The Philadelphia Campaign

by Thomas J McGuire

  In the absence of Morgan's Rangers Corps, Washington authorized the formation of a corps of light infantry that day, made up of 700 chosen marksmen, 100 each from the Continental brigades, and supplemented with more than 1,000 militia from Delaware and Pennsylvania. The army's senior brigadier general, William Maxwell of New Jersey, accepted command of this force, which took up positions on Iron Hill, blocking the road to Wilmington via Cooch's Mill and Christiana.

  The following day, some twenty miles away in Chester, Pennsylvania, sixty-year-old Gen. John Armstrong, commander of the Pennsylvania Militia as well as a Continental brigadier general, wrote to President Thomas Wharton about his attempts to organize the state militia. “Gladly wou'd I have wrote sooner to council had not the only subject to be touched with propriety been that of a Chaos, a situation more easy to conceive than describe, however, I have got at least eighteen hundred men sent forward.” Because of the army's needs, Armstrong, an old French and Indian War comrade of Washington's, offered to help with light troops. “In concert with Genl. Potter I have formed a Rifle Regt, and put a Coll. Dunlap at the head of it.” He described Col. James Dunlap as “a prudent man, and not unacquainted with the business of a Partizan.” In the same letter, he mentioned “a Rifle Battn of 300 privates” that would augment Maxwell's corps. “This Battalion marches to morrow morning from Hooke,” referring to Marcus Hook, a small village on the Delaware River just below Chester.85

  Pvt. James Patten, a twenty-six-year-old militia draftee, described the forming of Dunlap's “Partizan Regiment.” Patten was called up in July 1777.

  [He] rendezvoused with the troops at Carlisle and was marched to Marcus Hook a little town below Philadelphia on the deleware River. At this point there was a call for men to volunteer from the ranks of the infantry as Rifle-men & he volunteered and Joined a rifle company commanded by Capt. Crawford. Dunlap was the Colonel of this Rifle Reigt. He was then Marched in this Rifle Reigt. to Wilmington in Delaware and was then stationed in the Brandywine Mills about one mile from Wilmington. Genl. Maxwell had the command of this corpse [Corps] of the militia. That while the troops to which he belonged were so quartered in the mills parties were continually kept out upon the Scout watching the movements of the British & prevented them as far as possible from foraging in the country. The troops to which this applicant belonged had frequent skirmishes with the British.86

  The advance troops of the Continental Army positioned themselves around Iron Hill. “The hills from which they were viewing us seemed to be alive with troops,” von Münchhausen commented. “My General deployed 3000 men and marched forward. As soon as they observed our advance, they retreated; we caught only two dragoons. These dragoons and some Negro slaves confirmed that it was Washington with his suite and a strong escort that was looking us over. Most of our troops halted on or around this height.”

  The ironies of war were not lost on the participants. “General Washington spent several days in the same house where we are now lodging,” Howe's headquarters at Mr. Alexander's house, “and did not leave it until yesterday morning. So, he must have known, or at least suspected, that we intended to come here yesterday,” von Münchhausen noted. Intelligence, too, was passed on: “From talk said to have been from the lips of Washington and some of his officers, we learn that Washington believes our objective to be Lancaster rather than Philadelphia.”87

  Howe took up positions around Head of Elk for a few days, with the grenadier and light infantry battalions posted on Gray's Hill, a mile east of the town. “We are now encamped, or more properly speaking enwigwamed, on the other side of the Town, though our tents are now come up which is all we are allowed to carry,” Lieutenant Hale of the 2nd Grenadier Battalion wrote. The lack of proper camp equipment was irksome to Hale, who lamented, “For this past week we have lived like beasts, no plates, no dishes, no table cloth, biscuits supply the place of the first but for the others no substitute can be found; my clothes have not been off since we landed.” But after spending the three previous nights in drenching, steamy rain, he realized that it could be worse: “Clean straw is as good a bed as I desire, and if it does not rain am happy.” The food, though not the best, was tolerable. “I have had only two fresh meals since quitting the ship, but the Pork is so good as well for breakfast as dinner, that I feel no want of beef or mutton and was never in better health or spirits in my life. So much for household affairs.” Despite the abysmal lack of amenities, Hale and other officers still had a few gentlemanly perks: “I write this under a tree, while my black is making a fire to boil my pork, and my white servant pitching my tent.”88

