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CHAP. IV. an officer of superior rank, and that he was 1777. induced by that circumstance, and not by a wish to supersede him, whose conduct he approved, to order colonel D'Arendt on that service, left it in his choice to continue in the fort or rejoin his corps. These explanations, added to the ill health of colonel D'Arendt, which obliged him to retire for a few days from the unwholesome damps of Mud island to Red Bank, determined lieutenant colonel Smith to remain in fort Mifflin.

Immediately after the battle of Brandywine, admiral Howe, who supposed the army to be unquestionably secured by that event, from any circumstance which could render the immediate aid of the fleet essential to its safety, sailed for the Delaware, where he expected to arrive in time to meet and co-operate with the land forces in and about Philadelphia. But the winds were so unfavourable, and the navigation of the bay of Delaware so difficult, that his van did not get into the river until the fourth of October. The ships of war and transports which followed, and which came up from the sixth to the eighth, anchored from Newcastle to Reedy island.

The frigates in advance of the fleet had not yet succeeded in their endeavours to effect a passage for the ships through the lower double row of chevaux-de-frize. Though no longer protected by the fort at Billingsport, they were

defended by the water force above, and the CHAP. IV. work was found to be more difficult than had 1777. been expected. Although the scarcity of ammunition restrained in, some degree the fire from the gallies and floating batteries, it was not until about the middle of October that the impediments were in part removed, so as to afford a narrow and intricate passage through them up to the forts. In the mean-time, the fire from the Pennsylvania shore had not produced all the effect expected from it, and it was perceived that greater exertions would be necessary for the reduction of the works, than could safely be made in the present relative situation of the armies, under this impression, general Howe, soon after the American army had returned to its old camp on Skippack, retired from Germantown, and concentred his troops in Philadelphia.

This movement was preparatory to a combined attack by land and water on forts Mercer, and Mifflin, which had been agreed on by the admiral and general.

After effecting a passage through the works sunk in the river at Billingsport, other difficulties still remained to be encountered by the ships of war. Several rows of Chevaux-defrize had been sunk about half a mile below Mud island, which were protected by the guns of forts Mifflin and Mercer, as well as by the moveable water force, so that to raise the

CHAP. IV. frames and clear the channel was impracticable, 1777. without having first taken the forts.

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On the 21st, colonel count Donop a German officer who had gained great reputation in the course of the war, crossed the Delaware at Cooper's ferry opposite Philadelphia, at the head of a detachment of Hessians, consisting, besides light infantry and chasseurs, of three battalions of grenadiers and the regiment of Mesbach, amounting to about twelve hundred men, in order to proceed next day to the attack of the fort at Red Bank.

It was a part of the plan that, so soon as the attack should be made by colonel count Donop, a heavy cannonade on fort Mifflin should commence from the batteries on the Pennsylvania shore, and that the Vigilant, a ship of war, should pass through a narrow and very confined channel between Hog island, next below Mud island, and the Pennsylvania shore so as to attack the fort in the rear. Mean-while, to divert the attention of the garrison, and of the marine force, from the Vigilant and from other more serious attacks, the advanced frigates, together with the Isis and Augusta, were to approach fort Mifflin in front, up the main channel, as far as the impediments in it would admit, and from thence batter the works.

The fortifications at Red Bank consisted of extensive outer works, within which was an intrenchment eight or nine feet high, boarded

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Red Bank.

Donop killed,

and fraized, on which colonel Greene after CHAP. IV. taking command of the place had bestowed a 1777. great deal of labour. Late in the evening of Attack upon the 22d, count Donop appeared before the fort and attacked it with great intrepidity. It was defended with equal resolution. The outer works being too extensive to be manned by the force under colonel Greene, which did not exceed five hundred men, were only used to gall the enemy while advancing, and on their near approach were abandoned by the garrison, who retired within the inner intrenchment, from whence they kept up against the Hessians, who pressed on with great gallantry, a most heavy and destructive fire. Colonel Donop, Colonel while leading on his troops, received a mortal and his party wound, and lieutenant colonel Mingerode, the considerable second in command, fell about the same time. Lieutenant colonel Linsing, now the oldest remaining officer of the detachment, drew off his troops; and, being favoured by the darkness of the night, collected as many of the wounded as could be brought off. He marched about five miles that night, and returned next day to Philadelphia. In this unsuccessful expedition, according to the best information which could be collected, the enemy lost about four hundred men. The garrison, which was re-enforced from fort Mifflin, and aided by the gallies which flanked the enemy both advancing and retreating, having fought under cover lost

repulsed with loss.

CHAP. IV. Only thirty-two men killed and wounded. It 1777. would appear from the statement given by

general Howe of this enterprise, that the inner works could not be carried without scaling ladders, and that colonel Donop had not been furnished with them. Had the requisitions of the commander in chief been complied with, and a camp been formed at a convenient distance by the Jersey militia, so as to have fallen upon the rear of the assailants, it is probable that this whole corps might have been destroyed.

In order to be in readiness to perform the part assigned to the navy, the Augusta, a sixtyfour gun ship, with four other smaller vessels, passed the lower line of chevaux-de-frize opposite to Billingsport, and lay above them, waiting the assault to be made on the fort from the land. The flood tide setting in about the time the attack commenced, they slipped their cables and moved with it up the river. The obstructions which had been sunk in the river had in some degree changed its channel, so that the Augusta, and the Merlin grounded a considerable distance below the second line of chevaux-de-frize; and a strong northerly wind, which had prevented the Vigilant from coming up to the station assigned her, still continuing, so checked the rising of the tide, that these vessels could not be floated by the subsequent flood. Their situation, however, was not discerned that evening. The frigates

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