Germantown and the Roads to Valley Forge Read online

  Sheets of cold, driving rain the previous afternoon and night kept Howe's troops in their Germantown encampment, which was perpendicular to the center of the village and the Germantown High Street, running parallel to Queen Lane for more than two miles. In front of the army was the vanguard, the Corps of Guides and Pioneers, posted about a mile below Stenton, where Howe established headquarters. Lt. Gilbert Purdy of this corps noted on September 25 that as the army advanced from Norriton, the Pioneers “marched About 14 miles through part of jarmintown & took our Quarters About 3/4 mile Belo the town in houses in A small town Called nicetown,” four miles north of the city.13

  Behind the Pioneers, the British and Hessian grenadiers were camped along the high road between Nicetown and headquarters. Maj. John Maitland's 2nd Light Infantry Battalion formed the rearguard, posted four miles back at Mount Airy, the Allen family's country house on the high road between Germantown and Chestnut Hill. Outposts went as far east as Frankford and west to the Falls of Schuylkill near the mouth of Wissahickon Creek. “Pattroles to Be Sent frequently in order to keep the Soldiers out of the Village & Houses Adjacent,” the British Army's General Orders stated on September 25, and in the Battalion Orders for the 2nd Light Infantry, “Major Maitland Requests that the officers will Use their Utmost indeavours to prevent the men from doing Any harm to the inhabitants.”14

  The rain ended before dawn, and morning clouds gradually gave way to sunshine, with a sharp, northwest wind and a temperature of 51 degrees Fahrenheit recorded at 7 AM—a perfect autumn day.15 The British and Hessian grenadiers were up early, preparing for the march in by drying their clothes around large campfires. Grime and stains from four weeks of hard campaigning largely vanished under a fresh layer of pipe-clay (the same white paste used to make tobacco pipes) as the men whitened their smallclothes and belts. They polished brass buckles, cap plates, and badges to a glow, blackened the leather cartridge boxes and bayonet scabbards—and Hessian mustaches—with black-ball wax, and powdered their hair white. As a festive touch, the troops fixed green sprigs to their tall caps with ribbon; Capt. Friedrich von Münchhausen of Howe's staff wrote that the grenadiers “were all dressed as properly as possible, having tied greenery and bands to their hats and on the horses pulling the cannon.”16

  In addition to the light field guns of the grenadier battalions—four British 6-pounders and four Hessian 3-pounders—the artillery park provided six brass 12-pounders and four 5½˝ Royal howitzers, all polished to a mirrorlike gloss by the artillerymen. They washed the stout, gray-painted oak carriages bound with black iron fittings and put the gunners’ implements—ramrods, hand spikes, and other tools—in order. The crews then spruced themselves up, but their blue coats, faced with red and trimmed with yellow lace, were badly faded and nearly worn out, since many of them had not received new clothing for more than a year.17

  Two squadrons of the 16th Queen's Light Dragoons, about 200 troopers, currycombed their mounts and polished their leather gear and brasses as they prepared to lead the march. Their short, red coats, faced in royal blue with paired buttonholes handsomely edged in blue-and-yellow-striped white lace, were weathered, too, offset by splendid, bearskin-crested black leather caps, each draped with silver chains and wrapped in a buff-colored turban painted to resemble leopard-skin. Led by Lt. Col. William Harcourt, the light horsemen were the escort for the British commanders and the Philadelphia Loyalists headed by Joseph Galloway and the Allen brothers.

  John, Andrew, and William Allen Jr., sons of seventy-four-year-old Judge William Allen, one of the most important business and political figures in Pennsylvania, had stopped for the night at Mount Airy. Another son, James, had withdrawn to Trout Hall, his summer estate at Allentown, fifty miles to the north near Bethlehem. “As to myself, I am now fixed here, & am very busy in gardening, planting &c.,” James had written in June. “I visit Philadelphia once in 2 months; should Gen. Howe get there, all my friends will remain & I shut out, yet I shall think myself happier here.”18

  The whirlwind of events had taken the family in different directions. Except for William, the Allen boys, like their father, had studied law at the Middle Temple in London and were involved in a variety of Pennsylvania political affairs before the war, ironically enough as Whigs, actively protesting the policies of the British ministry. In early 1776, Andrew was the attorney general of Pennsylvania and a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. James was overwhelmingly elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly as a representative for Northampton County, and William Jr. was the lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Pennsylvania Battalion, serving with his friend Anthony Wayne in the harsh Canadian campaign.

