Lt. Henry Stirke of the 1st Light Infantry Battalion confirmed, “This morning a party of Light Dragoons, with us, surpris'd at a house a Rebel Colonel and a Major of Brigade; 3 Light Dragoons was with them but made their escape out of a backdoor, leaving their Horses behind them.”58 James Parker noted in his journal that day, “Colo. Frazer & his Brigade Majr. (formerly a Taylor) with three light [horse were take]n.”59
Shortly after his capture, Persifor Frazer had an interesting meeting with General Grant. According to Elizabeth Smith, Frazer's granddaughter:
Gen. Grant entered into a conversation with my Grandfather who was walking near him, and at length asked his name—Persifor Frazer. “That is a Scotch name,” said the General (himself a Scotchman), “and should not be the name of a rebel.” [Colonel Frazer replied,] “England has called other men rebels besides those who resist her government in America.” “For that answer,” said Grant, “you shall have your horse,” and when it was brought he restored his sword also, and they rode along very pleasantly together for the remainder of the journey which was short. This occurred as they were passing the Goshen Quaker meeting house.
By a remarkable coincidence, “in the conversation Grandpa had with Gen. Grant they made themselves out to be cousins. Grant said his mother was a Frazer and cousin to our Great Grandfather.”60
“The 15th Lord Cornwallis moved at eight at Night from Ash Town, the Genl. [Howe] marched the 16th in the morning from Dilworth & We met pretty early that Day at Goshen Meeting House,” Grant told General Harvey, “but were obliged to wait till three o'clock for the Artillery & Baggage, both Columns then moved forward by different Routes towards the White Horse, upon the great Lancaster Road, where Washingtons Army was said to be encamped, having repassed the Shuylkill, upon our making Demonstration to Chester.”61
Howe left Dilworth early that morning despite threatening gray skies and intermittent rain. The general was with von Knyphausen's column, which was marching towards Goshen Friends Meeting House and the Boot Tavern by way of the Turk's Head Tavern (now West Chester). The keeper of the Turk's Head, Jacob James, joined the British Army after Brandywine to serve as a guide. James proved to be extremely useful to Galloway and Howe over the next few months, serving as a guide, spying, recruiting, and even kidnapping. He was eventually commissioned captain of the Goshen Troop of Light Horse, a Loyalist unit.
“The Army marched from Brandywine to Goshen,” Capt. John André wrote. “Some shots were fired on the Column at the Turk's Head five miles from Brandywine, where a soldier of the 33rd Regiment was killed and another wounded, an Officer was likewise slightly wounded.”62 Joseph Townsend recalled more details about the event:
On the 16th of the 9th month 1777, as the British army was on their march from their ground of encampment at Birmingham…as they passed by the Turk's Head tavern, on their way to the Swedes Ford on the Schuylkill, they were fired upon by a scouting-party of the Americans, and two of their number were shot dead. Graves were immediately opened inside of the garden-fence near the intersection of the Philadelphia Road and their bodies deposited therein during the time of their march, which was performed in about four hours in the course of the forenoon, a tremendous rain taking place during the time.63
That morning, on the Lancaster Road, Washington's troops formed up and began ascending the South Valley Hill in two columns into Goshen Township. The left column, with Pennsylvania Militia and Continentals commanded by Anthony Wayne in the lead, moved on the Chester Road headed toward Goshen Meeting House and Cornwallis, while the right column, led by Maxwell's light corps augmented by militia, including Dunlap's “partizans,” moved up the road toward the Boot Tavern. Washington planned to place his army on the top of the South Valley Hill to block the British advance toward the Schuylkill.
