Here at the wheelwright shop, the Birmingham Friends were holding their midweek meeting, because American forces had taken over their meetinghouse for use as a hospital. Joseph Townsend, a member of Birmingham Meeting, confirmed that “a considerable number of the soldiers were sick, in consequence of their long marches through the excessive heat of that season of the year.”73
Townsend recalled that the meeting in the wheelwright shop was interrupted by a disturbance outside. Several members went out to see what the commotion was about; when they did not return, “suspicion arose that something serious had taken place,” and the meeting ended. Townsend went out and “found it to be an alarm amongst some of our neighboring women that the English Army was coming and they murdered all before them—young and old.” As Townsend and others calmed the women down, their “eyes were caught on a sudden by the appearance of the army coming out of the woods into the fields belonging to Emmor Jefferis on the west side of the Creek above the fording place.” From the height at Sconneltown, the Friends could see the front of Cornwallis's column. “In a few minutes the fields were literally covered over with them, and they were hastening towards us. Their arms and bayonets being raised, shone as bright as silver, being a clear sky and the day exceeding warm.”74
The visual impact of this force would have been spellbinding for the local people. Rural Pennsylvanians at that time generally dressed in drab colors, especially the Quakers, who favored plain clothing in shades of gray or brown. Except for those who had been to Yearly Meetings or market in Philadelphia, most country folks had never seen more than a few hundred people gathered in any one place. Here, coming across Jefferis's Ford, was an extraordinary spectacle of martial pomp and arrogance, the very antithesis of Quaker culture—thousands of proud, combat-ready soldiers dressed in colorful uniforms and carrying gleaming weapons. Even with colors faded by the sun or washed out by rain, and despite the sweat and dust from marching, the British and Hessian troops were dazzling: Ewald and his Jägers at the head of the column, in green coats faced red, with brass buttons; McPherson and his Royal Highlanders in short red jackets and canvas trews (trousers), each sporting a “Kilmarnock” Highland bonnet, a dark blue tam topped with a red “touri,” or pom-pom, above a wide headband bearing three rows of red, white, and green checkers, with one or two black ostrich plumes bobbing over the top. Behind them, acres and acres of British light infantrymen in short red jackets and plumed round hats, followed by leather-helmeted dragoons and shining brass artillery in the distance. And this was merely the front of the column.
The Birmingham Friends dispersed. Townsend, who lived up the road toward Turk's Head, immediately went home. With his parents away and his sisters home alone, he feared that the house might be plundered, or worse. But when no troops showed up, his curiosity got the better of him and he went back to Sconneltown, where he found the British Army marching south toward Birmingham.
Ewald and the advance guard had moved ahead, and just under a mile down the road, they came to Strode's Mill in a small valley. Cornwallis once again ordered him to halt while the army came up the defile from the ford, regiment by regiment, an operation that would take nearly two hours. “After crossing the second Branch of the Brandywine the Van of the Army halted upon the Heights on this side until the Rear came up,” Capt. Archibald Robertson of the Engineers noted. “It then moved on in three Columns—The centre Column composed of the Jägers, two Battalions of Light Infantry,” followed by the grenadiers, “two Battalions British and three Battalions of Hessian Grenadiers in the Road.” About 400 yards to the west of the road, “the Brigade of Guards and 16th Regiment of light Dragoons formed the right Column,” and to the east, “the 4th Brigade British the left Column, about 400 Yards distant on each side of the Road,” with flankers fanned out hundreds of yards beyond the right and left columns. Behind this, “the third Brigade British formed the Reserve and moved along the Road in the Rear.”75 Townsend noted that “the space occupied by the nearer body and the flanking parties was near a mile and a half wide.”76
“The regular march of the British army consisted of horse and foot, artillery, baggage, provision wagons, arms and ammunition, together with a host of plunderers and rabble that accompanied the army…. Their passing took nearly four hours.” As the troops descended into the valley at Strode's Mill, Townsend and his brother began to approach the flanking party. “A soldier under arms cried out, ‘Where are you going?’ We replied, ‘We wished to see the army &c. if there was no objection.’ He observed, ‘There was their Captain, we might speak to him.’”
