Washington's Immortals

by Patrick K. O'Donnell

  Despite the poor example, some among the militiamen fought bravely, including Captain James Cox of Baltimore.23 On October 3, he had written to his wife to say, “We are still advancing Down toward the Enemie and Expect very soon to be foul of Each other which I hope may prove to our advantage.” Unfortunately, his wife received the letter along with another, written three days later by her cousin George Welsh. “Your loving husband, and America’s best friend, on the fourth instant, near Germantown, nobly defending his country’s cause, having repulsed the enemy, driving them from their breastworks, received a ball through his body, by which he expired in about three quarters of an hour afterwards,” wrote Welsh. General Smallwood also attested to Cox’s courage, calling him a “brave and valuable officer.”

  23. Cox served in the Ancient and Honorable Mechanical Company of Baltimore, a militia company set up in 1763 to protect the city. The group lived on after the war, eventually claiming to be the oldest civic organization in the United States. The company named Baltimore’s first sheriff and set up its first school and hospital, and many of the city’s most famous citizens have been members.

  But most of the poorly trained citizen-soldiers proved unreliable. Gist opined “The Weakness of the Human Heart prevailed,” adding, “I suppose the Officer Commanding against us was acquainted by experience with this defect in Nature, who Immediately took the advantage of our Feelings and drove us from the Ground.”

  Unaware that his comrades on the other side of the battlefield were withdrawing, Greene continued the attack, reaching deep into the heart of the British camp. At that point, some of the men abandoned discipline and began plundering the enemy’s stores. Their inattention left them open to counterattack, and every single man from the unit involved in the plundering was either killed or captured. With Cornwallis nearing the city, Greene began a retreat of his own.

  Cornwallis pressed the rebels back and eventually linked up with the defenders at the Chew House. Colonel Musgrave and his men weren’t finished yet. “Upon our troops appearing the 40th sallied out, and joined the pursuit,” reported a British officer. Howard echoed the statement: “The enemy sallied out, one hundred or more and fired on our rear. Some of my men faced about and gave them a fire, which killed the officer in front and checked them.”

  The Americans retreated down the same winding country roads they had used for their approach the night before. William Beatty wrote, “Cornwallis Coming With a reinforcement & Some bad management on our side obliged us to retreat.” Thomas Paine, fighting with Greene’s army, marveled at the men’s composure. He told Benjamin Franklin, “They appeared to me to be only sensible of a disappointment, not a defeat; and to be more displeased at their retreating from Germantown, than anxious to get to their rendezvous. . . . The retreat was as extraordinary. Nobody hurried themselves. Every one marched his own pace. The enemy kept a civil distance behind, sending every now and then a shot after us, and receiving the same from us.”

  Always leading from the front, Cornwallis urged his men to join the pursuit of the Americans, but the same weather conditions that had plagued the Patriots stymied them. One British officer recalled, “The British Grenadiers from the City of Philadelphia, who full of Ardour had run the whole way came up to join the pursuit, but the Fog which did not clear up ’till after the Enemy had begun to move off.”

  In all, 150 Americans died in the battle of Germantown, 520 were wounded, and 400 were captured. On the other side, the British lost seventy men, with 450 wounded and fifteen taken prisoner. “It was a bloody day,” wrote Washington. “Would to heaven that I could add that it had been a more fortunate one for us.” The Marylanders had also taken significant losses, including some among the officers; Colonel Stone and several other officers were wounded. The Americans lost many men and a chance to recapture a strategic city, but the fact that they nearly won a major battle resounded on the other side of the Atlantic, where the French were considering an alliance with the Patriots. An alliance with the French could prove to be decisive. Funding the Revolution was a huge challenge, and the American treasury was continually exhausted. Men weren’t being paid or properly equipped with shoes, uniforms, and other basic supplies, and food was a frequent problem. Congress was looking to France for loans in hard currency to back up the paper money it was printing. Seasoned, drilled French troops would also be a welcome addition to the American forces, and the presence of French naval power could crimp the mobility, reinforcement, and supply of the British army.

