Battle of Germantown 1777
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 4 October 1777 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1777 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | United States | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | North America | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Philadelphia campaign | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Kingdom of Great Britain, United States | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 40.0238, -75.1597 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Germantown was a major engagement in the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revolutionary War. It was fought on October 4, 1777, at Germantown, Pennsylvania, between the British Army led by General Sir William Howe and the American Continental Army under General George Washington.
After defeating the Continental Army at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, and the Battle of Paoli on September 20, Howe outmaneuvered Washington, seizing Philadelphia, the capital of the United States, on September 26. Howe left a garrison of some 3,000 troops in Philadelphia, while moving the bulk of his force to Germantown, then an outlying community of the city. Learning of the division, Washington determined to engage the British. His plan called for four separate columns to converge on the British position at Germantown. The two flanking columns were composed of 3,000 militia, while the center-left, under Nathanael Greene, the center-right under John Sullivan, and the reserve under Lord Stirling were made up of regular troops. The ambition behind the plan was to surprise and destroy the British force, much in the same way as Washington had surprised and decisively defeated the Hessians at Trenton.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Germantown (revision 1375844194), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Philadelphia campaign
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