The captain gave permission, and Joseph with several others were permitted to wander among the troops, where they found “little to be discovered but staff officers and a continued march of soldiers and occasionally a troop of horse passing—Great numbers of baggage wagons began to make their appearance, well guarded by proper officers and soldiers.” Here the army stopped to rest; half a mile ahead on the far side of the valley was Osborne's Hill, one of the highest points in the area.
The view from the top of Osborne's Hill is commanding and spectacular; Townsend recalled that a British officer told him “with some rapture that ‘you have got a hell of a fine country here which we have found to be the case ever since we landed at the head of the Elk.’” To the west, Brandywine Creek meandered one or two miles away on the British right. Buffington's and Wistar's Fords, where Hazen's two battalions were posted, were now behind the British right flank and nearly cut off. A mile ahead to the south was the Street Road, running east-west through several townships and crossing the Brandywine at Jones's Ford, where Hall's Delaware Regiment held ground. Several hundred yards beyond the Street Road on an open rise was Birmingham Friends Meeting House, a small, one-story fieldstone building flanked by trees, its adjoining burying ground surrounded by a stone wall about chest-high. The meetinghouse was occupied as a hospital by the commissaries and “those who had the charge of the disordered persons,” meaning Continental hospital personnel.77
Troopers from the 1st Continental Light Dragoons, commanded by thirty-five-year-old Col. Theodorick Bland of Virginia, were also in the area, looking for British activity. Just after 1 p.m., they spotted Ewald's patrol on Osborne's Hill. Bland immediately sent a message to Washington at “1/4 past one oClock…. I have discovered a party of the Enemy on the heights just on the Right of two Widow Davis's who live close together on the Road calld the forks road, about half a mile to the Right of the Meeting house (Birmingham). There is a higher Hill to their front.”78
The message was carried as quickly as possible to headquarters, four miles away down steep, winding roads. Bland also sent a message to Sullivan, three country miles away from Birmingham in another direction. Sullivan, who had been waiting to hear from the Virginia cavalryman, received the note at 2 P.M. and immediately scribbled to Washington, “Colo. Bland has this moment Sent Me word that the Enemy are in the Rear of My Right about two miles Coming Down—there is he Says about two Brigades of them.” An ominous postscript warned, “He also Says he Saw a Dust Rise back in the Country for above an hour.”79
Washington had been up since before dawn and out along the front all morning, and he and his staff had returned to headquarters at the Ring House around 1 P.M. for dinner. Bland's note arrived “about two o'clock,” Pickering recalled. “I remember we had just dined at Head Quarters, & briskly started from thence.”80 Washington immediately ordered Stirling and Stephen to take their divisions, which were in reserve near headquarters, and head toward Birmingham. He also sent a message to Sullivan, ordering him to move in the same direction, rendezvous with Stirling and Stephen, and take command of the entire right wing.
The terrain in the area immediately north and east of Chads's Ford is exceptionally craggy and convoluted, with steep, thickly wooded hills and deep ravines; the roads are few and tortuous. There was no direct route north, nor was there any direct route between Sullivan and the other two divisions. Coordination of the American right wi
ng was going to be on the fly.
About 1,500 New Jersey and Pennsylvania Continentals in Stirling's Division, along with artillery and dozens of ammunition wagons, quickly moved up a narrow, winding road toward Birmingham via the crossroads village of Dilworth, located on a plateau three miles away. Behind them were another 1,500 or so Virginians in Scott's and Woodford's brigades of Stephen's Division, choking on the dust cloud raised on this very warm and muggy afternoon. In addition to their muskets and accoutrements, including forty rounds of ammunition, the troops were also carrying blankets and knapsacks on their backs, a total of about sixty pounds of equipment per man. The rapid march and steep climb would have left them gasping by the time they reached Dilworth, a crossroads hamlet of a dozen buildings mostly built of stone, clustered at an important five-points intersection near a substantial brick tavern, Charles Dilworth's Sign of the Pennsylvania Farmer.