  It would also have an important indirect impact—turning the American Revolution into a global war that would force Britain to protect its far-flung empire, including possessions in India and the Caribbean. If that happened, the Crown would no longer be able to concentrate forces in North America and would have to disperse troops to its other outposts. Other nations would likely join the conflict, further expanding the war. There was even a threat of invasion in England itself, which forced the country to keep a defensive force at home.

  Weighing the possible risks of joining the Revolution, the French foreign minister said “nothing struck him so much” as the battle at Germantown.

  Chapter 19

  Mud Island

  South of Philadelphia near the present-day Philadelphia International Airport, a muddy expanse of marshland four hundred yards long and two hundred yards across at the widest point sits at the mouth of the Schuylkill where it meets the Delaware. In the 1700s, residents referred to the soggy wetlands as Mud Island. Atop the tiny island zigzagging ramparts made of cut stone and timber stretched the length of three football fields, amid fieldworks bristling with Patriot artillery pieces. Known as Fort Mifflin, the fortification boasted a maze of embankments and dikes, along with hundreds of wolf holes, shallow pits filled with sharpened spikes designed to gore any assault force.

  During the fall of 1777, the Patriot fort became the site of one of the Revolution’s longest sieges and greatest bombardments. It was of vital strategic importance. The British fleet needed to control the fort so it could resupply Philadelphia, and this need had a direct impact on General William Howe’s plans to launch offensive operations against Washington’s army. Royal Navy convoys attempting to reach Philadelphia would have to pass by the fort’s guns and over the chevaux-de-frise. The chevaux-de-frise were a massive group of thirty-foot boxes constructed of huge timbers, lowered into the riverbed of the Delaware, filled with twenty to forty tons of stone to keep them in place, and topped with jagged iron-pointed spikes. The boxes were chained togther into a formidable barrier that could rip out the hull of any ship trying to cross.24

  24. Part of the chevaux-de-frise, still in fine condition, was recovered from the Delaware River in 2007.

  Washington ordered his men “to defend [Fort Mifflin] to their last extremity” and placed twenty-five-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Smith in charge of the facility, telling him, “The keeping of this fort is of very great importance, and I rely on your prudence, spirit and bravery for a vigorous and persevering defense.” Smith commanded a detachment of approximately two hundred Marylanders, along with several hundred men from Virginia and Rhode Island. Rounding out the mix were Continentals from the 4th Connecticut Regiment, including seventeen-year-old combat veteran Private Joseph Plumb Martin, who described the island as “nothing more than a mud flat in the Delaware, lying upon the west side of the channel. It is diked around the fort, with sluices so constructed that the fort can be laid under water at pleasure. . . . On the eastern side, next the main river, was a zigzag wall built of hewn stone.” One of the Hessians who was given the task of taking the fortification wrote, “The island, because of its swampy shore was unapproachable, and with double ditch and palisades, wolf holes, and stone walls would have cost many men if it had to be taken by assault.”

  Ironically, the man who had designed the fort was now in charge of destroying it. Howe’s chief engineer, Captain John Montresor, a veteran of th
e French and Indian War who spent twenty years in the British army, had overseen Fort Mifflin’s construction. Construction on the fort began in 1771. Montresor’s grandiose plan would have cost forty thousand pounds, an enormous sum for the day, but the colonial General Assembly had allocated only fifteen thousand pounds for the construction of the fort. Less than a year after the initial work began, the project floundered. The fort remained partially constructed until 1776, when Benjamin Franklin and the Philadelphia Committee of Public Safety restarted construction on both Fort Mifflin and Fort Mercer, which was on the eastern shore of the Delaware.