  The Declaration of Independence changed all of that. “I love the Cause of liberty,” James wrote in his diary shortly before independence was declared, “but cannot heartily join in the prosecution of measures totally foreign to the original plan of Resistance,” which was to assert American rights as Englishmen, not to separate from the Empire. The radicals in Congress and in Pennsylvania were getting their way by appealing to some of the worst elements of the “lower sort” of people, he and his brothers felt, as did many others. “The madness of the multitude is but one degree better than submission to the Tea-Act,” he wrote in the spring of 1776.19 His brother Andrew left Congress a few weeks later, and his youngest brother Billy resigned from the army at Fort Ticonderoga in late July, despite the pleas of his commander, Gen. Arthur St. Clair, and his comrade-in-arms, Col. Anthony Wayne.

  Unlike his brothers, who eventually fled to the British for protection, James tried to escape the upheaval by moving far into the hinterlands of Pennsylvania. Thus isolated, he greatly missed the bustle and sophistication of Philadelphia and his family. “I long most ardently to see my brothers, whose society would at this time be peculiarly desirable,” he wrote wistfully. “There are few families who live on terms of purer love & friendship than ours; which is owing not only to natural affection, but the conviction of each others integrity and disinterestedness.”20

  But there was no escaping the war; a few months later, as the armies settled in for the occupation, he complained, “My situation continues as before: living in perpetual fear of being robbed, plundered & insulted” by local Pennsylvania militiamen. “I sincerely wish myself out of the country, till this convulsion is over,” James admitted, “& if my wife & children go into Philadelphia as she is anxious to be with her parents, I will endeavour to get to Europe, where I will live for a while with great economy. Any situation is preferable to my present one.”21

  Now, except for James, the whole family was at Mount Airy, protected by the British Army. “The Allens met their father and families at this place,” Capt. Lt. Francis Downman of the Royal Artillery remarked in his journal, “all well.”22

  Early on the twenty-sixth, Sir William Howe sent Captain von Münchhausen to Mount Airy to bring Andrew and William Jr. down to Nicetown for the march in. The Allens “are the first and richest family in Pennsylvania, except for the Penn family,” the Hessian aide noted. In addition to the four brothers, there were two sisters, Anne and Margaret. “One of their sisters, who is said to be very beautiful, is married to Mr. Penn, Governor of Pennsylvania,” the captain observed. Because John Penn refused to “take the Test” and swear allegiance to the United States, he was now a captive at the Union Iron Works in New Jersey (one of his father-in-law's many business ventures), arrested by order of Congress and the Supreme Executive Council. Penn shared his captivity with Chief Justice Benjamin Chew, whose country estate Cliveden was at the entrance to Germantown, a mile below Mount Airy.

  Entering the house, von Münchhausen anticipated finding only the brothers, but to his surprise, “I unexpectedly met this beautiful Mrs. Penn, who was with her sister and five other beautiful ladies, while they were having tea.” The Allen girls had married well: Anne was Governor Penn's wife, while Margaret's husband was James DeLancey, son of the former governor of New York and a prominent Loyalist. “I confess that this very unexpecte
d sight of seven very pretty ladies disconcerted me more than the bullets of the Battle of Brandywine,” the German captain sheepishly admitted. Flustered, von Münchhausen nearly forgot his mission, but “after composing myself I was anxious to leave this dangerous place as soon as possible.” Hurrying William and Andrew along, “we were able to catch up with the grenadiers this side of Philadelphia.”23 The charms of the Philadelphia ladies were already at work on the king's men.