At the crossroads, the troops moved left on the road to Birmingham Meeting and the Forks of the Brandywine, heading west for another mile over gently rolling terrain interspersed with tall stands of old-growth trees and farm fields, some freshly plowed. The road meanders down through an area called Sandy Hollow, abruptly swings southwest for 200 yards, and just as quickly turns right at a Y intersection, where it heads northwest and then north past Birmingham Friends toward Osborne's Hill, nearly two miles away.
From Osborne's Hill, “the Enemy were observed at Birmingham Meeting, but moving and unsettled,” noted Captain Robertson of the British Engineers.81 A British Light Infantry officer wrote, “The Light Infy. having gain'd the Heights were order'd to halt & the different Corps doubled up waiting for the Rear.” He noticed that “during this sev'ral Rebel Officers came to Reconnoitre, & from the Columns of Dust their Army was perceiv'd to be at no great Distance but from the Woods & the uneaveness of Ground in the Front it was not easy to conjecture of their Intentions.”82 The dust proved to be an effective indicator of large-scale troop movements for both sides that day.
Stirling placed his division on open, commanding ground half a mile south of Birmingham Meeting, extending southwest from the Y about 800 yards along a partially wooded ridge. Adam Stephen formed his division on Stirling's right along the Birmingham Road, extending back through woods toward Sandy Hollow. Five light fieldpieces, 3- and 4-pounders, were positioned on an open knoll in the center of the two divisions about 200 yards south of the Y, aimed up the road toward the meetinghouse. “They formed two lines in good order along their heights,” von Münchhausen observed from Osborne's Hill. “We could see this because there were some barren places here and there on the hills, which they occupied.”83
Meanwhile, at Brinton's Ford, “at half past Two I Received orders to march with my Division,” Sullivan recalled, “to Join & take Command of that & Two others to oppose the Enemy who were coming Down on the Right flank of our army.” Moving north along the left bank of the Brandywine, the Marylanders had to clamber up and down craggy hills through woods and thickets, across marshy creek bottoms, over meadows and cornfields, and along dusty farm lanes, hoping to find not only Stirling and Stephen, but the other half of their division, Hazen's, and the Delaware Regiment, as well. “I neither knew where the Enemy were or what Rout[e] the other Two Divisions were to take,” Sullivan complained, “& of course could not Determine where I Should form a Junction with them.”84
The 4,000 or so American troops moving to stop Cornwallis's 8,000 were going to have to blunder into him—and each other.
Much of this activity was visible from the British positions across the Brandywine between Brinton's and Chads's Ford. “At 2 o'Clock great Movements were observed in the Ennemy's Position on the opposite Side of the Creek,” von Knyphausen reported. From Sullivan's Division, he saw that “four Battalions with Artillery from their Right filed off, to where the Attack to the left of our Army was to be made.” Behind Chads's Ford, the Hessian commander could also see Stirling and Stephen heading out, for “the Road to Chester was covered with Waggons going this Way & that Way.”85
The weakening of Washington's front did not go unnoticed. “We saw several battalions, some artillery, and some troops of dragoons file to the right to reinforce their right wing,” Major Baurmeister observed, “and other changes in the line being made to give the necessary defensive strength to their left wing, which had been weakened by the removal of some of these troops.”86
Back on the north side of Osborne's Hill, out of sight from Birmingham Hill, Cornwallis's force had halted to rest and eat. It was absolutely necessary; the column had been on the march for nearly eight hours, covering about twelve miles, and had forded the Brandywine twice, where “the men had to cross these two branches in up to three feet of water.” Each crossing took two or more hours to complete.87 The troops were “both sultry and dusty and rather fatigued, many remaining along the road on that account,” according to Montrésor.88 “Some of our best men were obliged to yield,” Lieutenant Cliffe told his brother, “one of the 33rd droped dead.”89
Heat was not the only problem for some of the troops. “Our rum too failed some days before the action,” Lieutenant Hale of the 2nd Grenadier Battalion groaned, “and the quality of the different waters we were obliged to drink gave me the bloody flux, by which I was so weakened as to faint twice in the morning of the affair.” His thoughtful battalion commander came to the rescue: “However I recovered strength sufficient to go through the fatigue of the afternoon, Col. Monckton supplied me with claret, in which I mixed Ipecacuanha and Rhubarb, a never failing medicine.”90
