Germantown and the Roads to Valley Forge Read online

  The sound of Stephen and Wayne firing at one another was heard by Sullivan. “At this time which was near an Hour & a Quarter after the attack began General Stephens Division fell in with Wains on our Left.” He also stated, “Soon after, the firing from General Greens was heard still farther to the Left.” 185

  As they advanced on to the far left, McDougall's Connecticut troops engaged the picket post of the 1st Light Infantry Battalion near Luken's Mill, where the flanker had been taken prisoner a few hours earlier. “Our division was on the Left,” Ens. Jonathan Todd, Surgeon's Mate of the 7th Connecticut, wrote. Hearing the firing from Sullivan's wing, “They began the attack Immediately after.”186

  The British picket at Luken's Mill, commanded by Capt. St. Lawrence Boyd of the 38th, “heard the first shots at the post of 2nd Light Infantry” and “impatiently waited the enemy's approach.” Capt. William Scott of the 17th Light Company wrote, “at last the advanced sentry fired; and soon after distinguished the head of the enemy's column throwing down the rails of a wood in front of our right.”187 In McDougall's Brigade, “About daybreak our advanced guard and the British outposts came in contact,” Pvt. Joseph Plumb Martin of the 4th Connecticut recalled. “The curs began to bark first and then the bulldogs. Our brigade moved off to the right into the fields.”188

  Spread out in extended order, the “curs” of the 17th, 28th, and 38th Light Companies, commanded by Captain Boyd, prepared to “shoot and scoot.” “Enemy advancing, the companies fired and fell back according to orders,” Captain Scott noted.189 As the Connecticut troops moved forward, “We saw a body of the enemy drawn up behind a rail fence on our flank,” Private Martin noticed. “We immediately formed in line and advanced upon them. Our orders were not to fire till we could see the buttons upon their clothes, but they were so coy that they would not give us an opportunity to be so curious, for they hid their clothes in fire and smoke before we had either time or leisure to examine their buttons.” The picket companies withdrew past Luken's Mill and across the wooded gully of Mill Creek as ordered. “They soon fell back and we advanced,” Martin recalled, “when the action became general.”190

  As the Connecticut troops continued on, the “bulldogs,” the main body of the 1st Light Infantry Battalion, formed for battle. General Grant ordered the 4th Regiment, which was on the right of the main camp across Wingohocking Creek, to move over onto the left of the light bobs. “The Battalion was drawn up in a buck wheat field a little in front of its camp, with a woody height and road running in front of the left into the town,” Scott noted. “Three companies formed on the left,” the 17th, 28th, and 38th Light Companies, who had formed the picket.191 The 4th Regiment came across the creek and out of the woods along the road and fell in on the left of the picket companies.

  Despite the earlier alert, the British were not as fully prepared as might have been expected. “Surprised at the naked front the battalion presented, I went to Capt. Boyd, pressed him to go with me to the Col. [Abercromby] to state the danger,” Scott related. Boyd hesitated; skirmishing erupted as they were speaking; “at that instant some random shots; a very fine soldier of the 17th killed.” Boyd then agreed, and “We went to the Col. and told him we had not fallen back till we saw the enemy advancing in force, that if he staid on his ground five minutes, half the battalion would be knock'd down.”

  “I agree with you as to the ground,” Sir Robert Abercromby replied. “I would not have drawn the battalion up here, but Genl. Grant ordered me to form line on the right of the 4th Regiment in the next field. What can I do?”

  “During this conversation,” Scott continued, “the enemy's column following the road leading to German town [Church Lane] which run along the whole front of the 4th Regiment, and probably not having seen the 1st Battalion, faced to the fence, and leaning their pieces on the bottom rail, for it was a hollow road in that area, fired on the 4th Regiment and knocked them down 50 men.”192 The shock was devastating; few volleys ever took down so many troops at once, especially in a regiment of less than 300 men fit for duty. The 4th was thrown into confusion by the close firing, and it was difficult for them to see from where the next attack was coming. Continentals kept appearing in and out of the fog, in front of the camp, on the flanks, and in unexpected places, like the hollow road.

