urn out and crush
Burgoyne." Before the end of September he was writing that he was
certain of complete disaster to Burgoyne.

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
10th 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