Henry Knox
Page 14
The commander in chief was uncertain where to send his army and was frantically trying to obtain intelligence on the landing of Howe's fleet. On Sunday, the army had returned to Coryell's Ferry, about forty miles north of Philadelphia. Washington received word that Burgoyne had begun to cross the Hudson River in New York on Wednesday, August 13, and was heading for Saratoga. Knox wrote to Washington a week later that he believed Howe would not venture up the Delaware to Philadelphia and did not have the supplies to sail back to New York. Henry urged the commander to send the army to defeat Burgoyne and level a crushing blow to British hopes. He was especially concerned by recent attacks by American Indians engaged by the enemy in New York. "This power ought to be crushed at all hazards immediately—or the whole frontiers will be deluged in blood.“6
At a council of generals on August 21, Knox stated these views, which were also held by Washington's other commanders, who were eager for battle. They believed that Howe could be targeting Charleston, South Carolina, 700 miles to the south. If so, the troops outside Philadelphia could offer little help, and a march in the muggy Carolinas would be unhealthy during the season when diseases spread through the waters. They were all in agreement; their army should march north to New York. But Washington had to wait for Congress to approve the mission since his command would supersede that of General Gates, who now headed the northern Continental troops.
While waiting for Congress's decision, Knox and Greene asked Washington if they could take a trip to Bethlehem, a day's ride from Philadelphia. Henry wanted to shop for gifts to send Lucy, who was recovering from an illness back in Boston. They set out at four o'clock on an excessively hot afternoon.
Lucy, meanwhile, had recovered and by Saturday, August 23, had the strength to write Henry, addressing him as "My dearest friend." He had asked her to relate the routine of her usual day. She would rise at 8 A.M. and after breakfast would read and take a cup of tea. Then family matters needed attending to, and she would work until a solitary, lonely dinner at 2 P.M. She reflected, "I used to sit at the window watching for my Harry, and when I saw him coming my heart would leap for joy when he was at my own side and never happy apart from me when the bare thought of six months absence would have shook him."
She took joy in watching her child grow yet regretted that Henry was not there. In the afternoon, she would take a carriage ride in the country or visit one of her few friends for tea. "But when I return home, how [to] describe my feelings to find myself entirely alone, to reflect that the only friend I have in the world is such an immense distance from me to think that he may be sick and I cannot assist him. My poor heart is ready to burst, you who know what a trifle would make me unhappy can conceive what I suffer now."
She lamented the loss of her family to Britain and pored over Henry's letters looking for any invitation to join him. In fleeting moments of doubt, she wondered if she had lost him. "'Tis hard my Harry indeed it is. I love you with the tenderest the purest affection. I would undergo any hardship to be near you and you will not let me."
In her anxiety, she was plagued with thoughts that other women would test his fidelity: "I sometimes fear that a long absence the force of bad example may lead you to forget me at sometimes. To know that it ever gave you pleasure to be in company with the finest woman in the world, would be worse than death to me.“7
When Knox and Greene arrived in Bethlehem at 9 A.M. on Sunday, August 24, an express rider sent by Washington was waiting with orders to return immediately as the army was on the move south. The British fleet had bypassed the Delaware River fortifications and instead sailed up the Chesapeake Bay to Elk River, about twenty miles from Wilmington, Delaware. The two generals caught up with the army an hour after the troops had left the capital. They had ridden almost 100 miles in two days. Knox was disappointed that he had missed the march through town, he wrote in a letter the next day to Lucy.
Howe disembarked 15,000 men on Monday to begin a campaign against Philadelphia. His troops occupied a piece of high ground called Grey's Hill, about two miles past the city of Elkton. Knox and the rest of the Continental Army arrived in Wilmington on Tuesday and began to prepare for the long-awaited battle. Clouds gathered overhead, and steady rain began to fall, delaying action and heightening the tensions among the soldiers. The British also needed time to replace their horses, many of which had died, had starved, or had been injured during the six-week sea passage.
