Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader (26 page)

The feeling that Howe lacked something essential in a commander in chief grew in late 1777 and continued to dog him. It is difficult not to conclude that he lacked the intellectual power to understand the war he was fighting. Coupled with a disposition to take his ease, to wait rather than act, there was a feeling that for all his courage and his long years of experience in the army, he was out of place—in over his head—as commander.

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Howe’s chief task in 1777 was to plan a new campaign and to carry it out. He had informed Lord George Germain, the minister in Britain charged with running the war, that he needed reinforcements if he was going to carry the war to the Americans once again. He did not explain exactly how he would use his army, but mentioned that fifteen or twenty thousand additional troops would be needed. Germain let him know in March that only 7,800 would be forthcoming.
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The correspondence between the two men in these months had a curious quality, almost as if each man had not read the other’s letters. The distance between Germain’s Colonial Office and the headquarters of the two overseas armies—Guy Carleton’s, in Canada, and William Howe’s, in New York, made clear communication difficult, and the peculiar personalities involved often led to fuzzy understandings. In the case of the 1777 campaign, problems of planning were more than intrinsically complicated, and proved impossible to work out. That General Burgoyne, who was to lead the northern army marching down from Canada, did not leave England until April 3 compressed the period for consultation and clarification. What Germain thought was clear to everyone on the British side—that there would be a coordinated effort to cut the colonies in two, with Burgoyne driving down from Canada and Howe moving north up the Hudson, presumably for a meeting of forces in Albany—was not clear to the commander in America. Germain also apparently believed that Howe could take Philadelphia as a first step in his operations.
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Whatever Howe understood about Germain’s instructions, he acted as if he were fighting on his own, without regard for the northern theater. His second-in-command, Henry Clinton, who had been in England, returning to America in early July, now attempted to persuade him that Germain’s strategy should be followed. Howe dismissed all such appeals and loaded his army onto his brother’s transports in July, with the intention of getting at Washington by way of the Chesapeake. After looking into the mouth of the Delaware, he resumed his voyage and finally began putting his troops ashore at the head of the Elk River on August 25. He had landed an army unprepared to fight: Its soldiers were worn out, weakened by living in dreadfully close quarters without exercise and on a diet insufficient for a life of marching and
fighting. The cavalry had watched many of its horses on board wither and die and knew that its animals required rest and nourishment even more than the men. Given the condition of horses and men, Howe had little choice but to rest both. Not until September 8 did he make a serious move to engage Washington.

Howe’s plans were now clear, dispelling the ignorance that had kept Washington and his army on edge for months. Although there had been time to get ready for the resumption of combat, these months had not been profitable to readiness. Recruiting a new army after Trenton had dominated every other activity. There had been some fighting, as we have seen, most often on a small scale—what Washington and his officers called the “petty war.” This was for horses, cattle, food, and forage; and there was nothing grand about it. There had also been the annoyance of having to turn away eager but unqualified French officers, almost none of whom spoke English or had the experience of war they claimed. Even worse in Washington’s judgment was the insistence of Massachusetts that it should be allowed to keep at home newly raised Continental regiments, on the expectation that the British would soon make another attempt at conquering New England. Washington, in a carefully phrased letter in response, examined the fear felt in Massachusetts, showing a willingness to consider such a suggestion, but then stripped away its foolish gloss by concluding that “it would be the most wretched policy to weaken the hands of the continent, under the mistaken idea of strengthening your own.”
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He was saying once again, in this diplomatic but lucid argument, that the common cause demanded common—not parochial—measures.

Washington could not be certain of what his British enemy during these months was doing. In late May, intelligence came from spies and other friendly observers that Howe was moving his forces to the north—perhaps for a major campaign up the river?—but in June, he gathered much of his army at New Brunswick. This movement was followed by what Washington assumed would be an attack on the American army then dug in at Middlebrook, New Jersey. Howe, who marched his men about ten miles west of New Brunswick, had not carried portable bridges with his forces, which suggested to Washington that his purpose was to destroy the Americans, not cross the Delaware River to take Philadelphia. But he could not be certain of Howe’s purposes at any time, for, as he had written to Hancock two weeks earlier,
“the actions of the Enemy have, for a long time past, been so different from appearances, that I hardly dare form an opinion.”
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Howe, in this instance, changed his mind about an attack and a few days later pulled his forces back all the way to Staten Island.

The rumors and reports about British intentions continued well into August, when Howe finally emerged from his excursion on the Atlantic. Then and only then could Washington send his troops into battle. He did so in anger at his enemy, extreme even for him. The British had abandoned their forward positions outside New Brunswick with a brutality far from anything Howe had intended. Whatever William Howe and his brother had favored in dealing with the Americans opposing them, they had not approved of brutal measures. Ordinary British soldiers and probably their officers as well had not agreed with them, and in pulling back from Middlebrook in late June, “they had behaved as they were wont to do, leaving nothing which they could carry off, Robbing, Plundering, & burning Houses as they went.” Washington’s final assessments at this point reveal a growing hatred: “were they to take up the business of Scalping they would much resemble Savages in every respect! so much is the boasted generosity, and glory of Britains fallen.”
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There were other lessons from this part of the war. Washington had learned much from the beginning of the New York campaign about the importance of a navy in New York waters. Watching Howe embark his troops and sail away in July brought home again the importance of sea power and what it meant for the land-restricted Continental Army: “By means of their Shipping, and the easy transportation that Shipping affords,” he ruefully remarked, “they have it much in their power to lead us a very disagreeable dance.”
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The dance began a few days after Howe’s army shook off the effects of its confinement in transports. Washington watched the first slow steps on August 26 from a hill near the British encampment, and spent the night in a farmhouse very near his enemy. Nathanael Greene and the young Marquis de Lafayette, who had recently joined the army after his arrival from France, were with him. At dawn on the twenty-seventh, he and his small party of officers rode back to headquarters in
nearby Wilmington, convinced that a real effort to destroy their forces was about to be made. At least one of his commanders, Brigadier General Anthony Wayne, urged that Washington “not wait” for Howe’s attack, but rather “make a Regular and Vigorous Assault on their Right or Left Flank.” Wayne, who was sometimes referred to as “Mad Anthony,” did not claim that this suggestion was original; indeed, it was “no new Idea,” he said, having been “Often practiced with success” by such commanders as “Caesar at Amiens when besieged by the Gauls,” and at Alesia. The tactic had brought victory to Caesar, a result attributed by no less an authority than Marshal Saxe to the “terror and surprise” it creates in the enemy, which the marshal observed “proceeds from the Consternation which is the Unavoidable effect of Sudden and unexpected Events.”
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Washington, who might have pointed out that militia and Continentals in his army lacked the fighting skills of the Roman legions, did not accept this advice. Instead, as the British picked up their advance on September 8, he chose Brandywine Creek for his battle with Howe. By September 10, the two sides seemed to be in place.

