Battle of Germantown

4 October 1777

British Victory

On 26 September 1777, the British captured Philadelphia, the capital of the nascent United States. However, General George Washington refused to quit. When his intelligence indicated that 4,000 British soldiers occupied nearby Germantown, Pennsylvania, he decided to attack. Washington’s plan called for four independent columns simultaneously striking at dawn. The attack required a complex night march over unfamiliar terrain with an amateur Army. This movement would have been difficult to coordinate in any conditions but a thick fog that set in during the attack made it even harder. The two militia columns made little contact while Continental Army troops attacked at different times. Nonetheless, the initial assault on the morning of 4 October 1777, surprised the defenders, causing some British troops to flee the field. After the dense fog confused two American divisions causing them to fire into each other, and a third division exhausted its ammunition, General Charles, Lord Cornwallis counterattacked, forcing the Continental Army to retreat.

After Germantown Howe once again concentrated his army and moved to confront Washington at Whitemarsh, hoping to lure the Virginian into a rash attack. The ploy failed, so he withdrew to winter quarters in Philadelphia without giving battle. Washington chose the site for his own winter quarters at a place called Valley Forge, twenty miles northwest of the city. Howe had gained his objective, but it proved of no lasting value to him. Congress fled west to York, Pennsylvania. No swarms of Loyalists rallied to the British standards. And Howe had left Burgoyne to lose a whole British army in the north.

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