On September 26 the well-fed British Army entered Philadelphia and scored the propaganda victory of controlling America’s capital and main metropolis. While frightened citizens applauded the soldiers, as they had their American counterparts a month earlier, the crowd consisted mostly of women and children, many men having fled. By this point Washington knew he was engaged in a war of attrition and that holding towns was less important in this mobile style of warfare. As he informed Henry Laurens, “The possession of our towns, while we have an army in the field, will avail [the British] little . . . It is our arms, not defenseless towns, they have to subdue.”35
ALTHOUGH CORNWALLIS HAD TAKEN a detachment of British and Hessian soldiers into Philadelphia, General Howe retained the main body of his army at Germantown, a village just six miles northwest of the city, hard by the Schuylkill River. He expressly placed it there as a bulwark between Washington’s army and the capital. Eager for a victory after so much wretched news, and with 8,000 Continentals and 3,000 militia at his disposal, Washington reckoned that he could stage a surprise raid on Howe’s force of 9,000 men, an idea that grew on him when he learned that Howe had diverted two regiments to attack a small American fort on the Delaware.
At a war council on October 3, Washington told his receptive generals that Howe’s maneuver made it an auspicious moment for an operation. Forever attuned to the psychological state of his men, he knew this might be the last chance for a victory before winter. Only something dramatic could revive his countrymen’s flagging spirits. As he told his generals, “It was time to remind the English that an American army still existed.”36 Once again Washington’s aggressive instincts forced him into an action both courageous and foolhardy, one that belied his cautious image as the American Fabius. As Joseph Ellis has written of Washington’s conflicting urges, “The strategic decision to make the survival of the Continental Army the highest priority, the realization that he must fight a protracted defensive war, remained at odds with his own more decisive temperament.”37
As usual, Howe had shrewdly chosen his army camp at Germantown, a place crisscrossed by creeks, ravines, and gorges. The town’s main street, the Germantown Road, was lined for two miles with snug, stone houses, many protected by fences and hedges that could retard an American advance. Doubtless remembering his nocturnal raid across the Delaware, Washington devised another convoluted plan for a forced nighttime march. On October 3 four widely spaced but roughly parallel columns would start moving southeast at nightfall and would converge on Germantown by dawn. Along with General Sullivan, Washington would spearhead a column of 3,000 men charging down the Germantown Road. To the northeast, Greene would lead 5,000 men along a parallel path, the Lime Kiln Road, while still farther north General William Smallwood and another 1,000 militia would venture along a winding old Indian path called the Old York Road. To the south, General John Armstrong would guide 2,000 Pennsylvania militia along the Schuylkill. If all went according to plan, Washington’s central column would swoop down on the unsuspecting British, while Greene’s column swung around and pinioned their helpless army against the Schuylkill River.
As his troops gathered at dusk on October 3, Washington took several precautions that suggested a premonition of problems to come. Because the Continental Army lacked a common uniform, he had his men insert shining white papers in their hats so they wouldn’t accidentally shoot each other. Short on supplies, one New Jersey regiment donned “redcoats” captured from British troops, awakening understandable fears of men’s being killed by friendly fire. The fifteen-mile march overnight would be further complicated by a rolling fog that sealed off the four columns from one another. As had happened during the Delaware crossing, the operation ran hours behind schedule, and the element of surprise was sacrificed when a Loyalist warned the British of approaching Americans.
Washington’s column was still stalled north of town when daylight streaked the sky. Up ahead, at an area known as Mount Airy, he could hear brisk musketry fire. Everything was so obscured by morning fog that he could only conjecture what was happening. Mindful that his men bore just forty rounds apiece, he instructed Pickering, “I am afraid General Sullivan is throwing away his ammunition. Ride forward and tell him to preserve it.”38 The fighting at Mount Airy took a savage turn as Americans tried to avenge the unspeakable massacre at Paoli, shouting “Have at the bloodhounds! Revenge Wayne’s affair!”39 After heavy casualties on both sides, the British regiment finally retreated. When Washington reached the outskirts of Germantown, he beheld a surreal sight: the British had torched the fields of buckwheat so that billowing smoke mingled with fog made the dawn “infinitely dark,” as he remembered .40 It was a hellish scene, with visibility restricted to thirty yards. For once the fog of war was more than metaphorical. One American officer remembered that “the smoke of the fire of cannon and musketry, the smoke of several fields of stubble, hay and other combustibles . . . made such a midnight darkness that [a] great part of the time there was no discovering friend from foe.”41 When Washington saw discarded British tents and cannon lying alongside the road, he concluded that the first phase of his operation was succeeding.
As he and his men advanced down the Germantown Road, they were startled by a withering shower of musket balls. Through the mist, they perceived that the fire emanated from the windows of a three-story country house owned by Benjamin Chew, which had been commandeered by one hundred British soldiers. Perched on high ground, the stone house was made of locally quarried schist, starred with mica; classical statuary dotted the grounds. The British had turned the Georgian house into an impregnable fortress by bolting and barricading the door, shuttering the many windows, and training their weapons on the Americans. For a moment, it seemed the entire patriotic effort might founder on this single stubborn obstacle. Washington summoned an impromptu conference of officers on horseback. Most favored cordoning off the Chew house and pushing on, leaving a single regiment in the rear to subdue it. Then Henry Knox, speaking with resonant authority, cited the military doctrine that, in hostile country, one never left a fortified castle in the rear. This sounded like the sage voice of experience, and Washington made a snap judgment to side with this minority view. It would prove a costly error.
Under orders from Washington, Lieutenant Colonel William Smith, carrying a white flag, approached the house with a demand for surrender. The British holed up inside instantly shot and killed the colonel. At this point Washington assigned three regiments to the thankless task of vanquishing the stout house. Knox ringed it with four cannon and pummeled it at oblique angles, but the stone walls seemed impervious. The prolonged attempt to take the Chew house held up part of Washington’s column for half an hour and gave Howe’s men a chance to regroup. Small squads of Americans kept darting toward the house, only to be pelted by British fire until the grounds were “strewn with a prodigious number of rebel dead,” said a British officer.42 Those who tried to clamber through the windows were pierced with bayonets. One Hessian officer, viewing this slaughterhouse the next day, “counted seventy-five dead Americans, some of whom lay stretched in the doorways, under the tables and chairs, and under the windows . . . The rooms of the house were riddled by cannonballs, and looked like a slaughter house because of the blood splattered around.”43 Three American regiments managed to kill a risible four British soldiers. In a scathing judgment of this misstep, General Anthony Wayne later wrote, “A windmill attack was made upon a house into which six light companies had thrown themselves to avoid our bayonets. Our troops were deceived by this attack, thinking it something formidable. They fell back to assist . . . confusion ensued and we ran away from the arms of victory open to receive us.”44