  Capt. William Dansey of the 33rd, part of the 1st Light Infantry Battalion camped “in a Wood near Head of Elk,” told his mother, “We landed in this Country five Days ago with no other Conveniencies than what we cou'd carry on our Backs.” He scribbled apologetically, “I hope you will excuse as also my present stile of Writing, as I am in an intire State of Ill conveniency, seated on the Ground at the Foot of a Tree, What a Savage Life ours is, I don't expect to have my Cloths off or see the inside of a House on this side Christmas but thank God I keep my Health well.”89

  Despite the optimistic reports on the twenty-seventh, the plundering continued unabated, even with dire threats and drastic punishments. Montrésor noted on the twenty-eighth, “Two houses got on Fire after quitting the Quarters but appeared to me to have been done on purpose…. Several of our men very irregular in pursuit of fresh provisions, so as to fall into the Enemy's hands…. 23 of our Troops, 3 of which Hessians missing, supposed to be taken by the Enemy plundering.”90

  On August 29, John Ballard, William Jackson, and Alexander Kerr, three grenadiers from Sir George Osborn's company of the Guards, were captured, “taken near Elk Head.”91 In the General Orders that morning, Howe authorized the provost martial “to execute upon the Spot all Soldiers and followers of the Army, Straggling beyond the outposts, or detected in Plundering or devastation of any kind.” Later in the day, orders went out saying, “The Commanding Officers of Corps are immediately to send out Strong Patrols along their front and beyond their advance Sentries, to take up all Stragglers.” The officers were told, “The present Irregularity of the Men makes it absolutely necessary for no Officer to leave Camp without permission of his Commanding Officer.”92

  “A want of firmness in not enforcing orders, and a total relaxation of discipline has been the cause of our beginning the Campaign by plundering and irregularity of every kind,” Major Stuart told his father in disgust. “Most of the people either through disaffection or fear had left their houses, and those that remained had the melancholy prospect of seeing everything taken from them and the regret left of not having followed the stream.” Worse yet was the breakdown in control and discipline, with ruinous consequences. “We have lost near 100 men,” he noted, confirming Jesse Hollingsworth's statement to the governor, “not from the sword of the enemy (for enemy we have not seen), but who have been picked up by stragglers maurading, or desertion.”93

  The situation was out of hand and had to be stopped. “Went on Shore, and mortified with the accounts of Plunder, &c., committed on the poor Inhabitants by the Army and Navy,” Ambrose Serle recorded with shame. Aghast at the chaos and lack of discipline, as well as the stragglers lost while plundering, the admiral's secretary wrote “[I] prevented several Depredations myself, being dressed somewhat like a Sea-officer, with a Cockade in my Hat & Hangar by my Side. Forty seven Grenadiers, and several other parties straggling for Plunder, were surprized by the Rebels.” Like other British officers, he commented bitterly, “The Hessians are more infamous & cruel than any.” Crossed out in this passage was “It is a misfortune, we ever had such a dirty, cowardly set of contemptible miscreants.”94

  There were British soldiers, too, whose actions horrified some of their officers. “A soldier of ours was yesterday taken by the enemy beyond our lines, who had chopped off an unfortunate woman's fingers in order to plunder her of her rings,” Captain Fitzpatrick
told his sister-in-law, the Countess of Ossory, on September 1. “I really think the return of this army to England is to be dreaded by the peaceable inhabitants, and will occasion a prodigious increase of business for Sir J. Fielding and Jack Ketch.” (Fielding was a founder of the London police and Ketch a notorious executioner.) “I am sure the office of the latter can never find more deserving objects for its exercise.”95 It may have been small comfort for Fitzpatrick to learn that some Americans decided to save Jack Ketch the trouble, as Capt.-Lt. John Peebles of the Highlanders starkly recorded in his diary on August 31, “2 men of the 71st. [Fraser's Highlanders] found in the wood with their throats cut, & 2 Grenadiers hang'd by the Rebels with their plunder on their backs.”96

