Armies under General George Washington and General Sir William Howe clashed on Brandywine Creek, in southeastern Pennsylvania in September 1777. This revolutionary defeat helped open the way for the British conquest of Philadelphia.
With two humiliating setbacks for the king’s forces at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton (December 26, 1776, and January 3, 1777) the previous winter, Howe
Began a series of maneuvers in early June designed to lure the Continental army out of its winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, and to confuse Washington as to the British general’s ultimate goal. By the end of June, however, Howe was back in New York with little to show for his efforts. Then on July 23, he and his army—complete with baggage, artillery, horses, and provisions for a month—disappeared into the Atlantic on board vessels in the fleet of his brother, Richard, Lord Howe. The army landed at Head of Elk, Maryland, intending to march on Philadelphia, which was almost 50 miles away. To prevent the British advance, Washington placed his army along the eastern shore of the Brandywine, a creek of uneven depth that had several fords, or shallow areas, where crossing was possible.
H owe divided his army into two divisions under Charles, Lord Cornwallis and General William von Knyphausen, planning to keep Washington preoccupied with Knyphausen’s division with a frontal assault, while Cornwallis marched north to a ford to outflank the revolutionaries. Washington prepared for the frontal attack. Hearing first that Howe was on the west bank, Washington ordered General John Sullivan’s division to cross over the stream and attack. But soon a second dispatch from Sullivan arrived refuting that information, and Washington retracted his orders. In the meantime Howe, Cornwallis, and two-thirds of their forces had crossed the Brandywine and were coming at the right of the Continental line. By withdrawing Sullivan’s men from their advance, Washington unwittingly spared almost certain annihilation of Sullivan’s division and maintained the integrity of his position. When word arrived that the British were approaching, Washington sent the three divisions forming the right of the line to the Birmingham (Quaker) Meeting House to meet them. Washington initially remained at the center with General Nathanael Greene’s division, while General Anthony Wayne’s forces were to stand on the left against Knyphausen at Chadd’s Ford.
The battle opened late in the afternoon near the Meeting House, with Knyphausen beginning a bombardment of Wayne’s position shortly thereafter. The terrain was uneven and the revolutionaries were badly situated, with Sullivan’s division separated from the other two. While attempting to close the gap, the British and their Hessian mercenaries bore down on the revolutionaries with bayonets drawn, and the unnerved troops began to scatter. The outnumbered remnants of the three divisions rallied bravely, but they fell back into the ranks of Greene’s division that had moved north to assist them. The reorganized line held for a time but could not withstand the enemy’s steady advance. Greene began a slow, fighting retreat, and when the sun finally set, he withdrew his entire division. The British, exhausted by the action and with night falling, did not follow. Wayne’s forces were also no match for Knyphausen, and they, too, withdrew with the rest of the Continental army toward Chester. Howe was the victor, and he marched into Philadelphia on September 26, 1777. But he had failed to deliver a crushing blow to Washington at Brandywine.
See also Revolutionary War.
Further reading: Robert Middlekauf, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
—Rita M. Broyles
Brant, Joseph (Thayendanegea) (1743-1807) war chief, ally of British in the American Revolution, diplomat, translator, brother of Molly Brant Joseph Brant helped lead the Mohawk and many other Iroquois people through the difficult period from the start of the Revolutionary War (1775-83) until his death in 1807. Brant was born into an unimportant Mohawk family in the colony of New York. His sister, Molly Brant, married William Johnson, the British agent for the Mohawk, and this relationship gave Joseph Brant his first opportunity for advancement. Johnson sent the young Brant to Reverend Eleazar Wheelock’s school in Lebanon, Connecticut, for an English-style education. There he learned to read, write, and speak English. He also learned other lessons about European-American society and left the stern discipline of the school after less than two years.
Brant accompanied some Iroquois war parties against the French during the closing days of the French and Indian War (1754-63). William Johnson’s patronage and Brant’s friendship with Guy Johnson, William’s nephew, kept Brant close to the center of power in the Mohawk world. Soon his own abilities as a speaker and a leader brought him to the attention of his people. In the early days of the Revolutionary War, Brant sailed to England where he was presented to King George III, was well received by English society, and committed himself to fighting for the British in the hope of maintaining Iroquois land and sovereignty.
Brant returned to North America in 1776 to find the colonists in full rebellion against the king. After personally witnessing the power and might of the British, he thought the colonists stood little chance of winning. His friend Guy Johnson inherited the late William Johnson’s post as the agent of the Crown to the Iroquois. Johnson fled the Mohawk Valley when the war started and took Brant’s sister and her family to Canada to protect them from the revolutionaries. Brant’s loyalty fell to the British. He worked to get his fellow Mohawks to side with the Crown.
Brant organized a company of Iroquois warriors and European-American Loyalists to fight for the British. In
Joseph Brant (Library of Congress)
1777 the company traveled with Colonel Barry St. Leger’s column as it marched through western New York on its way to meet with General John Burgoyne on the Hudson River. Brant led the force that ambushed General Nicholas Herkimer’s relief column attempting to reach the besieged Fort Stanwix at the Battle of Oriskany (August 6, 1777). The siege, however, fell apart after receiving news of the approach of Benedict Arnold and another relief force. St. Leger withdrew to Canada, leaving Burgoyne isolated and contributing to his surrender at Saratoga (October 17, 1777). At that point, Brant and his men cut loose from the main army to attack settlements and farms along the frontier. He gained a reputation as a clever but bloody commander responsible for the deaths of many innocent civilians. The revolutionaries responded with equally ferocious raids upon any Native American villages they could find, whether the inhabitants sympathized with the British or not. General John Sullivan led troops from the Continental army through Iroquois territory in 1779 and broke the back of the Six Nations’ ability to make war.
The war split the Iroquois into those who favored the United States and those who supported Great Britain. When the war ended in 1783, the United States controlled most of the land where the Iroquois lived. Brant moved to Grand River in Canada, where the British purchased land for a new home for the Iroquois. He spent the last years of his life struggling to reunite the Iroquois people under his leadership in Canada.
Further reading: Barbara Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1972); Isabel Thompson Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 1743-1807: A Man of Two Worlds (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1984); Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).
—George Milne
World History