On Sunday, August 31, Knox was appointed as president of a court-martial that was to try a British lieutenant for recruiting soldiers for Howe's army in New Jersey. He then was off to set up an artillery park and drill his men. His gunners were to fire two field guns to sound the alarm for the troops to rush to battle stations. The armies were nine miles apart, and skirmishes erupted daily between pickets and advance troops. But the main body of the British army remained idle. Deserters from Howe's army reported on Sunday, September 7, that the enemy had sent away its baggage, even tents, and troops carrying only blankets and light gear had begun to march from Kennett Square seven miles to the Brandywine Creek, a tributary of the Delaware. The next day the redcoats came within two miles of the American post at Newport on the right of the Continental line but did not attack. Knox and Washington's other generals thought this was only a diversion. As the commander in chief put it in a letter to Congress, it was "only meant to amuse us in front, while their real intent was to march by our right and by suddenly passing the Brandywine and gaining the heights on the north side of that River, get between us and Philadelphia and cut us off from that city.“8 At 2 A.M. on Tuesday, September 9, Washington ordered the army to march six miles to Chad's Ford on the banks of Brandywine Creek, where Knox set up his main artillery force. American troops were posted at the fords along the river. The British marched within three miles of the river on Wednesday.
Knox was up before dawn Thursday morning, checking the guns and directing his men. By eight o'clock he saw a large force of redcoats appear through the morning fog on the opposite side of the creek. British field guns were moved into position and began a cannonade. Knox shouted for his gunners to return fire. An explosion of thundering cannon blasts erupted, and smoke filled the air on both sides of the creek. Knox's men kept up hot fire, unsure exactly where the enemy was digging in or where their shots were landing, aiming merely into the haze of acrid clouds. For two hours the cannons kept up a deafening roar as British guns tried to match shot for shot. The American general William Maxwell crossed the creek with his light corps and attacked the advancing redcoats with a pelting line of musket shots. Thirty British soldiers fell on the spot where they were trying to erect a battery. A body of 300 Hessian troops charged forward, supported by British infantry, but their lines were shredded in the fire. The Americans saw about 300 enemy soldiers hit amid the shots and wafting smoke, along with 50 of their own. Hundreds of British soldiers rushed to the scene, and Maxwell pulled his men back and quickly recrossed the Brandywine.
Howe, meanwhile, rushed a 3,000-man column of British infantry, artillerists with sixteen field guns, and Hessians led by General Cornwallis to circle around the Continental line on its right. These men found Jeffrie's Ford, six miles up the creek at a fork in the Brandywine, unguarded. In the confusion of the battle, Washington received contradictory and faulty reports from General Sullivan on the size of Cornwallis's column and possible fords along the river, and was uncertain of the enemy's destination until it had crossed the water and a dust cloud was visible. When the enemy's intentions were discovered at 2 P.M., Washington threw divisions led by generals Sullivan, Lord Stirling, and Stephen to race to stop the advance.
At 4 P.M., the two forces met halfway, about three miles from Chad's Ford with a hill between them. The redcoats fired on General Sullivan's men. Both columns tried to reach the high ground, and the soldiers came close enough to open fire on each other at point-blank range. For an hour and a half, the Americans and British kept up a desperate fight, with musket balls raining like hail. Hundreds of
men were struck and lay in agony on the bloodstained field. The patriots soon realized they were running out of cartridges and could not keep up the fight much longer. An order was given to withdraw. Washington, who had galloped to the scene, sent back orders for General Greene's division and a brigade led by Francis Nash to pull out from the left side of the American line and provide cover for the troops, as the British field guns blasted shots in their direction.
