The Philadelphia Campaign

by Thomas J McGuire

  Shortly after Gates left for the Northern Department, Washington dispatched Morgan's Corps of Rangers and a few other units to reinforce the army facing Burgoyne's invasion. Reports of Indian massacres had reached Congress, along with the horrific news that Burgoyne was offering bounties for American scalps. In late July, Jane McCrea, the fiancée of a Loyalist, was killed by Indians serving with Burgoyne's forces. News of her brutal murder helped rouse the New England Militia, but regulars were needed too, and Morgan's riflemen fit the bill perfectly: disciplined frontiersmen to take on British regulars, Tories, and Indians in a wilderness setting.

  Burgoyne was “the abandoned servant of an abandoned Master,” Richard Henry Lee of Virginia wrote vehemently. “Men, women, children, whig, Tory, and Protectiontaker, all promiscuously feel the keen scalping knife and the murdering Tomahawk.” The congressman commented with disgust, “This Burgoyne is the true Type of the Court he comes from; Howe & Carlton have some humanity.” Regarding the change in command of the Northern Army, Lee added, with some satisfaction, “Gates is able, and he is beloved in the Eastern Countries [New England]. The Men will now turn out. Morgans Corps, with some other Troops are sent up to check and chastise the inhuman butchers of bloody Burgoyne.”

  Closer to Philadelphia, “I went the other day to see the Army, the main body of which is about 20 miles from this City,” Lee continued. “I think the Army is a gallant one, well disciplined, clothed, armed (for they all have bayonets now) and sound in every respect—The Soldiers in good health and spirits, and every thing looks tout en Militaire.” While in “French mode,” he remarked, “Among other curiosities there, I saw the young Marquis de la Fayette, a Nobleman of the first fortune and family in France, the favorite of the Court and Country.” That Lafayette left behind his wife and fortune “in a polished Country” to come and “fight in American wilderness for American Liberty” impressed Lee greatly. “After this can there be a Tory in the World?” Lee exclaimed. “How this example ought to gall the worthless Nobility & Gentry of England, who meanly creap into the Tyrants service to destroy that liberty which a generous Frenchman quits every delight to defend thro every difficulty!”8

  Rumor and speculation about the British fleet continued to circulate as the molten days oozed on, and patience wore thin. “Where can Howe be gone?” Congressman Benjamin Harrison of Virginia wrote to Washington on August 20. “We begin to be under great apprehensions for South Carolina.” Compounding the worry was the situation in upstate New York: “Can not a blow be given Burgoyne in his absence? If something can not be done in that quarter soon, N. York will certainly be lost.” The waiting was agonizing. “Where the Devil is Gates,” Harrison fumed, “why dos he loiter so on the Road? The weather has been hot it is true, and so is the Service he is going to.”9

  “It is like a great hunting expedition in which hunters and farmers form a large circle and drive the wild animals from every side into a central net, whereupon the noble connoisseurs of the hunt can amuse themselves,” Rev. Henry Muhlenberg commented in his diary on August 20, astutely describing the overall British strategy, with Washington caught in the circle. “The barbarous Indians towards the north are already breaking loose,” the pastor wrote. “The Christian British general is giving the inhuman heathens ten dollars for each scalp of an American settler.” Believing that it was all “the plan and providence of the supreme Ruler,” Muhlenberg observed, “We have surely deserved punishment and are in dire need of chastisement, yet the Lord also remembers his mercy.” Bitter as he sounded, the elderly German preacher was by no means in favor of the British. “It is the same, if not worse, on the other side, for they are not angels but thoroughgoing, coarse Pelagians,” he remarked acidly. “They think they can do everything without God, with their own might and strength.”10

