And so it went, seeming to gather strength each day. Statesmen spoke publicly of the weakness, as they styled it, of Washington; and urged their fellow members in Congress to depose him.
“He has shown his unfitness to command the nation’s forces from the beginning,” they said. “But in nothing has it been more openly shown than in the campaign just closing. He has wasted a month in fruitless marching and countermarching.”
To all but those who had the entire field of action in mind, this last seemed true. But to the few who knew the broad purpose of the great general it was the charge of gross ignorance. A month had been used, indeed, but it had not been wasted. Away in northern New York the powerful army of Burgoyne had slowly moved southward, driving the Americans before it through the wilderness. Day after day the patriots had fallen back before the allied British, Hessians and Indians, and day after day they drew them further from their base. It had been the understanding between Howe and Burgoyne that the former was to make a rush upon Philadelphia, take it and then send a huge reinforcement to the aid of the latter. But Washington understood this and kept Howe so busily engaged that he could not afford to send any of his force to form the junction with his fellow general; and now, because of this failure, Burgoyne was facing a mass of New York and New England troops with every prospect of defeat.
“It is shameful!” declared young Lafayette, in his broken English. “It is unjust and unfair! They do not understand, and yet they will not hold their peace.”
As far as could be seen, all this clamor had no effect on Washington; he calmly looked over the prospects before him, disdaining the petty natures which threw themselves in his way; and before long he saw an opportunity to strike a blow which might undo all that Howe had gained.
Ben Cooper and George Prentiss rode into the American camp on the Skippack Creek one afternoon early in October. They had come upon news of an important movement and were in haste to bring it to headquarters.
“A large body of the enemy have been sent against the Delaware River forts,” was their report; “and another, almost as large, is conveying provisions; the camp at Germantown is none too strongly manned.”
That very night the army was under arms and advancing upon Germantown, where Howe was encamped; Philadelphia, some miles away, was in charge of Cornwallis and another force. Four columns streamed through the October dusk along as many roads; two were to attack the enemy’s center, the others were to leap upon either flank.
At dawn on the fourth of October, the onset was made; the columns consisting of Sullivan’s, Wayne’s and Conway’s commands plunged at the enemy as the pickets sounded the alarm. A battalion of infantry and Musgrave’s veteran regiment felt the lead and steel of Mad Anthony’s men, who burned to avenge their defeat at Paoli; back went the British unable to steady themselves against the shock. But Musgrave threw himself and a few hundred men into Chew House, barricaded the doors and windows and prepared for defense. Musket and grape-shot tore holes in the British, still retreating in spite of the pleadings of General Howe, who had sprung from his bed when he heard the confusion of the flight.
But instead of leaving a small force to cope with Musgrave and his improvised fortress and following Howe, the American column came to a stand and spent the greater part of a half hour in the endeavor to take it. This delay gave the British time to collect themselves; and when the Americans did finally press on, they met with a determined resistance; also a dense fog settled upon everything and they could not recognize friend from foe; different detachments would come upon each other and begin a destructive fire which would do great harm before either learned the other’s true quality. And finally, when a cannonade away in the rear was opened upon Musgrave’s men in Chew House, the division under Wayne became panic stricken, thinking an enemy had gotten behind them. Headlong they fled, and in their flight encountered another brigade in the fog under the American general, Stephens, who took them for an attacking enemy, and also began to retreat. Then confusion sprang up everywhere, until seeing that it was useless to continue an enterprise so stricken with disorder, Washington, who had been in the heaviest of the fight, ordered a retreat, and the army disappeared in the fog with the cavalry, under the soldier-like Count Pulaski, covering its rear.