Philadelphia was finally captured by the British after George Washington was defeated at the Brandywine. He fought and lost Germantown the following month, which ensured the Howe and his legions would hold the city as long as they liked. When British strategy changed, the British withdrew and Washington attacked them at Monmouth in June of 1778. The long and hard-fought battle made it clear Washington had finally crafted a Continental Army that could stand toe-to-toe in a fight with European professionals. Monmouth was the last major battle he would fight in the Northern theater.
With the help of French land and naval forces, Washington trapped General Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781 in a decisive victory in a long war that would not officially end until 1783. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and was unanimously elected president in 1788 and re-elected in 1792. He retired in 1797 (setting a precedent for two terms and a peaceful transition of power) and died at the age of 67 on December 14, 1799.
Anthony Wayne was surprised by Howe at Paoli on September 21, 1777, and his men suffered as a result. He took part in the actions at Germantown, Monmouth, and Stony Point, and helped resolve a mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line in 1781. He and his troops participated in the Yorktown operations in Virginia. Wayne served as a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1784 and was elected to Congress from Georgia in 1791 (but lost his seat because of residency qualifications). He won a decisive victory at Fallen Timbers (modern-day Ohio) in 1794 against a confederacy of Indian tribes, and died in 1796 during a journey to Pennsylvania from Detroit. In 1809 his son disinterred his remains, boiled them to remove remaining soft tissue, packed most of his bones into a pair of saddlebags, and buried them in the family plot in Radnor, Pennsylvania.
Despite the competency cloud hanging over his head, John Sullivan led his division at Germantown the following month and during the summer of 1778 commanded the American forces in the aborted effort to capture Newport, Rhode Island, and thereafter headed up an expedition into Indian country in New York. In 1781, Sullivan returned to New Hampshire, rose to political prominence, and led the drive in the state to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1788. He helped put down Shays’s Rebellion. Washington appointed him to the Federal bench. He died in 1795 at 54.
After the Philadelphia Campaign, Nathanael Greene acquiesced to Washington’s pleas in March 1778 and accepted the thankless post of quartermaster general of the army. He did so insisting that he retain a command position, and so led troops at Monmouth that June. He resigned as quartermaster general in 1780, presided over the military court that convicted British Maj. John Andre of espionage for his involvement in Benedict Arnold’s treasonous plot, and was in command of West Point when Washington elevated him to command in the Southern colonies. His skillful handling of affairs in that difficult theater climaxed with his tactical loss but strategic victory over Cornwallis at Guilford Courthouse in March 1781. After the war, Greene was given grants and land, which he sold to meet obligations he had incurred in an effort to feed his troops. He finally settled on an estate near Savannah but died at the young age of 43, probably of sunstroke, in 1786.
John Armstrong’s militia division did not perform well at the Brandywine or Germantown. Armstrong retired from the army and served in the Continental Congress after the campaign. Later in life, he served on the first Board of Trustees for Dickinson College. He died in 1795.
William Maxwell served at Germantown, Valley Forge, and Monmouth. In 1779, he took part in Sullivan’s New York expedition against the Indians. The hard-drinking Maxwell was too often drunk as a soldier, and resigned in 1780. He died 18 years later.
Adam Stephen’s intemperate habits at the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777, resulted in his dismissal from the army later that year. After his return to Virginia, he served on the state’s constitutional convention, and died in 1791 in Martinsburg.
Following his solid showing at Brandywine, William Alexander (Lord Stirling) fought well at Germantown and Monmouth. When Washington moved south into Virginia in 1781, he left Stirling in command of the northern army. The heavy drinker, who suffered from arthritis, died two years later just before the formal end of the war.
The unfortunate Francis Nash was leading a delaying action at Germantown when a musket ball struck him in the head and a British cannon round struck him in the hip and killed his horse. (The same artillery round killed Maj. James Witherspoon, whose father John was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.) Thomas Paine, the author of the influential pamphlet Common Sense, was present at the time and wrote that after his injuries the North Carolinian was no longer recognizable. Nash lingered for three days (while bleeding profusely) before succumbing. He was 35.
Washington’s gunner, Henry Knox served at Germantown, Valley Forge, and Monmouth. His magnificent handling of the siege artillery at Yorktown resulted in his elevation to major general. After the war, Knox served as secretary of war both under the Articles of Confederation and during Washington’s presidency under the Federal Constitution. He resigned in 1794, settled in Maine, and dabbled in numerous business ventures. He died in 1806 at 56 after swallowing a chicken bone, which become lodged in his throat and infected.