  On August 21, Washington's general officers gathered for a council of war in headquarters at Neshaminy Camp. They unanimously agreed that since there was no news of Howe after all this time, the army should march northward to stop Burgoyne, or possibly even attack New York City. The General Orders instructed the men to strike camp at 3:30 the next morning and be on the road by 5 A.M. “As we understand, General Howe and his Myrmidons are gone toward South Carolina,” Col. Percy Frazer wrote to his wife on the twenty-first. “We are now under orders to march tomorrow Morning, I think towards New York.”11

  That was the day when news arrived in Philadelphia that the fleet was in the Chesapeake. “This Method of coasting along the shore, and standing off, and on, is very curious,” John Adams remarked to Abigail. “First seen off Egg Harbour, then several Times off the Capes of Delaware, standing in and out, then off Sinepuxtent, then off the Eastern shore of Virginia to steal Tobacco, to N. Carolina to pilfer Pitch and Tar, or to South to plunder Rice and Indigo, who can tell? He will seduce a few Negroes from their Masters let him go where he will. But is this conquering America?”12

  Late in the day, the news arrived at Neshaminy Camp from Congress that the fleet had been spotted a week earlier, standing in the Capes of the Chesapeake; Washington decided to wait for further reports. As the Continentals were preparing to strike camp at dawn on the twenty-second, confirmation was received from Philadelphia that the fleet had entered the Chesapeake—news that was seven days old.

  As the fleet came closer, reports began to fly into the city from northern Maryland. At Rock Hall on the Eastern Shore near Chestertown, William Bordley wrote to Congressman Samuel Chase at 4 P.M. on the twenty-first, notifying him of the fleet's position.13 Chase received the news at noon on the twenty-second and passed it on to John Hancock, who hurriedly wrote to Washington at 1:30 P.M. that the fleet had come some distance up the Chesapeake. At sunset, the commander in chief notified Gen. Francis Nash at Trenton, “I have this minute received advice by express, that General Howe's fleet is high up in the North East part of Chesapeak Bay.” He wrote to General Putnam, up at Peekskill, “the Enemy's Fleet have at length fairly entered Chesapeak Bay; Swan point being at least 200 Miles up.”14 Washington ordered all available forces to pull together and head southward.

  Congress passed a resolution that same day, stating “that it be earnestly recommended to the state of Maryland immediately to call out not less than two thousand select militia to repel the expected invasion by the enemy of the state of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.” It also resolved “that the State of Pennsylvania be requested to keep up 4000 of their militia to assist in repelling the threatened attack of the enemy by way of Chesapeake and Delaware bays” by having the militia report to Lancaster, Downingtown, and Chester, and “that they be subject to the orders of General Washington,” placing them under Continental jurisdiction. Delaware was requested to provide 1,000 militia to rendezvous at Christiana Bridge, and Virginia was also asked for some of its militia to gather at Frederick, Maryland.15

  “A soldiers situation is a very uncertain one,” Percy Frazer told Polly on the night of the twenty-second. “Last evening We had orders to march this Morning which was countermanded before night,” he wrote from Graeme Park. “This afternoon We have orders to march tomorrow morning for Albany.”16 By morning, the orders had changed yet again; Wayne's Pennsylvania Division was staying close to home.

  On the twenty-third, the Continentals broke camp at Neshaminy and marched sixteen miles south to Germantown. Washington established headquarters at Stenton, the Logan family plantation. “Went to Stenton in the morning, & on the road heard the disagreeable news that Washington's army is to march that way,” Sarah Logan Fisher groaned. The house had just been cleaned up after Morgan's Corps had occupied it two weeks before. Now, after making her way up toward Germantown on roads clogged with army wagons and dragoons, Sarah was surprised to discover on reaching Stenton that “General Washington's bodyguard had taken possession there.” She was informed by an aide that “General Washington would lodge there that night, with many of his principal officers.” The general arrived at noon, with twenty officers and a number of servants. Abo
ut 3 p.m., dining on fresh mutton, “they behaved civil, were very quiet.” Sarah noted that “Washington appeared extremely grave & thoughtful.”17

  George Washington had much to consider at that moment. Between the waiting and the decisions that had had to be made during the previous three weeks—where to march and when—only having to countermand the orders once issued, compounded with the unbearable heat, his every nerve was strained. Now Howe was coming from an unexpected route—overland from the southwest, which placed Lancaster, America's largest inland city, in jeopardy.

