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Capital of the Rebellion: Phila. and the Revolution. (8/26/1777)

Philadelphia Inquirer article (2nd in series)

Capital of the Rebellion
Posted on Sun, Sep. 01, 2002

Capital of the Rebellion
Philadelphia and the Revolution, 225 years ago.
Washington's scouting trip takes a hair-raising turn

By Michael D. Schaffer
Inquirer Staff Writer


Second in a series of articles recounting Philadelphia's days in the Revolutionary War. The British have barely arrived in northeastern Maryland, and already George Washington has come calling.

Not with the Continental Army, but with just a few trusted officers, to get as close a look at the enemy as possible.

The date is Aug. 26, 1777.

The British landing that began early yesterday on the Elk River and continued throughout the day finally ended this morning. At least 13,000 (and probably more than 16,000) British and German troops under Gen. Sir William Howe are preparing to march on Philadelphia.

Washington means to defend the city even if he has to fight the major battle he avoided earlier in the summer. He has stationed his army between Howe's force and Philadelphia, camping first at Darby (with a strict admonition to officers "to prevent an inundation of bad women from Philadelphia"), and then at Wilmington.

The two armies will not be ready to fight for nearly another week, when musket-toting American light infantry will face German bayonets in the first real action of the campaign, a skirmish at Cooch's Bridge, Del.

First, the British need to regroup and resupply after the long sea voyage that brought them from northern New Jersey to the top of the Chesapeake Bay. Washington needs to summon all the help he can get from state militias. And he needs to see the enemy himself - which is why the rainy morning of Aug. 26 finds the American commander-in-chief riding nearly alone toward the British army.

Washington takes two of his favorite subordinates with him on his scouting expedition: steady Gen. Nathanael Greene, 35, a former Quaker expelled from his Rhode Island meeting because of his military activities, and an eager young volunteer recently arrived from France, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, only 20 years old, who has established himself in just a few weeks as one of Washington's favorites.

The American commander gets his look at the British from Grey's Hill, near the village of Head of Elk (in later times to be called Elkton), but learns little about the enemy's strength.

Then the excursion takes an unexpected - and decidedly unsafe - twist, when a thunderstorm strikes. Rather than slog back to Wilmington on roads turned into muck, Washington takes shelter at a farmhouse "very close to the enemy" and stubbornly insists on spending the night, Lafayette writes in his memoirs. Lafayette and Greene stay with him. All three hurry back to Wilmington at dawn, and Washington "admitted that a single traitor could have betrayed him," Lafayette recalls.

The very next day, Howe sets up his headquarters at an inn where Washington had dined, according to the journal of Howe's aide, Maj. John Andr?©.

It would have been very good luck for the British to bag Washington, but His Majesty's troops haven't even had moderately good luck since they landed.

The same rain that keeps Washington from getting back to Wilmington has hampered the British efforts to begin their march on Philadelphia. Despite the rain, the heat is stifling and kills several German soldiers. The troops are miserable. They have left their tents behind them, and they are hot and wet.

Washington may not know how many troops Howe has, but he does know that the British are "... very much distressed for want of horses, numbers of which it is said died on the passage, and the rest are in exceeding bad order."

Acquiring replacements will probably delay the British advance, Washington believes, "and give time for the militia, who seem to be collecting pretty fast, to join us."

The British are having trouble finding provisions for their troops. Many of the local residents have fled, and only a few have come forward to trade with Howe's army. "No method was as yet fixed upon for supplying the troops with fresh provisions in a regular manner," according to Andr?©.

Some of the hungry British troops, however, have fixed on an irregular manner for obtaining meat: "The soldiers slaughtered a great deal of cattle clandestinely," Andr?© writes.

And the soldiers have been helping themselves to more than cattle. "There was a great deal of plunder committed by the troops, notwithstanding the strictest prohibition," Andr?© writes - an embarrassment to the British army, because Howe has promised that plundering will be strictly punished. (Several weeks later, the British hang two of their soldiers for plundering.)

Howe believes that loyalty to King George III runs deep in the Philadelphia area, even among supporters of colonial rights. The British general hopes that capturing the city - the most important in the colonies - will encourage loyalists to come forward and declare their allegiance to His Majesty, undercutting the rebellion.

In keeping with that belief, Howe issues a proclamation on Aug. 27 offering protection to "the peaceable Inhabitants" of the area and a pardon to any rebels "who shall voluntarily come and surrender themselves to any Detachment of His Majesty's Forces." Independence is not popular on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and Howe's proclamation "has deluded many people," writes Col. John Dockery Thompson, of the Maryland militia, to Washington. But the groundswell of support for the Crown that Howe had hoped for does not materialize. Howe has already lost much time, and cannot wait for the countryside to rise. After a week of moving slowly through the region around the Elk River, gathering up horses and provisions, Howe's army is at last ready for its real march.

The British commander splits his force into two divisions, one under the German general, Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen, and the other under Maj. Gen. Earl Charles Cornwallis.

About 9 a.m. on Sept. 3, German troops from Cornwallis' division run into "a body of about 500 Rebels posted a little beyond Aikin's [Tavern] on the road to Iron Hill."

The Continental troops are light infantry, heirs to the American tradition of ranger warfare. Under the command of Gen. William Maxwell, they are fighting as a unit for the first time. Washington expects them to be an elite force.

The Germans push the Americans back about two miles through heavily wooded country toward Cooch's Bridge, Del., with the Americans, in ranger fashion, firing from heavy cover as they fall back.

As the fighting goes on and ammunition runs low, the Americans withdraw, retreating to the safety of the main Continental Army, entrenched along Red Clay Creek, south of Wilmington.

Between 20 and 40 Americans have died in the skirmish. Howe puts his losses at five dead.

The fight for Philadelphia has begun.

Next Sunday: The Battle of the Brandywine.
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Contact Michael D. Schaffer at 215-854-2537 or mschaffer@phillynews.com. Read the series online at http://inquirer.philly.com/go/1777/.

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Capital of the Rebellion (9/1/2002)
Series of news articles on Phila. and Am. Rev. War