"They formed and were of the utmost service in covering the retreat of the other divisions," Knox wrote in a letter to the Massachusetts Council, the upper body of its legislature.9
Henry, meanwhile, was engaged in an artillery duel on the opposite side of the American line that began shortly before 5 P.M. He pulled his horse up to the gun battery manned by Captain David Allen's company and found his gunners, several of whom were from Boston, wide-eyed. "They seemed in high spirits," Knox thought.10
"The enemy opened a battery on the left of seven pieces of cannon opposite to one of ours of the same number," Knox recounted. "The enemy's batteries and ours kept up an incessant cannonade, and formed such a column of smoke that the British troops passed the creek unperceived on the right of the battery, on the ground, which was left unoccupied by the withdrawal of Nash's brigade.“11
American general Anthony Wayne's division raced to repulse the British momentum, and a gunfight erupted. The enemy troops were able to push to the top of a hill, which provided cover, and level their muskets at Wayne's men, who tried to cross the low ground to reach them. In unison, British muskets aimed and fired a whistling line of musket balls, cutting down the Americans. Wayne's men took cover and then rose to make a second charge. But again the British unleashed overwhelming fire and pushed back the Americans, then charged to their line. Knox ordered his men to retreat, and they had to abandon ten precious field pieces, a British howitzer, and several munitions wagons as the British pushed forward. With night setting in, Washington ordered a retreat of his entire army to Chester. Howe's army was too crippled by the day's losses to pursue, and the British commander again paused and failed to capitalize on the victory and destroy the Continental Army. At midnight, Washington sent a hasty note to Congress, who waited just twenty-five miles away: "Notwithstanding the misfortune of the day, I am happy to find the troops in good spirits." He said he believed the British had suffered greater losses than his army.12
Knox estimated that as many as 800 Americans had been killed or wounded or were missing. The official total pegged the Continental Army loss at 780 and the British casualties at about 600.
The American army retreated north toward Philadelphia on Saturday, September 13, crossing the Schuylkill River, as the British remained near Dilworth Town to bury their dead and tend to their wounded. Knox found time that day to write Lucy: "My dear girl will be happy to hear of her Harry's safety; for, my Lucy, Heaven, who is our guide, has protected him in the day of battle. You will hear with this letter of the most severe action that has been fought this war between our army and the enemy. Our people behaved well, but Heaven frowned on us in a degree. We were obliged to retire after very considerable slaughter of the enemy: they dared not pursue a single step. If they advance, we shall fight them again before they get possession of Philadelphia; but of this they will be cautious. My corps did me great honor: they behaved like men contending for everything that's valuable.“13
Knox and the rest of the American generals received word that General Gates's northern army was entrenching to meet the advancing British army under Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York. The two main American armies were now facing the two main bodies of British troops. It seemed that the war could be decided in days. Knox moved with the rest of Washington's force to the White Horse Tavern, about twenty miles west of Philadelphia, to guard the fords of the Schuylkill. British troops led by General Cornwallis followed.
The two armies faced each other on Tuesday, September 16, and Knox drew his guns in line for battle. The British did not attack, however, and a torrential downpour erupted in what became known as a battle of the clouds. Knox was forced to move the field guns as the army tried to find a better position. The rain soaked the ammunition and dampened the gunpowder. Because of poorly made cartouche boxes, 400,000 cartridges became saturated. The men, without tents, had no shelter and had nowhere to protect their provisions. "This was a most terrible stroke to us, and owning entirely to the badness of the cartouch-boxes which had been provided for the army," Knox wrote Lucy. "This unfortunate event obliged us to retire.“14