  “The British & Hessian Grenadiers with Baggage & Guns, two Squaderons of Dragoons, six medium 12-pounders and 4 Howitzers march'd about 9 oclock under the command of Lt. Genl. Earl Cornwallis to Philadelphia,” Capt.-Lt. John Peebles of the 42nd Royal Highland Grenadier Company wrote. “The Quartermaster General & a Deputy, the Commissary Genl. & a Deputy attended this Corps.”24 With the city in view from the heights above Nicetown, the troops headed down the Germantown Road past the Rising Sun Tavern at the Old York Road. General Howe “accompanied them about half way and then rode back after the grenadiers had passed in review to the accompaniment of martial and other music,” allowing Lord Cornwallis the honor of leading the march in.25

  The scene was breathtaking. Straight ahead to the east and south, the Delaware River rippled with whitecaps and sparkled as the sun broke through scudding clouds. The sandy plains and pine forests of New Jersey furnished an agreeable backdrop to the gleaming spires of Christ Church and the State House soaring above the mass of red-brick and wooden buildings along the water, though the usual forest of ships’ masts and sails was missing from the waterfront. Two miles off to the west was the Schuylkill River, cocoa-colored from the night's rain as it churned down to the Delaware near Fort Mifflin, where a few masts were discernible. “The Schuylkill is a Park from one end of it to the other,” Lt. Col. Sir George Osborn enthusiastically told his brother John from the Guards Camp near Stenton. “I am now encamped, par Hazar, in a district with which the beauty of Hagly could not be compared.”26 Elegant mansions and “rustick” retreats of the wealthy—one described as a “tasty little box”—dotted the landscape, festooned with orchards and vegetable gardens, all ripe for the taking.27 “This Country is a Tillage one, but Beautiful & Romantic,” a well-educated British officer remarked, “a considerable part of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, I conceive very apropos to it.”28

  On the outskirts of town, the column paused briefly and dressed ranks. Thirty grenadier drummers tightened their snares and thirty fifers tuned their instruments in a final sound check for the grand entrance. The dragoons sat erect, their sabers drawn and carried vertically at the right shoulder, while the infantry left-shouldered their muskets and held their arms stiffly down at their sides. Captains at the head of their companies and subalterns—ensigns and lieutenants—on foot alongside the ranks advanced their fusils and gripped them tightly in stern silence, awaiting the order to march.

  On command, the column stepped off at the slow-march rate of sixty-four steps per minute, the fifes warbling “God Save the King” above the solemn rumble of the drums. The large battalion flags of light silk, each 6′ by 6′ 6″ on a 10′ half-pike, opened fully, their brilliant red and white crosses on dark blue proudly displaying golden crowns and badges wreathed in roses and thistles. Tasseled cords of crimson and gold danced across the streaming colors as they fluttered in the stiff breeze.

  With toes pointed and legs lifted at a 45-degree angle, the British Grenadiers advanced toward their prize: North America's largest city. Not a redoubt, breastwork, ditch, or felled tree blocked their way.

  Resplendent in a silver-laced scarlet coat faced with royal blue and a striking black cap of polished leather sprouting a coxcomb of red horsehair, its front bearing Queen Charlotte's monogram intricately worked in silver on a black plate, Colonel Harcourt rode at the head of the Queen's Dragoons with Phineas Bond and Enoch Story, two Philadelphia Loyalists serving as guides. Behind the dragoons, in fine scarlet coats faced with black velvet and gleaming gold embroidery came Lord Cornwallis and his staff: Sir William Erskine, the quartermaster general; Capt. John Montrésor, the chief engineer; Commissary General Daniel Wier, and other high-ranking officers. Brig. Gen. Samuel Cleveland, commander of the Royal Artillery, was also there, in a dark blue coat faced with red and lavishly trimmed in gold. The Loyalists—Joseph Galloway, Andrew and William Allen, and others, including James Parker of Virginia—rode alongside Cornwallis, “to the great relief of the inhabitants, who have too long suffered the yoke of arbitrary Power,” young Robert Morton penned with satisfaction.29

  Ahead was Second Street and the suburbs, the built-up part of the rapidly developing district called Northern Liberties, spread for a mile above the city boundary at Vine Street. Half a mile away to the left across fenced meadows and fields of tall corn was the little village of Kensington, a strand of brick and wooden houses clutching the Delaware riverbank. On the right of the high road stood the Globe Mill, one of the oldest landmarks in the area, a stone and brick structure built for William Penn in 1701. Formerly called “the Governor's Mill,” it was rebuilt after a fire gutted the interior and was now occupied by a specialty business advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette as “those incomparable mustard and chocolate works at the Globe mill, on Germantown road.”30

  Veering right onto Second Street through a cluster of farm buildings, the column descended over low, marshy Cohocksink Creek and up into a shabby section called Campington, so named for the British Army camp sited there twenty years earlier during the French and Indian War. The line of march passed the high, wooden fence of the Barracks, a U-shaped complex of brick buildings fronted with porches and capable of housing up to 3,000 men, built so that soldiers would not be quartered among civilians.

