The seaward defence of Philadelphia depended on the forts Mercer and Mifflin, on the chevaux-de-frise in the river, and on the Pennsylvania navy. Howe's first attempt, in October, to get his shipping up to support his army failed.[927]
MONTRESOR'S PLAN OF GERMANTOWN.
Note.—This map is sketched after an original in Harvard College library. There is a duplicate, evidently made by the same hand, among the Peter Force maps, in the library of Congress. The map was engraved and published in London. There is a map published by Faden in London, March 12, 1784, which is not trustworthy, however, as to roads, which was called Sketch of the Surprise of Germantown by the American forces commanded by General Washington, Oct. 4, 1777, by J[ohn] Hills, Lt. 23d Reg.
Other published maps are the following: in Johnson's Greene, i. 80 (showing three stages); Sparks's Washington, v. 86 (also in Duer's Stirling, ii. 177; Irving's illustrated Washington, iii. 286; Guizot's Atlas); Carrington's Battles, 392; Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 314; Scharf and Westcott's Philad., i. 354; Penna. Archives, 2d ser., xi. 188; Penna. Mag. of Hist., i. 368.
For views of the Chew House, see Day's Hist. Coll. of Penna., 492; Scharf and Westcott's Philad., i. 356; Egle's Penna., 178; Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 514; Mag. of Amer. Hist. (March, 1880), iv. 192.
The following are the main portions of Howe's despatch to Lord George Germain, dated at Germantown, Oct. 10, 1777: "The enemy marched at six o'clock in the evening of the third from their camp near Skippach Creek, about sixteen miles from Germantown. This village forms one continued street for two miles, which the line of the encampment, in the position the army then occupied, crossed at right angles, near a mile from the head of it, where the second battalion of light infantry and the fortieth regiment were posted. At three o'clock in the morning of the fourth, the patrols discovered the enemy's approach, and the army was immediately ordered under arms. Soon after the break of day the enemy began their attack upon the second light infantry, which they sustained for a considerable time, supported by the fortieth regiment; but at length being overpowered by increasing numbers, the light infantry and a part of the fortieth retired into the village, when Lieutenant-Colonel Mulgrave with six companies of the latter corps threw themselves into a large stone house [Chew's], which, though surrounded by a brigade, and attacked by four pieces of cannon, he most gallantly defended, until Major-General Grey, at the head of three battalions of the third brigade, turning his front to the village, and Brigadier-General Agnew, who covered Major-General Grey's left with the fourth brigade, by a vigorous attack repulsed the enemy with great slaughter. The fifth and fifty-fifth regiments from the right, engaging them at the same on the other side of the village, completed the defeat of the enemy in this quarter. The regiments of Du Corps and Donop being formed to support the left of the fourth brigade and one battalion of the Hessian grenadiers in the rear of the Chasseurs, were not engaged. The precipitate flight of the enemy preventing the two first corps from entering into action, and the success of the Chasseurs in repelling all efforts against them on that side, did not call for the support of the latter. The first light infantry and the pickets of the line in front of the right wing were engaged soon after the attack began upon the head of the village. The pickets were obliged to fall back, but the light infantry, being well supported by the fourth regiment, sustained the enemy's attack with such determined bravery that they could not make the least impression on them.
"Two columns of the enemy were opposite to the guards, twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth regiments, who formed the right of the line. Major-General Grant, who was upon the right, moved up the forty-ninth regiment about the time that Major-General Grey had forced the enemy in the village, and then advancing with the right wing, the enemy's left gave way, and was pursued through a strong country between four and five miles.