Howe had, in truth, made a ruinous mistake.Had the date been May instead of August he might still have saved Burgoyne.But at the end of August, when the net was closing on Burgoyne, Howe was three hundred miles away.His disregard of time and distance had been magnificent.In July he had sailed to the mouth of the Delaware, with Philadelphia near, but he had then sailed away again, and why? Because the passage of his ships up the river to the city was blocked by obstructions commanded by bristling forts.The naval officers said truly that the fleet could not get up the river.But Howe might have landed his army at the head of Delaware Bay.It is a dozen miles across the narrow peninsula from the head of Delaware Bay to that of Chesapeake Bay.Since Howe had decided to attack from the head of Chesapeake Bay there was little to prevent him from landing his army on the Delaware side of the peninsula and marching across it.By sea it is a voyage of three hundred miles round a peninsula one hundred and fifty miles long to get from one of these points to the other, by land only a dozen miles away.Howe made the sea voyage and spent on it three weeks when a march of a day would have saved this time and kept his fleet three hundred miles by sea nearer to New York and aid for Burgoyne.
Howe's mistakes only have their place in the procession to inevitable disaster.Once in the thick of fighting he showed himself formidable.When he had landed at Elkton he was fifty miles southwest of Philadelphia and between him and that place was Washington with his army.Washington was determined to delay Howe in every possible way.To get to Philadelphia Howe had to cross the Brandywine River.Time was nothing to him.He landed at Elkton on the 25th of August.Not until the l0th of September was he prepared to attack Washington barring his way at Chadd's Ford.
Washington was in a strong position on a front of two miles on the river.At his left, below Chadd's Ford, the Brandywine is a torrent flowing between high cliffs.There the British would find no passage.On his right was a forest.Washington had chosen his position with his usual skill.Entrenchments protected his front and batteries would sweep down an advancing enemy.He had probably not more than eleven thousand men in the fight and it is doubtful whether Howe brought up a greater number so that the armies were not unevenly matched.At daybreak on the eleventh the British army broke camp at the village of Kenneth Square, four miles from Chadd's Ford, and, under General Knyphausen, marched straight to make a frontal attack on Washington's position.
In the battle which followed Washington was beaten by the superior tactics of his enemy.Not all of the British army was there in the attack at Chadd's Ford.A column under Cornwallis had filed off by a road to the left and was making a long and rapid march.The plan was to cross the Brandywine some ten miles above where Washington was posted and to attack him in the rear.
By two o'clock in the afternoon Cornwallis had forced the two branches of the upper Brandywine and was marching on Dilworth at the right rear of the American army.Only then did Washington become aware of his danger.His first impulse was to advance across Chadd's Ford to try to overwhelm Knyphausen and thus to get between Howe and the fleet at Elkton.This might, however, have brought disaster and he soon decided to retire.His movement was ably carried out.Both sides suffered in the woodland fighting but that night the British army encamped in Washington's position at Chadd's Ford, and Howe had fought skillfully and won an important battle.