  Reeking tanneries and dusty brick yards pocked this densely populated neighborhood of more than one thousand houses and 8,000 inhabitants, mainly German and Irish laborers who patronized local taverns such as the Sign of the King of Prussia and the Sign of the Rainbow near the Barracks. Pungent aromas from boiling cabbage, steaming sauerkraut, and onions sizzling in kettles of hot lard wafted through the close, smoky quarters and down alleys slick with repulsive evidence of assorted alcoholic excesses. Dimly lit grog shops in dank basements, and illegal “tippling houses” proliferated in this district, as well as along the waterfront, doing a thriving business with soldiers, sailors, and workers amid the malty fumes of small breweries and distilleries. Several wooden “vendues” or auction houses on Second Street, normally bustling with the shouts of criers and benches of clamoring bidders, were shut tight.31

  Descending again to cross Pegg's Run, a sloughy, malodorous creek that drained the neighborhood, the troops continued up a low ridge to Callowhill Street and on towards Vine. “Rose very early this morning in hopes of seeing a most pleasing sight,” Sarah Logan Fisher wrote after two weeks of anxiety and deep depression over her husband's arrest. “About 10 the troops began to enter. The town was still, not a cart or any obstruction in the way.”

  As the mucky road changed to cobblestone paving at Vine Street, the hollow clopping of hundreds of horse hooves and the rhythmic clacking of thousands of hobnailed shoes abruptly joined in with the fifes and drums to create a mesmerizing din that echoed up and down the streets, amplified by the city buildings and increasing with every step. “First came the light horse,” Sarah observed, “nearly 200 I imagine in number, clean dress & their bright swords glittering in the sun. After that came the foot, headed by Lord Cornwallis. Before him went a band of music, which played a solemn tune, & which I afterward understood was called ‘God save great George our King.’ Then followed the soldiers, who looked very clean & healthy & a remarkable solidity was on their countenances, no wanton levity, or indecent mirth, but a gravity well becoming the occasion seemed on all their faces. After that came the artillery.”32

  The pavement shuddered as the iron rims of the big guns struck the cobblestones and rumbled into town, their brass barrels glowing in the morning sun. “The artillery were in front, the day was very
fine, we entered the town with drums and music,” Captain-Lieutenant Downman wrote. “The roads and streets were crowded with people who huzzaed and seemed overjoyed to see us.”33 Lieutenant Purdy of the Pioneers confirmed, “LD Cornwalles marched & took possession of the town of Philidelpha with out the [firing] of A shot with All the Bands of musick Playing & the Inhabetants gave 3 Husias Chears.”34

  But Downman was skeptical about the cheering. “Whether they were pleased or not at our entrance, they must have been struck with the appearance of a body of such fine fellows as the British grenadiers,” the captain remarked. “It was a fine sight.”35

  Indeed, it was. Viewed from the center of town, the bristling rows of gleaming bayonets and black bearskin caps garnished with sprigs of green reached up the street as far as the eye could see, moving like the crest of a great, glittering wave on an undulating crimson stream. “I went up to the front rank of grenadiers when they had entered Second street,” a ten-year-old known only as J. C. remembered, “when several of them addressed me thus, ‘How do you do, young one—how are you, my boy’—in a brotherly tone.” Not quite knowing what to expect after all of the bad reports, J. C. said that they “then reached out their hands, and severally caught mine, and shook it, not with the exulting shake of conquerors, as I thought, but with a sympathizing one for the vanquished.” He added, “Their tranquil look and dignified appearance have left an impression on my mind, that the British grenadiers were inimitable.”36