At the foot of the South Valley Hill near the White Horse Tavern, “Tuesday 16th Sepr. Struck Tents Cross'd the main Road [the Lancaster Road] and paraded in line of Battle in A Buckwheat Field expecting the enemy in order to give them battle,” Capt. Robert Kirkwood of the Delaware Regiment wrote.64 On the Boot Road near Goshen Meeting, “Every one Rejoiced, hoping to see Jonathan in a few hours,” James Parker scribbled, delighted at another opportunity for battle with “Jonathan,” one of the more pleasant nicknames the British had for Americans. “We were going Northerly, & the Rebels Westerly,” Parker observed. “We would have met them at the Corner of an angle just in the teeth at the White horse Tavern, & Lord C. Wallace would have fall'n in with the Center of their line of March. But our hopes were blasted, tho’, at that very time W——ton was on that Ground.”65
Just north of the meetinghouse, skirmishing erupted between Cornwallis's vanguard and the Pennsylvania Militia on Washington's left flank. “About 3 O'Clock, the first Battn of Light Infantry, attack'd a body of 500 rebels, under the command of Genl Waine, posted behind a fence, on a hill, about half a mile from Goshen meeting House,” Lt. Henry Stirke of the 1st Light Infantry Battalion wrote. “On our advancing very briskly,” the Pennsylvania Militia “gave us one fire and run away, leaving 10 men kill'd and Wounded on the field.” The light bobs suffered one man wounded.66
Advancing up the Boot Road with von Knyphausen's column while Cornwallis's force skirmished on the Chester Road, Parker noticed, “About two we heard a firing on our Right between L.C.W. & Some of their advanced party which did not continue long.” Meanwhile, the Hessian Jägers at the head of von Knyphausen's force engaged Maxwell's light infantry and Dunlap's Pennsylvania riflemen just beyond the Boot Tavern on Washington's right. “About 3 the Yeakers on our front were Attackd, & a [heavy?] fire Supported a Cross a ploughd field, till some of our troops coming up drove off the Rebels, taking 8 prisoners.” Parker wrote, noting, “This was at the entry Of the Great Vally by Thomas's Mill, difficult ground.”67
Ewald and the Jägers were in the thick of the fight at the head of von Knyphausen's column. “The advance guard had hardly arrived at the Boot Tavern,” about four miles northwest of Goshen Meeting House, “when they learned that an enemy corps of two to three thousand men had appeared on the left flank of the army.” Col. Count Karl von Donop decided to personally lead the Jägers into action. Taking a party of Capt. Carl Wreden's foot and Capt. Richard Lorey's mounted Jägers, he advanced toward some of Maxwell's riflemen. “The colonel pursued them too far, through which mistake an enemy party passed between him and the army and cut off his retreat. Captain Lorey decided to break through with the horsemen to relieve the foot jägers, notwithstanding that the enemy had posted himself very favorably behind walls and fences and kept up a sustained rifle fire.” After the colonel was safe, the Jägers had a chuckle at the colonel's expense. “The colonel got off with his skin.—That is not a trade for one to follow who has no knowledge of it,” Ewald commented wryly. “We all laughed secretly over this partisan trick.”68
Pvt. James Patten of Dunlap's “partizans” recalled that “a few days after the battle of Brandywine he was in an engagement with the British at a place near the White-horse tavern between Phila. and Lancaster; but owing to the tremendous rain that fell that day, the small armes were out of order and but little execution was done on either side.”69
“The Light Troops of both Columns got into Skirmish with advanced Rebell Corps which were beat with ease, & without Loss,” Grant wrote, “but the Blow could not be followed on account of the badness of the weather.” Having spent years in Scotland, as well as in Cuba and in Florida as governor, he told General Harvey, “It was the heaviest Gale of Rain I ever saw in any Country, during which Washington, astonished at our unexpected move from Chester, fled in the utmost confusion & by that means according to intercepted Letters, He lost all his ammunition.”70
Washington had placed himself badly. His back was to the Great Valley, and only two or three roads provided an escape route for 12,000 men down the South Valley Hill. Further, it had taken the men so long to get up the hill that morning that they were not properly placed. Pickering, who had been ord
ered to assist in arranging the right flank, rode back to the center as the skirmishing began and saw that the troops there were still not arranged.
“Sir, the advancing of the British is manifest by the reports of the musketry,” the adjutant general told Washington. “The order of battle is not complete. If we are to fight the enemy on this ground, the troops ought to be immediately arranged.” Pickering further reasoned, “If we are to take the high grounds on the other side of the valley, we ought to march immediately, or the enemy may fall upon us in the midst of our movement.”71 Washington agreed and ordered the army to withdraw into the Great Valley.