Brandywine Creek, in Pennsylvania near the Delaware state line, was not a stream that one could step over; in fact, it could be crossed only at a number of fords. Washington placed his army on the east side of the stream: At Pyle’s Ford, close by Chadd’s Ford, he stationed two brigades of Pennsylvania militia commanded by Major General John Armstrong. Greene’s division held the position east of Chadd’s Ford, with Anthony Wayne to his right at Brinton’s Ford. This position straddled the road leading to Philadelphia, twenty-five miles away. On Wayne’s right, Colonel Thomas Proctor set his artillery up on low-lying hills overlooking Chadd’s Ford. The overall command of emplacements stretching from Brinton’s Ford, just to the right of Wayne, was given to John Sullivan, with General Adam Stephen and Lord Stirling extended farther on, almost to Painter’s Ford—a line almost two miles in length. Birmingham Hill, two miles to the east of these placements, was left unoccupied, as were fords farther up the Brandywine, including Trimble’s Ford, on the west branch, and Jeffries, on the east. As a precaution, these positions were given some attention by small numbers of militia placed to give warning should the British appear. The size of the two armies is not known with any
certainty. Howe seems to have commanded a force of about fifteen thousand, Washington something close to that if militia and light horse are included.
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The battle that began early in the morning of September 11 opened with Howe in motion at five in the morning. Perhaps with the tactics of the Battle of Brooklyn in mind, he marched northward from Kennett Square with eight thousand troops up the Great Valley Road. He had been told of fords at the split of the Brandywine; crossing them would put him in position to roll up the right flank of the American army. The march, quietly undertaken in fog, was covered to some extent by a force of 7,800 left behind under the command of Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, who had been ordered to hold the Americans in place along the creek. Knyphausen carried out his mission by moving to the east from Kennett Square, where he drove back American outposts that had been established across the creek. His appearance implanted a conviction among several commanders that the main British attack would come at Chadd’s Ford or its vicinity.

Washington was not sure: Remembering the surprise Howe had given him along the Brooklyn Heights, he half-expected that outflanking tactics might be used again. His uncertainty lasted until early afternoon. In midmorning, he received some intelligence that the British were on the move to the north. He had been told that fords far up the Brandywine did not exist, implausible information on its face, but he hesitated to strip the army facing Knyphausen before the report of a flanking operation was established. While hesitating, he appealed for reliable intelligence and sent scouts to the north to look for the British.

By early afternoon, sometime between one thirty and two, no one could doubt that Howe had succeeded in pulling off another surprise. The British in force were then sitting on Osborne’s Hill, a couple of miles south of Jeffries Ford, which Washington had not known of, and they were preparing to destroy the American line from its flank and rear. Washington had been with Greene while this was going on, and he immediately began an attempt to shift his troops to counter the British stroke.

Sullivan, with Washington’s approval, began moving his own troops and Stirling’s and Stephen’s from the creek to Birmingham Hill, a mile southeast from Osborne’s, where the British sat resting before making an assault. The American soldiers of these three commanders
had marched—sometimes running—to their new positions along the hill. The ground they moved over was rough and wooded or brush-covered in several places, conditions that made getting into a proper alignment extraordinarily difficult. The British began their move before the Americans were fully realigned, and in fact found that there was a gap of several hundred yards between Stirling and Stephen. The Americans in Stephen’s division, discovering that they had not hooked up with Stirling on their left, attempted a lateral movement to cover the distressing hole. They did not succeed, but the British did not exactly pour through them in good order, for Nathanael Greene, ordered to repair the damage, had led his troops in a quick march from behind Chadd’s Ford to the rescue of the American force on Birmingham Hill. Greene’s soldiers moved at a pace that carried them almost four miles in about forty-five minutes.

Greene’s brigade, as well as Stirling’s, Stephen’s, and Sullivan’s, was aided by the terrain, for the ground was broken by trees, brush, and small rises that impeded the drive of Howe’s force, which had begun its march from Osborne’s Hill in regular order. Indeed, they had stepped out to the tune of “The British Grenadiers,” played by a band that accompanied them at the start of their attack. The music of the band soon disappeared, swallowed up by the explosive sounds made by muskets and fieldpieces. Nor did the good order achieved at the beginning of the attack survive, but gave way to confusion and horror on both sides. The British maintained the integrity of their units much better than the Americans, who often lost theirs yet managed to fight well until late in the day, when they gradually gave way. Greene’s force performed the best of all the Continentals and in so doing gave Washington and others time to direct stragglers to the road at Dilworthtown, leading to Chester and Philadelphia.