  “A Party of my Battalion took 3 prisoners This morning. We have them here,” Col. John Thompson of the Maryland Militia reported. “Their Treatment to the Women here are brutal. Ravishment, plunder &ca. marcks Their steps,” he told William Paca. He also apologized for his writing: “Excuse this scrall. I am in no situation to write.”97

  Overall disgust with the immediate situation and state of the war was evident in a letter written from “Head of Elke” by Capt. Sir James Murray of the 57th on September 1. “I cannot help beeng still of opinion that the Cause of Liberty is in a very delicate situation: and I sincerely wish that it was over,” the Scottish light infantry officer told his sister Betty. “It is a barbarous business and in a barbarous country. The novelty is worn off and I see no advantages to be reaped from it.”98

  The Continental forces were by no means free of abuses. “I have a complaint lodged against your Corps by a number of the reputable Inhabitants in the Neighbourhood of Elk,” an outraged Washington wrote from Wilmington on September 2 to Col. Charles Armand Tuffin, a French nobleman who commanded a corps of dragoons made up mostly of European volunteers. “As I find that your men cannot be restrained from committing Violences while in the Country, I desire you will immediately march them to this Town,” the commander in chief ordered. He wrote to General Maxwell the same day, “In consequence of the remonstrance from the inhabitants near Elk, I have commanded Armand's Corps to repair immediately to this place.” Washington was determined to punish the offenders. “If any of the people who have been injured can point out the particular Persons, either Officers or Soldiers, they shall be made examples of.”99

  “Inhabitants drove in by the oppression of the rebels,” Captain Montrésor noted in his diary on September 4.100 The situation had become so bad that Washington launched a fierce tirade in the General Orders on that same day, lambasting both men and officers:

  Notwithstanding all the cautions, the earnest requests, and the positive orders of the Commander in Chief, to prevent our own army from plundering our own friends and fellow citizens, yet to his astonishment and grief, fresh complaints are made to him, that so wicked, infamous and cruel a practice is still continued, and that too in circumstances most distressing; where the wretched inhabitants, dreading the enemy's vengeance for their adherence to our cause, have left all, and fled to us for refuge! We complain of the cruelty and barbarity of our enemies; but does it equal ours? They sometimes spare the property of their friends: But some amongst us, beyond expression barbarous, rob even them! Why did we assemble in arms? Was it not, in one capital point, to protect the property of our countrymen? And shall we to our eternal reproach, be the first to pillage and destroy? Will no motives of humanity, of zeal, interest and honor, restrain the violence of the soldiers, or induce officers to keep so strict a watch over the ill-disposed, as effectually to prevent the execution of their evil designs, and the gratification of their savage inclinations? Or, if these powerful motives are too weak, will they pay no regard to their own safety? How many noble designs have miscarried, how many victories been lost, how many armies ruined, by an indulgence of soldiers in plundering? If officers in the least connive at such practices, the licentiousness of some soldiers will soon be without bounds: In the most critical moments, instead of attending to their duty, they will be scattered abroad, indiscriminately plundering friends and foes; and if no worse consequence ensue, many of them must infallibly fall a prey to the enemy. For these reasons, the Commander in Chief requires, that these orders be distinctly read to all the troops; and that officers of every rank, take particular pains, to convince the men, of the baseness, and fatal tendency of the practices complained of; and that their own safety depends on a contrary conduct, and an exact observance of order and discipline; at the same time the Commander in Chief most solemnly assures all, that he will have no mercy on offenders against these orders; their lives shall pay the forfeit of their crimes. Pity, under such circumstances, would be the height of cruelty.101

  “We are doubtless a wicked generation, and our army too much abounds in profaneness and debauchery,” Col. Timothy Pickering had confessed to his wife on August 29, a blunt edge of Puritanical disgust plainly evident in this man from Salem, Massachusetts. “Nevertheless, our enemies do not fall behind us in vice, but rather, I believe, exceed us, and have besides none but the worst motives—the motives of tyrants—to steel their hearts against us.” With fervent idealism and patriotic zeal, he told Rebecca, “Whereas we have a just cause, on which the happiness, not of innocent Americans only, but of the thousands of poor, oppressed people in every kingdom in Europe, depends, to point our weapons and brace our arms, to urge them against the mercenary foe.” He hoped to return to her “if not ‘crowned with the laurels of victory,’ as you express it, at least without disgrace.”102