Thomas Mifflin resigned his position on October 10, 1777. Later in the year, he became part of Congress’s Board of War. In this position, he was one of the organizers of the movement to have Horatio Gates replace Washington as commander in chief. In 1783, Mifflin became president of Congress and was a signer of the Federal Constitution. He went on to serve as speaker of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and in 1788, held the equivalent of governor of Pennsylvania. He died in 1800 and was buried in Lancaster. Fort Mifflin in Pennsylvania is named in his honor.
Benjamin Rush served at Brandywine, and played a role in the Conway Cabal that winter, a plot by army officers to have Washington removed as commander in chief. In 1783, Rush became a part of the staff at Pennsylvania Hospital and a decade later played a leading role fighting the 1793 yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia. After the war, he came to recognize Washington’s greatness and wrote a letter to John Adams requesting his former letters criticizing the general be removed from the historical record. “Washington has so much martial dignity in his deportment,” explained Rush, “that you would distinguish him to be a general and a soldier from among 10,000 people. There is not a king in Europe that would not look like a valet de chambre (a manservant) by his side.” Rush died in 1813 and is buried at Christ Church Cemetery in Philadelphia.1
Four days after the battle of the Brandywine, Casimir Pulaski was made a brigadier general and the chief of cavalry. In early 1778 he resigned to form a cavalry-infantry legion in Baltimore, and later that year took the legion in an expedition around Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, during which his men were surprised in a night attack near modern-day Tuckerton. In 1779, his legion was transferred to the Southern theater of operations. He led troops in the defense of Charleston in 1779, and may have been instrumental in saving the city from capture at that time. Pulaski was mortally wounded by grapeshot near the groin during the battle of Savannah on October 9, 1779. He never regained consciousness and died aboard a ship two days later. His final resting place is within the Pulaski Monument in Savannah. Ironically, the grapeshot that killed him is on display at the Georgia Historical Society in the same city.
Many of Washington’s staff officers rose to positions of prominence in the future United States government. Later in the Philadelphia campaign, Timothy Pickering, always a wise man, urged bypassing the stone Chew house during the battle of Germantown, the siege of which some say may have cost Washington the battle. Pickering succeeded Nathanael Greene as the army’s quartermaster general in 1780. He ran a business after the war, and was appointed postmaster general in 1791 and secretary of war four years later. In August of that year, he took over as secretary of state, and served as a U.S. senator from 1803 until 1811. He died in 1829 at 84.
Alexander Hamilton commanded a light infantry battalion during the Yorktown siege. After the war, he served in the Continental Congress, opened a law practice, and took part in the Constitutional Convention. Under Washington, he served as the first secretary of the treasury and helped shape the future economic direction of the United States. During his life, Hamilton was variously a soldier, lawyer, congressman, leading proponent of the Constitution, secretary of the treasury, general in the army during the undeclared war with France (1798-1800), and leader of the Federalist party. He died fighting a duel with Aaron Burr in 1804.
In 1780, Tench Tilghman was made an official aide-de-camp. When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Tilghman delivered the surrender news to Congress. Tilghman was Washington’s longest-serving aide. After the war, he ran a mercantile business in Baltimore that imported European goods and exported tobacco. He died in 1786, probably from hepatitis, leaving behind a pregnant wife and daughter. He was 41.
After Brandywine, Lafayette is said to have remarked of young John Laurens, “It was not his fault that he was not killed or wounded … he did everything that was necessary to procure one or the other.”2 If so, Laurens had “better” luck a few weeks later at Germantown, where he was wounded in the shoulder in a bold attempt to set fire to Cliveden (a stone mansion manned by British soldiers). His horse was shot out from under him at Monmouth in 1778, the same year he wounded Gen. Charles Lee in a pistol duel. Laurens served as Washington’s liaison with French Admiral d’Estaing, fought at Charleston in 1779, was wounded in the right arm at Coosawhatchie, and elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives but continued to serve in the field. Laurens pushed to enlist blacks into American service, and although authorized to raise a command his idea was rejected by many prominent leaders in and out of the army. He was captured in the siege of Charleston and exchanged. In 1781, Congress sent him to France to help Benjamin Franklin negotiate for supplies and hard currency, and he arrived back in America in time to play a prominent role at Yorktown. Laurens was just 27 when he was killed in August 1782 at Combahee River in South Carolina. When he learned of his death, Washington wrote, “In a word, he had not a fault that I ever could discover, unless intrepidity bordering upon rashness could come under that denomination; and to this he was excited by the purest motives.”3
Besides Washington, the most famous man to fight at the Brandywine was the Marquis de Lafayette. After he recuperated from his leg wound Lafayette was given command of a division of Virginia troops. That winter he was placed in command of a planned re-invasion of Canada that never took place. After negotiating a peace treaty with the Six Nations he led the May 1778 operation to Barren Hill, Pennsylvania, from the Valley Forge encampment, fought that June at Monmouth, participated in the August expedition to Rhode Island, and returned to France in February 1779 where his son George Washington was born that December. He returned in April 1780 with the news that General Rochambeau’s French troops would be sent to America. He led his division into Virginia in early 1781 and commanded one-third of the army later that year at Yorktown.