  “The Rebels moving on lined a Bank & Rail under cover of the Fog, & threw in a most severe fire upon the 4th Regt. which had been order'd to the left of the 1st. L. I. & which knoc'd down almost the whole of their Right Wing,” Lieutenant Wetherall wrote. “The 1st L. I. instantly attempted wheeling to the Left to dash at the Enemy, but the Right not being able to get Round quick enough, as the left hand Companys had pressed forwards.” As happened to many of the other units on both sides that morning, “The Fog was so thick & a Wood intervening, the Battalion sepirated & were unable to rejoin during the Day.”193

  The 1st Light Infantry Battalion was now broken apart. Some Continental forces, like the 9th Virginia Regiment, managed to move completely past the 1st Battalion without being seen. “Colonel Abercrombie instantly called the battalion to advance, and pressing forward rapidly to the spot the fire came from, wheeled towards the left in line,” Scott noticed, which pulled most of the Light Infantry out of their camp and across the road. Captains Boyd and Scott then left Colonel Abercromby; “We run to our companies, but they neither hearing, nor seeing the movement at first from the fog, the companies on the right got a start, and tho’ the left attempted to keep up with them when they saw the wheel yet the right passed them, got into the wood and followed the enemy.—the left was then completely seperated and thrown out,” Captain Scott wrote, carefully noting, “The companies were the 17th, 38th, 28th, and 4th.”194

  “The attack was made with some degree of Spirit,” Lt. Henry Stirke of the 10th Light Company, in the main body of the 1st Battalion, wrote. “The 1st battln of Light Infantry was entirely surrounded, their Wigwams & provision Waggon[s] in possession of the Enemy, ’till they fought their way thro’ and retook them.”195 As the Marylanders and Pennsylvanians had done on the right, the Connecticut troops and Virginians were pushing the light bobs hard. “The enemy were driven quite through their camp,” Pvt. Joseph Plumb Martin of Connecticut observed. “They left their kettles, in which they were cooking their breakfasts, on the fires, and some of their garments were lying on the ground, which the owners had not time to put on.”196

  The casualties from both sides littered the ground; the handful of dead and heaps of wounded from the 4th Regiment lay in a haphazard line near the hollow road. Surgeon's Mate Jonathan Todd of the 7th Connecticut told his father, “I followed the Regt. to the Field where the smoke was so thick that I could't see a man 3 rods,” about fifteen yards. “I dres'd 17 or 18 Men Wounded in different Parts.” Splints for broken limbs were improvised, and bandages were merely torn strips of linen; sterilization was unknown. Without antiseptics or anesthetics, except perhaps whiskey or rum, or much else other than basic surgical tools—probes, assorted knives, and bone saws, none of which were sterilized—battlefield surgery was grim. “I extracted 4 balls by cutting in the oposite side from where they went in,” Todd explained, sending a shudder of horror through his readers.197

  Weedon's Brigade, completely separated from Woodford's by Greene's Division, was moving in to the right of McDougall's troops, but apparently was far enough away as to have lost contact. Col. Walter Stewart led a detachment from the Pennsylvania State Regiment and was functioning as a light unit, scouting and covering Weedon's left flank. “When I first engag'd we were a mile and a half from Germantown,” the “Irish Beauty” told General Gates, “and before we ended I got to the Market house at Germantown,” probably via Church Lane. “General McDugle who was to have attacked the [enemy] on their right flank, never got to his ground, which Expos'd our flank much and I happened to be detached and fell on the left of the whole where I engag'd the 5th and 38th,” probably meaning the Light Companies of those units, as the battalion companies were elsewhere. “They both ran lustily and I took a little flush [flèche] redoubt with three Pieces of Cannon from them.” These were the battalion guns of the 1st Light Infantry, positioned behind a V-shaped earthwork on the angled crossroads between Luken's Mill and the front of their camp. “I had cursed Hot work for it before they left them,” Stewart wrote, “but every thing appeared in our favour when the Unfortunate retreat took place, which cannot yet be accounted for; it is left on General Stevens who certainly gave the order to the left wing.”198

  As at Brandywine, the ferocity and volume of the gunfire was remarkable. “The crackling of thorns under a pot, and incessant peals of thunder only can convey the idea of their cannon and musketry,” Col. Charles Webb of the 2nd Connecticut stated. “From all quarters an incessant fire continued for five hours and ten minutes.”199 Ensign Todd of the 7th Connecticut commented, “I suppose a hotter fire was Never known both of small Arms & Field Pieces.”200 Lt. Col. Adam Hubley of the 10th Pennsylvania concurred; “Such a firing perhaps never was heard,” he told his friends in Lancaster. “It lasted 4 hours, without the least intermission, almost every Man expended 40 rounds, excepting our Division, under Genl. Wayne, who came to the charge of Bayonets almost immediately.”201