  Inconclusive skirmishing continued for a few days at the end of August and the beginning of September in the vicinity of Gray's Hill and Iron Hill. At White Clay Creek, “Genl. Washington has pushed down a light corps, consisting of about three thousand men mostly with rifles, together with the Malitia and Light Horse, to a post about a mile from them, called Iron Hill,” Col. Walter Stewart of the Pennsylvania State Regiment wrote to Gen. Horatio Gates on September 2. “Here the country is, one would imagine, formed by Nature for defence, having a great quantity of woods, large morasses they must pass through, and many commanding hills, which the Malitia may take post upon.”103

  While the armies poked and prodded each other and the new Continental Corps of Light Infantry attempted to coalesce, Anthony Wayne and most of the Pennsylvania Line were left to the rear, along with some militia, to dig entrenchments around Wilmington. “Our company were then ordered to work on a hill in the rear of the town in the construction of a fascine battery,” Pvt. William Hutchinson of the 2nd Battalion of Chester County Militia recalled. Lafayette, without a command of his own and attached to Washington's staff, moved among the troops, “and by him we had the honor of being reviewed on Quaker Hill at Wilmington, Delaware, while we were at work erecting the battery,” Hutchinson noted with awe, “and were there addressed by him. He was with us both on horseback and on foot.”104

  Wayne was not awed; not only was it less than glorious work, but it also was contrary to his aggressive nature. The Pennsylvanian was furious; some of the disorganized, raw recruits of the Pennsylvania Militia, like Dunlap's “Partizans,” were seeing more action than he and his regulars. With Morgan's riflemen gone, Wayne seemed to be the likely candidate to lead a new light corps, since the two of them had done so well at Brunswick Bridge back in June. He had recently suggested as much to Washington. But General Lincoln was also gone, and his division, composed of Wayne's 1st Pennsylvania Brigade and the 2nd Pennsylvania Brigade, whose brigadier general, John Philip DeHaas, never took command because of poor health, was now commanded by Wayne only; the division had no other generals. “I am peremptorily forbid by His Excellency to leave the Army,” was Wayne's excuse to his wife, Polly, for not visiting home when the army arrived in Chester County in late August. “My case is hard—I am obliged to do the duty of three General Officers.”105

  Now, with the Corps of Light Infantry placed under Maxwell's command because of seniority and a battle in the offing, Wayne found himself
posted in the rear at Wilmington, four miles behind the front lines, with orders to dig. The hotheaded Pennsylvanian was beside himself. “We are throwing up a few works at Wilmington, where Wayne is like a mad bear, it falling to his brigade,” Colonel Stewart told General Gates. Knowing Wayne's temperament, Stewart could not help but add, “I believe he heartily wishes all engineers at the devil.”106

  Attempting to channel his fury and frustration, Wayne wrote Washington an astonishing letter that day in which he reminded His Excellency that it had been Wayne's suggestion to create a special corps “to make a Regular and Vigorous Assault on their Right or Left flank.” He had the temerity to tell the commander in chief, “This, Sir, I am well Convinced would Surprise them much—from a persuasion that you dare not leave your Works.” Salving the blow by carefully choosing his words, Wayne told Washington that “the Enemy would have no Other Alternative than to Retreat—for they dare not hazard any new manoeuvre in the face of your Army which would be cool & ready to take every Advantage of either their Confusion, Disorder or Retreat.”

  “This Sir is no new Idea,” Wayne lectured the American Fabius, citing Caesar at Amiens under siege by the Gauls and quoting Marshal Saxe. He went on to say that the militia “will at all events be sufficient to guard against any bad Consequences in case of a Military Check by throwing themselves into the works and Strong Ground in your Rear,” a backhanded reminder to Washington of Wayne's present position. He concluded the military history tongue-lashing by bluntly stating, “Should I be happy enough to meet your Excellency in Opinion—I wish to be of the number Assigned for this business,” and ended his letter with a classic finish: “I know you have goodness enough to excuse a freedom—which proceeds from a Desire to render every service in the power of your Excellency's Most Obedient and very Humble Servant, Ant'y Wayne.”107