  The Patriots also had an engineer on their side. Washington assigned a twenty-eight-year-old French nobleman, Major François-­Louis ­Teissèdre de Fleury, to aid Smith. De Fleury had studied engineering and served with the French army in Corsica. The general had a high regard for de Fleury, saying, “He is a Young Man of Talents and has made this branch of military Science his particular Study. I place a confidence in him.” Smith and his engineer enjoyed a “perfectly good understanding and sincere friendship. . . . No jealousy, no underhanded practices—all was frank and conducive to the public service.” Others described de Fleury as an excellent soldier and leader who could bring men and nations together.

  Smith didn’t get along nearly as well with his counterpart in the nascent Pennsylvania navy, Commander John Hazelwood. Hazelwood commanded a flotilla of “sinister black painted” galleys and floating platforms in the Delaware, a “mosquito navy.” At the time, cannons were designated by the weight of the projectiles they could shoot, so a six-pounder, for example, shot six-pound balls. Some of the heavily armed British ships carried a thirty-two-pounder at the stern, four twenty-four-pounders, eight eighteen-pounders, and a crew of fighting sailors, several of whom were said to be Tory rowers pressed into service.

  Taking Fort Mifflin posed a serious challenge to the British. Since the beginning of October, Montresor had carefully flanked the fort and constructed artillery positions to bombard it, including some on nearby Carpenter’s Island. Pointing out the threat the island posed if the British constructed a battery there, Hazelwood shrugged off Smith’s concerns: “A mosquito couldn’t live there under my guns.” When that’s exactly what Montresor did, an alarmed Smith asked Hazelwood, with his fleet of vessels, to intercept British reinforcements heading to the island. Hazelwood acidly responded, “A shell would sink any of my galleys.” Smith fired back a biting riposte: “Yes, and falling on your head or mine, will kill; but for what else are we employed or paid.”

  On October 10 Smith took matters into his own hands by leading a raiding party of about sixty men in the dead of night. He and his troops rowed over from Mud Island and crept behind the British guns. Using a tree line for concealment and protection, Smith’s men started firing on the unsuspecting gun crews who soon put a white handkerchief on a ramrod and surrendered. However, several British officers refused to capitulate. In response, Smith “fired two shot on them & ceased on being told they would surrender, however they refused to deliver up the piece of Artillery.” Eventually, under the barrel of a gun, the officers surrendered, and Smith took them prisoner. The raiders then spiked the British artillery, rendering it inoperable.

  After the raid, Smith received an unexpected visitor: Jack Steward. Smith’s friend, who had been captured by the British after the abortive Staten Island raid, escaped by quietly lowering himself into a small boat and rowing to New Jersey. While Steward had been imprisoned on a British hell ship in New York Harbor, Smith attempted to send money to the man with whom he had once fought a duel: he gave twenty-five pounds to a British officer who agreed to pass it to Steward. The officer “conveyed it to a Major Stuart” but not the Steward Smith intended, or so the story goes. It is possible Steward used the money to bribe his way off the prison ship; in any case, Smith was overjoyed to see his old friend and the supplies he brought to the fort.

  The British continued to flank the fort, and from other positions, they shelled Mud Island. The shelling began to take a toll. On October 20 Smith wrote to Washington, “Yesterday a red hot ball entered our Laboratory, where were several boxes of ammunition . . . which blew up the barracks. Had it not been for the activity of Capt. Wells of the 4th Virginia and Capt. Luct, in putting out the fire, would have done much more damage.” The Patriots, of course, were firing their own artillery back at the enemy. British Captain Lieutenant Francis Downman noted, “The rebels opened all their batteries and blockhouses upon us; their grape shot came so thick that we could not stand to our guns.”

  Another British soldier recalled what was perhaps one of the luckiest shots of the Revolution. From a range of five hundred yards, “they fired a 12-pound ball directly into the barrel of our 24-­pounders, without damaging our cannon because it went in so accurately.”

