Battle of Brandywine

Battle of Brandywine, (September 11, 1777), in the American Revolution, engagement near Philadelphia in which the British defeated the Americans but left the Revolutionary army intact. The British general Sir William Howe was lured to Philadelphia in the belief that its large Tory element would rise up when joined by a British army and thus virtually remove Pennsylvania from the war. That move left the forces of General John Burgoyne in northern New York to fend for themselves, directly resulting in the British disaster at the Battles of Saratoga on September 19 and October 11, American victories that convinced France to join the American war effort, marking a major turning point in the war.

Howe’s campaign to capture Philadelphia, the American capital, began in mid-1777. The forces had skirmished earlier as General George Washington avoided committing his retrained but untested Continental Army. Confident of success, Howe hoped to draw Washington into a decisive battle. Embarking from New York City in July 1777, Howe’s army of about 16,000 British and Hessian troops met General George Washington’s Continental Army of about 15,000 in the vicinity of Chadds Ford, on Brandywine Creek in southeastern Pennsylvania, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Philadelphia. (Some sources place British strength at 10,000 troops against 11,000 Continentals.)

Using the same tactics that he had employed at the Battle of Long Island, Howe divided his army, with General Charles Cornwallis leading one column while Hessian Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen commanded another. Washington’s plan was to block all of the fords across Brandywine Creek, especially the north ford at Wistar and the furthest south ford at Pyle, thereby forcing Howe to engage Washington toward the middle, at Chadds Ford, where Washington controlled the high ground with two divisions with artillery. Howe, however—aided by local Loyalist scouts—had been tipped off about unguarded fords unbeknownst to Washington further north of Wistar, where Howe’s troops could cross without incident and proceed to march south for a surprise attack on Washington’s right flank. This superior scouting and reconnaissance would be Washington’s downfall at Brandywine.

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Knyphausen’s advance guard did attack at Chadds Ford as Washington had planned, arriving early in the morning on 11 September. Intense fighting followed between the British and the well-entrenched Americans. But the main British column was now concurrently and secretly heading south on Washington’s right flight, an exhausting nine-hour march for the British. Washington at first disregarded a scout’s report about a pending flanking action by British troops heading south, but by 2:00 p.m. Howe’s advance was confirmed, leading Washington to divert all but one division to face Howe. But the countermeasure was too little, too late. Confused in the haste to counter the move, and with large gaps in their line, the Americans were unable to mount a coordinated defense when the British attacked around 4 pm. The fighting was ferocious; one British officer recalled “the leaves falling as in autumn by the grapeshot.” The brunt of the fight was borne by General John Sullivan’s New Hampshire division, reinforced by troops under the command of General Nathanael Greene.

With Howe’s attack from the north and Knyphausen’s push through the middle at Chadd, the Americans were soon in full retreat, pulling back to nearby Chester and leaving behind strategic cannons. The battle ended with dusk, and darkness and fatigue on the part of Howe’s troops prevented any British pursuit of the retreating Americans.

The Battle of Brandywine saw the first appearance on the battlefield of the Marquis de Lafayette, who, not yet 20 years old, had joined Washington’s staff only a few weeks before. Wounded in the leg by a British musket ball while rallying a faltering detachment of Virginians on the front line, and thus facilitating an orderly retreat for the rest of Washington’s troops, Lafayette was soon rewarded with a command of his own and served throughout the war with distinction.

The British victory was significant, but it was not decisive. In the end, the British troops occupied the battlefield, but they had not destroyed Washington’s army nor cut it off from the capital at Philadelphia. Over the next two weeks the American Continental Congress had time to evacuate the capital and remove important papers and military supplies before the British finally occupied the city unopposed on September 26. Having suffered a massacre at Paoli and a subsequent defeat of Sullivan and Greene’s combined forces at Germantown in the interim, losing the capital was a major blow to American morale, foreshadowing the difficult winter to come for Washington at Valley Forge, but the Continental Army and the revolution had survived.

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Losses: American, 200–300 dead, 500-600 wounded, 400 captured; British and German, 80–90 dead, 488 wounded, 6 missing.