The Continentals slipped and slid quickly back down the South Valley Hill and took up positions north of the White Horse Tavern, “where they had a most favourable position being a prevailing gradual height in the valley.”72 As the Americans withdrew, the Jägers under Ewald became involved in some hand-to-hand fighting. “I believe it was about five o'clock in the afternoon, an extraordinary thunderstorm occurred, combined with the heaviest downpour in this world,” he wrote. “General Knyphausen, who arrived at my company on horseback, ordered me to attack the people in the wood.” The rifles on both sides began to misfire in the rain, so Ewald ordered the Jägers to charge with their hunting swords. “I reached the wood at top speed and came to close quarters with the enemy, who during the furious attack forgot that he had bayonets and quit the field, whereby the jägers captured four officers and some thirty men. The entire loss of the Jäger Corps in this fight consisted of five killed, seven wounded, and three missing.”73
“All this time Morgans [sic; Dunlap's] riffelmen ware on the wings, next to the enemy, against the Hissions, as they could use their rifels, having bearskins over their locks, and every now and then you would give a crack at each other,” Artilleryman Jacob Nagle, who had just turned sixteen, recollected. He observed the difference in sound between the weapons. The Jäger rifles, which had short barrels but were large in caliber, gave off a loud BLAM! when fired, whereas the Pennsylvania rifles, with longer barrels and of smaller caliber, made a higher-pitched snap. “We could always tell when a Hession fired, from our rifels, cracking so much lowder than our rifels.”74
As the advance forces skirmished and the Continentals tried to get positioned, the deluge of rain brought the firing to an end. Both armies were saturated by the extraordinary volume of precipitation from this slow-moving tropical storm, and the firing petered out. The encounter became known as the “Battle of the Clouds.”
The storm increased in fury. “It had threatned rain all day, & now it fell, a Mud deluge, the Roads so deep there was no bringing on the Artillery,” Parker observed. “The Wind was at south East & every thing look'd like the Equinoctial storm, which it realy was. Here we were oblijed to halt.” Talking with some of those captured by the Jägers, Parker was able to gather some intelligence. “The prisoners say they were part of 1000 Commanded by Genl. Potter,” referring to James Potter's Pennsylvania Militia Brigade, attached to Maxwell's Corps, “& that Washington was expected to be At Donington that night.”75 Downingtown, five miles west of the Boot, was a militia rendezvous point and Chester County's largest inland town. Also called Milltown, it was a major commissary depot for flour and other food supplies. It was also halfway between Philadelphia and Lancaster, about thirty miles from each.
As darkness descended, Washington ordered the army to withdraw not to Downingtown, but toward Yellow Springs, six miles away up and over the North Valley Hill. “We began to March towards the Yallow springs where we Arrived About 2 o'Clock the next Morning,” Lt. William Beatty of the 7th Maryland wrote. The roads were flooded and the creeks became torrents. “All the small Branches that we were Obliged to cross on this march were so rais'd by the Hard rain that they took us to the waists and under the Arms when we Waded them, None of our men preserv'd a single round of Ammunition that did not get thoroughly wet.”76
The march took nearly fourteen hours. “We came to a regular decented hill, the ground being so soft that they had to onhich the horses from one piece of artillery and hitch them to another till they got them all up,” Jacob Nagle recalled of the North Valley Hill. “The nights was so dark you could not tell the man next to you. I being a horseback, I kept close behind one of the ammunition waggons but dripping wet and shivering with cold.”77
Howe took up quarters in the Boot Tavern, described by Captain von Münchhausen as “a miserable small house, called The-Boot-Sign.”78 As night fell, the royal forces hastily encamped along the roads and tried to find shelter and dry firewood as best as they could. The officers took refuge in local houses, while the troops crowded into barns, built wigwams out of fence rails and tree limbs, or took shelter in the woods. “The Troops ordered to pile their arms & make fires,” John Peebles wrote, “but no shelter for a wieried soldier wet to the skin & under a heavy rain all night.”79 The Guards formed the left front flank of the encampment on the crest of the South Valley Hill about half a mile in front of Howe's headquarters, guarding a road that led across the Great Valley. The right front was held by the 1st Light Infantry Battalion on the hill overlooking the White Horse Tavern.