  On October 23, nearly two weeks into the siege, the British fleet moved in to attack Fort Mifflin. The HMS Augusta, a man-of-war that carried sixty-four guns, and the Merlin, a twenty-gun sloop, closed in on the American position. Despite the superior firepower of the enemy, the Patriots manned their posts, landing direct hits on both vessels before they ran aground. Most of the crew members from the Augusta perished; those on the Merlin abandoned ship before they could meet a similar fate. By midday magazines on board the Augusta detonated, and the tremendous explosion broke windows in nearby Philadelphia. The resolute defense of Fort Mifflin bought Washington more time, but the siege was far from over.

  Although the waterborne assault had failed, the British still had plenty of land-based artillery, as well as a floating battery. Their guns were soon hurling around fifteen hundred shots per day at the fortifications, and many of these shots found their mark. The action grew bloody on both sides. “Our men were cut up like cornstalks,” recalled American Private Joseph Plumb Martin. “I saw five artillerists belonging to one gun cut down by a single shot, and I saw men who were stooping to be protected by the works but not stooping low enough, split like fish to be broiled.”

  Peter Francisco, a six-foot-eight seventeen-year-old also known as the “Giant of the Revolution,” also played a part in defending Mud Island. A sea captain abandoned Francisco, who was born in the Azores, on the docks of City Point, Virginia, when he was only five years old. Locals took in the young boy, who spoke only Portuguese. They tutored him, and he later apprenticed to become a blacksmith, a profession chosen for him because of his massive size. He joined a Virginia regiment in 1777 and fought at Germantown and Brandy­wine before finding himself with the Marylanders in Fort Mifflin. He fought alongside them in multiple battles throughout the war.

  According to eyewitnesses, Smith remained staunch throughout the cannonades. At one point he saw an aide ducking and asked, “What are you dodging for, sir? The King of Prussia had 30 aides de camp killed in one day!”

  The aide replied, “Yes sir, but Colonel Smith hasn’t got so many to lose!”

  On October 26 an intense storm pounded the fort, turning the Schuylkill into a raging torrent and flooding the island under two feet of water. The misery continued as British Artillery pulverized the works. De Fleury assigned the men to rebuild the ramparts despite the weather. “[De Fleury] was a very austere man and kept us constantly employed day and night,” recalled one of the men. “He always had a cane in his hand, and woe betided him he could get a stroke at.” To avoid de Fleury, the soldiers hid in a ditch on the eastern side of the fort, where they built small fires to stay warm. “We would watch an opportunity to escape from the vigilance of Fleury, and run into this place for a minute or two’s respite from fatigue and cold. When the engineer found that the workmen began to grow scarce, he would come to the entrance and call us out.”

  As the siege wore on, the supply situation grew worse. Nathanael Greene informed Washington, “The enemy are greatly discouraged by the fort holding so long and it is the general opinion of the best citizens that the enemy will evacuate the city if the fort holds out unti
l the middle of next week.” That was an exaggeration, but the British were growing frustrated. Hessian Captain Friedrich von Münchhausen, whose forces were arrayed on the other side of the river, summed up the situation beautifully: “I wish we would finally capture this cursed fort.”

  November 11, 1777, marked the beginning of the end for the Patriots in Fort Mifflin. Smith later explained, “I imprudently went into my Barracks to answer a letter from Gen. Varnum & a Ball come through the Chimney.” The injured officer “rolled over and over, until he got to the front door.” After a doctor saw to his injuries, he was evacuated from the island. It was Smith’s last battle of the Revolution, and he spent most of his time recovering from his wounds in Baltimore. Attempting to fill his shoes, de Fleury rallied the men to continue repairing the daily damage done by the British bombardment. The day after Smith left, de Fleury wrote to Washington that “some of our palisade at the north side are broken, but we can mend them every night.” However, he added, “the garrison is so dispirited that if the enemy, will attempt to storm us, I am afraid they will succeed.” He continued, “They are so exhausted, by watch, cold, Rain & fatigue, that their Courage is very low, and in the Last allarme on half was unfit for duty.”