  On the British side, Lt. Loftus Cliffe of the 46th described it as “a devil of a fire…on all sides of us was the hottest fire I ever heard,” and told his brother, “we were five Hours as busy as Men could be before we made an impression.”202 From somewhere below Philadelphia, probably on the road to Chester, Capt. Francis Downman of the Royal Artillery noted, “In the morning during our march I heard a great deal of firing of cannon at Germantown…The fire then became general and very warm, and continued so for some time.” He added, “The light 12 pounders and fieldpieces had
a share in the day's action, and had several men wounded.”203

  Thirty miles to the south, down near Brandywine, “We heard the guns the day of the battle of Germantown,” Phebe Mendenhall Thomas recalled. “Father was sure there must be a battle somewhere and he thought maybe after night he could see the light, so he went up to the garret window, our house was very high, but he couldn't see anything. Mother went with him, and then I didn't want to be left behind, so I followed.” With the horrors of September 11 still fresh in her mind, Phebe remembered vividly, “Oh! I was afraid. I was only 7 years old then.”204

  Charles Willson Peale was in Northampton Township, Bucks County, nearly thirty north of Germantown, where “We heard an incessant fire of Cannon & Small Arms.” He wrote in his diary, “I amediately hurry off to carry the Powder & 176 Bullets which I had cast the Evening before to Coll. Tooms in Bucks County,” Col. Hugh Tomb of the 1st Battalion Bucks County Militia, who was from Northampton Township, “and afterward pushed down as fast as possible to see the Engagement.”205

  In Bethlehem, fifty miles north of the battle, the entry in the Moravian Diary read, “October 4. Loud cannonading was heard in the distance to-day.”206 At Ephrata, in Lancaster County, more than sixty miles to the west, nineteen-year-old Elkanah Watson stated, “Early on the morning of the 4th we entered the village of Euphrates, within sound of the thunder of Washington's artillery at Germantown.”207

  The severity of the battle was memorable for many of those who were heavily engaged. “Upon my Word, I never felt so disagreeably in my Life as I did at one time this Day,” Loftus Cliffe wrote, fearing that the day had been lost. “However at last we drove them and pursued 8 or 9 Miles, but could not come up with them.” He noted, “This Attack, the first the Enemy ever made, was silent & well concerted tho’ unsuccessfull, & tho’ I mentioned to you my fears for the Fate of the Day at one time, yet they were unjust.” He was amazed that the casualties weren't worse. “Our Battalion,” the 46th Regiment, which was west of the village on the left wing, “did not loose a Man, but of the Picket that had 2 killed and 8 or 9 Wounded.” They were fortunate; “the Regt. had no opertunity of engaging with many others.” Cliffe told his brother, “I was far from regretting the excessive fatigue I had on this Picket, the greatest I ever sufferd as it pleased God our little Body came off so well owing entirely to the prudence & Conduct of Johnson, & Lt Cameron not much his inferiour, made me (as yet a young Soldier) quite happy.”208

  General Grant, an old soldier but always quite happy, especially with his own brilliance, naturally took it all in stride. “The attempt was bold,” he told General Harvey, “but when it came to the push they failed Totally in the execution.” With sardonic humility he confessed, “I was uneasy for Ten Minutes.”209

  Where was Smallwood, with his Maryland Militia, and Forman with the New Jersey Militia, the troops with the farthest distance to go? “The Jersey Militia and Red Coats under Gen. Forman, and the Maryland Militia, with some ’Listed troops under Gen. Smallwood, were on the left wing of the whole army,” Maj. Asher Holmes of the Monmouth County Militia wrote home. “We drove the enemy, when we first made the attack, but by the thickness of the fog, the enemy got in our rear,” he stated. “Therefore, had to change our front, and then retreated until a proper place.”210 The militia were facing the Queen's Rangers, who held the far right flank of the British camp on the Old York Road. The Rangers had been reinforced by Sir George Osborn's Grenadier Company and the Light Company of the Guards, who moved up to cover the right flank of the Rangers after General Howe's warning to Osborn the previous night.