Knox moved with the army three miles north to Yellow Springs the next day and then on to nearby Warwick Furnace, where he and his men frantically tried to clean the guns and find fresh gunpowder. Meanwhile, Washington had to guard miles of the river along the Schuylkill in an attempt to prevent the British from crossing and marching to Philadelphia. Without provisions, his men could do little to bar the enemy's way. Cavalry riders reported that the royal troops had pushed toward Swede's Ford along the river. Washington sent Alexander Hamilton, Captain Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee (father of Robert E. Lee), and eight light horsemen to burn flour mills on the Schuylkill that might provide critical supplies for Howe's army, which was already strained for provisions. As Hamilton worked along the river at Valley Forge on Thursday, September 18, the advance troops of British soldiers appeared. He escaped with three other soldiers to a flat-bottom boat but was unable to destroy another ferry that could carry fifty men. All he could do was leave it adrift. As Hamilton and the soldiers battled a swift current, the redcoats raked the boat with musket fire. One of the oarsmen was killed and another wounded. When Hamilton reached the opposite shore, he wrote a frantic message to John Hancock in Philadelphia: "SIR: If Congress have not left Philadelphia they ought to do it immediately without fail; for the enemy have the means of throwing a party this night into the city.“15 The message arrived in the capital by midnight, and congressmen were awakened and warned to take flight before morning, when the British were expected to arrive. Delegates quickly packed their belongings and critical papers and began streaming out of the city, each choosing their own route of escape, beginning around 3 A.M. on Friday, September 19. They headed north to Trenton, bound for Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
That same morning, Knox moved his guns with the rest of the army, which recrossed the Schuylkill to the east to stay between Howe's army and Philadelphia, guarding the fords. Most of the men waded into the river and then remained wet up to their chests as they marched throughout the morning darkness to take up positions along the banks. Howe tried to divert Washington's army before trying to cross the Schuylkill. On Sunday afternoon, September 21, the British marched twelve miles to the right of the American line. Knox moved with the army to meet them. When night fell, the redcoats kindled large fires, then countermarched and crossed unopposed at Swede's Ford. General Wayne's division was near the rear of the British at Paoli, where he hoped to attack the king's soldiers as they tried to cross the river. His division was discovered, and the redcoats ambushed his force on September 21. The British removed the flints from their muskets to prevent any accidental firing from signaling their approach as they crept though the woods. They were undetected until they launched their bayonet assault. In brutal hand-to-hand fighting, fifty-three Americans were killed with bayonet wounds and a hundred were wounded, compared to just eleven British casualties.
Knox realized that the British could march unopposed into Philadelphia. At a war council on Tuesday, September 23, at Pottsgrove, about twelve miles from the national seat, he agreed with the unanimous opinion of Washington's commanders that it was useless to attack the redcoats, given the shortage of ammunition and the need for reinforcements. "We fought one battle for it [at Brandywine]," he wrote Lucy on Wednesday, "and it was no deficiency in bravery that lost us the day. Philadelphia, it seems, has been their favorite object.“16
He was disappointed but not without optimism, seeing the loss of the city as merely a temporary setback and less of a challenge tha
n liberating Boston had been the previous year. He thought Philadelphia would be difficult to defend. What bore him up was the realization that the Continental Army was becoming battle-hardened and the men were enduring the trials of war like veterans. "The troops in this excursion of ten days without baggage suffered excessive hardships—without tents in the rain, several marches of all night, and often without sufficient provision. This they endured with the perseverance and patience of good soldiers.“17
The royal troops crossed the creek at Schuylkill Falls, only five miles from Philadelphia. On Friday, September 26, the British, led by General Cornwallis, marched triumphantly into the city. They paraded up Second Street and posted guards around the city before setting up camp on the south side of town. The Tory Rivington's Gazette, owned by Knox's old business connection James Rivington, reported: "The fine appearance of the soldiery, the strictness of their discipline, the politeness of the officers, and the orderly behavior of the whole body, immediately dispelled every apprehension of the inhabitants, kindled joy in the countenances of the well affected, and has given the most convincing refutation of the scandalous falsehoods which evil and designing men have been long spreading to terrify the peaceable and innocent. A perfect tranquility now prevails in the city.“18
Howe believed his best supply route was the Delaware River. He sent men to destroy the fortifications and obstacles that Knox had helped design and to build three batteries of their own. On Saturday, September 27, the crew of an American frigate in the river ran the vessel ashore after firing only one shot at a British battery. Knox wrote a letter to Colonel Henry Jackson on Thursday, October 2, calling the crew's actions "scandalous.“19