Battle Report: Battle of the Brandywine - Howe's Flanking Maneuver

Another Saturday, another historical game. This time it's 1777, and General George Washington has prepared to give battle to General Sir William Howe at the Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania. But Howe has outmaneuvered the rebels, and sent a column under General Cornwallis on a forced march to crush the Patriot right flank. Washington sends General Sullivan to delay them, and that's where our game begins.

Deployment - from the Birmingham Meetinghouse. Patriots on the left, British in the distance.

Alyssa, Andy, and Jack took the part of the British, while Jeff and I took up the Patriot banner - Dave joined us a bit late, but took the Patriot center when he arrived. On the Patriot side we had Major General John Sullivan in overall command, with William Alexander, Lord Stirling and Adam Stephen under him for the battle. At the game's start, Sullivan's brigade is on the left (except for a single regiment stuck in the far right after fighting a holding action and just now arriving on the field), Stephen has the center and the only artillery, and Stirling is to the right, near the meetinghouse.

The King's forces, commanded by General Sir William Howe, outnumbered the rebels by a fair bit. I'm afraid the only subcommander I can recall is Cornwallis - Wikipedia has the rest, but I don't remember how many of them were represented on the table tonight. They were mostly drawn up on the hill opposite the rebels, with a screen of light infantry and jaegers in front. They also had a single cavalry unit, the 16th Light Dragoons.

To win, the British had to either destroy the Patriots, or cut off their retreat by taking the road that led to the Patriot rear and the rest of Washington's army. They had to do so within nine turns. The Patriots won if they prevented this from happening. Despite their preponderance of force, this was actually an uphill struggle for the British...

The British close in on the Patriots; the Patriots shuffle to the right to form a proper line.

16th Light Dragoons pass the meeting house.

Just before first fire - the Patriots are off the hill and the jaegers have already taken shots.

The British plan was quite simple: move up and push the rebels off the hill while the cavalry rode around and cut off the road behind them. The Patriots, in turn, determined to stand at the base of the hill and hold up in the meeting house. Thus, the Patriots began to move to their right while the British advanced, and the dragoons rode like hell through the woods near the meeting house.

Initial action at the courthouse: The patriots have just seen off British light infantry with a volley of musket fire, while the rest of the line is carefully - mostly - falling back onto the hill.

 Patriots got into the courthouse walls just in time to repel the British light infantry. On the Patriot left, the lines exchanged fire at a distance, to small effect on either side - as can be seen below with the white casualty caps on some stands.

As above

A vicious firefight over the meeting house wall routs both the patriots holding it and the British attacking.

 After repelling the light infantry at the meeting house, the Patriots held their fire as a unit of regulars advanced into the woods and formed firing line, then exchanged a volley of fire with them - to such effect that both units lost more than half their men and broke into a rout!

Meanwhile - and sadly not captured in the photos - the dragoons had cleared the woods but, being out of command, failed to do anything useful for a turn or two.

Patriots continue a slow withdrawal. British move up to the meeting house. On the left, the patriot line is pretty well broken, but the British cannot break through with their disordered troops.

 On the Patriot left, the line had fallen back, but the British were unable to capitalize on this due to disorder and slow movement rates.

British moving past the meeting house and around the left of the hill in the background. Patriots still withdrawing in mostly good order.

 Back on the right, the dragoons faced off against a unit of rebel foot - and, in a massive stroke of luck for the rebels, were all but destroyed by a volley. Still, they didn't break, and the one remaining stand attempted to charge the next turn... to no effect. At the same time, the Patriot reinforcements had just arrived on the table and were marching toward the withdrawing lines.

End game. The patriots have successfully held off the British flanking maneuver until nightfall.

 In the end, the Americans withdrew successfully as night fell, while Howe had to be content with merely forcing a retreat instead of rolling up Washington's army.

At the beginning, this felt like a bad position for us Patriots, what with being outnumbered and having the cavalry handily outflanking us. But as the game developed, the British were simply unable to move quickly enough to force the victory conditions. A fun scenario. Thanks to Victor for putting it on!