  Sixty miles west of Philadelphia, surrounded by rich farmland and dozens of mills, ironworks, and rifle shops, Lancaster, with a population of 5,000, was a large supply depot and crucial staging area for troops and supplies passing between New York State, Virginia, and the western frontier at Fort Pitt. It also housed hundreds of British and Hessian prisoners of war. Ringing Lancaster were other Pennsylvania settlements—York, Carlisle, Lebanon, Downingtown, and Reading—which also had strategic importance for similar reasons. Reading, thirty miles north of Lancaster and sixty miles northwest of Philadelphia, was the Continental Army's main supply depot in the Middle States, and both Lancaster and Reading contained army general hospitals.

  None of these places had any defenses to speak of. Philadelphia, though protected by the Delaware River forts and the Pennsylvania Navy against a water assault from the south, had nothing to protect it from a land attack. The Schuylkill River and the Brandywine River and Creek were the only formidable natural barriers to the west, but they could be forded. Incredibly, not a fortification or earthwork of any kind had been built to defend the largest and most important North American city from an overland invasion in 1777.

  The Continental Army prepared to march through Philadelphia early on August 24, a Sunday morning. This city, founded ninety-five years earlier as the main settlement of “Pensilvania,” William Penn's “Holy Experiment,” had grown more rapidly than Boston or New York, both of which were older and much closer to the sea. Toleration of all faiths by the pacifist Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, was the major reason for this growth, together with lucrative land deals, and immigrants from the British Isles and central Europe flooded into the province. Germans came in such numbers that they were able to establish Germantown, their own inland settlement, in 1683, only a year after Philadelphia's founding. “Germanopolis,” as it was sometimes called in the early days, grew so quickly that it had its own newspaper, printed in German, by 1685—before Philadelphia. Printing, milling, and stocking weaving became mainstays of the town's economy.

  Washington's army once again occupied Germantown, but for only one night. The troops were ordered to march five miles down the Germantown Road at dawn on August 24 and enter the city by way of Front Street, where most of the major shipping merchants had their businesses and warehouses. The troops were to continue south on Front and cross High Street, also called Market Street, the main business thoroughfare running east-west. One block below Market, they were to swing right and march up Chesnut Street five blocks to the State House (today known as Independence Hall), where Congress would review them.

  Philadelphia was laid out in a simple grid plan. Its north-south streets, running parallel with the Delaware River, were mostly numbered; its east-west streets were mostly named after trees or plants, such as Vine, Walnut, and Chesnut, to name a few. The main streets were 50 feet wide, mostly paved with cobblestone and lined with sidewalks of brick or slate flagstones. High Street (now Market Street) was 100 feet wide, with market sheds running down the middle for three blocks from the old courthouse at Second Street.

  The city was built in a plain but handsome style, with buildings no higher than four stories. The skyline was pierced by a handful of steeples and spires and a few scattered cupolas. By 1777, Philadelphia had more than 5,000 dwellings and 3,000 other buildings—warehouses, stores, tanneries, and hundreds of small workshops—mostly built of red brick and found within less than one square mile. The population numbered between 30,000 and 40,000. Before the war, the waterfront was busy with dozens of ships daily, bringing a vast array of goods from Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean—all filtered through British ports and customs houses. Now, with independence declared, foreign goods mostly came through the West Indies, and much of the trade involved booty captured by privateers—legalized piracy.