The British commander in chief was thoughtful, too. “Sir Wm. Howe with a most Cheerful Countenance convers'd with his Officers & envited sev'ral to a slight refreshment provided on the Grass,” wrote one officer. “The pleasing Behavior of that great Man on this Occasion had a great Effect on the Minds of all who beheld him.” Even the best troops, knowing that they were heading into battle, were nervous and looked to their leaders for example. “Evry One that remembers the anxious Moments before an Engagement may conceive how animating the sight of the Commander in Chief in whose Looks nothing but Serenity & Confidence in his Troops is painted; in short, the Army reasum'd their March in full assurance of Success & Victory.”91
About 3 p.m., Cornwallis's aide-de-camp, Capt. Alexander Ross, came to Ewald carrying orders to proceed. The advance guard headed down the south slope of Osborne's Hill on the road toward Birmingham Meeting. A mile ahead was the Street Road, beyond which, Ewald recalled, “about half past three, I caught sight of some infantry and horsemen behind a village on a hill in the distance, which was formed like an amphitheatre.”92 A Hessian Corps report chronicled the arrival and deployment of Stirling and Stephen: “The enemy had a body of about 1000 men standing on the hill on the other side of the Meetinghouse. A numerous body of Light cavalry appeared on their left, and soon after that a body of infantry consisting of about 2000 men with 5 guns, who joined the men on the hill; several battalions were also observed, who marched to the woods on the right and left, and uniting themselves with the above 3000 men presented a formidable front.”93
After consulting with the senior British captain, McPherson of the 42nd, as well as Captain Scott of the 17th, Ewald deployed his foot Jägers in skirmish order out in front and on the flanks, with the 17th Light Company on the left and the Royal Highlanders on the right. Lieutenant Hagen's mounted Jägers remained on the road in the center.
Ahead to the left, southeast of the Street Road and Birmingham Road, was a red brick farmhouse and several orchards owned by Samuel Jones. Beyond it was Birmingham Meeting House, near a few houses and farm buildings which Ewald mistakenly referred to as “the village of East Bradford.” Adjacent to the building in front was the burial yard, an acre or so of open ground surrounded by a good stone wall about three feet high, extending to the road. There were no gravestones; the Friends considered them monuments to vanity, so the yard was empty, save for rows of slight mounds and depressions in the ground where the remains of ea
rly English and Welsh Quakers lay.
American light troops and dragoons were deployed in this area. As an advance guard, Col. Thomas Marshall's 3rd Virginia Regiment in Stephen's Division was sent forward to the meetinghouse from the far-right flank of the line. The 3rd Virginia took up positions behind the graveyard wall, with skirmishers down the hill near Jones's orchard at the corner of the Street Road and Birmingham Road. “The third regiment stood pre-eminent, part of Woodford's Brigade,” Capt. Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee of Bland's Dragoons later wrote. “It occupied the right of the American line, and being advanced to a small eminence some little distance in the front, for the purpose of holding safe that flank, it received the first shock of the foe.” Barely numbering 200, “the regiment, having been much reduced by previous service, did not amount to more than a battalion; but one field officer, the colonel, and four captains were with it.”94
As the British advance guard approached, “Capt. Ewalt proposed charging a party of dragoons on the road, provided we secured his left flank,” an officer of the 17th Light Company recounted. “This was assented to, and the two companies quitted the road for this purpose to gain an orchard on the flank,” when they “received a fire from about 200 men in the orchard, which did no execution,” at least among the British.95 Two Jägers were hit. Ewald stated, “I reached the first houses of the village with the flankers of the jägers, and Lieutenant Hagen followed me with the horsemen. But unfortunately for us, the time this took favored the enemy and I received extremely heavy small-arms fire from the gardens and houses, through which, however, only two jägers were wounded. Everyone ran back, and I formed them again behind the fences and walls” along the Street Road “at a distance of two hundred paces from the village.”96 From behind, the British light companies “run up to the fence and halted, as it was evident tho’ the enemy fell back they were well supported.”97
The Philadelphia Campaign Page 25
