seen of them, than there is amongst a flock of Bullocks.” Washington’s well-known distrust of militia was borne out once more. Unfortunately, it was Wayne and Maxwell who suffered the most because of it.3
Fortunately for the Americans, darkness effectively ended the fighting in this sector of the field. Colonel Chambers recalled the final position his men assumed before Knyphausen’s men halted their attack and the sunlight vanished altogether that September day. “We retreated to the next height in good order, in the midst of a very heavy fire of cannon and small arms. Not thirty yards distant, we formed to receive them,” he reported, “but they did not choose to follow.” While darkness played perhaps a deciding factor in ending the fighting, there was just enough light for the British to determine that Wayne’s final position was formidable. “Finally, we saw the entire enemy line and four guns,” recorded von Baurmeister, “which fired frequently, drawn up on another height in front of a dense forest, their right wing resting on the Chester road.”40
Although it is difficult and at this date likely impossible to precisely determine when the fighting ended east of Chads’s Ford, it was probably about 6:30 p.m.—about the same time the serious combat to the northeast was winding down. According to the 10th Pennsylvania’s Lt. Col. Adam Hubley, “The Action Lasted Nearly to Night when the Genl. thought proper to retire … [to] an Eminence opposite the Enemy, leaving the Enemy to bemoan the Loss of Considerable Numbers of their Vatren Soldiers, slain on the field of Battle.”41
Ironically, General Knyphausen’s attacking troops suffered heavier losses during their fitful morning fighting while advancing along the Great Post Road against Maxwell’s light infantry than they suffered during the late afternoon and early evening attack into the hills east of Chads’s Ford. The unbrigaded 71st Highlanders, for example, lost but three men wounded east of the river. The pair of British brigades under Maj. Gen. James Grant suffered 12 killed and 69 wounded. Among that number, three soldiers were killed and another ten wounded in the 49th Regiment of Foot, and just one fell injured in the 40th Regiment of Foot. Major General Johann Daniel Stirn’s Hessian brigade probably lost only one killed and nine wounded, including two wounded from the von Mirbach Regiment. Several officers fell during Knyphausen’s assault across the Brandywine, including Capt. John Rawdon of the 4th Regiment of Foot, Lt. James Edwards of the 28th Regiment of Foot, a “Captain Stuart” of the 49th Regiment of Foot, and Ens. William Andrew of the 5th Regiment of Foot.42
General Wayne and his infantrymen gave a good account of themselves that late afternoon, even though heavily outnumbered and often out of position because of the flanking surprise on the right side of the army and the speed with which Knyphausen drove his legions across the Brandywine. Although finally pushed off the field, Wayne and his soldiers managed to protect much of the artillery and wagons during what was a chaotic mess of an engagement. Lieutenant Colonel Hubley relayed his thoughts on the battle a few days after the firing stopped, and seemed to believe many officers failed to do their duty. “Nothing but misconduct lost us the field, the men behav’d like Vetrans, and Fought with the Greatest bravery,” explained the lieutenant colonel. “Aboutt half an hour after knight we Moov’d off the Eminence to which we had returnd & Marchd that Knight to Chester.”43
Darkness prevented a more severe American loss on this part of the field. Knyphausen’s aide von Baurmeister bemoaned exactly that when he wrote about the fighting. “[H]ad not darkness favored their retreat,” he explained, “we might have come into possession of much artillery, munitions and horses.” Hessian brigade commander Johann Daniel Stirn agreed with von Baurmeister’s assessment. “The approach of the night,” penned the German leader, “made it impossible to pursue the enemy further.”44