  Philadelphia and Pennsylvania had become wealthy largely on exports of flour and lumber from the surrounding counties to the West Indies and Europe. Flour alone demanded thousands of barrels annually; their manufacture required sawmills and lumber to make barrel staves, forges to make iron straps for hoops, and hundreds of coopers to fabricate the finished products. Barrel staves were shipped by the tens of thousands to the West Indies to make hogsheads for sugar, molasses, and rum. The lumber and iron businesses were also capable of producing all sorts of war materials.

  Though Quakers had founded the city, they were a minority by 1777, but their presence and influence in the wealthy merchant class remained very powerful. John Penn, the founder's grandson, was the proprietor until independence was declared, but he was not a Quaker; he was Anglican and a member of Christ Church, located on Second Street above Market, the city's largest and most fashionable house of worship, its tall, spectacular white spire dominating the city's skyline.

  Penn and the Provincial Assembly were replaced in 1776 by the Supreme Executive Council, a twelve-member board headed by a president, Thomas Wharton. John Penn was being watched closely by Whig authorities and was soon to be arrested, along with numerous other Pennsylvania officials and leading merchants who refused to “take the test” and swear allegiance to the United States.

  The politics in the streets of Philadelphia were contentious and sometimes violent. Being the largest port in British North America, it had a large, rough, working-class population of dockworkers and laborers, as well and hundreds of small, independent craftsmen such as leatherworkers and shoemakers, printers, carpenters, and smiths of all types. Transportation of goods into and out of the city required porters, carters, draymen, and teamsters—tough, able-bodied characters who slaked their thirst at some of the more than 150 licensed taverns in the city. Others patronized illegal “tippling houses” or taprooms in the back alleys and waterfront areas, where “persons of evil name and fame and dishonest conversation” were known to congregate, according to city court records.

  There was a large Scots-Irish presence in the city, contentious Presbyterians driven from Northern Ireland by crippling taxes and militantly in favor of independence. The Anglicans, by contrast, were sharply divided into Loyalists and patriots. The Germans, called “Dutch” by their “English” neighbors, made up nearly half of the city's population. They generally stayed neutral for religious reasons or supported independence. Most of the Quakers also stayed neutral but remained passively loyal to the crown, thus earning them the label of Tories. The city's small Jewish population kept a low profile, as did the Irish and German Catholics, also small in number and conditionally tolerated.

  To complicate matters, the new Pennsylvania constitution was so radical in form that it sharply divided the Whigs. “I need not point out to you the danger and folly of the Constitution,” Dr. Benjamin Rush told Anthony Wayne in May 1777. “It has substituted a Mob Government for one of the happiest governments in the world.” Rush went on to say, “A single legislature is big with tyranny. I had rather live under the government of one man than of 72. They will soon become like the 30 tyrants of Athens. Absolute authority should belong only to God.” Further, religious factions were strongly at work. “A majority of the Presbyterians are in favor of the constitution, and in no part of the State do they discover more Zeal for it than in Chester County,” Wayne's home territory west of the city. “Add your Weight to the Scale of opposition,” Rush encouraged Wayne, “especially in your native County. The most respectable Whig characters in the State are with us.” He concluded optimistically: “Let us unite our efforts o
nce more and perhaps we may recover Pennsylvania from her delirium—At present, she has lifted a knife to her own throat. Your timely prescriptions may yet save her life.”18

  Philadelphia was also a major center for the production and distribution of war materials. Iron products of all types—cannonballs, grapeshot, entrenching tools, assorted hardware, and recently, heavy cannons—were sent into the city from the many forges and furnaces around the Pennsylvania and New Jersey countryside. Large quantities of French weapons and gunpowder were smuggled up from the Caribbean and found their way to the city warehouses. Supplies of rice and other foodstuffs for the army, liquors, tobacco, and the blue dye indigo came up the Chesapeake to Head of Elk, Maryland, and overland to the metropolis. Salt, a crucial component in food preservation, especially in the heat of summer, was in critically short supply. The several saltworks established along the Jersey shore were unable to fill the gap in time, and prices skyrocketed to upward of twenty times the prewar price.