Wednesday, October 15 (7:30pm) – Saturday, October 18 (5:00pm)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Our Tour Leaders: Edward G. Lengel, William Welsch and Richard Bellamy
Registration Fee: $475
“Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery.” These words of Washington on the National Memorial Arch describe the suffering the Continental Army endured at Valley Forge. Our tour will trace the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777 from Washington’s defeat at Brandywine through the army’s march out of Valley Forge heading to its success at Monmouth in June, 1778.
In the summer of 1777, British General William Howe launched what he believed would be the decisive campaign of the war. His goal was to capture Philadelphia, capital of the new nation. On our first day we will begin with a visit to Brandywine battlefield, where the British decisively defeated Washington’s army on September 11, 1777. We will start with the beginning action at Kennett Meeting House, tracing the diversionary attack on Washington’s position at Chad’s Ford. Next we’ll visit the British flanking position at Osborne’s Hill; then it’s on to Birmingham Meeting House, where the battle culminated.
Next will be a brief stop to discuss the Battle of the Clouds – the battle that never was. After lunch at a local restaurant, we’ll head to the wonderfully interpreted Battle of Paoli site, where Anthony Wayne’s Pennsylvania Division was surprised in a night attack by General Charles “No Flint” Grey in the so-called Paoli Massacre of September 21. Was it really a massacre?
