The Battle of Brandywine

Service Description

It is summer, 1777—“the year of the hangman”. A large contingent of British troops has sailed from New York, eventually to travel up the Chesapeake Bay, disembark, and commence marching eastward. Their target: Philadelphia, the largest city in the colonies and the seat of the rebel colonial government. Between them and the city lies the Brandywine river, where Washington’s best hope of arresting their progress and saving the city from capture lies. Here, the longest one-day battle of the war would take place; the British forces, including the most elite troops in the British army, would encounter a colonial army that fought so tenaciously for so long that, though the Americans lost the battle, British officers would write that on that day they encountered the most intense fighting they had ever experienced. Travel with your tour guide to Brandywine and walk through the battlefields where the outnumbered and poorly-trained American forces proved to both sides that they could hold their own against the best troops Britain had to offer and fought, in the words of historian Michael C. Harris, “the battle that lost Philadelphia but saved America.” Duration includes travel time, up to 3 hours.