In 1784, he returned to the United States and saw Washington for the last time. Louis XVI appointed Lafayette a member of the Assembly of Notables to advise him on the financial crisis in 1787. During the French Revolution in 1792, Jacobins under Robespierre attacked both the monarchy and Lafayette as a tool of the king. Lafayette fled France, was captured by the Austrians, and imprisoned in Olmutz, Moravia. His wife was arrested in France, released in 1795, and joined her husband in Olmutz with their two daughters. Their son, George Washington Lafayette, was sent to America to live with General Washington.
Napoleon arranged for Lafayette’s release in September 1797 after being imprisoned more than five years. He voted against life consulship for Napoleon in 1802, and in 1815 was elected to the Chamber of Deputies during the Hundred Days War. After Waterloo, he proposed Napoleon’s abdication. Following the return of royal rule, he was elected to the National Assembly in 1818.
Lafayette’s final trip to the United States was in 1824, during which he visited all 24 states over a 13-month period. Lafayette returned to France, continued public service, and died on May 20, 1834. He is buried at the Picpus Cemetery in Paris alongside his wife. Lafayette’s grave is forever honored by the presence of an American flag.
* * *
Despite his capture of Philadelphia, William Howe sent London a resignation letter in October of 1777 complaining, among other things, of a lack of support for his policies. He learned of its acceptance the following April, and Henry Clinton relieved him in May. Ironically, Howe’s brother, Admiral Richard Howe, also resigned in 1778. Some argue this allowed them to defend their actions before Parliament before strong opposing views could take root. In 1779, both Howes demanded a parliamentary inquiry into their American policies and actions, which ended with inconclusive findings. This did not stop oral and published attacks against General Howe. One of his most bitter critics was loyalist Joseph Galloway.
He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1782. It was eleven years, however, before Howe saw action in the French Revolutionary Wars. He was promoted to full general in 1793. His health was deteriorating in 1805 when he was appointed governor of Plymouth, and died at Twickenham in 1814 after a long illness at the age of 85.
After the fall of Philadelphia, Admiral Richard Howe spent the next several months reducing and capturing various American forts and strongholds controlling the Delaware River so that British shipping could safely reach Philadelphia. Howe, who longed to negotiate a peace with the Americans, grew annoyed with the appointment of a new peace commission in 1778 and resigned. French entry into the war kept the admiral on station. Although outnumbered, Howe performed well off Sandy Hook and blocked Admiral d’Estaing’s combined effort with American land forces to take Newport, Rhode Island. Howe left America in September 1778. As noted in his brother’s entry, a 1779 Parliamentary inquiry into his conduct ended inconclusively, and the admiral spent years castigating what he believed was his government’s mismanagement of the war at sea. He accepted command of the Channel Fleet in 1782, managed several actions well, and served as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1783-1788. Now in his late 60s, Howe turned in the best performance of his long career in 1794 in the mid-Atlantic at the Third Battle of Ushant (also called The Glorious First of June). He died in 1799.
Wilhelm von Knyphausen continued fighting during the balance of the Philadelphia campaign and fought at Monmouth the following summer. He temporarily commanded British forces in New York between 1779 and 1780. During the latter year, he led British forces at Connecticut Farms and Springfield. He returned to Europe in 1782 and became the military governor of Kassel. He died in 1800.
Charles Cornwallis fought at Germantown, took a short leave, and returned in time to fight in June 1778 at Monmouth the following summer. As second in command in America (Howe having been replaced by General Clinton), Cornwallis was given command in the Southern colonies. He decisively defeated Horatio Gates (the hero of Saratoga) at Camden, but his strategic blunders in North Carolina led to a costly tactical victory against Nathanael Greene in March 1781 at Guilford Courthouse. With his army critically weakened, Cornwallis grew disillusioned about victory in the South and believed Virginia was the key to success. Without permission he moved his army northward, where Washington and the French trapped him at Yorktown and forced his surrender. He was exchanged for Henry Laurens, a former president of the Continental Congress and John’s father.
Cornwallis was appointed governor-general of India in 1786, where his administrative skills and field victories over a sultan helped redeem his reputation. As the viceroy of Ireland he quelled an insurrection in 1798, and four years later was plenipotentiary to France and helped negotiate the end to one of the Napoleonic wars. He returned to India in 1805 but died soon afterward and is buried there.
James Grant continued to command troops during the war. He led the unsuccessful attempt to surround Lafayette at Barren Hill in May 1778, and captured a French garrison on St. Lucia in the West Indies. Grant returned to England in 1779, was promoted to lieutenant general in 1782, and elevated to command of the army of Scotland in 1789. He retired in 1805 and died the next year at 86.