  Like the other outposts, the Rangers and the Guards flank companies had erected some earthworks, probably flèches, along the road. “A few Minutes after this attack began, our Division under General Smallwood fell in with their right flank, and drove them from several redouts,” Col. Mordecai Gist wrote to a friend. Embarrassed yet again by the performance of his own troops, he added with disgust, “the same spirit Neglecting to Inspire and Animate us, the Weakness of the Human Heart prevaild,” and the militia began to panic. “I suppose the Officer Commanding against us was acquainted by experience with this defect in Nature,” the Maryland officer observed, “who Immediately took the advantage of our Feelings and drove us from the Ground.” Gist seemed to believe, like many others, that the fog was more beneficial to the British than to the Americans. “A thick foggy air prevaild throughout the whole of this Action, as if designd by Providence to favor the Brittish Army which with the smoak of Gunpowder prevented our discovering the situation of their line.”211

  The Queen's Rangers were posted on the east side of the Old York Road a few hundred yards south of a road leading to Luken's Mill and into Germantown. This road, now called Church Lane, was described to Smallwood in his orders as being “on the old york road, below Armitages, beyond the seven mile stone half a mile from which turns off short to the right hand, fenced on both sides, which leads through the enemy's encampment to German town market house.”212 He was instructed to hit the British in the flank and the rear. But here, he was up against Wemyss and the Rangers, supported on the right by Osborn with the grenadiers and the light bobs of the Guards.

  As had occurred at Brandywine, the green uniforms of the Queen's Rangers gave them the appearance of Hessians at a distance, especially in the poor visibility of this morning. “This Alarmd the Apprehensions of some Individuals who reported that a Party of Hessians was making round on our left in order to Surround us,” Gist wrote. “I Immediately posted part of my Brigade in a Wood in order to receive them, and went off with a small party to the left, where I placed them in order to cover and Guard our Flank and give Intelligence of their Approach, but on my return to the place found that the whole had retreated, and the firing had began a considerable distance above me.” The firing was probably from McDougall's troops and the 1st Battalion of Light Infantry fighting near Luken's Mill, about half a mile to Gist's right. “This required an Immediate Movement; which you will readily conclude was not lost to me.”213

  With an indignation that would have infuriated the Connecticut men, Major Holmes of the New Jersey Militia complained, “Gen. McDougall's ’Listed men [were] to the right of us, but they all gave way, except the Monmouth Militia, and Gen. Forman's Red Coats stood firm and advanced upon the British Red Coats, who were at least three times our number, to a fence, when we made a stand. The fire was very severe, and the enemy ran.” Then, at one of the small earthworks, “They brought a fieldpiece to fire on us with grapeshot, but our Monmouth men stood firm until their ammunition was nearly exhausted and the enemy advancing round our right flank. Gen. Forman then ordered us to retreat, which we did in pretty good order, until our Continental troops broke and ran a second time, and their running through our men broke them entirely.”214

  There were others who showed less than honorable behavior, especially in front of militia, who often had little or no training. In the Maryland Militia, “Colonel Hopper Attended the Brigade under my Command on our March to German Town the Night of the 3rd Instant,” Colonel Gist wrote to Governor Johnson. “On the Morning of the 4th their Picket began a Scattering fire upon the front of our Column, when the Colonel was Immediately attack'd with some qualms of Sickness which obligd him to Retreat with precipitation to Maryland.” At first, Gist was both amused and disgusted by the colonel's behavior, for he told the governor, “As Mankind cannot be Answerable at all times for the weakness & frailty of the Human Heart, his feelings demanded more pitty than resentment which led me to conceal his Error untill I had the pleasure of waiting on You in person.” By that time, Gist was deeply concerned about the detrimental effects of not only the man's actions, but also of his words, especially since the Maryland Militia commanders had so many difficulties holding the men to their duty. “I am since Informd that he reported on his way down, and in his Neighbourhood at Home that the Maryland Militia was placd in front at the Engagement, and were entirely cut off,” Gist told the governor. “This with many other Absurdities propagated by him to the prejudice of the Army, has had its tendency to prevent the Second Class of Militia from turning out so generally as they otherwise would have done.”215