“As wet as water could make me, & cold without any chance of a dry place to sleep I went from the front to the Rear of the Army,” James Parker wrote, slogging back up Boot Road toward Goshen Meeting House. “It was quite dark when I was by a glimmering led to a little hut where lived a Quaker Woman, who lent me a dry pitticoat; the Capts. McCloud & Calden of the Jersey Volunteers,” a Loyalist unit, “found the Way here & here we staid all night in Goshen Township.”80
Twenty miles or so away to the northeast, Col. Joseph Reed was at Swedes Ford, watching the Schuylkill rise by the minute. “We apprised you a few hours ago that the river was rising fast and was scarcely fordable,” he told Washington at 6 P.M. “The heavy rains have since swelled it so much that it is now impassable…it will be twenty-four hours before it will be fordable for the footmen.” No digging of fortifications was possible until the deluge stopped. “M. Portel has been up,” he said, meaning the French engineer Col. Louis Duportail, “and will lay out the necessary works as soon as the weather will permit.” Regarding the other crossings, he wrote, “The militia are collecting at this place and the fords lower down.” As for the floating bridge at Middle Ferry, “the bridge is fully removed.”81
Washington's forces began arriving at Yellow Springs before dawn, thoroughly soaked and utterly spent. “We had yesterday one of the Hardest Marches known by any Soldiers in our army,” Col. Thomas Hartley, commander of the 1st Pennsylvania Brigade in Wayne's Division, told some friends in Lancaster. “Neither Floods, Storms, Myres, Nor any Thing else, prevented us from effecting the Point.”82 With their ammunition completely ruined, the army's firepower was gone, largely because of faulty cartridge boxes that were not waterproof. “Nearly all the musket cartridges of the army that had been delivered to the men were damaged, consisting of about 400,000,” Henry Knox told his wife, Lucy. “This was a most terrible stroke to us, and owing entirely to the badness of the cartouch-boxes which had been provided for the army.”83 Washington had repeatedly complained of this, advocating tin boxes if proper leather could not be had. But shortages of materials of all types, rampant inflation, and the sort of shoddy materials and incompetence too often associated with hasty government contracts and unscrupulous contractors plagued the army. The British forces, by contrast, were equipped with heavy leather cartridge boxes featuring a double flap and lined with felt, which were much more water resistant.
To put some distance between his sodden forces and the British, as well as to secure new ammunition, Washington decided to move the army farther north, to Warwick Furnace in the French Creek Valley. With French Creek over its banks, the only safe way to cross was to march five miles east to the Reading Road, where there was a bridge, and then nine miles west to Warwick. Once the rain stopped, the Continentals began a grueling march on roads that were nearly impassable.
To screen the rear of his march and keep an eye on Howe, Washington left Wayne's Pennsylvania Division near Yellow Springs at “Camp three miles from the Red Lion,” a tavern in Uwchlan (pronounced “YOO-klin”) Township. “The two Armies have been maneuvering these two Days,” Colonel Hartley wrote to friends in Lancaster on September 17. “You will soon hear something of Consequence.” But he did warn his friends: “The Enemy are plundering all before them—I hope the Military Virtue of this Country will soon make them repent their Rashness.”84
As for the British, they had waited out the storm in Goshen. But under the cover of darkness and teeming rain, and encouraged by the confusion of the hasty encampment, plundering resumed, and this time some of the Guards were caught right in the middle of it.
On the morning of the seventeenth, Sir George Osborn discovered a major problem in his company. Several grenadiers were missing; two of them, Robert Eliot and Luke Redman, were “taken prisoner Sept. 17, 1777, at Goshen, Pa.,” probably while out plundering.85 Two others, Robert Hicks and Thomas Burrows, were caught with plunder by Osborn and Capt. Richard Fitzpatrick.
“Having found several of the Grenadiers of the Guards absent at the Morning Roll calling,” Sir George testified at their court-martial two days later, “and having reason to imagine that they had gone to a house at some considerable distance from the front of the encampment,” Osborn and Fitzpatrick “walked on to the corner of the wood, to endeavour to find if any of the Grenadiers were coming that way with plunder, and in a very short time, Captain Fitzpatrick, who had stopp'd the two prisoners, call'd to him.” Sir George “found upon them the plunder mentioned in the annexed List, and the Prisoners very much intoxicated with liquor; that some inhabitants came soon after to claim some of the goods.”
The quartermaster of the 1st Guards Battalion, George Beecher, identified one of the inhabitants as Evan Evans, an old man who, like many of the local people, was of Welsh descent. This area of Chester County was part of William Penn's original “Welch Tract,” 40,000 acres stretching from the Schuylkill through the Great Valley to “Uwchlan,” Welsh for “the upper land” at the end of the tract. Evans was a member of the Evans family of Uwchlan Township who lived near the Red Lion Tavern about five miles north of the British camp on the other side of the Great Valley. Sir George noted that the grenadiers “had gone to a house at some considerable distance from the front of the encampment.” The court found both Burrows and Hicks guilty; they were sentenced “to receive five hundred lashes each on their bare backs with cats of nine tails.”86
The Philadelphia Campaign Page 37