The indefatigable jaeger officer whose observations have helped us better understand Brandywine, Johann Ewald, was captured at Yorktown. Following the war he entered the service of Denmark and was promoted to colonel in 1795, major general in 1802, and eventually lieutenant general. In 1809, he was made commanding general of the duchy of Holstein. Ewald retired in 1813 after 53 years of military service and died that same year at age 70. Unfortunately, Ewald’s gravesite was obliterated by Allied bombing during World War II.
Following Patrick Ferguson’s wounding at the Brandywine, Howe ordered the rifle corps dispersed—supposedly because he believed the rifles’ rapid rate of fire wasted ammunition. Like many lessons that should have been learned in North America, this elite corps was an innovation the British military tossed aside (see Appendix E for more details). Despite his disabled arm, Ferguson formed a small corps known as The American Volunteers, a group of 122 New York and New Jersey loyalists drawn from several existing loyalist regiments to carry out raids and reconnoiter. In October 1778, Ferguson commanded a 400-man expedition to Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, where he led a successful surprise night attack on Pulaski’s Legion. The following summer he helped prepare the defensive works at Stony Point, New York, and in early 1780 served around Savannah. During an incident of “friendly” fire in March, he was bayoneted in his good arm. He and his men were involved in raids across Georgia and South Carolina, and in April 1780 he was made a permanent major in the 71st Highlanders. Ferguson was killed on October 7, 1780, while commanding a loyalist force at Kings Mountain, South Carolina.
After aiding the British column at the Brandywine and helping the British achieve a victory there, infamous loyalist Joseph Galloway was present a couple of weeks later when the British captured Philadelphia and began their occupation. As Superintendent General of Philadelphia, Galloway ran its civil government. Galloway suppressed trade with Americans, the city flourished, foreign trade resumed, and many loyalists returned. Unhappy with Howe’s management, Galloway organized an intelligence network, established a civilian commissary as well as a new sanitation department, and involved himself in a host of civil matters neglected by Howe.
After Howe’s resignation during the winter of 1777-78, British policy in the colonies changed and Philadelphia was evacuated. Galloway argued against the move, and accompanied the British back to New York. He left his wife behind to attend to his estate, but since many viewed him as a traitor his property was confiscated. Late in 1778, Galloway journeyed to London, where he argued unsuccessfully on behalf of the loyalist cause for many years. Parliament eventually awarded Galloway a pension for his losses, and he retired abroad, writes one author, “to near obscurity.”4
Like many powerful men in the mid-1770s, Galloway had to make a decision whether to support the independence movement or the loyalist opposition. Next to Benjamin Franklin, no one was more prominent in Pennsylvania in 1775. It was Galloway who, with Franklin, had created the political party that opposed the proprietary family of Pennsylvania. When push came to shove, his colleague Franklin turned toward the patriot cause, and eventually transcended life itself to become an American icon. Galloway, however, could not bring himself to swing with the political winds, so he continued his adamant support for King George. His ego and political aspirations led him to a life of ruin. He never returned to the United States and died in England at age 72 in 1803.
* * *
What of the Americans who lived in the Brandywine area? Today, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania continues to preserve the homes of Benjamin Ring and Gideon Gilpin. Despite their property being plundered during the British occupation, the Quaker Ring family rebuilt its fortunes. Unfortunately, the Rings’ eight-year-old daughter Lydia died in October 1777, perhaps from a disease contracted when the armies moved through and fought in the area. Their daughter Elizabeth was born early in 1778, and they eventually had another daughter, Hannah. According to George Washington’s expense account, the general paid Benjamin Ring 22£ 10s for the use of his property during the battle. Benjamin was disowned from the Society of Friends for his involvement with the war effort, but later apologized and was readmitted to the Society. Both Benjamin (75) and his wife Rachael (66) died in 1804 and are buried at Concord Meetinghouse. At the time of Benjamin’s death, his estate was valued at $10,000.
After the battle, Gideon Gilpin filed a damage claim amounting to 502£, 6s in Pennsylvania currency, which was never paid. In an effort to rebuild his fortunes, Gilpin established a tavern on his property about one mile from Chads’s Ford. He was banned from the Society in 1779 after supposedly selling liquor and, so the allegation went, of taking an oath of allegiance to the revolutionary government. For almost nine years Gideon lived apart from his religious association until he acknowledged his transgression. He was readmitted to membership in 1788, but also continued his interest in the tavern operation, petitioning for a license again in 1789. His wife Sarah passed away in Philadelphia in 1801 and is buried at Concord Meetinghouse. Gideon married Susanna Hoopes in 1807, who died in 1823 at 75. Gideon died two years later at age 87.